Not with a Bang Start and Ongoing

[voidtreckermods]

"Good Morning passengers. Today is day seven of the month of Imagination." The voice echoes through the train as passengers wake up in their beds. Not long afterwards their SCA’s glow with the colour of the void and a holographic image will appear.

Preperation

They have about an hour to prepare, a little less than usual but perhaps expected, given the urgency of the task.

The cupboards in the dressing room are open to reveal rows of tents, in all four team colours as well as some basic camp cooking equipment. They are in bags that should be easy enough to carry.

"Shortly arriving on System #6416. All passengers get ready to disembark. Next stop world 6416. Exit from void in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one." The train rocks and lurches, bright colours of the void filling the space and then fading as they fly downwards towards a very green landscape.

Arrival and Initial Task

The train lands in a clearing, curving round in an attempt to fit. Once everyone who wishes to disembark has done it flies back into the air, vanishing from sight.

The air is heavy and humid, though it is not currently raining. The clearing is open to the sky and looking up will reveal a worrying sight. The sky is an angry red colour, colours shifting as if the clouds themselves were on fire. It's an unnerving sight.

Their SCA's show three points, one Orange, One purple and one that is half blue and half red. The three control centres. Each are a few hours treck through the jungle and it certainly feels like there is no time to waste.

Those that don't want to treck through the forest can start setting up camp, though the darkening sky might be a little distracting. As time goes on flecks of fire drift down, though they extinguish before hitting the forest floor.

Orange are to travel to the north, Purple to the south and Blue and Red must travel together to the west. Each route takes them through thick and unrelenting jungle. Flying is difficult here unless you can get up past the canopy layer, which means vision of the ground is severely hampered.

The control stations themselves are half buried in vines and require cutting into. If voidtreckers are unlucky they will meet their first security robots here, firing on the intruders. They might even meet their first giant Armadillos, the creatures are curious and may wish to investigate. They are not helpful or constructive to trying to power up the stations and prevent the destruction of the planet.

The control stations are simple enough to operate, but there's quite a lot that needs to be done in way of repairs and clearing. It will take a team effort to get it in working enough order to activate the shield.

The shield itself, when it is activated, is mostly invisible but there is a loud humming sound. The meteor, which has gotten more visible throughout the five hours, hits the shield and splinters, fire enveloping the whole sky. It is visibly terrifying, but no fire falls to earth, no rocks get through, the planet is safe.

Ongoing

Once the planet is safe the voidtreckers deserve a rest. But once the next morning dawns it is time to start with their next tasks, to make sure that this planet stays safe from future threats.

Red

The robots at the control stations are not the only malfunctioning security robots around. They roam the jungle, or are more often stranded in the jungle, powering up only when faced with a new threat.

Some are benign, terraforming machines whose only crime is using up precious power. These need to be dismantled so that power can be saved for the shield system. Others are security robots that will attack the intruders to the planet.

Though the machines are scattered they are often obvious, emitting warning alarms or flashing lights. Their SCA's will show some areas where there are larger clusters but machines can be found anywhere.

Purple

Their SCA's are filled with hundreds of purple dots, each a solar stations that needs cleared and brought back online. It's not the most glamourous job, the stations are deep in the jungle, the treck is difficult and most of the work needed is weed clearing.

But once the weeds have been cut away they will need to patch up the station, doing basic maintenance to get it back online. In some cases wires need to be patched back together but it shouldn't take any great feats of engineering to get the stations up and running.

They may run into some of the security automatons, needing to fight their way into the stations before they can begin the clean up operations.

Orange

Like the red team their SCA will show areas where there are clusters of the small insectoid automatons that need to be rescued and restored. However they can be found anywhere throughout the jungle, they are not too suited for the terrain outside of the stations and so they have gotten tangled in vines. They can be found powered down, stranded and in dire need of maintenance.

Tools and spare parts can be found in many of the solar stations that purple team have been locating. Actually repairing the robots takes some engineering knowledge but once they are restored they will go about their tasks in the stations. They will need help getting to the further flung stations as well as the main control centres.

They are very basic in design and follow pre programmed instructions rather than being able to hear and listen to orders. But once in the correct place they are very effective at their job.

Blue

Once the shield is up there is a faint humming that can be heard throughout the jungle if they listen closely and find it among the sound of rain and insects. But once they hear it, it is obvious where it is louder and more prominent.

Their SCA will pin point some of the larger control boxes but there are truthfully too many to show on a map. Not all of them have attracted Violet Pandas, but many of them have.

They are curious creatures, both of the power boxes and the voidtreckers. They are protective of each other but not so much of territory and therefore it is not difficult to move them on. Keeping them away is another matter, the power humming is interesting and they will unearth wires and chew through them. It doesn't seem to do them much harm, there is clearly safety stops in the system for such eventualities. It does however cut power off to entire solar stations and require a lot of patch work.

