middleofsomewhere | No Place Like Home: The Return

NO PLACE LIKE HOME: THE RETURN

a silence broken...

It's been a very difficult few days. Rocking and rolling into the void and out again. Watching their friends out of the window as they wander from world to world. Meanwhile those lost on worlds continue to wander unable to return to the train at all.

"All attempts at returning those who left have failed. This voidcraft cannot do it alone. It is lucky that unlike those that have left before them, I can still sense them.

But I cannot bring them back alone. This is perhaps too advanced for Voidtreckers, but you have done the improbable before. You say you wish to help. This is how you help."

Their SCA's light up with a message. Or rather, a series of instructions:

In the unlikely event a tether gets stranded on a liminal space platform or between their own world and the platform space, you should, in the first instance, contact the Void technicians who monitor their non-travelling self. However, in the case they cannot be reached or there is a mass displacement of tether, an anchoring procedure can be carried out.

Ideally, this will involve two fully tethered individuals to retrieve the lost tether. One should be a stationary anchor. They should be outside of their void craft, if possible, and in physical contact with it. The second should be a roaming anchor reaching to draw the tethers back. In situations of mass tether displacement the stationary anchor can hold mutiple roaming anchors but it is recommended to not exceed five. In this situation, it is recommended that anchors rotate between stationary and roaming.

To start an anchoring of this kind, those anchoring should activate their anchoring program. Those staying station should reach out to the tethers of those they plan to steady. This might cause some emotional upheaval, and they will need to stay steady, especially if connecting to more than one roaming tether. Roaming anchors then must hold the person they search for in their thoughts and move towards them. It is recommended that the lost tethers activate their emergency beacon to facilitate being found and returning but this is not a necessity.

Once the roaming anchor has found the lost tethers they must keep hold of them and guide them back towards their craft, the stationary tethers must draw them back, pulling them through.

There is an additional note at the end, in different font.

It is as Anan told you. Your minds should visualise it. Be strong Voidtreckers.

... a short-lived dream

The doors open and anyone who wishes to try this can leave onto the platform. It is empty, devoid of the figures they had seen before; and, beyond the fog, devoid of anything. But searching requires their SCAs, not a path, and as people get into teams, they can activate their anchors and begin.

For those who will roam, their minds become filled, visualising light, void, voices and chaos; their bodies feel less stable, like they might unravel if not careful. But for those who will stay, when they touch the Voidtrecker Express, they will feel more stable, grounded. The fog shifts, but the world moves around them without pulling them in.

Thinking of the person they wish to keep stable, a mental and emotional link will be established, and they will feel each other as the roaming anchor sets off to find their missing crew.

Outside the train...
For those that had left - either by choice or by strange happenings - they have found themselves back at their anchor point during Poi 26, regardless of where they were before. For those unfortunate enough not to have a world to return to, or those who were stuck between in the first place, they will find themselves alone, in a fog filled space where no matter how far they walk, nothing greets them.

All those in fog or back in their world receive the same message from their SCAs.

Hold fast. Press your evacuation button. Your friends come.

RETURNERS: FLEETING HAPPINESS

But it's likely before the message arrived, that something wrong has been noticed by those outside the void. More than the bizarre ability to travel between existences, an inability to move far from where they appear. Back at their anchor points, they may notice - in time - colours sometimes flash across the sky, streaking through clouds or making trails in a night sky. At first not much, something to be easily dismissed but it builds. People talk, wonder at what is happening.

For the colours aren't the only thing. Across worlds, in cities, kingdoms, villages, underworlds and space stations, people are dreaming. Bright colours, vivid dreams. Prophets spring from nowhere, people claim to know the future or to have seen the past. Some talk of places and worlds they could not have seen.

Perhaps at first it can be explained away, there are always such people. But more people talk, from urchin children to commanders, people dream and the colours dance.

ANCHORERS: A STEADY HAND

While the stationeries will feel grounded, they aren't blind to what's happening to their roamer. It's as if they're both linked, intimately, meshing together, and they will need to work to keep their feelings separate; hearing each other's thoughts, their feelings. Images of what the other thinks and memories shared between them.

And then there is the search for their teammates, amongst the multiple of realities. Existences move past the roamer, threatening to lose them in the mess, but they must persevere, keep their thoughts on the individual, their stationary anchor to help them. Until finally, they appear - in a world they perhaps know, don't, the kaleidoscope colours of the void faint above their heads.

Speak to each other, keep each other focused, certain, and find who you came to save.

BOTH: HOLDING ON

Searching for individuals, the anchorers will find themselves at a character's anchor point; if they haven't moved far from here or another world, it will be easy to locate them. Now is the time to convince them to come back, and then the eventual work of doing so.

It can be in agreement, or force. Taking a hold of the person, the anchorer can pull them into the mass of chaos. Just like when they helped the guests return to their worlds from the false Diagad, all parties become battered by images, voices. Voices like sirens; 'Just stay,' the voices encourage. 'Just let go and drift into the chaos. It will be easier.'

But they must be strong, move towards their anchor and towards the craft. The crossing doesn't take too long, perhaps ten minutes each way, and once they get to the craft the person they are rescuing glows gold and vanishes. The anchors will know instinctively that they are safe on the train.

And indeed, the rescued will find themselves within the luggage carriage - exhausted, but safe.

TRAIN: AN INEVITABLE RETURN

Exhaustion is something all parties will experience, once everyone is returned to the train and the adrenaline wears off. Those who anchored will be hit with a total exhaustion, leaving them unable to do much more than eat and sleep for a few days. Those rescued won't be as bad, but if they decide to join in with the efforts, they'll too face the soul-tiring experience that other anchorers are.

