voidtreckermods: (train)
VoidTrecker Express Mods ([personal profile] voidtreckermods) wrote in [community profile] middleofsomewhere2021-04-10 06:25 am

The Endless River

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.
azrthmtrnznthos: (casual conversation)

Re: endless river

[personal profile] azrthmtrnznthos 2021-04-22 02:13 am (UTC)(link)
"I'm mostly thinking, so if you don't mind my being quiet, then yes." If Raven really didn't want company, she'd have made it obvious. But she still didn't know Steve nearly as well as Soldat did. He was still new, but obviously an important friend.
icedamericano: (Default)

[personal profile] icedamericano 2021-04-22 04:59 pm (UTC)(link)
"I rarely mind that." He looks around and then settles nearby, pulling a small, handmade sketchbook from a pocket along with a pencil.

Quiet is good for a few hobbies, too, besides thinking.
azrthmtrnznthos: (casual conversation)

[personal profile] azrthmtrnznthos 2021-04-23 04:45 am (UTC)(link)
Raven let herself go back to thinking for a bit. The silence between them was actually pretty companionable. Raven didn't feel like brooding however, so eventually wandered closer to Steve. Folding herself down onto the grass by him, before speaking. "Must be lots of good things to sketch today. People, this place..."
icedamericano: (Default)

[personal profile] icedamericano 2021-04-23 03:58 pm (UTC)(link)
He nods absently, most of his attention centered on the paper that his pencil is flying across.

"There's rarely a time when I don't see something neat to sketch. Finding the time to do with, with everything the train has us go through, is the problem."

Steve looks up after a couple more minutes.

"How are you doing?"
azrthmtrnznthos: (casual conversation)

[personal profile] azrthmtrnznthos 2021-04-23 06:10 pm (UTC)(link)
"Breaks do seem to be in short supply unless you carve them out purposefully, don't they?" Raven replied. "I'm not usually one for this kind of thing. But this has...overall been nice."
icedamericano: (Default)

[personal profile] icedamericano 2021-04-25 05:25 pm (UTC)(link)
"Yeah, you gotta make an effort." Which isn't terrible at face value. Putting a little effort into something tends to make it seem more valuable. "Taking a break kind of thing, or something else?"
azrthmtrnznthos: (casual conversation)

[personal profile] azrthmtrnznthos 2021-04-30 08:12 pm (UTC)(link)
"Being out in the sunshine thing." Not that she didn't spend time outside with her friends or meditating.