voidtreckerexpress | A new platform [intro post September]

A new platform [intro post September]

For those on the train

“Good morning passengers, it is day one of the month of Bassoon.” The train announces the morning the month changes. It seems the train counts months in days of thirty. Team Points have been updated on the system.

The day continues as most days do, chores, eating, getting ready for another day. But those who suspect that a change of month may bring something else are correct. It is only an hour or two later that there is another announcement.

“Shortly arriving into a designated void platform. Exit from void imminent.”

By now they should know to hold on as the train jerks and jolts. There is only fog outside the windows but the train soon comes to a stop. The doors hiss open.

As they exit into the fog they may notice Evie exiting from the luggage carriage door. Much like Hibiki the last time they were on a platform. She leaves the train, backpack on her back as she walks through the station. She heads no call, reacts to no words and cannot be stopped as she walks to the ticket barrier and disappears through it.

Strange. But even stranger still is that there on the platform that whole time is Evie. Dressed in purple, backpack on back, with her are others. Waiting for the train.

For new arrivals

At first all they can see if steam. Billowing around them as they come to their senses. They are standing, in clothes that are not their own, styles they might not even recognise. They are carrying a rucksack on your back. For a moment it seems to just be them, alone in the white haze but then the steam begins to fade and they realise they aren’t alone.

The platform is not very large, but it hold twelve figures all facing the tracks, all wearing similar clothing. The tracks stretch left and right into steam, or perhaps fog. Nothing can be seen to either side. There is a wall around the platform and the only entrance is a ticket barrier. It cannot be open, nor do there seem to be any staff.

What there is, is a train. Jet black and gleaming where it stands on the rails.Voidtrecker Express is emblazoned in the engine in gold. There is a hiss as the doors slide open.

Out step a selection of people, some less human than others, wearing clothes just like those worn by those on the platform.

The Train

The doors hiss open. Those from the train may encourage those on the platform to board. It’s not like there is anywhere else to go and even if there was, you feel a pull. A need to board, a feeling that staying on the platform would not be a good thing.

Once on board there is lots to explore. Passengers both old and new will hopefully be delighted to see the boredom of this train journey is somewhat alleviated by the introduction of a game carriage. Plenty of games, both familiar and new to play with your new travelling companions.
Each ICP shows the same message. If Red team go and look they will find a box in the luggage compartment that contains their prize. A dralite themed cake lolly each. There are enough for the new members of Red team too, share in your teams previous success!

The food stores have been topped up with new fresh food. Salmon has taken over as the primary ingredient of choice. Hopefully everyone likes fish!

New passengers will find their tickets allow them into their cabins. They may need to negotiate for beds, especially if they want a top bunk!

Room is tight but there are storage cubbies at the head of each bed, beds fold up and the bottom bunks double as benches for the small table. There is storage under those benches and you will hopefully find a pillow for your bed if it has not been nabbed by a roommate, there are also spare blankets for if it gets cold.

Departure

A second horn sounds to encourage any stragglers and the doors slide shut. For those who boarded two weeks ago they will know what is coming next.

The train sets off, the fog obscuring the view as it picks up speed.

"Welcome aboard, passengers of the Voidtrecker Express.” A female-coded artificial sounding voice echoes throughout the train. "Please take the time to read the passenger information displayed on the Information and Communication points and familiarise yourself with the layout and emergency exits."

The train begins to tilt, leaving the ground and rising up into the fog filled sky.

"Entrance into Voidspace imminent. New passengers are advised to remain seated."

Hopefully someone warns you that you really want to heed that warning because a moment later there is a shudder, a jolt, a lurch to the left. A flash of light, colourful and blinding.

As quick as it happens it is done. The train seems to steady. The fog from the windows is gone now, replaced with a kaleidoscope of ever changing colours.

Welcome to voidspace.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Okay sir!" That was fine, he knew lots of non human people, but also some people who could look like different things. So either would have been pretty normal.

