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The Disorienting Express
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The Disorienting Express
The Disorienting Express – The Return of RMS Tiny
You drink the last dregs of your tea, and then hand the teacup back to the fortuneteller. Her head bobs, and her frizzy red hair shakes as she examines the tea leaves. Suddenly, she gasps, and the cup drops from her fingers and SMASH!, breaks against the floor. "My best antique teacup! No! This is a calamity!"
You look at her, confused. "What did you see in my future that was so shocking?"
Her lips shook. "An invitation. An exclusive invitation, to any Cber who happens to recieve it, from The Ominous, that strange, hoodied captain of the RMS Tiny and the RMS Humbug, whose past adventures with CBers were chronicled here: http://www.cricketmagkids.com/chatterbox/inkwell/node/145605 "
"What's so shocking about that?"
"Well, I've heard of the RMS Tiny, and the story I heard had THE END at the end of it, so I thought that was the end of it all. Not to mention that sequels are often never as good as the original, and the story ended with The Ominous trying to dig the RMS Tiny out of the middle of a desert! Now that's what I call writing yourself into a corner!"
"Hmm. Perhaps they had a sledgehammer on them, and they escaped through the fourth wall."
The fortuneteller frowns for a moment, and then nods. "I suppose that's possible. Do you want to hear what the invitation will be?"
"Yes please."
"The adventure of a lifetime! Boundless fun! An express ride to anti-polar regions, aboard a ship aboard a train, surrounded by the most colourful of characters! You are hereby invited to the first railway passage from the Sahara to a handy mountain range (the location of which we cannot divulge at this time), and you'll have lots of fun!"
* * *
You leave the fortuneteller's tent, and go home. On your doorstep is a large package, wrapped in brown paper and tied with red and white striped string with purple fuzzy bits. You rip open the paper, and a puff of dark brown powder explodes in your face, permeating the air with a chocolatey flavour. Your eyes sting with the bitterness of the pure cocoa.
We would like to take a moment to thank our sponsors, the makers of pure, high-octane cocoa, made from fresh nyad springs on the plains of Latteland. Their only purpose in life is to make your day better – wait, nevermind, sorry, actually their only purpose in life is to make some money. And find enlightenment.
By your feet there is now a pile of cocoa powder, and in the middle of it lies a letter. You pick up, open it, and read the letter:
Dear CBer, the ticket enclosed in this letter will grant you passage aboard the last 13 coaches of the Disorienting Express, the train that will carry my dear ship, the RMS Tiny, on my journey to repair her. It is my wish that you would come along with me, as I believe CBers like adventures, and adventure seems to follow me everywhere. I give you my word, as a slightly shady individual who likes to lurk in alleyways waiting for my morning coffee to be delivered by vampire bat, that I will not let any of you murder each other, and the most dubious and sinister people of my acquaintance are not invited. Should they arrive, I'm sure your abilities of deducton will be able to be well used in apprehending them, as doubtless they will leave clues to their actions. Of course, if you accuse someone who is innocent, the actual murderer will likely choose you as their next target.
Anyways, here's some more words to convince you to come, thanks to my advertising agents, the Fortunetellers of Aura Alley: The adventure of a lifetime! Boundless fun! An express ride to anti-polar regions, aboard a ship aboard a train, surrounded by the most colourful of characters! You are hereby invited to the first railway passage from the Sahara to a handy mountain range (the location of which we cannot divulge at this time), and you'll have lots of fun!
- The Ominous
A NOTE: This is a murder mystery inspired by T.O.N's Ski Lodge and its various spin-offs, and it's sort of a continuation of the story of The Ominous and RMS Tiny detailed in the link above. However, for this we've changed some things about how it works so it's a bit more game-like, inspired (of course) by Clue.
A roll of the Die of Doom will determine how many people are killed each day, and their names will be drawn from Pandora's Fedora. The first death will occur on the third day.
All of you are innocent (at least as innocent as you can be, being yourselves), and you need to work together to discover which of the non-CBer characters aboard the Disorienting Express is the murderer.
