Long Island

Chapter 36: Hya'cinth

"Very well. Please lead me to the office." Raka asked.

The office meant the guild office. As he was travelling as part of a convoy, they would be the ones to check his papers. And like always it was busy. Especially since 15 ships had arrived at the same time. And then he was led to the port master's office. Here another set of papers were given to him and then stamped.

'Guess it is like an immigration office.' He got his papers and decided to go visit the town first.

As he stepped out the port he got shocked out of his skin.

"What the hell!" He could not stop himself saying out loud.

The thing that caused him to have such a reaction was blowing out steam from the top while pulling two carriages behind which seemed to be filling up with people, humans and dwarves. And there was a bell ringing.

"Is that a TRAIN?!"

Raka rubbed his eyes and looked again. But even when he looked again, he could still see the steam engine. And then other stuff started coming into his head. The steam engine was pulling two carriages while standing on rails!

'So that is a train, right?!'

And that was not all. As he looked around with his fat eyes, he found a pole with a wire running on top of it.

'Is that an electrical wire?! Or a telephone wire?! Have I entered a wormhole and skipped from the medieval age to the industrial age?!'

Raka put a hand on his head and tottered down to sit.

'Alright think calmly. There is a rational explanation for all of this. There needs to be!' Raka looked again at these amazing sights.

The steam engine was designed like an open car which had no hood. A long pipe came out of the round bonnet from which emerged the smoke. There was just the sitting space for maybe two people in the driver's position at the extreme rear end. The carriages were better as they were fully covered and had windows and doors. Raka noticed that all of it seemed to made mainly of wood. Except the tracks which were of metal.

'Hmm...that steam engine is of an older design. I think it's resembles the engines I saw in the railway museum. The ones made in the 19th century. Some bits atleast. The train carriages also look like a really old design from dunno which era.'

Then he moved his attention to the wooden poles which had wires running on top of them. Seemingly made of metal, these wires were heading towards the port master's office on one end and disappearing into the the town on the other.

'That looks like an electrical wire... a lot. But I didn't see a telephone in the port master's office? Nor a light bulb. Yes, I remember clearly, he had some sort of lamp. So what do they need electricity for?!' Raka was utterly confused as to its purpose.

'Hmmm...yes. So all of this suggests that the dwarves have indeed reached the industrial age.' Raka nodded his head.

Raka sighed. This was too much even for him. He simply chose to accept
it at face value.

He looked around and found that there were not only the black dwarves. There were few who had paler skin, like the ones he had seen before. The contrast between them was immediately noticeable as there were no other shades, as they say.

'So one of them is the Mare and the other should be the Fare dwarves.' Raka concluded. 'I better head into town.'

The town of Hya'cinth looked like a regular town from afar. Buildings, big and small, rich and poor, just the designs were a bit different.