"What's a black widow?" He knows what a dragon is, they are big monsters that breathe fire and eat people, but he is not sure how they are connected to spiders.

"Black Widows are perhaps the most feared caste of witches. They have virulent poison and most of them tend more to the tart than the sweet, personality wise. But more than how easily they could kill, even without a weapon or how strong you have to be to deal with one as a friend, it is their webs that makes them dangerous. Black Widows are the only ones who can survive weaving Tangled Webs." Like the one they were trapped in. "Tangled Webs can be used to learn what happened in the past, to see what might be in the future. But they can also be used to entrap minds. Make you think you are wherever they want you to think you are, doing and seeing what the web lets you see. There are all sorts of ways this can be used," he said. "One Black Widow I knew wove a web around some very bad men who used to like to hurt little kids. She set it so that if she was hurt by one of them badly enough it would trigger the web. All of them suffered what they had done to the children." And it killed them. Every last one of them. "But I also know a Black Widow" same woman, actually, "who used a series of webs to end a war and save everyone" who still honored the Darkness.

He gave him a grin. "A few of my best friends are Black Widows. They're fun to rile up, so long as I can aim them at someone else. Karla especially." He did so love winding Karla up and then pointing her at Yasi. Having been trained by Yasi for too many mornings there was zero guilt about throwing the other man under the proverbial carriage.

Scary witches? Who could kill and you had to be strong to be their friend. They could make tangle webs which could show you the past and the future and trap your minds.

They sounded bad but also the examples he gave was them doing that to bad people. A person who hurt kids. Or saving people. So they had a lot of scary powers but could use them to help people.

And if Khardeen was friends with some they must be nice people. "Is Karla your best friend?"

"One of them, though she might threaten to dump something noxious over my head if she heard me say so," he said with a grin and a wink. "She's the Queen of Glacia and not nearly as cold and aloof as she likes to think she is. But she does have a formidable temper and almost as vicious a sense of humour as Jaenelle."

Romeo knows that some people, especially grown ups, are not good at being friends. They don't understand it very well and so he's not surprised when Khardeen tells him that she might threaten him if she heard him call her her friend.

"You have a lot of friends who are queens!" He must know a lot of people and have gone to a lot of different places!

He chuckled and nodded. "When Jaenelle was fifteen, and most of us were as well, she had a party for all her human and human adjacent friends. She sent out the invitations. Blood calls to Blood, like to like. All of the girls were Queens who were both invited and attended. None of us who came that first summer ever really left in any meaningful way. Oh, some of us are stronger than others, more or less dominant, but we are all still close. All still part of the Dark Court, even if it doesn't officially exist anymore."

Fifteen is a really big age, especially for a spider! Romeo listened as Khardeen explained about a party with lots of queens who all made friends.

"What's the dark court sir?" His world sounded very interesting, but also very strange.

"Just as in Chess, the Blood have power ranked by our Jewels, and the darker the Jewel, the deeper the well of power, the stronger the Blood. Now most of us who came to stay with Jaenelle that first summer, we wear darker Jewels. But no one in the history of the Blood has ever worn darker Jewels than Jaenelle herself. The few in our history who have worn the Black wore it as their Jewel of Rank, the Jewel they got as adults. There are two such alive right now, Daemon Sadi and the High Lord. They are also the only male Black Widows of any race in the history of the Blood. Jaenelle, however, had the Black Jewels as Birthright. Well, she broke a lot of what we thought we knew of the laws of how magic worked. Because she had more than just the Black. But the Black... she was, as a child, the strongest human Blood in history. Even as a child, her Black was darker than Saetan's or Daemon's. And despite being a Queen, and being powerful, she never wanted to rule. That instinct Queens have that often drives them to rule was gone in her."