Starting on the third day, there will be a few codes (think morse, first-letter codes, Sebald code, number codes) hidden (or not-so-hidden) in each day. The first person to find and decode each code will be granted, according to the Die of Doom, either immunity from death the next day or a clue in the form of a story snippet. Obviously, clues are given to everyone, while immunity is person-specific.
If you think you know who the murderer is, post your guess and tell us that it's an in-story accusation (we really want your input/interaction, so don't worry about us mistaking suspicious musings for in-story accusations, we'll double-check with you before making story-you accuse anyone). In the next day, the results of your confronting and accusing your suspect will occur. A Warning: Accusations of innocents will make the murder worry about your suspicions, and you will likely die (immunity will not necessarily help you here). However, accussations of innocents are still helpful because you now know the one you accused is innocent. Also, ghosts can totally help the other CBers guess and point out clues or codes they spot – and if they get immunity by spotting things, they can give it to someone who's alive.
The Disorienting Express starts its journey on January 20th. Sign up with a quote that you could be heard saying, and your packing list if you so wish. Any latecomers will be forced to walk.
Any complaints should be directed to The Ominous's editor and secretary, who will direct the complaints to John F.Q. and Pied Piper, along with all the other rubbish they send them.
* * *
You sneeze cocoa powder from your nose, and wonder if it's wise to trust this Ominous person. Will you accept the invitation? And if you do, how will you find this train? You wonder, and then a question mark falls on your head.
Then a comma hits the sidewalk, and you look up at the sudden rain of punctuation. A bracket and a quotation mark land in the cocoa powder, sending up a huge cloud of powder that seems tinted green in the sudden strange light. And then the King and Queen of punctuation, the interrobang & the ampersand arrive‽
Resplendent in their inky black armour and spiky crowns of accent marks, their presence announced by exclamation marks blaring trumpets, they walk towards you. The King waves, his infinity-sign moustache looking glorious. The Queen holds up her sceptre, mounted with a shining asterisk. They stop before you, and the King clears his throat.
A moment of silence.
The King coughs again, pointedly, and then two small tuxedo-wearing, upwards-pointing arrows run forward. The Shift keys. They carry a large suitcase that is a beautiful shining black - but not a boring black, this is the kind of black that galaxies are born in, the colour of a raven's feather, or of letterpress ink, holding all the possibilities of every written word. The King and Queen lift it from the hands of the Shift keys, which cling to it for a moment before dropping to the ground with small squeaks of dismay.
"Without hesitation, deprivation, aggravation, or mortification, we present you with this gift. Use it well." They pass the suitcase to you, and you stare at it for a moment. A hush falls over – or rather, into – the crowd (Aaaaah! THUMP! "sorry, sorry, shhh.")
With trembling hands, you lift the lid, and inside lies . . . your favourite pair of socks, folded perfectly. Beneath it a bunch of your other clothes are packed, and all sorts of travelling supplies.
"Oh yes – and I made you a nice warm drink." The King passes you a large thermos, and then blows his nose into his handkerchief. "We'll miss you, dear!"
The Queen pats your shoulder. "You're ready now, off you go. Goodbye, good luck, and have fun!"
submitted by The Ominous, age unknown, stranded in the desert
(January 6, 2018 - 6:28 pm)
(January 6, 2018 - 6:28 pm)
Hooray! I can't wait
(May 29, 2020 - 10:42 am)
DAY 4, PART 5 – Infinite Improbabilities
Back at the platform, one thing had been left behind. A creature of such cosmic proportions that on several planes it encompassed universes, holding in its folds the remains of galaxies, dying suns that burn forever in an endless void, but on the planes visible to most of our readers, it was about the size of a large dog. It’s eyes, and it had many, were wide. They were filled with the knowledge of such darkness that if anyone had been around to look into those eyes they would have been frozen solid (this is, after all, how the latest Ice Age started). They might also, to the discerning viewer, have appeared to be filling with tears. Although those tears looked like oceans, rivers, the vast and deadly tides – but they were still tears, rolling down the many teeth and tentacles of the creature’s face like a very small Niagara Falls. It spoke in a voice that reverberated through time and space, the words beginning a universe and ending it in a moment, and yet was also a whisper, the kind of whisper that’s accompanied by a breath at the back of your neck and a cold chill down your spine.
