Tickets Please

[voidtreckermods]

"Good Morning Passengers, today is day twenty five of the month of Bassoon." Waking up in their beds as always to the announcement passengers will feel a little strange. The hairs on the back of their necks are standing up. If they have any kind of danger sense it is going haywire. They have a moment before a second announcement shines some light on the strange feeling.

"Attention passengers, we have been boarded by inspectors. Please may all passengers have tickets and passes ready for inspection. Please try and stay calm." Calm may be harder for some than others. The feeling can be rationalised, it is similar to the air of expectation at the start of a horror film, or a scary ride. However rationalisation might not last that long as when characters try to leave their cabins they will find the doors are locked. They are trapped.

If anyone has lingered in the gaps between carriages for any length of time they will have no doubt heard the strange sound that can be heard sometimes, almost like faint choral singing. Now it can be heard in the carriages itself. Still faint, but if they are quiet they can hear it in the distance. Almost a cross between singing and crying. Sometimes loud, sometimes barely a murmur but ever present.

The feeling of danger intensifies, heavy footsteps sound outside in the corridors and a heavy breathing, as if coming from a mask. The footsteps move towards the first cabin of the first sleeper carriage and the door slides open...

[OOC information is here.]

Comments

Cabin 2:A

[voidtreckermods]

Footsteps sound outside, heavy and foreboding. The door is locked, it seems for now you only have each other for company.

[so_dark_a_road]

Curufin wakes and springs out of his bunk when he hears the foreboding footsteps. He grabs the door handle and finds it tightly locked. He grabs for his tool kit and tries to jimmy the door open, but this doesn't work, much to his disgust. Then he backs up and tries for a roundhouse kick. There is a crash, but still the door doesn't open. He curses in Elvish and then in Dwarvish.

[internetsexsymbol]

Reigen doesn't need an authentic sixth sense to tell him that something in the train is clearly dangerous. The fact that Curufin's best efforts aren't getting the door open isn't really reassuring either.

"Shit. Are we stuck here?" He tries to keep down the anxiety in his voice, but how loud those footsteps outside are aren't helping. "Well...maybe that's a good thing. Do we really wanna be with whatever's out there?"

[so_dark_a_road]

Curufin chuckles wryly. "I can't tell what sort of being is out there. It stomps like it has metal boots. Maybe you're right; maybe we don't want to be out there with it. And anyway, what's this ticket inspection? Why do we need to be boarded by ticket inspectors? Where's the doubt that our tickets are authentic? Didn't the train itself take care of that?"

He's still looking disgusted. And then he cocks his head. "What's that singing?"

[afterburner]

"I don't hear any singing..." Then again, Renee's just...her, and anything more metaphysical is a bit beyond her. She isn't happy, it's clear, with the way she keeps clenching and unclenching her fists, but for the moment, she's not doing anything more than that.

And she's made absolutely sure that she's got her inhibitor bracelet on, just for safety's sake. Less her own, and more her roommates'...

[unholyandbroken]

"No singing, but bad vibes are off the charts." Jessie observed with smokes and lighter in hand. She had planned on a simple smoke break,"Its off kilter." hiding just how close to a flare she is.

[internetsexsymbol]

"I agree. The air's practically suffocating with them." He sighs, and tries to strain to hear the singing Curufin is talking about. "What's even the point of passing inspection? It's not like they can kick us out, right?"

[so_dark_a_road]

Maybe Curufin's Elvish ears are picking up the sound of singing where mortal ears wouldn't. He doesn't know. Just that the singing is unnerving. Likewise the bad vibes.

"I certainly hope they can't kick us out. I really wouldn't want to go falling through the Void, and I bet none of you would either!"

Inspector (All cabin mates respond as one thread please)

[voidtreckernpcs]

After almost two hours of growing dread and fear there is a click and the door to Cabin A slides open. Filling the doorway are two huge figures, around seven foot tall and bulky. The are in large metal suits, almost like power armour. Black with highlights of gold. They wear a mask that covers their whole face. It is impossible to see the figure inside at all. Their breathing comes through heavy and raspy, footsteps heavy.

They step in. Their presence makes the room feel smaller. The door begins to slide shut.

[so_dark_a_road]

Curufin spends some of that two hours sitting on his bunk making desultory conversation and some of it standing by the door with his ear pressed to it, listening to the sounds outside. He can hear those things walking around and the hiss of doors opening and closing, and he can still hear that strange singing.

When the door to 2:A suddenly slides open, he leaps backwards but places himself between those metal-clad figures and his cabin-mates. If they mean any harm, they'll have to get through him to get to anybody else. He whips out a goblin knife and the sword he borrowed from one of those city-dwellers but never gave back because he couldn't find the man later. "What do you want?" he demands of those metallic beings.

[voidtreckernpcs]

"Your tickets." The answer is spoken but all those in the cabin will also hear it in their minds, unless they have ways to block such communication out.

"Disarm yourselves." It is more than an order, a wish to obey grips into them. Curufin will feel the urge to drop the weapons. It can be fought against, of course much like the fear.

[afterburner]

Renee isn't trying to encourage trouble--for once. It's an interesting state of affairs, when normally, all she wants to do is throw down. Save normally, she's off the train. And she's well aware that the train seems to have its own defenses.

Gritting her teeth, the dread that's been gnawing at her nerve endings? She forces that down, even as the inspectors' mental orders get thrown off, too. Disarm herself?

