Conclusion

[voidtreckermods]

Thank you.

For those inside the system the voices of the Great-Seasons ring out around them once the red mass has vanished and the blue plinth it was smothering is freed once more. They don't have all that much time to reflect on that before they find themselves waking up once more in their bodies around the tree trunks.

Or at least, around the tube that is the Great-Season they entered through. All illusions have vanished now, all that is left are pipes and metal.

The Great-Seasons allow them passage out from the centre, no sentries or pipes attack them this time. Everything seems to have been put to rights, the walls in the Autumn sector have stopped moving, there is no strange weather effects in the Summer Sector, no engineering problems in Winter and all the camaloid creatures in Spring are calm. Any Helpmates they come across are doing their jobs and no longer malfunctioning.

After a small amount of time, enough to check that all is well, their SCA's light up. All Passengers are to return to the Voidtrecker Express.

Considering the vast distances involved it is probably best that they use the evacuation function to return to the Luggage carriage.

Once all Voidtreckers have returned the train returns to the Void once more.

Comments

[magicurls]

Mami can still feel the bond to her partner, even in this trance. It glows brighter when she's close, and that shakes her out of the trance.

"I'm sorry for disturbing you," she says softly. "The mission ended a little strangely for me..."

How to address this? "I'm not who I thought I was."

[knifewithnoname]

It had been a strange ending but she sensed that this was something more. Something more personal to Mami. She moved closer and set the items down, carefully pouring tea before asking with a head tilt.

"You do no be being?" She was someone else? How was that possible? "Who do you be being?"

[magicurls]

Mami took a bun in her hand out of habit, but made no move to eat. "Do you know what a lich is? Or a revenant? Someone who's dead, but their soul stays tied to them through magic?"

[knifewithnoname]

She shook her head, she didn't know lich or revenant but she understands the explanation. Someone who is dead. But whose soul stayed with them because of magic.

"Yes. But you did already be knowing that, right? You did be being dead but you do be being on this train. Your soul do be still being here because... train magic."

Same as Tony. Same as many people. But Mami hadn't been upset about that before?

[magicurls]

"I suppose..."

Mami rolls the bun in her hand.

"But apparently I was like this even when I was supposedly alive. It's been more than a year, and...I just didn't realize what had happened."

She stares at the gem on her finger.

"This is me. Everything I am...is in here."

[knifewithnoname]

She wrinkled her nose. She had been dead for a year and hadn't known it? That sounded weird. She had died before the spider monster had eaten her?

She wrinkled her nose at the gem. "In there?" She thought about what Mami had said before, dead but their soul stayed tied to them.

"Your soul do be being tied to you by that?"

[magicurls]

"Yes. This is me now."

Mami watches the yellow swirl, still a little disoriented by it all.

"Honestly I'm not sure my body really needs to eat, if magic is what keeps it going."

[knifewithnoname]

"You can be eating though, because you did be doing so before."

She frowns and then tilts her head up at Mami. "If you do no be needing to be eating then you can just no be eating the boring food. You can just be eating cake and it will no even be mattering."

The important things, clearly.

[magicurls]

"...oh no, I could never."

That gets a tiny laugh from Mami.

"While I might not need proper nutrition...cake is rare and precious, given our supplies. I can't hoard all of it for myself."

But she does take a bite of bun. It still tastes as good as she remembers.

"Thank you, though."

[knifewithnoname]

Wow. Even when she was having a crisis Mami was still so... So good. Bright. Light.

It was almost sickening. Honestly if she had found out she was a lich she would have eaten all the cake she could get her hands on and stabbed anyone who got in her way. Yet here was Mami, still thinking of others.

"That do be being good of you. But I do be thinking no one will be begrudging you a little bit of extra cake."

[magicurls]

Mami laughs gently.

"Not too much! Maybe enough bites to be messy."

This bun is good...she takes her time with it. To really process it. Not quite being alive has made her crave life all the more.

"Think I should make a really big one now?"

[knifewithnoname]

"Yes. I think you do be deserving a big cake right now."

Certainly, after such news as that. She sighed and tilted her head. "I will be helping you."

With the cake. But also with everything else.

[magicurls]

"How big? Up to the ceiling?"

It's a playful sort of question. She can't imagine stacking that many layers.

[knifewithnoname]

She laughed, she couldn't even imagine a cake that big.

"I think we would be being very sick if we did be eating it all."

But she would like to try. For sure.