middleofsomewhere | No Place Like Home: Outside

No Place Like Home: Outside

NO PLACE LIKE HOME: OUTSIDE

HOME SWEET HOME

You find yourself not on a wide station platform, in the clothes you last remember, holding what you were when you went through the glas door. There's no longer a train behind you, no sound of its whistle, with no other passengers around you in similar style of clothing to your own.

You're somewhere familiar, or just - the last place you remember being before your life became tethered to the Voidtrecker Express. A field, a city, a kingdom, or perhaps even a space station. You should be nowhere, yet you find yourself somewhere, despite all odds.

People - if there are people - don't at first notice you; but attract enough attention to yourself, and that will all change. Friends, family - are they near, a phonecall away? It's either everything you wanted or everything you imagined (for good or worse), and it could seem unbelievably real. But it is real - you're off the train, back somewhere you know.

Finally - the journey is over...

...If only.
You're moving away from where you arrived, for whatever reason. Who wouldn't? You may be far from home, have business elsewhere, or want to go sightseeing. It's time to return to - and live - your life, and that doesn't include sticking to one place.

But you'll find that when you reach a point, the world becomes...foggy. A fog that you hadn't seen in the distance before it appears, and when you walk through it, you'll find yourself in a place some have already found themselves in.

Because for some passengers, there was nowhere for them to return, and so the barriers lead only to fog, and then straight back onto the platform. The Voidtrecker Express may be stationed, or there may be a blanket of fog where it should be; sometimes, it can be caught trying to leave the station, only to come back a few minutes later. The doors are shut tight, and the windows are obscured, showing nothing inside.

Those who came from somewhere can go back, should they go through the turnstiles again. And if they want, they can take people along with them, too...

But sometimes, they go to a world no one knows. They go through the barriers into nothing, a black emptiness. Not space, for those that know space, and it doesn't seem to be the void either. But it is a void, devoid of anything at all. Just a darkness so complete they will not be able to see anything at all, they will only know their companion is there through touch and sound. How they are breathing, how they are living at all, is a mystery; one probably answered only by the SCA on their wrist.

Being there brings an unease deep down inside them. This place is not natural, not somewhere that they should exist in. Not a place that should exist at all. Luckily they are never there for more than a few moments before they return once more to the station, fog covering them like a safety blanket.

A DIFFERENT CORNER: LOCATIONS

In the first couple of days (whatever that means, when time doesn't match up between most places), the only way to move to another's tethered location is by them leading another there. But after that, individuals will show up in other locations when they reach close to the distance limit. Indeed as time goes on everything gets a lot less stable. They may know their five miles perfectly but still one step to another leads them back to the platform. Attempting to return to their world leads them somewhere else entirely.

And there's quite a few places to end up.

SETTLEMENTS

Buddhist Temple, China ( Koumyou Sanzo | TL )
Rebel Camp, Lothal ( Hera Syndulla | TL )
Homestead, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA ( Nell Ingram TL )
Capsule Corp ( Trunks | TL )
School Grounds, College ( Idia Shroud | TL )
City Ruins, beach ( Najaran | TL )
Hakkei Palace, Tai ( Taiki | TL )
Gusu Lan, mountain sect (China) ( Lan Jingyi | TL)
Lotus Pier, riverside, China ( Jiang Cheng | TL )
The Endless Abyss, Hell ( Shen Qingqiu | TL )
Hyrule Castle Town ( Zelda | TL )
Haven Palace ( TL )

COMMUNITIES

Spaceport ( Yondu | TL)
Mobile Station Base ( Kiyoiri )
Arkwood, Town (Ryo | TL )
Techstead, Town ( Devero | TL )
Tatsumi Port Island ( Ken Amada )
Mor Dhona / Town, Mountain, Lakes ( K'zeka Tai | TL )
Hyrule Field & Lon Lon Ranch ( Link | TL )
Ishigami Village, Japan ( Senku Ishigami | TL )
Aether Paradise/Artificial Island/Natural Preserve ( Katsuya Jonouchi )
Nautilus ( Spark/Clef TL Clef | TL Spark )
The Underworld, Hades ( Zagreus and Thanatos | TL )
Sanctuary ( TL )

