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

[icedamericano]

Steve stares out at the water for a minute.

"Just .. it seems like we all have lives and important things to get back to. So why are we here? Couldn't whoever operates the train have taken people who aren't ... you know, kinda busy?"

It's probably a petty thought, especially spoken out loud, but it's also something that's been nagging at him.

[goingthroughaphase]

She follows his gaze out while picking up another pebble, turning it over in her fingers.

“...There was a while ago when we got to ask the train some questions. And when I had asked why certain people are brought onto the train and not others, the answer I got was that the people here have the qualities to be a hero for the Voidtrecker, as well as being able to be tethered to the train.”

She shrugs a little, pulling her knees up to her chest. “It’s hard to say how much of it is really true...but I guess if the Void needed heroes, it makes sense that the people that were pulled were doing things that were using those qualities of a hero.”

She breathes a small laugh. “Not that it makes it any easier, worrying about what we left behind.”

[icedamericano]

Steve tilts his head, listening to the explanation, and remains silent for a minute. Just absorbing the implications of it.

"So we're kidnapped because of qualities? Or our own actions. Huh."

He huffs and blows out a breath.

"Definitely doesn't make it easier, but. Maybe I can see where the train is coming from. A little."

[goingthroughaphase]

"Something like that. Though I also wonder if the train might be a little...desperate, I guess? Since not all the people who could be heroes can be tethered. If it's pulling anyone that it can, no matter where or when they come from...it must really need help, I think."

[prototypal]

Steve tilts his head, thinking that over.

"Maybe it does. Is this a self-appointed task, though, or did someone tell it to collect heroic types?"

Which is clearly a question he should ask the train itself.

[goingthroughaphase]

"It's hard to say, really. I think there's always been a VoidTrecker Express, going around and taking people to save different worlds. Traveling on the train used to be voluntary, though, if I understood the train correctly. But I guess something must have happened."