Good luck voidtreckers!

Comments

[its_dad_sanzo]

"Well, I don't know how to do anything besides clean these panels off," Koumyou pointed out, hopping down from the array he'd been sweeping clean with his chi. "I think there's more to do? But I don't know what, or how."

Any wires that needed reconnecting, for example, he was clueless about. It didn't help that he wasn't on the purple team, so his information was more limited about these tasks... but even then, technology wasn't the priest's strong suit.

Flip a coin as to whether there's a Big problem versus minor touchups?

[unfavorableinstigation]

With a nod, Nita simply... walked up to the paneling. Putting a hand on it, she said:

"I'll have a word with it, then. See if anything needs a touchup, or replacing-"

After that she switched back to the Speech, descending into the mindset needed for conversation with metal and electrically-powered inanimate 'life'.

Koumyou was very welcome to watch.

dealer's choice!

[its_dad_sanzo]

Huh, so that trick worked on everything, did it? Koumyou had no qualms about watching, tucking his hands into the front pocket of his blue hoodie as he stood there.

Maybe he was sticking around out of curiosity, or maybe to make sure she didn't get interrupted doing... whatever this was. Probably mostly the former.

"Does it talk back?"

Minor repairs it is, then. ;)

[unfavorableinstigation]

Before answering properly, Nita frowned.

"Looks like there's some rust left from the last time it rained around here; I can clean that up and seal it off..."

She stepped back, moving on around to the 'back' of the station.

"Most objects don't talk like humans, but there's still something to be heard if you know how to listen."

[its_dad_sanzo]

"Oh yeah? Huh."

The priest spared a moment to wonder what his sutra might say, if asked. One fifth of what had made everything... and in the Seiten's case, the Light of Creation specifically.

But, inactive, it just sat on his shoulders and did an excellent job pretending to just be regular old paper.

"Have you tried that trick on the train itself?" That could also be interesting!

[unfavorableinstigation]

If Nita's experience was any indicator, it would either be entirely inscrutable... or an absolute troll.

As it was, Nita knelt by where the unwanted opening in the solar station was; frowning, she fetched a sheet of scrap metal from her backpack to use for raw material.

"One of the first things I did, even," Nita admitted, once she had the intended spell laid out in her mind for replacing the rusted parts and sealing everything over.

"For the most part, it just stonewalled me. I can read emotions off it, though; there's a mind in there, somewhere. Holding itself back."

[its_dad_sanzo]

"Holding itself back from what, I wonder?" Koumyou pondered aloud, "Maybe it's going to eat us all!"

[unfavorableinstigation]

Nita snorted, at the same time as the metal began - the best word for it was perhaps flowing - into the innards of the station.

Taking a deep breath due to the energy drain, she replied, "It seems more- wary of getting close? It did lose an entire crew before; has anyone gone over that with you yet?"

It appears Koumyou has landed upon some serious Voidtrecker lore!

[its_dad_sanzo]

"Nope!" Koumyou came nearer to watch, crouching down to get a good view. "A whole crew, huh? And it cares about that?"

I am amused that he's finding all this out shortly before the bonus thread. XD

[unfavorableinstigation]

Nita nodded, watching the now-closing gap for faint sparks before speaking up again.

"A few stops back, there was an island. Some sort of void missionary resort; pretty place... except for the unwanted mind-linking most of us ended up with. We all ended up paired up with people, sharing memories."

The gap finished closing.

"Three of us - Enna, Minako and I - ended up sharing some of the train's memories, as well. We ended up with a better sense of its emotions as well; what it was doing before it started picking us up at stations, a memory from happier times... and a memory from a terrible time."

8D

[its_dad_sanzo]

Well, that sure was a neat trick with the metal, but Koumyou was more interested in the story than in the patch-work at the moment.

He didn't react to the bit about sharing memories with fellow passengers. Maybe he was glad he'd missed that mission, or maybe curiosity would have gotten the better of him? Hard to say. It reminded him a bit of Genkai's powers, and Koumyou had never had a problem with the little youkai seeing his future. Well, other than a wish to spare Genkai from watching the death of a friend.

It couldn't be easy, seeing the eventual death of everyone you touched. Even less easy when you gave a shit about them.

But in the here and now, Koumyou was far more curious about that last bit, about the train.

"Wow, really? So it has a mind, and it even has memories... what did you see?"

Re: 8D

[unfavorableinstigation]

"The memory I saw for myself?" Nita asked, glancing up to him with a wry smile on her face.

"It was of a mission - not like what we're doing on this world. They were saving some sort of kingdom and its people from an avalanche-"

Amongst other rapidly-moving parts.

"The memory mostly focused on the 'climax' of the mission, though, and its aftermath. Everything coming together, combining perspectives from a bunch of people, and working out perfectly even with all the danger... Everyone being successful and safe.

