"Ms. Zora?" old man Pachski croaked, interrupting the argument between her and Lydia. He held out a folded piece of parchment in his wrinkled hand. "Pardon me, but I just remembered I have a message for you." The masked enforcer snatched the message and scanned its contents in silence. Finished, she crumpled the scrap in her clenched fist and stormed off. One didn't need to see her face to read read the anger in her body language. "I don't think she's coming back," the driver remarked, as he took up the reins. "All aboard now, the moon waits for no man."<br/><br/>The seating issue having resolved itself, there was no further reason to delay. With a flick of the reins, Pachski sent the two horses pulling the stagecoach into a steady trot. They left Lunescross by way of the road at the back end of town that clawed its way up the mountain slopes in twists and hairpins. Before long the path was swallowed up in the forest that dotted the mountainside. For a few minutes the golden rays of the morning sun filtered through the canopy, but the road continued rising into a cold wet fog that only grew thicker with every foot of elevation gained. "I hope you enjoyed that," the old man cackled, "that's the last of the sun you'll see until you come back down... if you ever come back at all!"<br/><br/>A few uneventful hours later the trees and fog began to thin out, and the stagecoach emerged into another world at the shore of a lake. Jagged snow-capped peaks formed a toothy maw yawning skywards towards a black sky dotted with a million silver stars, with patches of inky darkness where they were blocked by nebulous clouds. The road ran along the edge of the lake to the city of Urgasburg sitting on the far side. A blood red moon hung over the city, silhouetting its tallest towers, beckoning them onwards. And the canvas of the deathly still lake projected a mirror image of the scene above into the water below, hiding its unknowable depths.<br/><br/>There was a loud CRACK and the stagecoach tipped hard until its right side hit the ground with a nasty jolt. The horses whinnied and reared, and despite frantic attempts by old man Pachski to calm them, they broke their reins and ran back into the forest. A quick survey of the damage showed that both the front and rear right wheels had slipped off their respecive axles. "Godsdamn!" Pachski cursed, "of all the times..."<br/><br/>