Breach!

[voidtreckermods]

Day twenty of the month of Domino starts as a perfectly normal day on the Voidtrecker express. Passengers work on chores, or play games, bicker and read. The usual ways of relieving the slight tedium that come with being stuck on a train. Even a train that is hurtling through the void.

It is about mid morning when the whole train tilts, suddenly as if it has been hit. It is enough to knock passengers over if they don’t catch themselves quick enough. For those in the games car there is a loud bang as something hits the window. A small black object is stuck in the window for a moment before it dislodges and disappears as quickly as it appears.

The window doesn’t smash but cracks appear around the impact site. Almost immediately sirens begin going off. "Breach. Breach. Warning. Breach."

Hopefully passengers will remember what they are to do in the event of such an incident. For anyone in the kitchen they will see that the oven, water and other appliances switch off. Doors begin closing around the train, in an attempt to seal carriages.

Those in the games carriage won’t see much of that, they will barely have time to register what has happened before they feel dizzy and sleepy, falling to the ground where they are. This spreads throughout the train, the further away a passenger is from the games car the longer they will have before they succumb but within fifteen minutes everyone on the train will be sleeping. Even including those who usually do not sleep or even those who cannot sleep.

Because this is no ordinary sleep.

For some passengers they will sleep the whole day and night, solidly and dreamlessly. But for others, for most, their sleep is anything but peaceful.

They will dream, strange, wonderful or terrible dreams and walk those dreams with their fellow passengers. Tumbling from one to another with no sense of where one ends and the other begins they will dream the whole day and night, though it will likely feel much longer and perhaps much shorter.

Their dreams may come from themselves, they may come from their fellow passengers and there are a few dreams that all may find themselves dreaming.

Infestation

The train is filled with dralite. They are everywhere, in every carriage. Flying through doors, in your bed. This dream takes the form of a stress dream, every time you think you have emptied a space of dralite there are more.

They aren’t aggressive creatures, just annoying and the ever shifting dream means that every time you remove one from hugging your head another appears. The train shifts and warps, carriages muddling as you move through it trying to contain all of the creatures.

A Distant Light

It is a dark night, though there are stars in the sky. In the distance there is a bonfire lighting up the area. Around it there are figures, they are too far away to make out any features but in the flickering light you can see they wear hoodies in the colours you know well by now.

There is the sound of singing and laughter and you want to approach. But no matter how long you walk the fire is always in the distance, never getting closer. You feel a great longing to be at the fire, but it is out of reach.

Flying

Flying is such a universal dream and so it is not surprising many of your dreams will incorporate this. You fly, over mountain, across rivers and seas, through forests and through the debths of space itself.

But most often you fly through the void, the ever shifting void around you, diving through colours that swirl and dance around you.

Dream well Void warriors!

(OOC: The plotting and information post is here. Characters will wake up on day 21 and there will be an ooc mod post detailing that on the 10th February.)

Comments

[unfavorableinstigation]

Nita looks around, trying to focus in on Ivy before responding.

"I think I did, too? But- when was the last time you saw a train?"

She can imagine one - different ones, even; sleek and modern versus old diesel style - but maybe this girl (still 'hauntingly' familiar) hasn't seen one outside of the dream before?

[yep_stilldead]

"I don't think I've ever seen a train." There's almost no inflection to her voice. "It was just a dream. I never left the cave."

[unfavorableinstigation]

Okay, philosophy she can do.

"How would you know it was a train, then, if you hadn't seen one before?"

Nita points this out politely, even as she seems unable to bring anything to color the dream, or prove her point...

[yep_stilldead]

"How should I know! Maybe I made it up!"

She's a chaotic mix of misery, anger, and fear. "I probably even made you up! I'm going to be stuck here for all eternity!"

[unfavorableinstigation]

"... Why?"

Nita supposes she should get angry in turn - she knows about what happens to those lost in visions, and a little about those who are stuck in isolation, and the idea of being nothing more than a thought should terrify and disturb her - but she finds herself calm.

Determined, but calm.

"Why here?"

[yep_stilldead]

"Why not here?"

Although she's decided Nira is another hallucination, sometimes hallucinations make for good company for a while.

"This is where the doll happened to end up. So, this is where I'm gonna be forever. That's all there is to it."

