Caldera Shroake

 

Caldera Shroake is one of the two deuteragonists & main heroes of Railsea, the other being her younger brother Dero.

Personality
Though she can act somewhat childish at times, Caldera is usually rather reasonable--or at least, reasonable enough to get herself & her brother across the railsea to Heaven in one piece.

Due to the great number of people trying to get information about her family in order to persue them into Heaven, Caldera tends to be very cautious around strangers. She does not trust easily, though she is usually fairly kind to those she does trust, such as Sham.

Caldera is extremely determined, & will do absolutely anything to find the end of the railsea, refusing to give up even when her train is nearly wrecked multiple times, she's being chased by pirates & the Manihiki ferronavy & the guardian angel & Captain Naphi doesn't want to help her & Mocker-Jack tries to wreck the Medes (with her & her brother on board). A true optimist, Caldera will always do her best to get out of a perilous situation, even when this appears impossible.

Appearance
Caldera is tall & has grey skin & shoulder-length curly black hair, dark brown eyes, & a lot of freckles.

Character Arc
Near the beginning of the story, Sham discovers photographs in a (slightly) old trainwreck depicting a much younger Caldera & Dero with two of their parents (having found the skeletons of said parents in the wreck as well), & sets out to find them in order to tell them what happened. In person, Caldera is first introduced shortly after her brother, in Manihiki. She is very suspicious of Sham at first, due to the amount of people who regularly attempt to spy on her & her family, however quickly becomes more friendly towards him when he admits he came to tell her & Dero something important about their parents.

Though slightly stricken upon learning about what happened, Caldera decides that she & Dero will attempt to finish their exploration quest themselves & sets a leaving date (after spreading rumors about them leaving on a different date). She asks Sham to go with them, however he refuses.

Caldera spends the next several weeks crossing the railsea on her family's very high-tech train & trying to avoid getting wrecked; by various animals, & by other trains, & doing her best to ditch any persuers. She & Dero come very close to being wrecked by an owl, at one point, however manage to not get wrecked by the owl.

After a long & difficult journey, ultimately helped by the Medes (which has been taken over by Sham) & the Bajjer tribe, Caldera reaches the bridge to Heaven, however the Medes is being persued by the Manihiki ferronavy, which is being persued by the guardian angel--& all of these trains are being chased by Mocker-Jack.The angel destroys the Manihiki train, & early destroys the Medes, however is wrecked by Mocker-Jack (who dies wrecking it). The Medes continues as far as the other, now-dead guardian angel blocking the bridge. Caldera throws garbage at the dead angel, much to Sham's annoyance.

At this point, Caldera is quite impatient to get over the bridge, ultimately accompanied by Sham & Naphi as well as by Dero. It takes them several days to get across, however they eventually arrive in Heaven--a ghost town, which has clearly been so for a very long time. While Dero, Sham, & Naphi are curious, Caldera is confused over what exactly her parents thought they would find or discover here, believing there must be something important she's missing, though ultimately simply discovers that the degenerate people living in the ghost town, descendants of the "gods" who laid down the railsea, have been waiting there for the railsea-dwelling people to pay them a bill of so much money as has never existed before, & they believe that Caldera, Dero, Sham, & Naphi are there to pay up.

After a fight between the degenerative gods & the Shroakes & the Medes crew (who had arrived on the dead angel, rigged by Sirocco to become functional again), Caldera is convinced by Sham to explore the actual ocean, which had somehow been hidden from the world in Heaven, & it is revealed that this was the previous Shroake generation's intention all along. Caldera, along with Dero, Sham, & Naphi, sets out to do exactly that.