He ran a hand through his curls. "She wanted to live a quiet life with her friends and family and make wonderous bits of Craft to delight others. But there was a war, a war that started fifty thousand years before most of us were born. Mostly the war had stayed to Terrielle. It touched Kaleer. where we live, in small ways at first. Too many people emigrating, too many people challenging the old ways, who did not honor the Darkness, who forgot that as Blood, we are created to be the caretakers of the Land and of the peoples we come from. Some did some very bad things, but it was mostly a little bit of bad, here and there."

"And then it got worse. Not everything that was connected was something we knew was part of the war at first. The witches behind the war, a pair of Priestesses that wanted the power of Queens... They were subtle. An accident here, a tragic death there, quietly undercutting the cores of our land. Karla's family, all the women of her family who were of age - including the ruling Queen of Glacia - died when Karla and Morten were young, before I knew them. Tragic accident, it seemed. Karla wasn't old enough yet to rule, and none of the other Glacian Queens that would be accepted by the Districts and Provinces wanted to fill that role. So a council was elected. Karla, a strong Black Widow knew she had to hold on, to hold out until she was old enough. That she had to survive. Surviving was difficult."

"But in some ways the war hit that were far more obvious. And painful. The Priestesses got their hooks into the council that judged conflicts between the territories in Kaleer. And that council declared that the land that belonged to the Kindred - races like the spiders I mentioned as well as Wolves, Unicorns, Horses, large Cats, and all manner of other peoples - were uninhabited by humans and thus were unclaimed. They tried to give those lands to humans from Terielle as their Territories." He closed his eyes. Even with editing this to as not traumatize the child, some memories were too visceral. Too painful. This was one of those rare times when there was no smile on his face. He looked sad. And a good deal older.

"Where they could, humans killed the Kindred." The Unicorns. "Few survived, but those that did went to the council and complained, demanded they send more people to kill those who rightfully lived there. Jaenelle stormed into the council demanding to speak for the Kindred, demanding that the council no longer send invaders into settled territory. The council told her that since these weren't her territories, she had no legal rights, and that a human had ti rule the territory to stand as representative to speak for them."

His lips finally twitched back into a smile. But when his eyes opened, the amusement that glittered in his blue eyes was feral. Dangerous. But at least it was there. "Jaenelle never wanted to rule, but to protect the Kindred, to protect all of us...?" That smile got sharper. His eyes a little brighter. "She made the offering to the Darkness. She walked away with a Jewel no one had EVER seen before. Ebony. The darkest Jewel ever to exist. And she wore thirteen of them. We knew what she was planning. We made our Offerings, those who had not already. Each of the girls spoke with the leaders in their Territories and were made Territory Queens. All of us males were accepted into service by those Queens. Within her own Territory, the Queen IS the law. She can do whatever she wants, however she wants. And while District Queens and Provenance Queens rule their areas on behalf of a Territory Queen, Territory Queens are ruled by no one. Answer to no one." Now he looked more smug than vicious, though the viciousness was still there. A glance behind his usually benign mask.

"Somehow Uncle Saetan managed not to see what we had planned," he said, amused. "Well, what Jaenelle did. Thankfully the rest of us were quicker on the uptake. There was a formal and fully legal ceremony. Jaenelle asked us each in turn if we would serve in the first circle of her court. We agreed, each in turn. We males each already served, which would mean under normal circumstances there would be a conflict. More... The Coven were all Territory Queens. The court should have been impossible."

He laughed. And he seemed much more himself now. "Impossible things and Jaenelle don't go together well. She tends to destroy impossible without even realizing it. This time she realized. She knew exactly what she was doing. All of us did. And that was when Karla yielded Glacia to the Queen of Ebon Askvai. To Jaenelle. And Jaenelle accepted. Territory after Territory. Human Territories, Kindred, Eyrian. Every territory in Kaleer, save for Little Terellie and the isle where the council met yielded to Ebon Askavi. By the end of that night Jaenelle ruled every Territory in Kaleer save the one and that isle. And the very next day she went to the council and told them to stay out of her Territory." He grinned now, quite amused and smug. "They said the Kindred needed human representation. Well, they had nothing else to say when she swept in on them and made her proclamation. Apparently half of them nearly passed out from terror. She can be a scary little witch when she has cause."

