Months earlier-
Thorn's failure to secure any truly spectacular officers does not mean those they did eventually fine are bad at their jobs. A splinter of the rat gang assisting a Tackety whose previous engine was blown up by pirates, a cook and quartermaster recruited from one of the dockside pubs, a respectable junior navigator with a nervous tic who figured her best shot at seeing Eleutheria and not dying was with the mysterious and staggeringly well-equipped new captain, a somewhat paranoid driver who is skilled enough to be worth it and should at least be good at avoiding hazards.
They are very well-equipped. Many aspects of the engine have been upgraded beyond the already high standard of its construction. Her hull is suffused with antimagic and shielding, equipped with mining and scanning equipment, one of the cabins transformed into a respectable medbay.
She's a beautiful locomotive and Lenora grins all the time about it. All she needs is a name.
The fungal riot of Hybras's surroundings is suffused with fetid light, distant starlight being diffused by clouds of floating spores. The purchased charts insist that this is the proper way to Hybras, and they are finally proving correct after the third time Lenora looses her gatling-cannon to clear away unpleasant quantities of fungus over an important passage. A wide space stands before them, a great fungal ring supporting towers of fungal flesh, some of it red and runny. And there is a small trainyard, with a few houses on the lower slope nearby. They have found Hybras.