No Place Like Home: Outside

[voidtreckermods]

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NO PLACE LIKE HOME: OUTSIDE

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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.

Comments

[its_dad_sanzo]

"Hey, Buttercup," Koumyou crouches down not unlike how he had the last time they'd talked on the platform. The invitation is there, if silent and perhaps secret, with his arms at his sides.

"Looks like the train booted some of us off on accident."

[knifewithnoname]

She steps closer to him, though her arms do not raise. She's not got quite that much confidence. But she is there, in the shadow of his arms.

"Why would it be doing that? I did no even be going through another platform?" There were no trains on her world, so how was she here?

[its_dad_sanzo]

"There seems to be a distance limit," Koumyou says, "I ran about a third of the way down off the mountain Kinzan temple was on, and then I was back here. Did you travel?"

[knifewithnoname]

"Yes." She wrinkled her nose. "I did be trying to be leaving the city."

And then she had been here. "So we can no even be going very far away?"

How had the train got it do wrong? "We do never normally be having that problem on missions."

[its_dad_sanzo]

The train had done it real, real wrong. Koumyou sighs, "I didn't even want to leave the train at all, but I got booted off too. And it won't let us back on."

It is, as she might put it, stupid. The whole situation.

[knifewithnoname]

"That do be being stupid." She sighed in frustration. "Did you be trying to be evacuating?" She squinted down at her SCA. Were they still working?

She figures Sanzo has already tried though, he's smart he will have tried every option.

[its_dad_sanzo]

Koumyou finally gives in and grabs her up for a hug! Tight, just like when they were parting.

"...I think everyone's tried that."

[knifewithnoname]

Even though she had stepped into range the hug still takes her a little by surprised. She returns it though, her arms encircling him and holding tight, taking comfort in him being there.

Not that he had answers, but it still felt better than being alone.

"It do be being like when the ministry did be capturing us..."

They couldn't evacuate then either, blocked from the train.

[its_dad_sanzo]

"I remember that," Koumyou agrees, then huffs out a sigh, "the train wouldn't let me leave that time. Now it won't let us back on."

Make up your mind, Choochoo-chan! Koumyou gives Buttercup an extra squeeze, then loosens his hold up.

"Well, I can't say I'm entirely disappointed this isn't working as intended. If we'd been stuck on our worlds..." now, he finally pulls away a bit to blink at her, "speaking of, did you get to do whatever it was you were duty-bound to do? Or was that why you were leaving the city?"

That would suck, dangling it just out of reach like that.

[knifewithnoname]

"The train do be being stupid, that do be being certain." Not able to decide or do anything right at all.

She tilted her head at him, her face becoming complicated. "I did be being gone a long time." She said, justifying it.

"So they do no really be needing me, so I did be trying to be going to the temple, in case they could still be using me but... I did be coming back here."

Lost, without purpose. It's not a good feeling.

[its_dad_sanzo]

"I don't think they deserved you anyway, Buttercup," Koumyou tells her gently. Even with his own warped view of what 'normal' is, not even bothering to name a kid, having her kill the sister she'd grown up with...

"Honestly, and I mean this with full sincerity... fuck those people."

He doesn't normally curse so openly, but it's called for here.

[knifewithnoname]

It was a strange way of putting it. They didn't deserve her. As if she was a thing to be deseeved. A thing people would want and could be deprived of if they weren't good enough.

She blinked at him, not so shocked by the language but the feeling behind it.

[its_dad_sanzo]

Koumyou smiles gently, having a good idea where her shock is coming from thanks to knowing the broad strokes of her history.

"No one is worthless, Buttercup. Good, evil, light, dark. Named, nameless. No one is no one."

It's one of the lessons even his son still holds to, it seems, having met the grown man on Diagad.

"And it doesn't matter what you do or don't do, you're still my kid. They had every chance and they squandered it. Their loss."

[knifewithnoname]

No one was worthless. No one was no one. What a concept. This more than anything else tugs against everything she understands to be true.

She would be his kid, no matter what she did? It seems false, wrong. But he's no liar.

She looks up at him, staring into his eyes. "Yes. It do be being their loss."

Was it his gain? Perhaps. She was useful. But for him to say such things, that she would be his regardless. It feels he has gotten a bad deal here.

[its_dad_sanzo]

Koumyou nods, "I'm glad you agree!"

He know she probably doesn't, not wholly. But it's a start.

"Besides, if you need a priest to need you, you're pretty set," Koumyou adds, reaching to ruffle her hair. "Do you want to show me that place, or are you pretty sick of it there? I've heard if someone leads someone else into the fog, they go to their world."

[knifewithnoname]

That more than anything makes something settle in her. He needed her. Those back in her world might not need her anymore. She had outlived her purpose there but here? Here she had a place and someone who saw her usefulness.

It was a good feeling. "If you do be wanting..." She frowned and then brightened. "I can be getting you honeycakes."

Clearly the only thing that world was good for now.

[its_dad_sanzo]

"Ohh? Then I think we must," Koumyou is immediately on board, it seems, rising to his feet and holding out a hand. "Lead the way!"

Not so much for the honeycakes, although that will be interesting too, since she likes them so much... but more, to see her fucked up world with his own eyes.

He's also from a fucked up world where kids sometimes don't get names from their owners; one of his only friends had been enslaved by his own parents for money. A lot of awful shit happens in Shangri-La.

But that doesn't mean Koumyou's going to cut any world like that any slack, his own very much included.

[knifewithnoname]

She jumped to her feet as well and took his hand smiling at him. She could show him around and they could eat honeycakes.

She led him towards the barrier, hand holding his tightly. She's not sure how this works but she doesn't want it to go wrong. When she's sure he's ready she presses her ticket to the barrier and leads him forwards.

[its_dad_sanzo]

And Koumyou just cheerfully trots on after her. To adventures!

(And maybe, unlike his visit to Dev's world, he won't even end up murdering anyone over there. Stranger things have happened.)