The first thing we saw was the smoke. It drifted lazily across the deck, the smell of burnt honey and curdled milk taunting us as we plunged ever higher. It grew thick, black as a starless night. The crew grew restless. "Push on", the captain said. Upward.
Next came the rats. Small, malnourished things. Their eyes were the worst part - no, I wont say why, no matter how many drinks you buy me.
Last came the stars. Shining bright and close, hanging in that smoke like so many damnable souls. Echoing. We sent the captain overboard and left, at least, alive.

The first thing I saw was red-hued stained glass, floating welcomingly in the distance. I had long given up hope of making it off the locomotive with my sanity intact. They followed my orders. They spread supplies and fuel thin. They dwindled slowly, one by one, with nary a complaint. And yet here I stand, alone, bathed in the soft red glow.

I’ve heard of Magdalene’s. If the tales are true, my crew will be erased from memory. The only one left to remember them is me, and I am eager to forget.

“The last thing I would’ve expected is for it to end like this”
The sky stretches before them as the engine’s sputter starts to fade.
The Captain cracks open a bottle of whiskey and pours 2 glasses.
“I never thought you’d make it till the end” says the Captain, with sorrow. The bat squeaks, unknown to it’s fate.
Cries of the hull spread throughout the deck when the last screws give away.

“Isn’t a lovely evening, Robert?” says Beatrice
“What’s that?”
A flash sends the sky ablaze.
“Ah. Another one falls to the stars…”

I decided to enter with another story

The last thing we expected was the unusual homestead shining in our locomotive's headlights. The homestead was painted in a hypnotic kaleidoscope pattern creating a garish spectacle of colors in the drab backdrop of the High Wilderness. The roof comprised tiles carved from cantankeri shell in variegated patterns.
Through a door desecrated by nefandous symbols came our host. His lean, pale visage was in stark contrast to the flowery, prismatic accoutrements he wore. Swaggering forward, flourishing his topper with a bow like some London palace popinjay he spoke. "Greetings, I do seldom get visitors out this way...."

Three Entries
"A Service Rendered"

The last thing we expected was the fudge. After all, who sends a gift basket to the captain responsible for your husband's untimely death in the High Wilderness?

"My thanks for helping repay a debt long overdue," the Careless (now) Widow's note read. "May you be more cautious in the deals you make at crossroads than myself."

In the end, only our Dilettantish Quartermaster was willing to eat the blasted fudge. It was quite good, apparently, as sweet as borrowed joy with a finish of bitter regret.


"Bandages"

The last thing we expected was to provide passage to a rather Moth-eaten Tomb-colonist. Surely we had abandoned such nonsense in the Neath? Death in the High Wilderness could be renegotiated, but it was still subject to laws which our passenger flouted.

"The truth is that death would no longer recognize me," she confided, a cough sending a fluttering of papery wings into the air. "There is simply so little of me left to claim." As she obligingly lifted her bandages aside, I understood her meaning.

When we next made port, the Bandaged Moth departed, something new disguised as something old.


"The Passage of Warm Summer Days"

The last thing we expected was the scent of apples. I was still a young zee-captain, then, so when I found the Drownie Maid in my galley serving tankards of warm cider to my crew, I unthinkingly joined in their revelry. As I drank, I found myself surrounded by old men I no longer recognized. Finally, the cider gone, I looked to my own reflection, haggard and aged.

It seemed as if the zee had drunk away all my best years and left me with nothing.

But, I thought, looking to the empty tankards, had the zee, or had I?

The first thing we saw on approach to Hybras was a bulbous pustule spewing pearl white fluid into the ether around us. Our passenger had bade us travel to the distant outpost, nestled in the fungal lesions caused by the death of a sun. “See,” the Pernickety Factor said, “how even in the throes of death the Reach sustains itself!” The crew – terrified by the long journey – nodded in assent, some even going so far as to dive into the discharge. Yet by my spyglass Hybras lay dark in the distance, and the effluvium surrounding us was chalky white as bone.

The first thing we saw was cannon fire on the port side, we needed to make this Bronze wood shipment to Port Prosper and a conflict like the Winchester War wouldn't stop a Zee Captain from a shipment. A Dreadnaught was lighting up the sky with it's Brassraven against a Tackety Scout but the scout wasn't returning fire. As we passed the scout massive tentacles extruded from the scout and plunged into our Locomotive, I heard the screams carried by the wind as my men were destroyed by this horror. I sped away with half my crew gone and mind scarred.