CITIES & KINGDOMS

Saillune City ( Zelgadis | TL )
New Mantle, City ( Ruby Rose | TL )
Brooklyn, New York City, USA in 2017 ( Jake Peralta | TL )
Azabu-Juban District, Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan ( Usagi Tsukino | TL )
Hau'oli City ( Eva Iden'no | TL )
Gauig City ( Little One/Buttercup | TL )
Kyoto, Japan ( Masumi Sera | TL )
Shinjuku, Japan ( Yosuke Otoha | TL )
Kingdom, Evermore ( Roland Crane )
Garlemad, Kingdom ( Zenos | TL )
Kingdom of Knothole ( Mina Mongoose | TL )
Domino City ( Yugi Muto | TL )
Amnity Park ( Danny Fenton | TL )
Garlemald ( TL )
Lothal ( TL )
Los Angeles ( TL )
The First - Crystarium and Lakeland ( Elidibus | TL )

OOC NOTES

OOC post. Ask questions here.

LOCATION TOPLEVELS: Since it'll be easier for players to engage with settings presented by those offering them, when we see a toplevel for one of the above locations put up, we'll add it to the list! We've also included the OOC comments for settings to the side, so any questions can be left with the player, as well as extra details. Please always speak with the player first if you intend to do anything drastic to the setting!

A REMINDER: Time of log is Poi 22-25, but time within worlds can last up to a maximum of two weeks. Minimum is whatever you want it to be.

During Poi 22 and 23, characters will need to be led to a location to be able to access it. From Poi 24, people will show up in locations regardless of invitation.

The second half of the event will go up during 20th to 25th February (Poi 26-28). But as always, play around in here and do as you like!

If your character's setting isn't above, link us to it in the Questions post, along with your toplevel! We'll add it.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The sutra, of course, streams into the space behind Koumyou and takes up a similar floating pattern as it had in the other room, lighting things up with even, golden light. The 'someone else' has Koumyou's hackles up. Who got in here while he was distracted in the other room?

Koumyou's not going on the attack only because Devero doesn't seem in immediate danger. Not if he can lift an arm unhindered.

"...Are you okay?"

The light of the sutra does make him sit up, looking around at Koumyou over his shoulder. The person with him looks too, propping herself up on one elbow and squinting against the light.

"I'm fine," he calls, waving Koumyou over. His eyes roam the over the priest, flicking to the sutra and then back up to his face. "Are you? What happened?"

"Yo, Dev?" The person beside him shifts like she's going to reach up to him, but her left arm is limp and dead at her side. "I'm seeing some weird shit all of a sudden...."

The priest follows the wave, coming over, the sutra overhead swaying gently in the air like seaweed in an ocean turned sideways.

"Fine enough," Koumyou answers, gently. They'll talk, but later. Now that they apparently have company, "Who is this? How did they get in?"

"This is Chihyoon," he says, turning his attention back to her. "Lay back down, boss, your systems are still calibrating. Might, er, explain why you're seeing something weird?"

Devero you are such a bad liar.

But the woman seems to accept that and lies back down, folding her right arm behind her head. As he gets closer, Koumyou will see that while her right arm is normal, both her left arm and left leg are elaborate prosthetics. She's wiry in the way Koumyou is wiry, though without the lifetime of deprivation behind it, and clearly hails from the Asiatics.

"Got a notification that someone who should be in hospital had just accessed the hangar," she says before Devero can start to explain. "Came down to check it out when something-- exploded? And all my hardware went down at once."

"Ah," Koumyou says as though that makes total sense, and just sort of reels the sutra in, one tendril after another fading out of existence like a weird hallucination.

"There was a bomb, I think. Electricity? But all the zappy stuff pretty much just went up. Then the lights went out."

