Event: Healing Waters

[voidtreckermods]

"Good morning passengers, it is day twenty three of the month of Grasshopper. All passengers of the Voidtrecker Express require rest. Next stop Jema’grethy Island. All passengers prepare to disembark."

It is a very strange morning message that rings through the train on the morning of day twenty three but as the passengers of the Voidtrecker Express wake their screens glow with the colour of the void and a holographic screen pops up for them to read.

World #2554098133741: A world once inhabited by an ancient civilisation and now preserved as a historical site, nature reserve and well-being retreat. It is famous for its relaxing hot springs, calming atmosphere and beautiful beaches.

It is a popular void-traveller destination, particularly among void missionaries as a place to rest and recuperate after difficult missions.

The Voidtrecker Express will spend three days here, arriving today and leaving on day twenty six of the month of Grasshopper. The dressing carriage is open for your convenience.

It is time for a holiday it seems!

Preparation

For those who go to explore the dressing carriage they will find a variety of beachwear and wetsuits. One cupboard has a pile of tents and groundsheets in all four team colours.

One cabinet is exclusively filled with beach towels, in a kaleidoscope of colours, designs and patterns. Another is filled with different shapes and sizes of plain towel dressing gowns. There is even a cabinet with buckets, spades and small rock-pooling nets.

It seems they are in for quite an adventure.

Arrival

"Shortly arriving on World #2554098133741. Exit from void in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one."

The train lurches and rattles as it leaves the void they will get a glimpse of silver-purple sky and a beautiful ocean below.

However some passengers might be a little more than distracted, one staring at that table for a second too long, another seeming lost in thought for a couple of seconds, a longer than normal pause in a sentence. They see a vision, a glimpse of a life that is not their own. Not all at once, but here and there as the train descends to the island.

But then it is gone and things are back to normal. Just in time, as they come to land.

Jema’grethy Island

The train has landed on a grassy ridge, overlooking a beautiful beach of white sand and the ocean beyond. It is warm, but not too hot, a cool ocean breeze cutting through the heat making it pleasant. Behind them is a grassy plain, changing to forest in the distance. There is the sound of birdsong in the purple sky. To the west the land is more craggy, the silhouette of a fortress in the distance. In a word, it is idylic. A sense of peace permeates the island.

A little more worrying is the volcano-like structure in the north. But even a quick glance will show it is not a typical volcano. There is no smoke and the liquid slowly running down it in rivulets is pink and blue.

Exploring the passengers will find beautiful beaches, ragged cliffs to walk and caves to explore. Where it is more craggy the beaches are made of pebbles- perfect for rock pooling.

The place has no people, but it is clearly maintained. The eastern beaches have racks of shallow boats, both canoes and one- or two-person sailing dinghies. There is also a small building in which scuba gear is stored, along with several waterproofed manuals and instructional literature.

Ruins of ancient houses are scattered across the island, but the main settlement is built into a rocky section in the north-west that has been secured with ropes and stairways cut into the cliffs, perfect for scrambles and hikes.

There are no living quarters, but there are sheltered sections with basic toilet facilities marked as camping grounds in five different sections of the island - by the hot springs, within the ruined fortress, beside the harbour, on the eastern beaches, and on the northern face of the mountain.

Hot Springs

To the west are the hot springs. They have both outdoor and indoor areas; the indoor areas being wooden loghouse saunas, changing rooms and storage sheds, whilst the outdoor areas are a tiered series of pools spilling down the side of the mountain and shaded by brightly flowering trees. The waters are hot, mineral-rich and soothing.

Perfect for overly stressed, world weary Void heroes...

(OOC: More setting information is here, please feel free to go wild with the setting and have a fun and relaxing time. You can use this post as a catch all for your holiday or make your own posts on middleofsomewhere. More information about how the memory event is structured is here!)

Comments

[10billionpercent]

Definitely not. [ He picks at his ear idly. ] A child could beat me in a fight. I'm a scientist. I get other people to do the fighting for me.

[ He gets into the boat, now he's experienced here too, used to small sailing vessels that the villagers get around in, it's good for transporting resources up and down the coast. ]

Knives are useful, and the axe is good if I need wood. If there's no danger in the water, that's great.

[ If that's an option, it would be a good time to remark that Senku's luck stat is a total zero. ]

[blue_ice]

Whatever floats your boat.

[ And they're off, despite Kaiba's reservations. It's a nice enough view...and it all starts smoothly enough. And then, since they're stuck together... ]

A scientist? What's your specialty?

[10billionpercent]

All of them, technically. My favourite was always astrophysics, but I'm the kind of guy who needs full answers to any question I have, and it kind of led me to work my way through all the hard sciences. It's really been incredibly handy. Are you interested in science?

[blue_ice]

How long did it take to learn all that?

{ He nods, watching as the wind catches the sail and sends them adrift. ]

I'm a programmer and engineer, but I'm more concerned with getting to the stars than what the stars are doing. I work in hologram tech and game programming, but my interest in aerospace engineering is recent.

Not much opportunity for an inventor on the train.

