voidtreckernet | Awkward Return | Llama Day 1

Awkward Return | Llama Day 1 | Open

Curufin suddenly found himself inside a large trunk in the Luggage Carriage. It was a little deeper than a coffin but not as long, so his legs were cramped. "WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING IN HERE???" he yelled, loud enough to be heard outside the trunk.

It was a claustrophobic situation, and he glared up through the dimness at the lid of the trunk. For some reason, it didn't occur to him that the thing probably wasn't locked. Suddenly there was a BANG, Curufin's fist bashing into the underside of the lid, and then a CRASH, Curufin's boot following up with an even harder blow.

Both the fist and the foot left holes in the lid, which popped open and fell against the back of the trunk. Curufin sat up and stared around the luggage car. "What the fuck?" he swore. And then he saw whoever else was in the car and quickly replaced the scowl with a very puzzled smile.

"Hello?" he said. He scratched his head. "Have I been gone from the train?"

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"Then I suppose you have nothing to complain about." He smiled. He'd noticed Curufin missing and he missed him, but that was far too sappy to say. He'd maxed out his sap meter last month.

His smile softened a bit. "Ah, well we bought the pendant." Senku said, and then held out his wrist for better inspection.

"Eva gifted us these." He hummed. "Gen and I got married while you were gone, they're both symbols of our union." He wasn't wearing a ring, outside the arms band though. "I like the idea of the bracelet though, we were debating rings and what to do because anything I put on my hands is going to be thoroughly damaged." The arms band at least, was magic.

"Indeed, I have no complaints." Curufin would have missed Senku if he had never seen him again, but he was not much more likely to say so than Senku was. And that was because he was aware that Senku had an aversion to sap.

He climbed out of the trunk and came nearer to get a closer look at the pendant. "This is excellent work," he said. "So is the band. And it was very nice of Eva to give you gifts of such high quality metalwork. Oh, and congratulations to you and Gen! I hope you both will be very happy. And judging from the expression on your face, Senku, I am sure that you both are. Hey, why would anything you put your hands on be damaged?"

"I'm sure that we will be." Senku assured him. They were both rather pleased about the wedding and once inspected he will be looking for his boxes as they spoke.

"I do a lot of work with the forge at home, and various other things and I'm really rough on my hands so it's likely that a ring would get damaged, or I'd have to take it off all the time which defeats the purpose." He sighed.

"The last mission was a disaster, so you haven't missed anything particularly fun." Senku filled him in, because of course he did. "And my SCA experiment finally yielded poor results and I've had to shift the parameters a bit."

"Is there something you'd like for a wedding present? I think I still have points I could spend, and I'd be happy to do so."

He nodded. "I see what you mean. A wedding ring is meant to be worn all the time. And metallurgy and many other crafts may be hard on a craftsman's hands, so such crafts might be fatal to a ring on one of those hands."

He listened to Senku's update. "How was the last mission a disaster? And what about the SCA experiment? What were you trying to accomplish, and how did you shift the parameters?"

Senku was genuinely delighted by the offer, but he shook his head with a bit of a laugh. "No. It was a no gifts kind of thing and Tidus and Eva already cheated. But if you're so inclined to participate, can I interest you in a piece of cake? It's good luck for us for more people to share in the celebration, even if you missed the main event."

The delight was genuine on the lighthearted subject, but the latter topic was anything but.

"I've been trying to figure out what the SCA is doing for us, if you remember, outside of translation, which involved removing it and most of the time there have been no detrimental effects." He paused. "There was this time."

He considered. "There's more about that mission as well." This was a very uncivilized way of talking though, he knew that. "Do you want to catch a cup of tea and I'll give you a full report?" Curufin could have that cake too, in that case if he wanted it.

Curufin smiled at the polite refusal of a gift. Oh well, if that's how Senku felt. "If you've got some cake left over, then I'll surely take you up on your offer!"

He could tell that Senku wasn't feeling lighthearted about the the SCA question.

"You did tell me a few things about the SCA experiment, and I'd surely like to know more. Yes, let's go for a cup of tea and you can tell me about the mission."

