middleofsomewhere | 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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Alice glances at Mort.

And then back up to Thanatos' face.

"No. I think you made a good choice in which creature to carry around." Look, Mort is adorable. Who could blame tiny Thanatos for wanting to carry that thing around? Heck, who can blame older Thanatos for still having it with him? Mort is just so cute that he suits any situation.

It's more just the idea of a god being young. It's odd. Not impossible to believe, especially for someone like Alice who has encountered many, many odd things.. But it's odd all the same.

"I just imagined gods being more like this lady Athena person. Just always existing in the same way, without growing."

Mort squeaks happily. Yes, it's a good choice to carry him around. Thanatos needs all the help he can get. Thanatos tries not to let his embarrassment show. Mort didn't have to say that out loud.... (It doesn't matter if Alice can't understand him. Thanatos can.)

"That would be hard to do. The gods ruling on Olympus weren't always in power. They fought their parents as they did before them. They had to be born somehow."

If only Alice spoke Mort speak. If only. You're safe for now, Thanatos.

"It seems that your world's idea of gods and my world's idea of gods is very different." Not that Alice is a staunch believer in any way. But it's very hard to just be alive back home in her world and not know at least a thing or two about religion, regardless of how much you personally care about it or subscribe to it.

"Gods in your world seems more as if they are just humans who happen to be immortal and have some set of powers. In fact, talking to you doesn't even feel like talking to a god." (.. She means that in a good kind of way, I promise.)

Many people wish to speak Mort, and Mort has a lot to say in place of Thanatos. However, that has yet to be developed.

"I'm one of the lesser gods. I doubt you'd be saying the same if you met my mother, Lord Hades, or one of the Olympians." As he says that, he worries that he's seeming too human. He's a god. He's Death Incarnate. Being able to talk with mortals like this is temporary. It'll be over once he returns home. He can't ever forget that.

"I wonder."

It doesn't sound sceptical. There's a lot of things Alice is sceptical about, but there's no reason to feel so about what Thanatos is saying here. After all, Alice's experience with gods is very limited, and so she figures that maybe major gods in his world are like that, after all.

"Now I'm slightly curious. I wonder if the train may pick up one of them too one day, if it was able to draw you into this place as well."

"... They've drawn me and another from my world already." Thanatos doesn't know if Alice has met Zagreus or not. He's fairly sure if one of the major gods were captured, there would be no hope left for his world's survival. At the very least, it would be the end of an age.

"It wouldn't be good if they brought more." A lot of gods in the same place doesn't go well most of the time.

There's a sound. It's a bit hard to place, but it's most likely the closest to a huff, especially with the way Alice nearly rolls her eyes.

It's not a gesture that's aimed towards him though. No, it's aimed towards that blasted train.

"I don't think explaining that to the train would help anything. It doesn't seem to have much regard about whether the worlds people were taken from in the first place needed those people or not. It's quite curious for a vehicle that pretends so much to be interested in helping people." While it's actually ruining some worlds by taking way too important people out of it out of the blue.

"Curious is one way to put it." The train shows both concern and lack of understanding. Thanatos had blamed and cursed the train in many ways, but... this location is changing his mind. He doesn't forgive the train for taking him away from his world. However, the train does want to save worlds and provide for its passengers. It has some level of awareness and....

Mort squeaks something to Thanatos. "Hm, I wonder if it's trying to understand us."

She glances at Mort for a moment after Thanatos says that last part. After all, considering what he said came right after that squeak..

"Is that what he thinks?" What Mort thinks, she means. Is Thanatos just functioning as a translator here?

"He suggested something similar," Thanatos says. It's not a direct translation but something that sparked Thanatos's own thoughts, drawing a connection he might not have otherwise made. "The train might be a slow learner or doesn't understand what its being told in the first place."

... Oh gods...

The train might be like Hypnos. It even puts people to sleep.

The Endless River

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