Now he was just smiling. "But we were the Dark Court. We were a Court made of some of the strongest Blood that history has ever seen, RULED by the strongest Witch ever to be, and probably there will never be one stronger. Tens of thousands of years of dreams and dreamers shaped Witch, if you ask the Weavers. She never wanted to rule, but by being willing to hold the leash on so many of us she presented a power that went to the very core of Kaleer. That had roots in all the Territories, even finding some supporters both on the council and in Little Terrielle. Apparently, according to Cassidy, in Terrielle, there were a number of courts that called themselves the Dark Court, but none of them were. None but the Court at Ebon Askavi."

Edited (Done now. Go for it!) 2019-10-17 06:47 (UTC)

People had power and wore jewels just like in the chess game Khardeen was teaching him and Jaenelle was really really powerful. As Khardeen kept talking Romeo realised that he had asked a very complicated question and he settled down to listen.

It was really interesting listening to him speak, to tell him about things from a whole different world. In the heavens a lot of his friends had been shinki like him and so had no pasts to speak of, even gods didn't talk about the past a lot. He knew some things about Elfnein's life before she became a god but not all that much.

So a story like this, it's hard to follow because it's so different to what he knows but he tries his best. A whole group of friends, a place with spiders and uniforms and horses and cats who were all wiped out by humans. A spider queen who never wanted to rule and yet did so to protect her friends. Her friends who all joined their power with hers and became a Dark Court, a group who could protect all the people of the territories.

He understands friends and he understands sticking together and protecting people. It's a good thing that Khardeen and his friends had done!

"Queen Jaenelle sounds like a really good person I'm glad you managed to make a court to protect all the not human people!"

Well, he had understood quite a bit of that wrong, but the parts that mattered most, the kid got. Which was generally true of kids in general if they were bright.

"And the human people as well," he said with a chuckle. "But I'm glad too. Just a word of warning though, after the war, Jaenelle stepped down from being the Queen. Or so she claims. The truth is she will always be THE Queen. But for her sake we pretend like we believe her when she says she no longer rules."

"Because she never wanted to be the queen..." But her friends would always follow her anyways because she had been a very good leader and a good friend. But because she didn't want to be queen they would pretend she didn't rule. It wasn't nice to lie but also it would be difficult he thought to all of a sudden not follow someone like that.

I'm glad there's no more war now."

He ruffled the kid's hair. "Exactly, boyo. And trust me, we're glad too."

"There was sort of a war in heaven but it was really complicated. The queen ruled and she seemed to be very nice but I didn't really know her. She has always been a god and some of the old gods don't like the new gods and their shinki because... I don't really know. It's very complicated. But one of her shinki had been betraying her and that was really bad but it meant there were some bad cultists and they made lots of trouble."

He had fought in the war and yet he still didn't really understand it. Elfnein didn't either so it wasn't like she could just explain things.

"I will admit there were some terms there I didn't understand," he said without shame or hesitation. Heaven he presumed was a place and that knowing more than that didn't matter for the story. "What are Gods and Shinki? And... Cultists?" Did he pronounce that correctly?

"A god is one of those people who live in heaven in a temple and help humans! Humans pray to them and ask for help and their job is to help them. But their bigger job is to fight monsters, humans can't see them but they like making people sad and then if people get sad enough the monsters eat them!"

It's very bad. "A shinki is a person who is dead but then they are a spirit and they get given a name by a god and work with them to fight the monsters and help people!" He reaches up to pull down his hoodie and polo shirt slightly so Khardeen could see the red kanji 林檎 on his chest. It looked almost like a tattoo.

"That's my name, my goddess Elfnein gave it to me and if she calls me by it I turn into a vessel. All shinki are different, some turn into weapons or items. I turn into a weasel! Using a shinki in their vessel form and a special spell gods can destroy the bad monsters!"