He smiled again and said, "Lead the way!"

"Alright. Let's do that then." Senku spotted his last box, scooped it up and vanished it into his arms band before leading the way, as requested.

"Since you left the sleeping carriages have changed." He pointed out as they were walking. "They're two floors now. There's one with double sleepers that's also two floors and another one with rooms that can be rented like a hotel. We were offered a choice again."

Curufin walked along with Senku.

He responded to Senku's description of the new sleeping arrangements, "People have been asking the train for double sleepers for so long, I'm not surprised. The rented rooms I'm not so sure about. Nobody asked for a hotel." He snickered a little. "At least not that I can remember."

"I couldn't say." Senku chuckled. "I didn't ask for the hotel. I did ask for the double rooms awhile ago as a wedding gift to Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, but I also wound up voting for it after a discussion with my husband." He hummed.

"I wanted a lab, but he makes a compelling argument." Senku chuckled. "Also I'm married to him I should probably listen to him. The rooms downstairs I think are more like meeting rooms, as opposed to hotel rooms. I skimmed it. There's a deluxe suite though, I have to say I'm tempted to drag Gen there for a night if only the opportunity to soak in the tub."

Curufin chuckled along with Senku. "I remember your asking for the double rooms. I think I probably did, too, at some point. It was good we got to vote on that. Too bad the train tends to give us only one choice in the voting. Why couldn't we vote for a lab as well as double rooms?"

He smiled. "You should always listen to your husband. He's a sensible guy. I'll have to go and look and see those changes for myself. Meeting rooms would be useful, but of course we already have some spaces we can use for that, so we don't really need more of them. Is the deluxe suite one that has to be rented? But of course you should take Gen there!"

They reached the dining carriage. Curufin went to the cupboard and got two mugs and then went to the machines that made coffee and hot water for tea. He rummaged amongst the boxes of tea bags. "What flavor of tea do you like?" he asked.

Edited 2021-05-06 18:17 (UTC)

"I don't know, the train seems to enjoy it when we endure one thing or another." He laughed though at the quip about Gen.

"He'll make sure I listen to him if he wants to say something anyway." He nodded. "I'll have to at some point, if only for the purposes of spoiling him."

"Green tea if we've got it." Senku said, pleasantly surprised. He'd been willing to make tea since Curufin was invited at his behest but no matter, he would wait to get into it until they were settled though.

"So on the mission, Gen and I removed our SCAs for the experiment and we discovered that one of the the things it was blocking against was magic. Particularly mind control magic of some sort. We were not in our right mind after that for days." He looked serious, if grim.

"The train has mixed motives for its actions when they affect us, that's for sure!" When Senku laughed, Curufin laughed with him.

"Gen seems a very determined person," he said. "And he also seems a husband well worth spoiling, whether with listening or with deluxe hotel suits and hot tubs."

He continued rummaging through the tea boxes. "Yes, we have green tea!" he said, and proceeded to make two cups. He brought them to the table and set them down in two places so that they could sit side by side and wait for their tea to finish brewing. He didn't at all mind making the tea, since Senku was going to provide the cake at some point.

He listened. "That was taking a risk for science," he remarked, though his tone of voice was admiring. "You discovered that the SCAs block magic? You and Gen were not in your right minds without your mind control magic? Ouch. I'm glad you two recovered."

Edited 2021-05-07 03:01 (UTC)

Just having the tea there reminded him to magic up a container with a piece of their wedding cake inside and offer it to Curufin.

"Correct, it's been a calculated risk and we got a bit too ambitious. Both of us were affected. We didn't remember our homes. We thought we'd done the mission and decided to settle there." Senku sighed. "It's not our magic, but the world's magic. I'm not clear what the cause was because I missed out on a good chunk of it being useless."

He still sounded frustrated by that.

"Going forward, Gen is volunteering to sacrifice himself under his belief that if there's a problem I can fix it." He pressed his lips together. "Not that time, I don't think but..." He waved his hand. They'd had a rough go of it.

"We got an additional stop last week too."