In this voice, Cthulu whimpered, “THEY LEFT ME BEHIND... NO ONE EVEN NOTICED ME...” It sighed, and turned to look out at the desert, its very gaze lighting the horizon with a strange thunder and glow of some unearthly cloud, and sending up a cold wind that whipped sand into strange shapes in the air.
On the platform was a piece of paper, fluttering in the wind but trapped under what could only be described as Cthulu’s...foot? Do eldritch creatures even have feet? It’s not a tentacle though, there are already far too many of those... Anyways, on this fluttering scrap of paper was a faded poster. It read, “WE NEED YOU!” Above a picture of a yak pointing out of the poster, and below in smaller writing, “Do your Duty! Don’t smuggle Cocoa Powder, it’s Illegal you know, you could get Arrested!”
A nearby newspaper, about to fly away in the wind, which was picking up speed alarmingly, declared to the indeterminable void: “All Passengers Must Check Their Cocoa At The Door – Hot Chocolate Powder Declared Illegal In Anti-Arctica”
Cthulu sighed again, “THESE HUMANS REALLY NEED TO START RECYCLING...” it muttered, and then it turned towards a writhing tornado on the horizon and began to walk. Or... slither? Crawl? Sluggle? Or some strange form of dance, perhaps, like the limbo? Well, it moved, at any rate. Or did it? Anyways, the platform was now empty.
* * *
Against all laws of physics, the train continued to chug along the ocean floor, plumes of white smoke took on a greeny-blue hue. The tracks glittered among the sand and rocks, sunlight from the surface swirled down in slowly darkening shafts of gold in the blue. Fish blubbled along the bottom, darting through the rocks and seaweed. Bubbles danced to the surface, bubbling from hidden sea-floor geysers.
Inside the train, an announcement that the train was now fully sealed, everything was okay, and the paperwork for breaking the laws of physics was being filled out in due time had just ended. The seatbelts retracted with a ZWIP! And the Cbers all stumbled forward, falling onto the giant beanbags and sofas. The adults left the room quickly, Mr. Gold smiling, his teeth looking like the scales of jewelled fish. “Well that was awfully unexpected,” he remarked to Miss Pierce. “Well yes, not quite according to plan,” Miss Pierce murmured to herself, before the door between carriages shut behind her.
The Cbers looked at one another, at a loss for what to say. Without the light from the now-plated windows, the carriage was dark and gloomy, the Time Schism in the corner rippled menacingly, as if the water rushing past those oh-so-thin walls might spill in at any moment.
“We failed,” said UniCat quietly.
“We’re trapped,” said Chinchilla.
Leafpool sighed, and then frowned. There was something in her pocket. She patted it, and then pulled it out. A piece of paper, folded many times, the ink slightly blurred, as if the paper had gotten wet at some point. It was labelled: “To You.” She unfolded it and read: “All that glitters is not Gold – y’know what who cares about subtlety anymore. It’s not Gold, you guys. Gold is not the murderer. Sincerely, future Leafy."
She blinked, and then read it again. Then she looked up and whispered, “Hey everyone, I think I found a clue.”
The Cbers perked up.
Crypto leaned over her shoulder and read it. “Wow, that’s super obscure, as usual.”
The Cbers sighed. Leafpool looked up. “No guys, Crypto was being sarcastic. It just says Mr. Gold isn’t the murderer. And it’s from. . . future me?”
“Oh ok. Sounds legit.” said Somebody.
T.S. frowned. “Wait, none of you guys are surprised?”
Danie shrugged. “Oh yeah, there’s a weirdly dressed guy who goes around in a time machine and drops people off in random places. We grilled him pretty well once, and he didn’t confess but I suspect he’s actually an intergalactic taximan. Our word for taxi derives from his name, and although he seems nice, on some planets the word taximan means ‘taker of lost luggage.’”
