I terrify those beneath

Question

My beginning: steamy, but 2/5ths crazy
My middle, wailing, from spectres hazy
My end, demonic, lives in Hell
My start, to there, does transport sell
My middle, within, the original man
My end, ends, an ender of lifespan

Who am I?

Hint #1:

All shall fear my reflection
Its start starts matters of perplexion
Its middle lives beyond the pale
Its end is my start's last tale

Hint #2:

The skulls, stopping, cackle and grin:
My start is not where I begin
My reflection is garbled and quite absurd
Maybe you've guessed - it's not truly a word

Hint #3:

My beginning runs so desperately
From me why does it always flee?
My ends, each two, letters in sum
Are a mystery and madness to succumb

Hint #4:

My letters are of number seven
Ask for more hints and I'll send you to heaven

Answer 1

I think the solution is:

CABOOSE

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Line by line:

My beginning: steamy, but 2/5ths crazy

As GrumpyLlama59 noted, this is cluing LOCOmotive (which is the front of the train, and the caboose is typically at the rear). It's somewhat of a red herring because it's talking about the physical beginning rather than the word's beginning.

My middle, wailing, from spectres hazy

Ghosts say BOO

My end, demonic, lives in Hell

OSE is a demon and the "Great President of Hell"

My start, to there, does transport sell

A mode of transport you pay for is a taxi CAB

My middle, within, the original man

Possibly, cABOose => ABOrigine (meaning original inhabitant)

My end, ends, an ender of lifespan

A nOOSE ends lives (from OP in chat)

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Hint #1: All shall fear my reflection

Next few lines are based on the reverse of the word: ESOOBAC

Its start starts matters of perplexion

ESOteric things are perplexing

Its middle lives beyond the pale

Something "beyond the pale" is outside normal boundaries, or "Out Of Band/bounds"

Its end is my start's last tale

High BAC (Blood Alcohol Content) would be a CAB driver's last tale, either because of an accident or from losing their job (from OP in chat)

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Hint #2: ...

The line about "skulls, stopping, cackle and grin" is referring to the high mortality rate of the brakemen working in the caboose (from OP in chat). The rest is clarifying that the "beginning" (locomotive) is not the same as the "start" (cab...) and that Hint 1 isn't a real word.

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Hint #3: My beginning runs so desperately / From me why does it always flee?

Talking about the locomotive/caboose relationship. The locomotive is always "running away from" the rest of the train, which is being pulled along behind.

My ends, each two, letters in sum / Are a mystery and madness to succumb

Two letters from each end, concatenated => CAbooSE => CASE => both "a mystery" (as in a police investigation) and "madness to succumb" (as in headcase or basket case)

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Hint #4: My letters are of number seven / Ask for more hints and I'll send you to heaven

Indeed CABOOSE has seven letters

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Title: I terrify those beneath

OP confirmed in chat that this was to set tone/theme of terror, literally referring to being run over by a train (though I'd argue that taking the slang usage of caboose => buttocks would terrify anyone trapped beneath too).

Answer 2

My beginning: steamy, but 2/5ths crazy

Locomotive. Locomotive can be powered by steam and 2/5ths of the word (= 4/10) is loco which is Spanish for crazy

My middle, wailing, from spectres hazy

ghosts are often depicted saying boo!

My end, demonic, lives in Hell

Could be several things, Devil, Satan, Demon, Imp, ect.

My start, to there, does transport sell

The start is not the beginning, but the beginning is locomotive. So the start must be where you can sell trains or something carried by a train. Mayabe a port.

My middle, within, the original man

The original man might be Adam. I'm not sure how many letters within Adam are needed.

My end, ends, an ender of lifespan

The ender of lifespan might be The Grim Reaper. Again, not sure how many letters I'm looking for.

Answer 3

I think you are:

Haunted Train: Spirits of Charon
(hidden object game from 2014 by Big Fish Games)

My beginning: steamy, but 2/5ths crazy

By beginning you mean the beginning of the sentence. As @GrumpyLlama59 stated before me a locomotive is steam powered. It's a 10 letter word and the first 4 letters spell loco. So 4/10 = 2/5 of the word is crazy. Another word for locomotive is train.

My middle, wailing, from spectres hazy

"Spectres" is another word for spirits.

My end, demonic, lives in Hell

Charon is the ferryman of Hell from Greek mythology.

My start, to there, does transport sell

By start you mean the start of the game where you get a ticket for the train of the dead from Charon, who transports the dead to the underworld.

My middle, within, the original man

I don't understand this clue. (The original man might refer to Adam or maybe Noah.)

My end, ends, an ender of lifespan

In the end of the game you kill Count Vladislav Orlok, a vampire, who are known to end people's lifes.

The hints:

I don't understand the hints. (Except the part about the beginning being different from the start.)

Answer 4

Partial

Maybe you are

locomen? Found by applying a Qat search to find 7 letter words, as per Hint 4, that start with “loco,” as confirmed by the OP.

My beginning: steamy, but 2/5ths crazy

As @GrumpyLlama59 found, this clues LOCO.

My middle, wailing, from spectres hazy

Not sure about this one, maybe COME is something that spectres wail because they want your soul?

My end, demonic, lives in Hell

This one is either OMEN as in “demonic omen,” or MEN, which there are a lot of in hell.

My start, to there, does transport sell

No idea at all about this one, but given the below two clues, this may be a wordplay clue for L?

My middle, within, the original man

This one is a wordplay clue: OM are the first letters of “original man”

My end, ends, an ender of lifespan

Another wordplay one, this time with N being the last letter (“ender”) of the word “lifespan.”

However, I don’t know how this word fits all the hints. Some thoughts:

- The “reflection” mentioned in Hints 1 and 2 is probably the word spelled backwards, which in this case is NEMOCOL. As Hint 2 states, that’s not a word, but I can’t get the parts of it to fit the clues from Hint 1 at all.
- “My ends, each two” from Hint 3 probably referees to the first and last letters, which are LN. But again, the hint doesn’t make any sense to me - I can’t think of anything mysterious or mad about those letters.
- I have no clue about any of the other hints, if there are any more.