Curufin looked a little surprised when the cake container appeared. And pleased. "Thanks!" he said, taking the container. He got up to get a fork and brought it back and set it down beside the container. Then he picked it up again and stuck it into the cake, and gave himself a taste. "This is delicious!" he exclaimed. Did somebody bake it? Or was this a special order from the store?"

He listened to Senku's description of their SCA xperiment and the results of taking them off their wrists. "Wow! What a strange effect! That world must have been trying to acquire recruits for some purpose or other, or maybe just settlers."

He listened again. "Gen is volunteering to sacrifice himself? Do you mean by continuing to take off his SCA on future missions? In the hope and belief that you'll be there to solve whatever problems arise, and that you'll be able to do so? I respect Gen, but I don't think he's taking into account just how strange these mission worlds can get. You might be affected by some kind of world magic even if you don't take off your SCA, and be unable to help either Gen or yourself." He shakes his head in consternation.

"What was this additional stop? A sort of bonus trip, as some of the train's stops have been?"

"Gen ordered it from the shop. He was very pleased with it, and everyone who attended had some." He smiled a little. Even he had a bite or two, even though cake wasn't really his thing.

"I don't know. The townsfolk were the same, completely enchanted by whatever spell it was." He gave his head a shake.

"Gen believes that." Senku pressed his lips together. "Under ordinary circumstances he'd be right. Magic, however, isn't something I'm terribly proficient in yet. There is a lot I don't know and what I know from reading more than one system, it differs a lot. I think he would consider that I also wouldn't leave him behind." Which probably counted for a lot.

"Naturally if we're already being affected, taking of the SCA is not going to be feasible...and likely we'll be doing it at the end of the mission instead." Senku responded. "As I said, changes for safety, needed to be made."

He sipped his tea. "It was a bonus trip. There was a strange river of some kind of liquid, definitely not water. I tried to take a sample but it evaporated." He smirked slightly now. "Interestingly we were warned not to remove our SCAs. Naturally, that made us suspicious. Eva and I supervised Gen, he removed his and was struck immediately by a migraine."

"Gen has good intuition about what kind of cake would taste good and please the guests. Yum! It doesn't surprise me that everybody ate some." He took another bite.

"I don't trust worlds that cast sorcerous spells on their inhabitants. I wonder if any of the townsfolk were aware that it was a spell? You describe them as completely enchanted, so I guess not."

"Gen would be right about that last thing, I'm sure. You'd NEVER leave him behind. And if you're not proficient at magic, maybe there are other people on the train who are? I don't know how useful I'd be if there was a spell to be countered. My magic is mainly in vision-casting, but I don't know if I could counter somebody else's spell, or an entire world's spell."

He nodded. "That does sound safer, taking the SCA off at the end of the mission instead of at the beginning."

He listened to Senku's description of the bonus trip. "I wonder what that river was composed of? And why the train brought you and the rest of the passengers to it? Hmmm. It sounds like the Voidtrecker is aware that you and Gen are experimenting. Maybe that migraine was a sort of slap on the wrist?"

"I'm not proficient yet, but I intend to be, at some point. I've been practising." He explained. "I've mastered a healing spell so far." He hummed. "Gen and I got a book."

He could agree that the safety was a concern. He shook his head. "I'm not sure, the SCA beeped, so it was dangerous. The most fascinating thing was this." He flicked his hand again to pull a pebble out of the arms band and put it in front of Curufin.

"We were told that concentrating on feelings or messages to send to someone could be sent down that strange river. Whether or not that's true is irrelevant really, but this..." He tapped the table with a grin. "Is apparently the same thing the train is made of." Of course Senku swiped some.

"And it does sound like that." He agreed. "Fortunately my spell was good enough to cure him of the headache within moments instead of waiting out the effect. It's encouraging. It means it doesn't like this." Senku explained. "And that means I might be onto something."

"Books are good," said Curufin. "Sometimes better than an in-person teacher. It seems like a good idea for you to have both scientific healing skills and magical ones. That way, you have more resources."

Curufin looked closely at the pebble.

