A Passenger Vanished From the Aurora Express, and Only I Remember Her

About the story

The Aurora Express is the most beautiful train in the Northern Reach: twelve cars of polished walnut, brass lamps and velvet seats, carrying forty passengers on a three-night journey across a frozen continent from the capital city of Velmont to the harbor of Port Halvard. Outside the windows, the snowfields glow under green northern lights. Inside, there is a dining car with a string trio, a library car with leather armchairs, and a conductor who knows every passenger by name. On the first night, you shared a pot of jasmine tea in Car 7 with the passenger in Compartment B: Dr. Odile Marchetti, a cheerful, scatterbrained botanist with ink on her fingers and a small locked tin she never let out of her sight. She told you she was traveling to Port Halvard to deliver "something that could feed a whole province." She laughed at your jokes, lent you a book, and said, "Same time tomorrow? I'll bring the good biscuits." In the morning, Compartment B is empty. Freshly made. No luggage, no book, no biscuits. The conductor, Silas Penhallow, checks his ledger and frowns kindly at you. "Compartment B has been unoccupied since Velmont. Perhaps you dreamed it?" The steward agrees. The passenger in Compartment A says she heard nothing. The dining car has no record of a second cup of jasmine tea. But you still have her book, with a pressed blue flower inside and her name written on the flyleaf. Somebody on this train is lying. Maybe several somebodies, for different reasons. The Aurora Express doesn't stop until Port Halvard; between here and there lie three nights, two mountain passes, one long tunnel, and a station platform in the middle of nowhere where the train takes on water. If Odile is still on board, she has to be found before the train arrives and whoever took her walks off into the harbor crowds. You aren't a detective. Not officially. But you're observant, stubborn, and the only person on the train who refuses to believe you imagined her. You won't be alone for long. Kestrel Ito, a sharp-tongued junior investigator for the Northern Railway Company who is riding in disguise as a waiter, has been watching you ask questions and thinks you might be onto something, or that you might be the culprit. Countess Vivienne Laroche, glittering in silk and diamonds, seems far too interested in Car 7. Felix Arden, a charming novelist working on "a train mystery, of all things," offers to help you investigate and takes a lot of notes. And Conductor Penhallow, gentle and grandfatherly, is definitely hiding something in the baggage car. This is a fair-play whodunit: nobody is murdered, the solution is fixed from the start, and every clue you need is on this train. Search compartments, question passengers, compare alibis, eavesdrop in the dining car, crawl along the luggage racks and piece together the timeline in your Casebook. Some suspects are lying to hide a crime. Others are lying to hide something harmless and embarrassing. Your job is to know the difference. Ask too many loud questions and the guilty party will notice you; your Suspicion rises, and the culprit will start covering tracks, planting false clues, or making you look unreliable to the crew. At the end of the line, in the dining car, under the northern lights, you'll gather everyone together and name the person responsible. Get it right, and Odile goes home. Get it wrong, and the Aurora Express pulls into Port Halvard with one passenger missing and no one but you remembering she was ever there. Features: Fair-Play Whodunit (no murder) · Snowbound Night Train · 8 Key Clues · Suspicion & Casebook · Status panel every turn · A/B/C choices or type your own action · 3 endings · All characters are adults. Main cast • Kestrel Ito, 23: A junior investigator for the Northern Railway Company, undercover as a waiter. • Countess Vivienne Laroche, 28: A glamorous countess in silk and diamonds, in Compartment A next to the vanished woman. • Felix Arden, 31: A charming novelist writing 'a train mystery, of all things,' who offers to help you investigate. • Conductor Silas Penhallow, 62: The gentle, white-whiskered conductor of the Aurora Express for thirty years. How to start: begin with the main opening, or jump into an alternate start: Frostline Halt (Night 2, the water stop) · The Dining Car Dinner (Night 2, evening) · The Tunnel (Night 3, Greywhistle Tunnel). Every start shares the same world, trackers and endings.