Anauroch Great Desert.
Thirty years ago, perhaps only true desperadoes would have dared brave this dead zone ruled by Bedine, Orcs, and an endless stream of monsters for profits dozens of times greater than usual. Especially the northern route that passed through the High Glacier—the monsters there were so numerous that even the Zhentarim, ever devoted to sowing chaos and strife, found them somewhat unbearable.
Yet at this very moment, a massive convoy was racing across this great sea of sand, which split the northern half of the Coriel Continent neatly in two, at a pace far faster than that of an ordinary merchant caravan.
All of this was thanks to Zelandia's tireless efforts over the past thirty years to expand its northeastern shelterbelt project. Though its scale had only just reached the Black Road near the Standing Stone Plains, it had at least shortened this dangerous route connecting the Northlands and southern Cormyr by nearly a third.
Following the signing of the alliance between the Northlands Cities Alliance and Cormyr, Zelandia, acting on the will of its city-state, had forcibly requisitioned nearly two thousand engineering Steam Engines from Ascore City. Using waste ore from the Chardalyn mines as material, they had hammered out the "Ascore Road" in just half a year—a road on which steam freight wagons could race at high speed without ever losing their way.
Yet even with this desert road, which allowed one to cross this sea of sand in merely three days, the convoy departing from Tilverton in the Kingdom of Cormyr still seemed to have suffered a raid. There were even bloodstains on the bodies of the leading vehicles that had not been washed clean in time.
At that moment, Aierlinni sat upright atop the cargo compartment of the first locomotive—or rather, on the