T.S. raised an eyebrow. “Alright then.”
Rosebud stood up. “Okay, so even if we know Mr. Gold isn’t the murderer, that doesn’t explain his strange behaviour. Miss Pierce mentioned a plan just now! And those weird boxes full of brown powder that smelled like chocolate. And not to mention that we are still trapped onboard the train, and someoneis the murderer, and we’re trapped in with them!"
St. Owl raised her hands. “Ok, ok. We’ll figure this out. We’ve already found several clues. And The Ominous is probably on our side, and if Mr. Gold isn’t the murderer then even though he seems shady he won’t kill us, so we’ve got like two allies for sure!”
“Ummm...” said Vyolette.
Brookeira sighed. “Okay maybe things don’t look great, but look. We have each other. We’re smart. Most of us have survived a ton of murder mysteries! We can get through this.”
At that moment, the metal plates over the windows snapped open. They were now round portholes, and the glass was thick and fisheyed. A tiny golden fish swam past, darted away, and then came back. It stared into the carriage, and the Cbers stared out. A shaft of sunlight glinted off its scales, and then it darted away, it’s buggy eyes glaring off into the distance at something else.
The light outside the carriage was beginning to dim as the train chugged deeper into the sea, but there was still enough light left to illuminate the Cbers’ faces in a soft blue-gold glow.
The Cbers looked out the window, their noses pressed up against the glass. Their future remained unclear, but one thing was certain: Mr. Gold, while a shady businessman, was certainly not the murderer. And Miss Pierce? She seemed innocent enough. Hans and The Ominous were probably just trying their best. MURDEROUS is, well, themselves. Oh, and I almost forgot about Morgenstern. We don’t talk about Morgenstern. The Cbers turned from the windows to look at each other in the underwater silence, their faces blue-tinted. Although the future was just as uncertain as it had been at the start of this paragraph, the Cbers knew that whatever happened next, they would face it together.
So without further ado, we bid you adieu. And if we don’t see you, good afternoon, good evening, and goodnight.
THE END (Mostly. Probably. We’ll See. Will You See? You’ll Have To Find Out, In: The Future. ‘Cause We’re Sending You Back To The Future. *flailing hand gestures* *hits lead actor* *concussed Marty McFly resigns* *hire Fox Mulder instead* *franchise crumbles to a ruin amidst the remains of Ozymandias*)
Thanks for sticking around.
(May 31, 2020 - 10:59 am)
Wow....
So this is it! It's been quite a ride (literally, haha).
So...was it Morgenstern? Or am I still missing something?
(June 4, 2020 - 10:57 am)
Or wait, what does Cthulu have to do with all of this
(June 7, 2020 - 7:14 pm)
My sincerest apologies for the delay, I'm working on a reply to your inquires. It just needs to be run past Pied Piper. Don't worry I'm sure the response will be a quick enough sprinter so as to avoid Pied Piper's lightning quick reflexes. In the mean time rewriting the recent two days may help in your search for answers.
~With due respect,
John Feather Quill
(June 11, 2020 - 1:20 pm)
Appologies, I meant rewriting as rereading.
(June 11, 2020 - 6:26 pm)
"Trees looks like brocilli, clouds like cotton candy, and dirt like chocolate. Coincidence I think not!"
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(June 3, 2020 - 1:57 pm)
tkuve
(June 5, 2020 - 1:17 pm)
(June 21, 2020 - 7:04 pm)
(June 22, 2020 - 9:53 am)
Top Top!
(July 7, 2020 - 8:41 pm)
Top
(July 12, 2020 - 3:16 pm)
"Allways expect the unexpected. Then travel back in time to unexpect it. That way it's a genuine reaction!"
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(July 20, 2020 - 1:39 pm)
"Just
when you least expect it, a man if a funny hat invariably shouts
something about the Spanish Inquisition. At this point your life has
become something completely different."
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(August 8, 2020 - 3:06 pm)
Top
(September 21, 2020 - 3:55 pm)