There first thing we saw was the dense misty light, darker than blood, filling us with grim anticipation. Albion’s sun: a dead star. A tingle of vibration could be felt coming over the entire engine. Each crew member gripping anything they could as we began contorting with age! “A time warp!” I yelled to the crew. They appeared to be everything from walking skeletons to children, and the sun, it shined victoriously once more and I beheld it! The killing of a judgement. Then as I screamed, we returned just as we left, but the clocks had all changed.

The first the we saw was the remnants of a battle. Tacketies and Stovepipes seemed to have fought back to back, around them the corpses of cantankeri and privateer engines
.
A few engines had lamps burning, golden rays bursting from gaping wounds. We found them there. Wrapped in bandages near a locomotive of swirling patterns which the eye slipped over. The Smouldering Tomb-colonist was alive. They divulged secrets for passage.

They are driving towards a beautiful garden. Her Enduring Majesty left the Unterzee and another took the power she had left. They are following us. We – no, I - am sorry.

The first thing we saw was an individual of indistinct and mysterious gender.

"Come in, please," they said and gestured to the docking bay door.

We proceeded inside, wondering what such large and luxurious space station doing so far in the Wilderness.

"So, you came to participate in the ritual?"

"If you resupply and repair us, as you promised," I answered, squinting at my crewmates. "I hope we are not going to sacrifice anything. Or anyone."

"You won't sacrifice anything," the individual smiled wryly. "Except your precious time."

That was the last thing we remember before waking up in our locomotive.

The last thing we expected was the first thing we saw. From Empyrean brightness into the murky tavern. There on the wall, amidst bric-a-brac, mirrors, and ranks of bottled liquids, gleamed a charred Stovepipe nameplate. It bore the engraving HML Penumbra. Our Engine.

Time blurred, then we were rising from our seats.

The Captain raised his glass, "To Her Enduring Majesty. Gentlemen: The Queen."

"The Queen!" we chorused.

As we returned (returned?) to the little lane in the West End of Port Prosper, I glanced back. We had ceremonially mounted the mangled Tackety nameplate of the UCE Unillumined, our barely-defeated foe.

The last thing we expected was to see ourselves running away from... something.

My crew woke me up because they spotted a group of people running towards the locomotive, yelling at us to leave. Anyway, we couldn't avoid them: we hit them. We got out of our vehicle to check what happened. But an inhuman scream echoed in the air, something indescribable was chasing us. In terror, we saw another locomotive heading towards us. We screamed. They had to leave... but it was too late.

And then I woke up. Was it just a nightmare? My crew was shaking me...

What the h_ck, let's submit one more! A sudden burst of inspiration is not to be left unused.

The last thing we expected were the glorious, blazing spirals.
It started like any respectable brawl: an insult, spilled drinks, the crunch of broken cartilage. At first, everyone played their part with precision. Tawish got whacked with a barstool, and the captain retorted by sending the culprit through a convenient window.
The fun was dampened somewhat when a tall gentleman in an immaculate suit was shot in the face with a rather unsporting belly gun. A burst, too red to be blood, washed away the false skin he’d been wearing. Beyond was flesh, blazing, etched with language too terrible to comprehend.

Edit: minor grammar correction

The first thing we saw was the riotous thyme garden overflowing the large courtyard in the center of the Haunted Traveler. Here and there, the thyme crawled over broken nostalgic crockery and chips of unseasoned hours.

A discarded pomegranate, with seven seeds missing, lay to one side. Beyond in the shadows, we glimpsed an old blue police box, beside an intricately carved wardrobe. In the center, an ancient crow sharpened its beak on what little remained of a small, unremarkable mountain, then cawed and flew off. A calendar sadly dropped a page.

The barman glanced up. "Last call. Time, gentlemen, please!"

The last thing we expected was what befell us.
Sailing the sweet Zee, songs in our hearts, bats squeaks like birdsong.

Then we were becalmed.
Rations grew short.

The crew full of despair and dread.

I was the last.
When the ship broke up I clung to a shattered spar.

I In darkness I drifted.

Forever.

My light the dim glow from foul rotting mushrooms some dared eat .
All I ate for days.

I was joyful when I saw your ships’ light and when you
pulled me from the waters.

I should have be dead.

I am so hungry.