By the time Waleria, Levi, and Octavia got off the electric train at Ferienstadt Binnenstrand, it was the middle of the evening. Inside the old, neo-Gothic station building that felt far too pompous for a place two floors tall and seventy metres long, the much newer station clock (based on a nixie tube display and a quartz oscillator) showed the time of 11:45 PM - still a couple of hours before midnight. The trio entered and looked around, before going out the other side, into the park area that encompassed most of the resort town. The sun had disappeared below the horizon, and the park was only illuminated by dim twilight and the yellow-tinted light of sodium-vapor lamps. The small swarms of moths and other night insects were quietly circling the streetlights, and the cool ocean breeze had carried the sounds of croaking frogs, chirping crickets, and birds calling out in the twilit tree landscape framed by night shadows. Levi noticed a sign that said "Reception" in five different languages, and silently pointed to it. Waleria and Octavia followed after him, suitcases in hand, and quickly found the reception building. It was another Imperial Gothic structure like the station, by the looks of it a former mansion three floors tall; the "Reception" sign was hanging above the entrance, and the three could see the front desk through the well-lit glass front. Levi nodded towards the front of the building, and said:

"I'm willing to bet a good Friedenmark that the mansion didn't have this vast glass front before the War."

"It could have had," Octavia replied. "The changes to the architecture look small."

"I'm more worried about finding a place to stay for the night," Waleria grumbled in response. "Don't know about you two."

The three entered through the revolving front door, and immediately caught the attention of the front desk clerk - a kobold in a hotel employee coat and an enormous multilevel hat they wore even indoors, that seemingly only existed to give them an aura of increased importance. "Hey! What brings you here at this late hour?" they asked. Levi, Waleria, and Octavia just stared back in response for a couple of seconds; the hat was a towering contraption that most closely resembled a hybrid of a top hat and a tricorne, with a number of embellishments and several sets of embroidery. It even had a monorail train going around one of its several rims, as well as a blinking green lamp inside a lighthouse-like construction at the very top.

"Uh... we are here for... a research trip, but it's late... and we, erm... we need a place to stay for the night first. I think." Levi blurted out.

"What's the matter? Clearly in awe of my majestic hat, are you?" the kobold squeaked in a teasing tone.

"No duh," Levi responded. "This is the... biggest amount of hat I've ever seen on anyone. Ever."

"Uh, I'm sorry, can we get back to... um, food and accommodations?" Waleria mumbled.

"Of course!" the kobold squeaked, their scales changing coloration to shades of pink and crimson and their face showing a huge self-satisfied grin. "Late evening dining is still available! But the accommodation - that may be more difficult," they said.

"What do you mean, more difficult?" Octavia asked.

"Bluntly, our one-night rentals are very limited!" the kobold said. "This is a Ferienstadt, not a layover point to end all layover points like The Wanderer's!"

The kobold was, of course, referring to The Wanderer's Night Light: a four-gemstone hotel built over and around a major railway interchange node and its railway station. It was a joint undertaking by newly-unionized hotel workers and railroad workers, a fresh beginning for the region that was built and funded cooperatively ten years after the War. Over a new railway connection node that cut through the borders and battle lines of old, rose an enormous structure of the new hotel, and around it an entire new town. The grand opening of the railway connection allowed fast access between all of Southern and Eastern Duchowiesen, and its biggest system of underground caverns. The main goal of the hotel, meanwhile, was to cut down on travel times for people conducting meetings, and to make those meetings easier. The giant main building had literally everything to accommodate the businesspeople who needed to figure out deals with one another, worker delegates, and local politicians holding trans-regional political meetings. It also afforded up-to-date facilities for everyday people holding meetings like family reunions, group celebrations, or the nascent literature and television fan conventions. In addition to its many hotel rooms, from small overnight ones to huge suites, The Wanderer's Night Light had an inordinate amount of meeting rooms, and all kinds of secondary facilities. There were stores, movie theaters, ballrooms, auditoriums; and that's before we get into the town around it. As the town was built concurrently with the rail link and the hotel, it structured itself to provide for the hotel and its workers. With its discount offers for political meetings and family festivities, and a central place in the country's railroad culture, The Wanderer's was something that all of the country had at least heard about.

