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

[oceantier]

Her eyes do slip back to the water briefly. She knows it isn't likely a good option, not with the way it feels or acts, but it's still hard to give up on the possibility.

It only lasts for a moment, though. Her shoulders ease a little, and she dips a nod, heading towards the indicated mushrooms.

[irrationally]

Once she spots the other heading in that direction, Alice turns to do the same thing. She takes a spot underneath one of the big mushrooms, sitting at its base like this is nothing too special. (After all, it isn't to her. She's been sitting among giant mushrooms just like this before.)

It makes it easy to stay serious in the moment as she opens her mouth to explain.

"It's hard to find a specific place to start." Since they do know a lot of various things, even if it's little in the greater picture. "But for one, we know that this train seems to have drawn us to itself because it perceives us as heroes who have to save the various worlds we are sent to. Or so the train itself says, either way."

Because they ought to take the words of something that kidnapped them in the first place with a grain of salt, Alice thinks.

[oceantier]

Settled under the mushroom, erect, her skirt pooling around her legs, she listens.

"I'm not a hero." The response is immediate, eyes slightly narrowed with scorn. If the train expects to find one in her, it's going to be sorely disappointed. The only reason she'd left Earth had been to find Steven. There'd been no interest in saving anyone else.

Heroes are supposed to be selfless. She knows she isn't.

Her brow furrows a little, sorting through the rest. "How can it make that determination? What criteria does it use?" A pause. "And why can it make that determination?"

Things that are normally inanimate aren't normally sentient, after all. Not able to make decisions.

Unless.

Unless.

. . .

No. Doubtful. It couldn't be the same. It's not a Gem. It doesn't work by the same rules.

Also, she's angry at it; it doesn't deserve any sympathy from her.

[irrationally]

"We don't know."

Not even a single one of those things. How it knows so much about them. What criteria it uses. How it can think for itself.

Or if anyone has figured it out yet, Alice sure doesn't know.

"But its definition of a hero seems to be.. odd." To say the least. Alice won't even say anything about herself here, but.. "There is at least one person on this train who has murdered a child in cold blood and still doesn't regret his actions. I have absolutely no clue how a person like that could be called a hero."

[oceantier]

She takes that in for a moment, eyes shifting to a neutral point on the grass.

Then, quietly: "Has everyone here done something like that?"

Because if so, maybe the idea of being "heroes" is dressing it up. Perhaps it's more as she originally expected -- a prison, or a punishment.

[irrationally]

It renders Alice quiet for a moment. Because she can't claim that she's any different. Well, perhaps she's slightly different, because there is no way that she would murder someone innocent, someone who didn't deserve it, but.. she can't deny that her hands are stained with blood as well.

But she's only one example. Alice knows that she skews towards the worse side of the train population, so she shakes her head.

"No, there are people here who.." She pauses. It feels weird to say this, to display such belief in people, but she wants to be honest here. Especially since Lapis does seem to be attentive. She seems to be taking all of this very seriously. "Who are genuinely good. People who constantly want to help others without asking for anything in return. There really isn't a consistent type the train picks."