There you go, Dev. Latch onto a proper lie, as told by your innocent teknull. Zappy stuff, indeed. Koumyou folds himself down into a proper seiza next to Devero, in Babysitter's lights.

"Some stuff fell down, too, I think."

"A bomb?" Both Devero and Chihyoon say that at nearly the same time, with Devero looking taken aback and Chihyoon just suspicious.

"Vices," Chihyoon continues, "was it a current bomb? Who the hell brought a current bomb in here?" She looks from Koumyou to Devero, but he's still looking at Koumyou.

He runs his tongue along his teeth nervously. "Was it her?" he asks.

Koumyou nods.

"Like on Erda, but more."

He knows Dev will be get it. It had been Koumyou manipulating her baton, like Dev's on Erda, but more.

"I was confronting her with a lot of stuff I know she's done and tried to keep secret," the priest continues, "she kept trying to attack me. Even came right for my throat with her zappy baton once. She didn't expect how fast I am on my feet. Then I guess she realized how guilty that all made her look on camera."

He does get it, and nods. It's easy for him to see how Koumyou routing and amplifying electricity from a tac baton could simulate the effects of a current bomb, especially in a room full of electronics.

"Wait, wait," Chihyoon says, waving her organic arm through the air. "Who's her? Who are we talking about?"

"It was really dark in there, and my hearing was a little funny, so I'm not sure what else she did but she hung around for a few minutes, and then just... left out the door? I think? A bit of light and then nothing."

With all the cameras in a fairly wide radius still down, of course.

Koumyou gazes over at Devero while he tells it, then glances down at Devero's boss.

"Valdana. She came here to hurt Devero."

Chihyoon looks at Koumyou with narrowed eyes, the fingers on her prosthetic arm twitching a little. "Valdana?" she repeats, looking up at Devero for confirmation.

He takes a deep, deep breath, meets her gaze-- and nods confirmation.

"Rust and ruin," she swears, looking away. Her voice brittle, she asks, "Is she the reason you're-- you've been-- behind whatever it is that's been going on with you, the past few months?"

"No," Devero says. "That's actually unrelated, believe it or not. But she-- she's been--" He falls silent, unable to continue.

"How long?" Chihyoon asks after a moment.

"How long... what?" Devero asks, a little blankly.

Chihyoon's augment fingers flex again, and then she uses both arms to prop herself up. The prosthetic arm is a little laggy and a little stiff, but works. She pins Devero in a stare like an old hawk. "How long has she been hurting you, Dev?"

Koumyou carefully, gently, takes the nearer of Devero's hands in his, offering support without interruption.

Devero squeezes Koumyou's bony fingers tight. He ducks his head and looks at his knees. "A long time," he admits. "...Years."

Chihyoon's lips thin, and he shifts uncomfortably when she doesn't respond right away. She focuses for a moment on sitting up the rest of the way, folding her bio leg beneath her and stretching the prosthetic out. She braces augment elbow on augment knee and puts her face into her hand.

"I-I'm sorry," Devero says, cringing away from her. "I--"

"Vices take me," she says, her bio hand curling into a fist against her thigh, "I fucking knew it."

That gets a little smile out of Koumyou, and a brief return squeeze of his fingers. "I think I like your boss, Dev."

Eyes wide, Devero looks between the two of them, before focusing his attention on Chihyoon. "You-- you did?"

"I had a hunch," she says, her voice gone bitter. "I didn't know for sure. But the way you got so spooky for a while there, if anyone asked you about your relationship with her-- and then you just got so quiet and started shutting everyone out--" She turns to rest her cheek in her augment hand and looks at him with hooded eyes.

"I'm sorry, Dev," she says. "I always meant to ask you what was going on, but the time wasn't ever right, and then you-- you...."

She sits up, glancing at them both now. "What happened to you? What's going on here?"

Koumyou spreads his hands with one of his dopiest smiles. "Extra-multiversal/dimensional space travel saving alien planets from catastrophe?"