The small resort town of Binnenstrand was, however, not The Wanderer's - this much was clear. But with no other real options for overnight stay, Levi and Octavia began doing the thing they were adept at as a cross-country reporter and an academic in constant motion. That is, they began to haggle over hotel accommodations.

"Look, comrade Fischer," Levi began as he read the kobold's surname from his nametag, "surely we can arrange something? I doubt that all the magnificent rooms of your resort town are busy right this hour, even if it is midsummer..."

"Well. We have some unoccupied rooms around the place, but I'm not sure how the administration could do you a one-night rental," the kobold said. "It's all but against the rules, unless you have literally nowhere else to go."

"That is kinda true, now that you mention it...!" Levi muttered.

The kobold looked at him, realizing that the unique composition of Ferienstadt Binnenstrand made it difficult for them to punt Levi and others to a hotel in the next town over. Binnenstrand was, after all, a former gated community that was seized by the workers in the aftermath of the Continental War, and remodeled into a resort town. The nearest regular hotel was a good two hours of walking from the resort town, and it was getting properly dark outside. The kobold eyed Levi and Waleria, and said:

"Look, comrades, the rest of the resort workers wouldn't want to offer a one-night rental for money. It's midsummer, we're practically swimming in cash! And we don't want to encourage people to stay just for a night, given the economics of maintaining Binnenstrand. But, there is a food and goods train coming tomorrow morning at 8 AM. If you were to help us unload it--"

"We'll do it!" Waleria suddenly said.

"We will?" Octavia asked in surprise.

"Come on, I'm a tram dispatcher and I'm beast-folk!" Waleria said. "You don't have to make more than a token effort, Octavia. Levi and I can handle it!" she continued, then looked over to Levi, who just gave her an approving nod. "You said it's a food and goods train?" she asked the kobold receptionist.

"Yes!" the kobold squeaked. "Bags of flour and potatoes, crates of apples and bottled juice, boxes of toilet paper and soap and citronella spirit repellent..."

"Sounds doable. Levi?" Waleria asked.

"Yeah! Not the first time I'm helping unload a cargo train," he replied.

"Uh, I'm not sure I'll be helping much," Octavia told the two. "The last time I was hauling heaps of paperwork at the Tenth Opal office, I almost pulled my back... or was it in the Old Waterfront's Distinguished Archives? I don't remember. Either way, hauling potato sacks might not be for me. But I'll see what I can do."

Levi turned to the kobold receptionist, and asked them: "You said late-evening dining was still available?"

"That it is!" the kobold said. "Tonight's supper is pressure-cooked fish with tartar sauce, baked potatoes, and clam salad."

"Clam... salad?" Levi asked.

"I'll explain while we wait for the food to be served," Waleria replied.

Soon enough, our heroes saw the kobold receptionist telephone the resort's main office, signed an impromptu agreement to help unload the goods the resort needed from one of the train cars arriving tomorrow, and headed to the dining area. It took up the majority of space in one of the former mansions, located in the center of the resort town, and the three had to go through the park to get there. By now the night had set in, and the yellow-tinted illumination of the streetlamps contrasted with the old, lavish facades of the mansion buildings. The trio could see the two moons of the World above them - one of them bigger, with a round pattern of big impact craters on its face and a silver sheen, and the other smaller, colored a vibrant shade of emerald. Passing the tall oak and maple trees shrouded in darkness, and dense rows of bushes, the heroes arrived to the dining area, pointed out with lit-up lightbox signage, and entered one of the first-floor dining halls that fed the resort's visitors.