He grinned, hoping that he was making sense so far. But Khardeen's story had been complicated too so he hoped he understood!

"A cultist is... Um... Well they are people who don't like the heavens and want to make trouble. Some of them are gods but they didn't grow up in heaven and think heaven is bad and heaven might be a bit bad but it's also good and it's very complicated..."

"Back home we pray only to the Darkness, generally." though some, he suspected, prayed to Witch as well. He didn't envy her that, really. But he listened to the rest and tried to process. Something that needed people to be upset before eating them. That was... odd. And bad. Monsters humans couldn't see? Sight Shields? He knew Arcnians hunted that way, but they didn't care what mood their prey was in. Didn't change the taste of the meat.

But when the boy explained about the dead and showed the mark on his skin, Khary started, a bit. He didn't have the psychic scent of the Demon Dead. He hadn't realized the boy was cildru dyathe. He sharply regretted the loss of so many of his supplies now. Along with
Yarbarah, he usually kept a few vials of donated blood, and some of the brews the Coven made, carefully kept in preservation shields.

"I have never heard of the cildru dyathe being able to change forms," he said, quietly. "And I appologize that I did not recognize you as such at once." Even seated he managed a small almost-bow that looked respectful. "I do not have any Yarbrah to offer, but if you require fresh sustiance, it will be freely given," he said, the words carrying an air of formality that Khary had not yet shown to this boy. To anyone present, really.

"Um..." Romeo blinked at the sudden formality, the bow and the unfamiliar words that Khardeen used. It was a bit strange and it was clear that Khardeen thought he was something, a cildru dyathe and that they were maybe important in his world.

"It's okay sir! You don't got to bow. I don't know what one of those... cidr...u dyathe are or what that other word... Yarb means."

He's not that surprised, different worlds are different after all. He would think so. He can't actually remember his own but Khardeen's sounds very strange to him.

"Cildry dyathe, it is the term used in my word for children who are demon dead. Yarbrah is the blood wine," he said gently. "If you need fresh blood, I know the proper Protocol and rituals for the offering."

"Demon dead? Do you think I am a demon sir?"

He doesn't think he's a demon. Demons were bad and he was pretty sure they couldn't live in heaven so he didn't think he was a demon at all.

Also why would he want wine made of blood? That sounded a bit icky!

"Um okay sir, but I don't drink any blood or wine so it's okay!"

He nodded, but there was no judgment in him about it. "I do, from what you said, though not from your psychic scent." A Demon that did not drink blood? "Without blood, how do you sustain your form?"

So he didn't smell like a demon? That was good because he was pretty sure he wasn't a demon! But maybe Khardeen was confused, or maybe they called people like shinki demons in his world. Other words were tricky!

"Um... I guess my name?" That's how he could be his vessel form at least, if he didn't have a name he wouldn't transform and he wouldn't be able to use borderlines and he was likely to be eaten by ayakashi.

"I think we must be misunderstanding each other here..." and misunderstandings could be amusing.

"I think we are sir." He frowns a moment but then smiles again a second later. "It's okay though and even if you think I'm a demon you don't got to be scared because I won't hurt you or anything!"

Demons were scary, Romeo was not.

He laughed a bit at that. "I'm not afraid of Demons, boyo. My uncle is the High Lord of ****. One of my favorite teachers was the Demon Prince and his best friend. I've had Demons for friends. I just understand that the Protocol is different when interacting with the dead. But I promise. No fear of you here, kiddo. I've seen scarier kittens." Then again, anyone who spent time with KaeAskavi knew just how much damage a kitten COULD do....

He had lots of friends who were demons? Demons must not be bad in Khardeen's world. Not if he had lots of friends who were demons! Or maybe they were and he was friends with them anyways. Everyone needed friends. Even scary demons!

He pulled a face at the last words though. "I'm scarier than a kitten!"

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CW: gore mentions and also warnings for massive Black Jewels Spoilers. (Done now, sorry!)

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