[unfavorableinstigation]

Nita frowns, then stands up.

"I'm gonna talk to the doll, then. See if it knows what it's doing to you, keeping you here."

She has enough belief in her ability to do that, even if the doll won't move.

[yep_stilldead]

"It won't have anything to say, but go ahead. It's just a doll."

She's just a hallucination, so what business is it of Ivy's what sort of inanimate objects she talks to?

[unfavorableinstigation]

Nita gets up - up, though it's as if her very muscles don't want her to - and goes on over, touching the doll without intent to move it.

/Hey. Why'd you both come here? Don't you have anything to say for yourself?/

For the first time since entering the cave, Nita looks angry.

[yep_stilldead]

The doll's voice is faint and distorted... either from centuries of gathering dust, or from its nature as a fixture of a dream.

/Hey... do you know where... Mother is...? I brought her comfort... but she's been away... for so long.../

[unfavorableinstigation]

Nita sighs, low and careful.

/I might be able to track her, but we'd have to leave this cave to do it./

[yep_stilldead]

/Where is she... my mother... my dear Ivy.../

Apparently it isn't speaking literally when it says 'mother'.

[unfavorableinstigation]

Nita looks up, forcing herself to meet the ghost's gaze.

/Somewhere she won't be free, and won't enjoy./

[yep_stilldead]

/It's been so long... Ivy... where are you.../

The doll's aimless ramble continues, more or less ignoring Nita. Ivy, on the other hand, is starting to take interest. "Are you actually talking to it? What's it saying?"

[unfavorableinstigation]

Nita shakes her head, more out of disappointment with the doll than anything.

"I... I think it misses you? And cares about you."

She doesn't mention the doll calling Ivy 'Mother' - that bit was weird, even to her.

[yep_stilldead]

Ivy stands up, walks over, and kicks the doll with great force. Her foot goes right through it, and it doesn't move.

"I'm RIGHT HERE, you stupid doll! I'm here, and I hate you! I never want to see you again!"

[unfavorableinstigation]

... Nita's not sure if that counts as a breakthrough, or a really bad move, but 'somewhere inbetween' seems unlikely just now.

"I think," she says slowly, "I can help with that."

Cloaking, she can do - but that's not going to solve the problem, here, as far as she knows.

[yep_stilldead]

"Can you? Go ahead, then."

She isn't getting her hopes up.

[unfavorableinstigation]

Nita stands - fighting for every inch along the way - and points all of her focus at the doll.

Gently, coaxingly, she tells the air and stone that they can be both here and there, that they can be more than just what they appear to be.

That they can make it appear as if this patch of ground doesn't exist. A new formation, after all this time! Isn't that neat?

[yep_stilldead]

"Wha--"

Ivy floats over to look at the new layer of rock over her nemesis. "You... did it? You did it! You've freed me!"

Throwing caution to the wind, she then hurls herself towards the exit of the cave, only to collide with the edge of her movement radius like usual, face-first.

[unfavorableinstigation]

"This is a literal interpretation for now," Nita says, after some exhausted panting.

"I could take it to the next level - but I'm not sure what that would do to you."

Since it'd be literally cutting it out of this space.

Something that, back home, would take a blank-cheque wizardry to even get approved, let alone the amount of force required to make the shift take... And then - would Ivy disappear? Be cast out of space? Or would the thread be severed?

[yep_stilldead]

"What does that mean? What's it going to do, kill me? I'm afraid it's a bit too late for that."

Your sense of self-preservation goes right out the window when you die.

[unfavorableinstigation]

Nita's gaze lingers on Ivy.

"... You deserve to see more than just this space ever again, that's for sure. But if you stop existing, you won't get to see any of it, either."

Nita takes one wearied step after another, stopping in front of the warped space. A few extra words in the Speech and it turns opaque.

"I can try turning it and the stone underneath into a contiguous unit. You think that might break the tether?"

[yep_stilldead]

"I suppose it might. Or maybe I'll just disappear. Either one's better than spending one more minute in this cave, so fire away."

Her voice carries absolutely no confidence in Nita's chances.

[unfavorableinstigation]

Nita looks forlornly at Ivy for a moment - before shaking her head clear, filling up with renewed energy and determination.

"Come on. I'll need to write out the diagram for this one. You can be in it too, if you want; give it that much more punch."