As the heroes looked around, they noticed it actually was a dining hall by its original purpose: or, possibly, a combination of a dining hall and ballroom. Regardless of which one it was exactly, it was luxurious, and decently large; with a ceiling 15 metres tall, neoclassical frescoes painted across the walls, multiple sets of ever-so-slightly-gaudy crystal glass chandeliers, and numerous rows of finewood dining tables and chairs. Upon a closer look, the trio - Octavia especially - noticed some subtle details hinting at why Ferienstadt Binnenstrand was actually popular even now, 50 years after the end of the War. The frescoes and paintings on the walls, rather than being a monument to power (as well as bad taste) of the typical Overcast Era barons and crown princes, depicted mythological scenes going back thousands of years, with the spirits and famed figures of the Second Antiquity and the Middle Millennia taking up most of them, and the decor around those scenes was, of course, overblown - but surprisingly well-put together, with quality materials and subtle repeating motifs that were uncommon in the Overcast Era because of its preoccupation with showmanship and excess. The place was by now mostly empty, with just a few people still dining, and our story's trio went over to the 33rd table where the kobold receptionist directed them. A waitress for the dining hall - a tall human with a graceful upright posture, a bright orange/red tail and ears, and red-brown hair, wearing the colors of the resort town - noticed them, walked up, and asked:

"Hey, you're the people the reception has called us about, right?"

"Yes," Levi and Waleria responded in unison.

"Well, today's supper menu is pressure-cooked fish with tartar sauce, baked potatoes, and clam salad," she said. "Give me a minute."

The waitress left, and Levi turned to Waleria. He raised an eyebrow and asked:

"So what even is clam salad?"

In response, Waleria just sat down, motioning the other two to sit down as well, and asked in response:

"You haven't been around the Inland Sea much, have you?"

"Not really. My journalistic beat is the Eastern Seaboard, Freedom Steppes, and the Far South..." Levi replied.

"That's what I thought," Waleria said. "Here's the thing - the Inland Sea has massive, easily farmable and fishable populations of clams. And clam salad is our local specialty dish... or a list of dishes, because every town has its own variety. Any greens and sauces can go into it, and if I had to guess, here we'll be having clams with ruffle-leaf, lightly salted dill cucumbers, and a helping of mayonnaise. Further north, you'd be more likely to find clams with boiled potatoes, carrots, and pickles, and in the south, well, you could see tomatoes, several types of salad leaves, and olive oil in the mix."

Levi just nodded thoughtfully, and looked at the mesh-reinforced, colored glass seltzer siphon in the middle of the table. "There really are some things that you wouldn't know without busting out an encyclopedia," he replied.

In just a few minutes of waiting, the supper was there, and Waleria, Levi, and Octavia got right into it - quickly sweeping up the salad, then the fish and potatoes and the tartar sauce, alongside a few glasses of mineral sparkling water from the siphon on the table. They grabbed their suitcases, and headed over to another nearby mansion where they were told a small room was waiting for them. Far in the distance, they could see the green and turquoise lightning flashes of an overland spirit storm; an occult phenomenon they were likely to encounter head-on later on in their journey... but that would be getting ahead of the story. For now, their goal was simply to get to the needed building, ascend the stairs, and find the needed room; and so, they did. Entering the room 92A (ninth building, second floor), they saw a small space of royal luxury; two beds and an ornate couch, fine woodwork chairs, a parquet floor, a richly-patterned floral wallpaper, cherry-red drapes over an elaborate glass window. Levi looked around the room, and told his companions:

"Waleria, Octavia, you can unpack and take up the beds. And I'll be sleeping on the couch, if you don't mind. For professional reasons, it's an all-too-attractive option; I've probably slept on hundreds of couches."

"Huh," Waleria said.

"Don't be too surprised, Waleria," Octavia told her in response. "I would've fought him for the couch, over this same reason, but I'm more of a night train person."

Waleria just responded with a quiet grumble and a shrug of the shoulders, and went to brush her teeth. Soon enough, everyone had tucked in for the night's sleep, Waleria's mind drifting around two looming questions: was she really some long-lost royalty, and what did it mean for her everyday life?