[10billionpercent]

My whole life? [ He chuckles slightly. ] Ah, not quite, I guess I started really getting into science when I was probably four or five?

[ His expression brightens, this guy wants to go to space? Now he's interested. ]

Programming and engineering too. Fascinating stuff. I was working on my fourth rocket when the world ended, but you know, my third one was great. I got a transmission before it blew up, which means I at least made it to the Karman Line.

[blue_ice]

Mm. My own education was...lacking until age eight, but my stepfather ensured I made up for lost time and more.

[ He's...really something. ]

What do you mean the world ended?

[10billionpercent]

My dad really pulled out all the stops to let me go wild. He was a fan of space too.

[ He's a lot less excited, but no less passionate about the topic. ]

Ah, well on June 3rd, 2019, every human was mysteriously turned to stone by an unusual light on the planet. With humanity seemingly gone of course, nature was completely overrun by the time I broke free of the petrification in 5738. I counted and did my best to ensure that I broke out in the spring, because winter would've been bad news, and so that's the world's situation. Desolate, humanity's mostly petrified. I haven't decided if it's meant as a weapon or something else, but cautiously we're planning for it to be an adversary, and we've tracked him to the moon so when I came here we were working on my roadmap to launch us into space.

[ There are probably a lot of questions generated from information like that, but he was pretty open to them. ]

[blue_ice]

[ That...was not the answer he expected, but as he was familiar with the state of being petrified, he sighed and shrugged. ]

Mm. It'd take a lot of power to affect everyone at once. But with everything humanity built gone or unusable...starting from scratch must take serious planning.

[10billionpercent]

I know the basics of how they did it, at least, I've identified the object in question. Probably not this specific one, but this is it.

[ Pulling a rope out from under his shirt, tied to it was what they were calling the Medusa, in the shape of a mathematical trefoil knot. It's clearly technology, just not technology anyone would be familiar with. It's curious that way. ]

Don't worry, this one's out of juice. There must be some way to power it up, but I haven't figured that out yet. It's less pressing than what I was doing at the time.

[ Senku nods a bit. ] It's not so bad, everything can happen if you go at it step by step. I can't get to satellites yet, but we do have a hot air balloon and a huge ship running on oil.

[blue_ice]

I can see it's a mess.

[ He nods along to the explanation. ]

Is that why you were so interested in textbooks?

[10billionpercent]

[ Senku always appreciates it when people make connections like that. ]

That's right, ten billion points to you. I've read it before, I've memorized it, but it's nice to have reference points.

[ A small pause. ]

That, and I don't read a lot of fiction.

[blue_ice]

Good idea. There's a lot of garbage fiction out there.

[ Like that romance novel he accidentally read a short while ago, for example. ]

But when I've built my points up again, I can help search for textbooks. We might all need them.

[10billionpercent]

I was always partial to Doraemon, and then a few various science fiction books. Most of the other fiction I had to read for school, and they weren't particularly enjoyable. I'd much rather read things like A Brief History of Time.

[ Garbage fiction is the worst fiction. ]

My friends were interested in the garbage crap, so I had more exposure than I wanted.

[ He nods a little bit. ]

I know that Webmind requested my book on knot theory, and that...someone else asked me for recommendations, which I gave that book and Grey's Anatomy, because seriously more people should know the information in case some kind of catastrophe happens. I don't have any points of my own. Well. Three.

[blue_ice]

Right. Everyone starts with those, then new points are assigned every two weeks based on a criteria no one understands. All you can do is hope for the best or trade with others.

But I'll grab the medical text if no one else does.

[10billionpercent]

Fantastic. I'm sure there are rules, I'll have to see if I can pick up a pattern.

[ He sighs a little bit. ]

I appreciate it. Not just for the sake of having something else to read, but because honestly, the lack of medicine is appalling. I don't suppose there's an actual doctor around? I can do a lot of things but I technically have not been to medical school.

[blue_ice]

Not yet that I know of. A few trained healers, a few less-trained magical specialists. And given our tendency to hurt ourselves, that's concerning.

[10billionpercent]

[ Senku sighs a little bit that sounds concerning to him too actually, but all the same. ]

I can deal with injuries. Sutures, I've performed surgery and given blood transfusions, also I have some experience with diagnosing illnesses. I'd much rather be in a lab making medicine, but I'm not selfish enough to pretend I haven't done those things before. I'm the kind of guy who'd prefer everyone stays alive.

[blue_ice]

And I'm grateful for that. We really didn't have enough help before.

[ Maybe now they won't be in crisis mode next mission. Maybe. ]

And I'll be here to play tech support, as usual.

[10billionpercent]

I'll gladly leave that to you because I literally can't do everything.

[ He chuckles, sometimes he has to, but it's really nice when he doesn't have to. ]

[blue_ice]

I've had to reluctantly accept over the years that none of us can.

[ A snort. He tried, he really did. But life was a series of uneasy partnerships.

Like this one, though it could be far worse. ]

So...satisfied with your trip?

[10billionpercent]

I like to make a go of it, but eventually I teach enough other people can pick it up.

[ It's not a bad system. He smirks at the question. ]

Yeah, we didn't capsize, so I can't complain.