"I can't disarm myself! I've done what I can!" So she says, lifting the wrist with the inhibitor bracelet on it to show them. Thankfully she's also got her ticket in that hand--with the hope that these inspectors will focus on that, on her, rather than the others. Unless they vaporize her, whatever they dish out? Renee figures she can take it.

[unholyandbroken]

Jessie slips her lighter into her pocket for now and ticket comes out. But she's gone scary quiet, she was getting serious vibes of her grand mother and Angelville. She was also sure a return to the coffin was in store if not a perfect robot but her secret was in full bloom.

Severe claustrophobia.

[internetsexsymbol]

"Ghh..." A shiver runs down Reigen's spine as he fishes through his pockets for his ticket. He notices he also has a bag of salt in there...would that even work against whatever these are, though? For now, he pulls out his ticket and tries to keep control on his breathing despite his pounding heartbeat. His roommates are already nervous enough, especially Jessie.

"Haha...so, what's up with the sudden inspection? Some evil void demons get on the train or something?" He chats up the masked figures about as casually as he can manage. Thank god he has a good poker face.

[so_dark_a_road]

Curufin doesn't drop the weapons, but he fishes his ticket out of his pocket and holds it up in the inspectors' faces. "This good enough for you?"

[voidtreckernpcs]

One of the figures looks over at Renee and nods, clearly her not currently attacking them is enough. They move over to take the ticket out of her hand and moves to place it in a slot in their arm.

However Reigen's question has them pause before slotting it in. "There has been an anomaly recorded. It is highly unusual. An inspection was necessary, we do not believe..."

Not too far away the second inspector had stepped closer to Curufin, they were ignoring the ticket for now. "Drop your weapons." Everyone in the cabin would feel an urge to surrender, to obey and get this inspection over with as quickly as possible.

[so_dark_a_road]

Curufin watches closely as the armored figure takes Renee's ticket and sticks it in the arm-slot. Some modern recognition technology, no doubt.

"What anomaly?" he asks. "We're all just ordinary people here, trying to go about our business." The VoidTrekker's business, that is. And ordinary people? Sure, right.

He does feel that compulsion to obey the command, but he still doesn't trust that these officials mean no one any harm. What are they? Where have they come from? He looks up at the one that has stepped close to him, and though he lowers his weapons, he still doesn't drop them. He's fast, he can have them up again in a split second.

[voidtreckernpcs]

"Drop your weapons or we shall be required to take action."

The command comes with force. Almost painful to anyone who doesn't have mental shields or ways to avoid such commands.

The inspector stepped closer to Curufin, ready.

[internetsexsymbol]

"Take action? Oi, leave him alone--" Reigen steps forward to back Curufin up before the force of the command freezes him in place. Despite his bravado, he has no actual defenses against these kind of abilities.

"C-come on...there's no need for that. No one here is the anomaly...I'd be the first to know with my abilities..." Unfortunately, whatever force the inspectors have isn't working on Reigen's mouth.

[voidtreckernpcs]

"You are all an anomaly." There's a sharp silence after that, as if it were a thing that had not meant to be said. A silence from both the inspectors though the force of the wish to surrender is still high. After a moment the second inspector speaks, a command of their own.

"Drop your weapons and comply. Tickets in hands. All of you."

[so_dark_a_road]

Curufin glances around at Reigen with a small smile, grateful for the intent to back him up even if the force of the command makes that impossible. Not everyone has defenses against mental powers such as these mechanical-suit-clad whatever they are seem to have. Curufin does, though.

"What do you mean, we are ALL an anomaly?" he now demands, very suspicious indeed.

He waves his ticket in the face of the inspector who is nearest him. "Right here, as you said. This is my ticket. Everything's in order."

[voidtreckernpcs]

"You are still holding weapons. Drop them now or we shall use force." The threat is backed up by another rush of wish to surrender. Heavy, a force meant to flatten the wilful.

Both inspectors shifted slightly, both facing Curufin now, gold and black eyes staring at him unrelentingly.

[internetsexsymbol]

"Hold on--" Another ungodly shiver goes through Reigen's body, and suddenly even breathing feels like it's taking far too much effort. He feels like he's going to be sick. At this point he'll do anything to make these things just go away.

"All of us? That-that doesn't make sense! The train's the thing that's an anomaly..." Reigen is just babbling at this point to make up for the fact that he can't move to oppose these figures and how much that freaks him out. He holds out the ticket a little further away from his body to make up for the fact that his hands are shaking.

"We're just mostly regular people who got abducted by a flying locomotive run by some jerk who's never heard of hired help and stuffs people in suitcases for fun! You've...you've got your stupid tickets, just go..." He points with his free hand. "And what's with the tacky masks? I don't trust someone who won't let me see their face!"

[voidtreckernpcs]

One of the inspectors did not move, eyes trained on Curufin. Ready to move if he didn't drop his weapons. The second however moved towards Reigen and reached out to take the ticket from his shaking hands. They slotted it into a gap in the arm of the armour and waved a hand over Reigen, a faint green light washing over him.

"Arataka Reigen. Twenty eight years of age. Correct cabin. Began service twenty five void days ago. Time in void has been eighteen days with seven days on world 25768. Is this information correct?" And then a moment later. "Explain the words 'abducted by a flying locomotive'."

[internetsexsymbol]

Reigen flinches at the green light over him. How much information did that ticket have on him? "Uh--correct!" Is that how he's supposed to respond? "Explain the--the train! The train's a locomotive, it flies through the void! And I didn't ask to come here, so I've basically been kidnapped!"