There's likely to be efforts, to help soothe people over this time. And as people return to their life on the train, they will see the marks of the last few days for those who stayed behind. Broken ceramics, books out of order in the library; the ICPs in the standard coach, storage, sports and games carriages broken, and some damage to furniture.

But for the scars brought on by this event, surely, they will heal - eventually.

OOC NOTES

OOC post. Ask questions here. New second part OOC post here.

First phase of the event took place during Poi 22 to 25; the second phase takes place during Poi 26 to 28 (20-25th February).

VISITING WORLDS: While during Poi 26, it will be possible to go back to wherever they were, or other spaces. However, they will have increasing difficulty doing this, and will feel themselves getting more lost if they try world hopping too much over the next 3 (void) days. It's like something is trying to pull them back, or pull them, but into nowhere.

SCAs: The SCA's comms will not be active at this time.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There's a bit of a snicker as Esteban turns back to stare at the street he'd just crossed, a hand rubbing at the back of his head as he looks at the people in their strange boxes cursing up a storm.

Oops. They moved a lot faster than he had thought they could-- and Esteban trained horses on occasion when his fire spinning skills weren't enough. He pauses in his panting long enough to shout a "Sorry!" over the crowd, and though they seem grumpy, it's almost as if-- he doesn't matter in the next ten seconds. What an odd place.

But yes! Here he is! He found Jake, and when his companion starts speaking, Esteban turns his attention back to him again, gathering the last of his rushed breath into steadier patterns.

Hmm. Loaded question.

But close enough to the truth. Esteban's grin dims a bit as he watches his companion, truly not wanting to rip him away from his own world-- there's a lot he wishes he could see, and even the brief, brief glimpses he gets of it make him curious enough to have infinite questions. But now is... not the time to linger. Not the time to stay. His head shifts to the side, as he watches Jake, truly worried for him even if he's glad to find him again.

"Yeah. You okay?" Well. Loaded question back, he supposes. "We can't... leave you here. The tethers're still there, an' the train--" Well... They are all tied to it. For better or worse.

Jake pauses to take a breath. No, he's not happy about that news, but with the beeping on his SCA and the growing disturbances in the sky he'd accepted it.

"...it's fine. I'll go. Someone has to keep this world safe, and it might as well be me."

He shifts his bag on his shoulder. "So...we're going now, then?"

Esteban is sorry that there's no easy goodbyes to this, that Jake has to steel himself for what comes next. He doesn't quite know how to convey his empathy other than squeezing the other's shoulder, trying to give him a bit of a grin, even as apologetic as he is.

"Then your world's in good hands, yeah?" It feels like it's falling too short, even as he tries. He never finds the right words to say, and the days behind him have made him that much more inept at it-- too stressed and worried and tired to manage much more than a weak pat and a smile. So Esteban gives up words, and goes for a hug instead, a quick squeeze to offer the best comfort he can.

"You'll get back here. We're all gonna get back t' our worlds at some point." If he's caught onto anything lately, it's that there is progress; the train had tried to send them home after all, and though it ended up in failure, wasn't it proof enough that it wanted their wellbeing? That it wanted, if it could, to send them home?

They'd just have to hold on, just a bit longer.

Jake is resigned to his fate. He has to go, for the safety of everyone he loves...but boy does it suck. He wishes he had time to speak to all the squad again. But there's never enough time. It hurts, so the hug's appreciated. Jake squeezes back.

"Okay. Just gimme a sec to send a message." He whips out his phone, the last time it'll be useful to him for quite a while, and places a quick call.

"Damnit, no answer...goes to machine...Ames?"

Deep breath. He can get through this.

"Babe, it's me. I wish you'd pick up---you're probably really busy keeping things running. That's why I love you. But there's no easy way to say what I have to. You might've guessed, with all the weird colors and dangers, but I can't stay. I have to go back to the void. I'm so sorry."

A little frustration creeps into his voice, but he presses on. "There's something big out there threatening not just our world, but all the others too. All those big worlds I told you about? They're real. And I'm going to save them. And somehow...I'll come back. As soon as I can. But my soul's still tied up out there, I literally cannot stay. And I'm so, so sorry. I love you. Tell the squad I love them too. Yeah, even Hitchcock and Scully I guess.

I'll be back."

He shuts it off with a deep sigh. He's really doing this, huh...one more look at Esteban, and a nod. "I'm ready. How do we go back?"

He's just gonna look at his city street one last time.

Leaving home... is hard.

Esteban can't really... relate. Not right now, not anymore-- he'd been on the road for far too long, hasn't had a home in years, but. But.

It feels; he's not sure it's just... It can't be a goodbye. Not like this. Not this quiet, this gentle sorrow. He wishes he had another way, something to brighten up the grey, and even though he struggles, it goes against his nature not to try.

"Hey Ames!" He'd say he's sorry, but it's the only name he knows them by. And 'Dians, his voice is loud when he wants it to. "I'm one of Jake's friends! We're goin' to learn to make pizza from scratch t'gether, so y' better ask him to make it when he comes back, okay?~"

And that's that. He has still not learned how to hang up on a far-speaker device, but... well, he tried. Maybe it was out of line, maybe it was rude and painful for Jake to hear it, but... he couldn't not try. Not for Jake's sake. Not for-- whoever he was calling. He tries to offer a shoulder squeeze and a grin.

"We said we would, didn't we?" Back, way back when Esteban had just arrived. They still haven't, but the half-elf is determined. They absolutely will this time around. Now Jake has to learn, so that he can come back and bake it for Ames.

No Place Like Home: The Return

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if he slipped that before or after the call ended, it's up to you~