The truth is often stranger than fiction, and as a result is usually easy to write off as a joke. All Dev has to do if he doesn't want Chihyoon in on what's going on, is act like Koumyou's bullshitting.

Dev's silence in the wake of that is telling. "You're shitting me," Chihyoon says flatly.

"It's hard to explain," Devero says, scratching the back of his neck and looking aware from her unimpressed stare. "Maybe if Adís were here...."

Chihyoon scoffs. "If Adís were here, she'd have hauled you both off to her office already and probably wouldn't let you leave. You know how she's obsessed with all that quantum stuff."

"True," Devero says with a huff. He glances at Koumyou, then rises to his feet and offers a hand down to Chihyoon. She takes it and he hauls her to her feet, then keeps a hold of her hand when she tries to pull away.

"Boss, listen," he says. "It's complicated and-- totally bonkers, honestly, but I swear we're not shitting you when we say its a multiversal thing. I got pulled into it unwillingly but I--"

Now he releases her hand, pausing to look down at Koumyou. He smiles faintly, and offers the hand to help him up next. "I'm in it for the long haul. The only reason we're here the way we are now is because of a technical issue with the vehicle we travel with."

"Oh, if we're not treating it like a joke," Koumyou rises gracefully to his feet from seiza, as the woman is hauled up, "the weird shit you were seeing earlier was real. The body in a coma is also real, and really his, and really isn't going to up and die. It's kind of in stasis? From what I gather? It really only gets weirder as you go."

Devero reaches out and pulls Koumyou in against his side, and nods.

Chihyoon looks at the two of them for a moment through narrowed eyes, the ticking of her mind as she considers everything visible on her face. Then she nods as well.

"All right," she says. "Theoretical physics is way outside my wheelhouse, so I'll take your word for it." Now her shrewd gaze zeros in on Koumyou alone. "Does that make you someone from another universe, then?"

Koumyou beams, "I'm a real space alien! Although maybe... not? I'm from a different Earth. A very different Earth. So it's complicated! Still a human, though."

A smile cracks through Chihyoon's otherwise fairly brusque demeanor. "A real space human alien, huh?" She touches her temple and then flicks the hand in Koumyou's direction, tossing her ID to the Interface he's wearing. When her own Interface flashes an error in response, she goes right back to frowning.

"It's a dummy," Devero explains sheepishly. "There's not a lot of tech where he comes from, so I gave him one of my old ones to wear while we're here. Chihyoon, this is Koumyou Sanzo. He's... we're going to make a family."

"Is that so?" she asks, arching an eyebrow.

"This is just to blend in a little," Koumyou agrees, and in response to that last bit, he lifts his left hand to show the ring on it.

She catches his hand and leans forward to examine it, before looking up and examining him more closely. "Hmm." Only then does she release his hand and straighten up.

"Tell me again what happened with Valdana?"

"We came to borrow Babysitter for a little search and rescue mission, and she came in behind us in the other room as soon as I came in here to clear it. I got between them, and I confronted her with a lot of secret shit she's done to Devero, and she didn't appreciate that very much."

Things like who set off the current bomb, and what ultimately happened to Valdana, he's not going to say unless Devero decides he should.

"Then she actually physically attacked you, and when that didn't stop you, she set off a current bomb and took off." When she glances at Devero for confirmation, he nods.

Chihyoon folds her arms and frowns thoughtfully, clicking the nails of his bio hand against the plating of her augment arm. "I've got strict instructions to subdue and turn in anyone entering this building who isn't supposed to be here," she says, "especially if their emID claims they're you, Dev."

Devero hisses in a breath between his teeth. "Boss--"

She cuts him off with a slice of a hand. "But I was distracted, you see, by the inexplicable EMP that went off, and rushed straight into my office to recover whatever surveillance data I could so it didn't get corrupted by any hardware damage. So if anything happens out here while I'm doing that...." She shrugs extravagantly. "Guess I've missed it."

"Oh, I definitely like your boss, Devero," Koumyou beams at them both. "She has excellent priorities."

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