This episode carries content warnings for death, experimentation on a person, loss of consciousness and bodily control, magical captivity, and forced bodily transformation. In Sangfielle, it’s rare enough to find an answer to a mystery, and rarer still to find one with the clarity and quality needed to convince someone else that it is, in fact, an answer at all. Such is the case with Lye Lychen, Pickman, and Duvall here in Bell Metal Station. Yes, they have a truth—a Truth even, with a capital T—but to those on the outside, it looks and feels like something else. Too impossible, too painful, too volatile to be the truth. But it always is. And it is in this moment of volatility that, for the first time, the Blackwick Group can see something larger take shape. Something with the sort of fatal and formative force that transforms pleasant parts into uneasy wholes. This week on Sangfielle: What Happened at Bell Metal Station Pt. 4 The Almanac of the Heartland Rider Places Bell Metal Station: The broad, 10 story tall station that the Bell Metal Band operates out of. Hard, metal-reinforced stonework. Scaffolding on scaffolding. Wood and leather and old picture frames. A middle space between laboratory, bunker,  and den. Sapodilla: One of, if not the, largest city inside of the walls of Concentus. Sapodilla rests on the western shore of the vast lake that takes up much of southeastern Sangfielle, and prizes itself as the rare hub of culture in the bloodfields. In recent years, the powerful witch hunting organization called the Glim Macula has grown in power there, owing to the city’s focus on furthering “civilization.” Zevunzolia: The hypothesized city of cities, the telos behind telos, the place high above, the heaven yet to be reached. A utopian dream pursued at great lengths by the secretive Wrights of hte Seventh Sun. Banderole: The City of Banners. People all around Sangfielle have been dreaming of it. Some even build models of it in their sleep... Facts and Figures Erm (he/him): The leader of the Bell Metal Band truly is just a little guy, but that don’t be confused: he’s absolutely the boss around here! Chomps cigars, wears custom Shape train armor featuring the Bell Metal Band emblem. His white and brown fur is like a guinea pig’s, but covered in soot and smoke. Omerra Celendi (she/her, he/him): A human mage--with a speciality in alchemical inventions--from the Unschola Republica in his late 20s. She frames her light brown skin face with wavy dark hair down to her shoulders and big round glasses and wears a playful grin on his face. Today, it’s high waisted, dark green corduroy slacks, a sleeveless white button up blouse, a single powered shape knight gauntlets on his right hand, a pauldron and half-plate piece that covers the left side of her torso, and a sort of dark gold halfcape across the other side. Tomorrow it will be something even more immaculate. Calen fel Dynestia (he/him): Heir to a grim line, Calen has joined the Shape Knights in an effort to rehabilitate the fel Dynestia name. Eyes sunken, pasty purple face covered with stubble, and all the highest fashion of Sapodilla circa twenty years ago. Fezh (they/them): Soft for a Shape Knight. Strong for a Shape Knight. The closest there was to everyone in Bell Metal, but Calen most of all. Missed greatly. High Vicar Regan Alaway (currently he/him): Waxy, vampiric minister of Yellowfield, whose generations-long study of technology led him to dream of (and work towards creating) "The City of Lights," a place of flameless fire, energetic implements, and the safety and freedom to live as one wants. Disposed of, for now at least.  Tombo (he/him): Lye Lychen’s argumentative (but loyal) fish companion. Jolyon (they/them): An old friend. Swears they aren’t the train. Prince Alexander: A train turned over before its time, if such a thing exists. Mirlande (she/her): A senior Star-Touched agent of Kay’va on her final assignment. Ekule Polyte (he/him): The Blackwick group first met