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]

"Ah, perhaps you misunderstand. I did mean for me. I have no stamina at all, swimming would probably be exactly just as dangerous as climbing this mountain." Senku explained.

"I suppose that's true, everyone I know who has some physical prowess does engage in as much practice as they can get."

[onehandsomeslickninja]

Edge nodded swift agreement. "For just that reason! Strength and stamina are things you build, not that you're blessed with. Practice is key to maintaining and improving that."

[10billionpercent]

"Tell that to Taiju." He laughed. "I seem to not have been blessed with the ability to improve mine. It's not a problem, I get around it." Senku shrugged slightly.

"So, instead, I can admire your skills and abilities while I stick to my own."

[onehandsomeslickninja]

That seemed unlikely, but who was he to argue? "Hopefully some skills and abilities that you can stretch out here while you have the chance. Time like this is too scarce."

[10billionpercent]

"I've been exploring and collecting unusual rocks and plants, it's been very productive so far." He paused a moment. "Which is to say it's not at all boring like being stuck on the train is."

[onehandsomeslickninja]

Edge winced slightly. "Oh, if that's what you like, I can see how the train would be misery. The same rocks and plants every day, day after day, that's more like teasin than anything!"

[10billionpercent]

"It's not so much the rocks and plants, although they are pretty vital to what I do, but usually I'm in the position where I'm constantly building various pieces of machinery, or dealing with one thing after another. My typical day involves constant activity and being on the train is just boring."

[onehandsomeslickninja]

"Right, exactly! I don't care about game cars and music cars, the majority of the time is still just desperately trying to hold onto my sanity." The moreso now that Yuffie was gone, though the shift in cabinmates made the days a lot brighter of late.

[10billionpercent]

"I can appreciate that. I've never been a music guy, and games..." He sighed. "I suppose if I get desperate. I'd much rather read scientific textbooks and theories, but there aren't very many. Actually, I'd rather be working on some large scale projects but again, confined in space and resources for that."

[onehandsomeslickninja]

"You're an engineer, then?" Science and large scale projects immediately brought that association to the ninja's mind.

[10billionpercent]

"Yeah, among other things." Senku said in an agreeable tone, but he's already figured out apparently he should be giving some kind of resume.

"Engineer, chemist, physicist, geologist, doctor, village chief...I do a lot of different things."

[onehandsomeslickninja]

"That's quite a repertoire. What were you originally trained in?"

Leadership roles went hand-in-hand with training and discipline, to Edge's mind. Whether ninja or paladin or bard or karate master, he and his fellow kings had been raised thusly. Even the elder of Mysidia was a profoundly accomplished mage. So a village chief must have gotten some start like that too.

[10billionpercent]

Edge would not be wrong, this society was definitely combat-oriented, but he used a trick of science to apply more force with leverage to win the bout, at least, that was a part of it.

"Science." He said with a bit of a smirk. "I spent most of my life studying in textbooks." He paused. "Well, animate life anyway. I suppose that's no longer true."

[onehandsomeslickninja]

"Not some sort of... monstrous, horrible science, I trust." Edge had known one person who might identify as a scientist, and, well. It didn't charitably incline him to the profession as a whole.

[10billionpercent]

"Monstrous science?" Senku hummed a bit as he thought it over. "My primary love was rocketry, but I studied everything else I could get my hands on, including medicine. It's not the science that's the problem, it's what people do with it."

He reached back to crack his neck a bit. "Rockets have a lot of dangerous components, that could in the wrong hands, be used for a lot of destruction."

[onehandsomeslickninja]

"But it's not experimenting on humans." That was his line, and for good cause.

[10billionpercent]

"No." Senku agreed, looking thoughtful. "I did, when I was ten, work on a project with my best friend. I designed a suit for my dad that used electric pulses to make muscles move a certain way. It's not painful, but during that process, Taiju let me use him as a subject. A small little jolt of electricity mimics the impulses your brain sends and can make your muscle contract against your will. It's kind of neat, actually, and a pretty good way to study anatomy. The impulses allowed, with the suit, for my dad's body to teach his muscle the memory of swimming the breast stroke. He needed to improve his swimming. It didn't really help, but he trained a lot more than he would have. It wasn't my most successful invention."

He didn't mind babbling about science, even if it was a past failure. "But typically, I don't deal in human subjects at all. The only other science I've applied to people is medicine. Pain relievers, antibiotics, that sort of thing."

[onehandsomeslickninja]

Okay, that DID sound a little weird and freaky, but Edge could accept his assertion. "Then that's all right, then. Tools are what you make of them, after all. It's the hands that use them that matter!"

[10billionpercent]

One couldn't always be sure he was the right hands, but he definitely was working for the good of helping people, not harming them.

"That's typically how these things go. Science can be very useful and important and can improve people's lives."

[onehandsomeslickninja]

"Right! Airships make so many things easier, but they can also be used as weapons of war. It's all in who uses them and how!"

But turning people into horrible monsters? NO UPSIDE TO THAT.

[10billionpercent]

"Well I don't think our hot air balloon would be that helpful in combat, being that controlling it is a bit of a chore. Good thing is, we're not currently at war with anyone." Senku smiled.

"Humanity's greatest weapon was always communication - and that's hardly the only use for it."

He was kind of a pacifist. He preferred to avoid bloodshed, no matter how necessary it may have seemed.

[onehandsomeslickninja]

"You think? I'd say it was determination." Communication hadn't done all that much in the end, in his opinion!

[10billionpercent]

[ OOC: To avoid captcha ]