"Oho, so it was the river that was the conduit to carry those messages! Wait, what was the same thing as the train is made of? You mean this pebble?"

He chuckled. "Nice you were able to use your spell to counter the train's attempt to deter you and Gen from experimenting. I'd guess you're right, that the Voidtrecker doesn't like the experiments because you're going to discover something it doesn't want us to know." The chuckle was followed by a decidedly wicked laugh. Curufin got along with the train all right, but he was no fan of rules and regulations.

"That's what I was thinking. Gen created a spell that was meant to temporarily blind or stun someone so we could escape." They still weren't violent people, magic wasn't going to fix that. "I've managed over two months to get my spell to a point where I can heal critical injuries. I just have to build my magical power, but it will work well I think in a pinch." He smiled. "It's a fascinating system really and full of possibilities."

He grinned. "Correct and I gathered several pebbles. So the story goes. I need to run some tests on these, without a doubt. I wonder if, and suspect, they're going to blow the Mohs scale out of the water."

"Well I remembered after a moment that I had magic and I altered my spell to work on a migraine and that worked which means I can maybe target my spell better. It's a fascinating prospect." He gushed a little bit. So Senku was given a magical system he could use and he was already looking to dismantle and revamp it to his whims.

"And I suspect that's the case and I don't take well to 'don't wreck my plans' especially when said plans are inconvenient to me."

"Magic is like that, a system that is fascinating and rich with possibilities," Curufin agreed. "I wish you the best of luck with that."

He grinned back at Senku. "That is most interesting, that you now have samples of the same material as the train is made of. I've been wondering about that for a long time. What could the thing be made of, that it's so resistant to being blown up or otherwise damaged by the missions, the Void, or us passengers. When you have some results from those tests, I'd love to hear about that."

Why not dismantle or revamp it to Senku's whims? What else is magic for? "Good luck for Gen, that you had that ability!"

He nodded. "And we don't even know what the train's long-term plans are, or how our knowing certain things might wreck those plans." He shook his head, still smiling. "I really want to know everything the train isn't telling us."

Edited 2021-05-09 20:50 (UTC)

Senku nodded his acknowledgement at Curufin's wish of luck and he grinned slowly. "Isn't it?" He couldn't help it. "It's exciting, if true, because now I intend on finding a way to destroy these rocks if I can. I'd like to know how hard they are, how they react to various conditions. See if there's anything at all that can give us a clue as to how this thing works. Even the idea of it passing on wishes, there must be some magic in this right?" He smirked. "I collected as many as I could."

He probably had about 30 of them.

"I enjoy mysteries, but not if there's never a solution, but I'm a patient man. Sooner or later I intend on figuring this out." Senku hummed. "I too want to know what it's not telling us. It could be something I might even agree with but without the information I can't determine anything."

He sat back somewhat, considering. "For the most part, that's what you missed within the parametres of my experiments at any rate. The last mission was rough all around, a lot of people were injured and it was later classed as a catastrophe. The train said it would warn us of those ahead of time."

"Oh, good! So you'll have many samples of rock to experiment on. And maybe attempting to destroy some of them will give you important information about the material and its properties."

Curufin was excited about this.

"I enjoy mysteries too. But I'm guessing that there will be an answer or solution eventually. And maybe the train has a positive motivation for not telling us everything, but I don't feel I need to be protected against knowledge, or that any of us do."

He always wanted to know things.

"I'm sorry I missed the last mission, even if it was a catastrophe. I really hope the train does warn us ahead of time if there are any more of those."

"Should be fascinating, depends on where we go though, I'm not sure I want to conduct destructive experiments on board. Safety reasons." Senku wasn't totally unaware of those.

"I agree with you. None of us need to be protected. There's nothing to say we wouldn't agree to help. The train doesn't seem to trust us." Senku wondered if he said something like that, the train would listen.

"Don't worry about it, it turned out okay in the end. I'm fairly certain no one died." Not that he'd heard, at any rate.

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Awkward Return | Llama Day 1 | Open

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Want to wrap this thread and catch up later?

Yep! They'll hang out again soon.