"That was from - I guess the second 'set' of memories we all got? There was one for each day. It confused the heck out of the three of us until we figured out where everyone's memories were going."

[its_dad_sanzo]

"Combining perspectives from a bunch of people, huh?" Koumyou repeated, thoughtful. "So it's seeing what we see? Hearing?"

Thinking?

That was almost alarming; it certainly would have been had he had any stakes in any of this.

[unfavorableinstigation]

"If it's not through us, I figure it's through the SCAs," she said, pausing in her work on the spell to hold her own orange-banded wrist up.

At least those showed no signs of reading thoughts.

"... The memories didn't stop at that, though," she admitted, sighing.

"In fact, the first one any of the three of us received from the train was of it being a person - and having lost everything. Literally - all senses and physicality, gone. Emotions, drained. Left with nothing but a purpose."

Not that any of them had learned then what the purpose was.

[its_dad_sanzo]

"Well, that's pretty messed up, isn't it?"

Yes, that was the priest's hot take, here.

"But it has to have recovered some emotion, if it cares about holding back?"

/sudden internal debate as to whether Nita should swear, here...

[unfavorableinstigation]

Nita's only response was a wry little grin.

"No shit."

Then she nodded, taking another even breath to moderate her energy flow into the spell.

"And I should think so, though jury's out as to whether it was all human, or all one human, to begin with. The memories go kind of back-and-forth in that respect, and the last memory we got doesn't help that debate."

[its_dad_sanzo]

"So you're saying it could be something of a hive mind?"

Huh.

"What was the last memory, then?"

[unfavorableinstigation]

"Or a consolidation of the memories of its previous Voidtreckers, was more what I was thinking."

Enna had specifically mentioned the idea of it being their spirits, but Nita had picked up no indications of that.

"And that one... that was where we saw its homeworld destroyed by strange shadow creatures, along with more than half of its old crew. Nothing was left but space debris. The survivors- they tried to go back in time, though we didn't get to find out if they succeeded, let alone how."

[its_dad_sanzo]

It's all an interesting puzzle for his mind to chew on, Koumyou figures. Something like a very long and complicated koan from a badly-damaged text, with whole chunks of it lost to time.

In the end, that's all it really can be. Getting invested certainly isn't a goal of his; it hadn't been his way of life before, so why change old habits now?

"Well, I suppose there's no way to know. Either they succeeded, or they didn't."

Oh well.

"Do you need any help with this machine?"

[unfavorableinstigation]

Nita nods.

"And either it'll come back to bite us and the train personally, or it won't."

Which was why it still had some relevance, beyond explaining some of what made the train tick - at least to her.

Nita gives the question thoughtful consideration... then shakes her head.

"Should be done in another couple minutes. You had somewhere else you were headed after this?"

[its_dad_sanzo]

"Oh, here and there," Koumyou folded his hands into the front pocket of his hoodie, "I've been wandering around doing whatever seems to need doing. Cleaning these things off... warding animals away from things... fighting things."

That last bit was the main reason he lingered, figuring if anything came rampaging their way he could keep it from causing an interruption in the repairs.

Not that he looked like much, on the surface. He didn't even appear to be armed. But Nita already knew he could do magic, so perhaps that wouldn't be any kind of surprise after all.

"I've been leaving any repair work for those of you who know what you're doing. I'm quite certain I'd just break things more!"

[unfavorableinstigation]

"Probably covering a good deal of distance, that way," Nita replied.

Not least because that was basically her reason for doing things the way she was, as well.

That he could take care of himself - meaning defend himself, primarily, in this case - was more relief than surprise. While there were all sorts of things those chosen to be Voidtreckers could do, not all of them knew self-defense.

Or wizardry-type things, for that matter.

She snorted, bemused.

"Well, this one's managed not to get broken too badly with you near it, so I'd say that's one point to you."

[its_dad_sanzo]

"Because I haven't gone rummaging around inside it!" Koumyou countered, "Electricity isn't a common feature of most places where I'm from, let alone the temples. So I wouldn't have a clue what to do."

At least he admits it, and leaves it for those better equipped.

[unfavorableinstigation]

Nita nodded, gently tapping the solar station's outer casing.

"Well, if you ever want to look into it, we do have some people who'd be happy to teach."

Even if it wasn't necessary, you could never tell what you'd be stuck doing on a future mission.

"For now... I think I'll be okay here."

[its_dad_sanzo]

"Ahh... I'm far too lazy to learn new tricks like that," the priest responded with a gentle laugh. No, he wasn't interested in learning how to fix machinery.

"Well, if you're sure, then I suppose I'll be off," and with his usual finger-wiggling wave, Koumyou turned to wander away in whatever direction suited him this time.