VoidTrecker Express Mods (
voidtreckermods) wrote in
middleofsomewhere2022-02-20 06:09 am
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Entry tags:
- !event,
- allen walker [crau],
- esteban drake [ou],
- inigo [ou],
- jin ling (mdzs) [crau],
- kairi [ou],
- lan sizhui [ou],
- little one [ou],
- romeo [crau],
- shadow link [crau],
- sonya blade [ou],
- taiki [ou],
- thanatos [ou],
- tidus [ou],
- yugi mutou [ou],
- ~x~bucky barnes [crau],
- ~x~jin ling [crau],
- ~x~k'zeka tia [ou]
No Place Like Home: The Return
NO PLACE LIKE HOME: THE RETURN
a silence broken...

"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."
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.There is an additional note at the end, in different font.
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.
... a short-lived dream

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
no subject
"Since it happened on my star while your counterpart was present, I would say your absence has changed little in this course of events," he finally says with a fair amount of confidence. "Rather, I feel it safe to say it was my absence which led to this outcome."
The Ascian offers it in a pragmatic way. It's not condemnation; it just is because of the nature of where he and the Warrior of Light stood regarding the fate of their star. Though with a short nod of his head, Elidibus allows. "Or should I say my counterpart, should you and the Crystal Exarch have sealed him in Syrcus Tower before you returned from the First."
no subject
It was a little disappointing that they couldn't seal all the other Ascians the same way, but then again, none of the rest managed to get themselves conveniently near the tower.
"That's...good." In a way. "...Give me the bad news, then, or else I'll think of every other possible horrible scenario anyroad."
*hand and talk gestures, ftb and fade-in to suggest time passes* EW Spoilers
"After I was sealed, the one who holds the seat of Fandaniel made his move...-"
And thus calmly the ancient being begins to relate the tale as it was told him. The nature of the towers, of Zenos and Fandaniel's plan. The journey to the moon. And Zodiark...
There is more, carefully laid out. The culmination of events which ended... will end for K'zeka's world... in the return of the Final Days.
"That you've returned before much of this has unfolded in your reality... I can't say what will change. But that is the tale I was told."
Elidibus looks to K'zeka.
"I told you this was not kind. Much of what I've related to you depended on your future presence. And it seems the ability to speak to me, the last of the Unsundered."
Which would require someone able to travel from the Source to the First. And there was only one who could perform such a feat.
no subject
Zenos is still around and has allied himself with whoever Fandaniel is. Clearly an Ascian--they and the Allagans seem to be the root of all the problems he's had and continue to have. The towers are confirmed as dangerous, and Zodiark is...less dangerous than he's made out to be?
The Final Days. It was awful going through a simulacrum of them down in Amaurot, and the thought of them happening in the present day is terrifying. And this is what the Warrior of Elidibus' world experienced, meaning K'zeka himself should experience--should have experienced some of this already--had he not been pulled onto the train.
It doesn't seem as real when it's told through someone else, though. More of a 'what if', a possible future. K'zeka's not discounting it by any means, though he's quiet for a while after Elidibus is done talking.
He may be the one with the title of Warrior of Light or Warrior of Darkness, but there are other adventurers out there as capable as he should they be needed. There are others blessed by Hydaelyn who just haven't stepped up to make a name for themselves that could be called upon in his absence. The Scions are a more than capable group and were before he wandered into their midst. Maybe he can contact the Void Ministry somehow and tell them to keep an eye on Fandaniel and the Zenos of his version of the world; surely they could help somehow.
Maybe.
He pulls himself out of his thoughts, compacting the worries into a neat little compartment in the back of his mind he'll surely visit later when he's a bit less overwhelmed.
"I trust you aren't lying, but all of that sounds too...amazing to be truth. Visiting the moon? And the Final Days...they've only just been set in motion back home, but...there will be a solution, there must be." Optimism!
Which quickly deflates. "So we're buggered if I'm here."
EW Spoilers Intensify
But even that aside, Elidibus would not be so malicious as to be pleased by such torment. That is why when K'zeka struggles to come to terms, he is patient then as well, even through the implication that the Ascian might have been lying.
Closing his eyes, Elidibus contemplates the hypothetical placed before him, weighing what he knows with what the miqo'te wants to know.
"I can't say for certain. The purpose of the towers created by Fandaniel is to gather aether to break the seal on Lord Zodiark's prison. Your allies may be capable of delaying this on their own."
Find someone else that has the Blessing of the Light, make progress on the talismans? And it's likely only a stopgap measure. And dependant on so many factors; one of which was how close Fandaniel and Zenos came to destroying the seal even with Eorzea's Champion at the helm.
"Ultimately I can only tell you what was passed to me. And that it's unlikely events were sorely changed by my time on the Voidtrecker Express." He would have been sealed and unable to affect anything if he weren't here. It's nearly the same impact on events, unlike K'zeka's position.
Quietly, Elidibus offers, "I know the Warrior of Light succeeds in making it to a time when my star was still Unsundered." His eyes open, though he's not looking at K'zeka. "I remember him there." A restored memory. A fleeting wonder and utterly precious to the Ascian. "But I do not know if he succeeds in finding what he searches for."
He looks up at his visitor with a grave expression. "Do what you will with this information. Whether you choose to hope you make it back in time to set things right, trust in your allies to rise to the occasion or involve the Void Ministry in the plight of your reality. But if Lord Zodiark is destroyed, the Final Days will return to your star. And Fandaniel aims to make it so."