Event: Expulsion (Day 24)

[voidtreckermods]

"Good morning passengers, today is the twenty fourth day of the month of Apple." The morning announcement sounds as usual as dark turns to the ever shifting colours of the void outside the train windows. Some passengers may stir. It might be that they are an early riser or bad sleeper and get out of bed the moment the announcement wakes them or perhaps they roll over and go back to sleep.

Either way the morning rolls on for a few hours whatever they might be doing. Until a sudden judder runs through the train, followed quickly by another. Much like bad turbulence. Really bad turbulence. A third follows and there is a crackling sound before an alarm starts going off blaring loudly, the lights begin flashing red, white and red again.

"Warning. Void engines failing. Warning. Void engines failing. Warning Expulsion from void imminent." More shaking, worse each time, enough to knock them over and then a bang, the train plummets into darkness and lurches, sending everyone flying...

… They never crash land. Instead they float, suspended in the air. In the darkness it is hard to orient themselves or even understand what is happening. There’s a roar in their heads as pressure builds, their ears pop. "All systems critical." Breathing is hard, for one terrifying moment there seems to be no air to breathe.

"Oxygen levels stabilising." They can breathe, the pressure in their heads fades, their ears eventually stop ringing. "Pressure levels stabilising." They are still floating, suspended in darkness. "Gravity systems critical".

Emergency lighting flickers on finally, a red glow from either end of each carriage, in the cabins and along floor strips, enabling them to move without bumping into anything. If they can figure out how to move at all that is. Outside the windows is dark. Not the blackness of the void at night but the deep vastness of space. A few moments pass, enough time to just about process that fact before the voice over the speakers is heard once more.

"Passengers of the Voidtrecker express, due to technical issues we are currently experiencing void engine failure. Thank you for your patience as we endeavour to continue our journey as quickly as possible. We ask that all passengers help in securing the train for re-entry into the Void and on behalf of the Voidtrecker Express I apologise for any inconvenience caused."

Then there is silence. Broken only, no doubt, by the passengers on this now stranded train.

(OOC: Event information is here.)

Comments

[pleple]

This was a lot to try and compress, but she was doing her best with Buttercup's curiosity. "That was my sole mission." At least this part is easy to understand.

[knifewithnoname]

"It do be being a very important mission."

She sounded like she was doing very well, to have a mission like that. She had missions too but hers were smaller, given to her daily or weekly. She had never had one big mission for a long period of time. Not yet.

Maybe not never. Since she was here now.

[pleple]

"To him. To a few others. I'm not sure... what my place will be, when I return." Ple Two sighs. "It's complicated, because I know he's using me, but I'm not sure what else I can do."

He treats her well, but only to send her into battle...

[knifewithnoname]

Of course he was using her. That's what people did. Especially people in charge. It was strange she would think she could do anything else, or want to do anything else. Honestly.

"Will he be being very mad that you did be disappearing?"

[pleple]

If it wasn't for a handful of people, a gaggle of idiots trying to do their own thing, she wouldn't even believe it.

But those idiots were her hope.

"I... don't know if I'll return to find him alive, regardless?" The last moments before she came here were confusing to say the least.

[knifewithnoname]

"What will you be doing if he do be being dead?" She tilted her head, interested. It was hard to figure out Ple Two. In some way she seemed like the others, a light addled fool but in others, her story felt familiar. She understood it in ways she didn't understand Peter at all. Even with her talk of cities in space.

[pleple]

"That... I have no idea." Her one purpose in life would be gone, after all. "Survive, I suppose, first and foremost." Long enough to figure things out.

[knifewithnoname]

"That do be being a good initial plan. Survival do be being important." Especially if the person she served was gone, no purpose. It was a problem. But not one she had to worry about just now.

"We do no even be knowing if we can ever be going back, so you do probably no need to be worrying."

[pleple]

"Obviously, I am more likely to figure things out alive." That much is the only obvious part, however. "I... will have to simply see how that works out, and make the most of this in the meantime."

[knifewithnoname]

"It do be being very difficult to be figuring out things when you do be being dead." She agreed. She shrugged, "Well hopefully the gravity magic will be working again soon and then we can be figuring out everything else."

[pleple]

Although apparently Newtype's spirits could linger for a little while. Or she's crazier than she though. "That would be ideal for most of us, wouldn't it?"

[knifewithnoname]

"It would be being." She smiled and moved carefully. "I do be going to be seeing what else do be needing to be being put away."

Otherwise once the gravity magic did return there was going to be a huge mess to clean up.