The Endless River

[voidtreckermods]

On the morning of day twenty one of the month of Kazoo there is a message on the ICP screens around the train. Their SCA's will light up the colour of the Void and show the following information.

World #398050 is a void nexus known locally as Tshering. As a void nexus this world has strong links with the void and the connection through worlds. World #398050 is home to the Endless River. Legends speak of this river being powerful enough to send thoughts from one heart to another across any distance. All that is needed is for you to know who it is you wish to reach.

On-board

The dressing carriage is open, filled with clothing best suited to a pleasant spring day. Light, airy and in a rainbow of joyful colours and florals. One closet is entirely filled with wide-brimmed hats bedecked with ribbons, feathers and ornaments. A stack of picnic baskets and containers filled with an alarming variety of passenger-suitable foodstuffs and flasked drinks sits in one corner, next to rolls of thick, weatherproof blankets in the four team colours.

The large box marked Do Not Use Yet, filled with small, empty jute bags, is hopefully still sat in the Luggage carriage, ready for passengers to grab handfuls of its contents as directed by the announcement.

Upon landing (after an appropriate countdown), the train remains on the surface, its carriages partially curved to form a gathering site for the day. Welcome to Tshering, the eighth void nexus!



A Day for Picnics

Tshering, system #398050, is a strange place, only habitable by grace of the passengers' SCAs. The sky is shot through with colours, a cascade of sunsets, and through it, the void shimmering through it in seams like a child's painting of the milky way. Still, there's a beauty to the chaotic mash of colours that soaks through its landscape, and in the shelter of the forests of towering funghi that dot its surface, the Void can go unseen by its visitors.

The temperature seems mild, suitable for the provided clothing, and if there are weather patterns around the world they've taken the day off. The funghi are sturdy enough that what air flow there is doesn't disturb their stalks, and carved grooves and holds in some of the larger examples indicate that climbing them to sit atop their glowing crowns is eminently possible, and, in fact, encouraged.

the Endless River

The Endless River is a font of pure chaos, flowing from a multitude of small rivulets across the area to a central reservoir, from which it pours directly upwards, away from Tshering's surface and out of sight, beyond the world's atmosphere.

Anything bagged and placed within the Endless River will also flow upwards and soon be out of sight, passing, presumably, into the Void. Scattered across the surface of Tshering are small, glittering pebbles, as described in the announcement.

The stones are pleasantly cool to the touch, and all passengers need to do is feel. Messages can be in any form that the Voidtreckers wish. Perhaps words, perhaps feelings, perhaps an image from their mind into the stone. Perhaps a mixture. Once they begin their message the stone will glow slightly and continue to glow as they secure it in the bag and cast it into the river. They will feel, almost instinctively, that they need to focus as they do so, thinking of the person they wish to reach all the while.

There are plenty of bags and many more stones; passengers will not be limited in their sendings.

Comments

[magicurls]

"That's how it seems to work around here," Mami says quietly, smoothing the ends of her skirt. It's been a difficult morning, but they can get through this together.

She pours cups of raspberry tea this time, a silent thought for their absent friend.

"We try to stop disasters, and then it tries to help us recover."

[happyends]

"It's strange though, the way it chooses worlds.."

Since Madoka does remember that being a part of the message that had appeared on all the ICP screens before they were dropped off on this mushroom world. The girl seems to halt in the middle of the snack she was eating, seeming to think about it.

"I mean.. our world could really use help too, right?" Perhaps even moreso than either of these other two have ever witnessed, but Madoka knows that both of them have to be aware of Walpurgisnight at least to some extent. "Yet it's never stopped there.."

[redmeguca]

Probably because Kyubey fucked our world but good. There's way too much going on for the train to really make a dent. I'm not gonna complain, I'd be happy to never go back there again.

[Kyoko of Blue pours herself some tea, taking a long sip once it's full.]

[wishalone]

It's really fucking weird to be sitting across from someone who looks like her, talks like her, has her bad attitude. This day's already been rough enough, and now... this. It's making Kyoko tense, makes her voice clipped.

"I don't know. Maybe if a thousand Walpurgisnachts attacked everywhere all at once. But the train made it sound like everyone in the last place would have been killed by those demons if we hadn't stopped. I don't think it's as bad off as that."

But there's one reason that she can think of that might keep the train from stopping there, anyway. "Has the train ever stopped at someplace that was home to someone on board?" The question, really, is directed more at Madoka than anything else, since she's the one with the most experience with the place.

[happyends]

Don't mind Madoka kind of nervously shifting a little as she listens to the others speak. She figures it can be interpreted so many ways (like her being nervous about all this KYOKO AGGRESSION going on here) that it shouldn't hurt too much if anyone notices her looking more nervous - then they won't know that the real reason she's so nervous is because she's exactly seen the kind of thing the Walpurgisnacht she saw back home could do.

But she doesn't want to speak about that out loud. Instead she's thankfully provided a ready distraction.

"Um, it hasn't.. And I've been here for all of the missions our current group on the train has had." So Madoka is pretty sure she would have known if anyone had recognized any of the world they had stopped at. "Moreover, I've only once seen the train stop in a modern world like ours, and even then, we weren't in a city. So I guess it never goes to places like Mitakihara.."

[magicurls]

"That's right. I would've recognized a witch..."

Oh, the irony of that comment. Mami dips her head over her cup as she thinks. "We've been to medieval, jungles, deserts and seas....but there usually aren't a lot of people wherever we go. The worlds are usually about to be wiped out by some natural disaster."

She glances up at the sky briefly. "Though I wonder if our world is even still there. The train claims it is, yet..."

[redmeguca]

If there's one thing I've learned from the Fissures, it's that time is subjective on the multiversal level. And besides, not even Walpurgisnacht is a powerful enough Witch to destroy the whole world.

[She glances at Madoka as she says this, but only for a moment.]

[happyends]

Haha. Talk about whether their world is still there and if a huge witch could wipe it out and Madoka is sweating so nervously on the inside.

Especially since she sees one of the Kyokos looking her way when she says it, and Madoka kind of wants to sink into the ground. Nope. Not going to confront this fact. Instead she's just going to quickly - and clearly incredibly subtly - hop onto the other thing Mami said.

"There were a lot of people during our earlier missions. I saw a village covered in snow, filled with people.. there was a tower full of wizards.. um, the space station we went to had a surprising amount of people on it too." You know, for a space station.

"I think it's since the blue team is usually protecting people, so if there's people during a mission, I usually see them a lot."