Nebula 24 | Video

[fivemilesdeep]

[About an hour after everyone's unceremonious return, the video feed clicks on to show Ryo in the dining car, looking serious.]

Three things:

One: Is everyone okay?

Two: There's food in the dining car, and coffee and tea and hot chocolate. Come get something to eat if you need it.

Three: What happened?

[OOC: ICP and in-person replies are great, threadjacking is great, everything is great! Go nuts.]

Comments

[monkeyinthewrench]

Oh man, real food that isn't nutri-sludge? Thank you, thank you. I will never complain about the food here again as long as I live.

[ Jake readies himself to head that-away in a minute or two. ]

...yeah, so it was a trap. The world's biggest and creepiest escape room made into a fake emergency to lure us so the Void Ministry could run some interrogations. Fun, right?

[zombiemessiah]

Oh heeeey I dodged kidnapping number eight!

Nobody got eaten though? That's great. Genuinely. I was worried people'd come back with morbid stories about being shoved out an airlock.

And no one was arrested?

[fivemilesdeep]

Yes, real food. I spent yesterday cooking. [Said with a smile. It's been stored in either a fridge or a spare arms band, so it's fresh.]

[His expression falls a bit as Jake continues on. He doesn't know what an escape room is, but the rest he understands well enough.]

A trap...what did they want? Are you okay?

[tactlesstantei]

First, thanks for the food offer. They gave us nothing but nutrislime in the holding cell.

Second, some of us got kidnapped from the mission and forced into interviews with Void Ministry officials. I don't know what everyone was asked, but I was asked about Diagad and the train's original crew.

My favourite part was when they asked me about voidsickness after I said that Enrara was erased from memory.

[She's very irritated about the whole thing.]

[fivemilesdeep]

Of course. I thought you might be hungry.

[Also, he remembers commenting to someone (though he doesn't remember who) that those who stay behind could at least make food for those returning from a mission. He'd stayed behind - involuntarily, but nonetheless - and if he's going to complain about other people not doing it, then he couldn't well not do it himself, could he.]

[He narrows his eyes a bit, thinking, as she continues. Once he'd learned voidsickness existed, he'd done as much reading as they'd had on the subject - if he's a healer, he needs to know these things. So the conclusion he comes to is:]

Did they think you were hallucinating?

[yondu]

The ones that didn't get kidnapped ended up in a hamster maze for a few days, had to make sense of a manufactured mystery where shit kept not addin' up.

My takeaways? They got a way to turn off anything special about us. Don't know if it's fiddlin' with the SCA settings or a spanning device or what, but they pretty successfully shut us down. I was expectin' that to happen sooner or later. I was just hopin' I could figure out how if it happened.

Other takeaway, they got access to some sort of cloakin' tech that leaves shit completely invisible. Not even a waver in the air. A lot better than those devices we got from Anan that once. So if they decided to slip somethin' on board it might be a good long time before its noticed.

[fivemilesdeep]

[Ryo's expression changes as Yondu talks, abruptly falling as he mentions powers being turned off. He'd been upset that he hadn't been able to go on the mission - he'd wanted to help - but now some small part of him is grateful. He'd have been a panicky mess and he knows it.]

[But...the Void Ministry still knows how to turn off their powers. And how to turn something completely invisible. There are ways around that, but not having powers would make that difficult, and the possibility that something is on board with them-]

How do we know that they didn't?

[He is so, so scared right now and trying so, so hard not to be.]

action

[jingyeets]

( Jingyi, who had just been furiously typing at the train not long before, doesn't so much stomp in as show up frowning and with paperwork still clutched in hand. He'd heard Ryo over the ICP, but bothering himself to reply when he was too keyed up seemed unwise; so he was here now, looking disgruntled, and blinking at the sight of the dining car and everything in it, per his nose's choice to inform him all at once.

thus he seats himself, placing the papers down before him in all their blank glory, and asks, )

What's the sweet smelling stuff?

[fivemilesdeep]

[Jingyi certainly looks like he's in a mood, and honestly, Ryo can't blame him - not with what he's heard about the mission so far. Instead, he pours a mug of hot chocolate and sets it in front of Jingyi, careful not to put it near the papers."

Hot chocolate. Have you had it before?

video

[blitzcheer]

...I think the other guys added too much water? The food was okay. It was just packaged stuff.

[ It tasted about as decent as some of the other who decide they really have to cook some days on the train. But he won't say that. ]

[fivemilesdeep]

[This is the most oddly calm response to his questions, and it's oddly relieving. Thanks, Tidus.]

I'm glad it was okay, though I like to think my cooking is a little better than that.

Action

[goingthroughaphase]

[ Kitty had been on her way towards the dining car anyway, and she'd never turn down some hot chocolate. When she arrives, she spots him and gives him a tired smile. ] Hey.

[fivemilesdeep]

[The smile he gives her in response is worried - he's talked to enough people by now to have some idea of what happened on the fake mission, and none of it sounds good.]

Hey. How're you doing?

[firewalled]

I'm tired as hell, but I'm doing okay. Might come bug you for a meal.

[Rich rubs his face for a moment before he can come up with a response to that last question.]

The Void Ministry shoved us in a recreated space horror video game level to test us, I guess. Kidnapped some of us on the side to ask us what we knew.

[fivemilesdeep]

Please do - there's plenty.

[Provided you like stew or bone broth, but Ryo was going for simple and filling, not fancy.]

What was the point of only talking to a few people and testing everyone else?

[schrodingersghost]

Food? Awesome. I'm totally there.

Oh, we got kidnapped by the void equivalent of government goons. No big deal.

[fivemilesdeep]

I made plenty.

[Provided you like bone broth and bread and stew, but Ryo figures beggars can't be choosers. Most people tend to just be grateful when someone else cooks.]

...you're one of the only people I've talked to who isn't worried about it.

[The question implicit in that statement is why?]

[agoodsoul]

Thanks for the food. You gonna need help with clean up after?

[He'd be happy to help. Have a bit of normalcy after all that weird shit.]

[fivemilesdeep]

Maybe. I'm more worried about making sure everyone is okay after that mission.

[jan_ken_hacking]

There's hot chocolate?

[Oh....that's very nice of this guy, honestly.] ...That's very thoughtful.

Did you know we would be back soon, somehow? ...it sounds like you have a lot prepared...

[She won't bother with 'what happened'. Everyone else seems to have that covered, and likewise, she hopes being okay is self-explanatory at this point.]

[hitokiri]

Huh. Didn't know it came 'hot' style too.

[ it's a totally reasonable thing to say if you only recently found out about chocolate in general, okay. ]

[administreetion]

They really do seem prepared don't they?

[He'd been one of the ones who got to go on that mission, but hadn't been kidnapped. But he's not too keen on talking about it either.]

's nice to have a drink at least, and food.

[fivemilesdeep]

Yes. It's a friend's recipe from home.

[Lia makes the best hot chocolate and he will not hear otherwise.]

I didn't, but missions usually only take a few days, and there was room in the refrigerator. I also had one of the spare arms bands on me, but I- wasn't able to go, so I used it for food storage instead.

Action

[bakegarasu]

Otoha shows up. Eventually. He sits down in a chair and sighs, looking up at Ryo and holding his hand out obligingly. Ryo will find some hard bruises, but nothing too serious.

“… What a shitshow.”

[fivemilesdeep]

Ryo knows by now what that means, and he takes Otoha's hand gently, reaching out with his magic and healing him. At least it's not any worse than bruises.

"So I've heard. Are you doing okay?" The question is gentle enough, but he won't take silence for an answer. "And I'm not asking if you're injured."