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

"That's closer, but that's still heaven involved, and then the god has to name you. With family, they're just there."

"Just always?" He thought about that. He had wondered, of course he had. If he had once had a family, if there had been people like that back when he was alive.

It's not a safe thought, especially not when anchoring his god through the pulsing colours of the void. So he's quiet for a moment, wondering.

"Did you have a family sir? Before you became a book?"

"I had some younger brothers. With my Netherworld destroyed, they're gone with it, so one more reason I need to wish it back."

This conversation was definitely helping HIM focus. So long as he could avoid getting lost in his own thoughts, he'd be fine.

"Oh." His brothers had been destroyed as well? Well that was even more reason to help him get it back!

"You must miss them a lot! Did you like having brothers?"

He's trying to imagine other Zetta's here... Smaller Zetta's.

"They were total pains in the ass! Freeloading off of me, getting in my way! I couldn't stand them!"

Romeo probably didn't even need to be linked to Zetta in any special way to understand that his answer was a clear 'yes'.

He missed them a lot. He can tell and he smiles softly. "We'll get them back! I promise!"

He had no power to make such promises. But between them they could do anything.

"Of course we will! Once I restore my Netherworld they'll be back too. And they'd better be grateful!" As if it weren't all Zetta's fault to begin with.

"I am sure they will be! They will be glad to see you!"

He was very sure of that. They would be very grateful!

"They'd better not be! I'm not going to accept their gratitude! They'll have to BEG for ways to repay me!"

"That's not very nice though! They shouldn't have to repay you at all."

After all its not their fault they got lost.

Zetta went silent for a moment.

"Kid... even if you're being a total dweeb of a nice guy like you always are, if you don't value what you do, you don't value yourself."

They always share a bond but right now it is stronger, emotions pass freely between them and Zetta would feel a wave of indignation coming from his shinki.

"I'm not a dweeb!"

"Yeah, you totally are, with the goody two-shoes attitude and the perpetual optimism and all. That's just how you are, don't fight it!"

This was definitely what they should be arguing about, here and now.

"I'm not a good two-shoes either!"

He's not! Is he? Zetta thinks he is? But he said he shouldn't fight it. So was it a good thing?

At least the indignation is giving him something else to think about, to prevent him from drowning in the sea of Zetta.

"Wha-- name ONE time you've had a selfish or evil thought! EVER! Despite all my best attempts to encourage them!!"

If you're gonna have a title, own the title, damn it!

"Um... I wanted to eat the last bit of cake even though not everyone had any yet. That was selfish!"

He hadn't but he had wanted to.

"And did you do the slightest thing about it, or did you immediately feel bad about thinking that?" Zetta returned.

"It was bad. I felt bad about it..."

But he hadn't done it.

"Right. Exactly. You can't even have a normal vaguely selfish thought without feeling bad about it. You're a total dweeb."

And Zetta couldn't even be prejudicial about the word. Romeo was Romeo.

"Maybe..." He sighed. "Is that a really bad thing though?"

Now he's feeling guilty about feeling guilty.

Because... "Do you get hurt a lot when I feel bad about things?"

"Naw, it's just a twinge." As far as Romeo was concerned, he needed to think it was a normal twinge, not a twinge that deserved to be acknowledged as such by the most badass freaking Overlord in the entire cosmos. "Still, you gotta learn it's okay to think like that sometimes!"

Even a twinge wasn't good, but he was glad he didn't hurt Zetta. That would be bad!

"Do you think so? It just feels bad." He sighed. He could try.

Heh, yeah... heh heh... eh.

"I'll put it in a way even you can get behind. You have to put yourself first sometimes. Otherwise, even if you want to help everybody, you don't have the strength!"

I guess so. That's a good point. If we get hurt then we can't help anyone at all.

[He sighed. It's tricky!]

"Right. So accept it's okay to want things for yourself! Everyone's a little selfish now and then!"

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