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Chapter 190: The Lavish
🕑 Added 2025-01-14 16:04:58 +0000 UTCHey there, hi!
A quick note: I’ve been informed of the proper way to use the word ‘coach’ in English — apparently, it refers to railway carriages that are for passengers, rather than being a term for all railway carriages. I went and fixed that in the previous two chapters. That also causes the numbering of the carriages to change (bc the locomotive doesn’t count as a carriage); basically the train is made up of one locomotive at the front and six carriages behind it. This will now properly reflect in the story, sorry for any confusion.
Enjoy 🤍
First Day 09:04, Carriage Four, Lounge
“So, what do my girls want to see first?” Omi asked with her big black eyes, her antennae twitching. She stood very still as she waited for instruction, seemingly ready to dart off at a moment’s notice.
“Well, they say the train runs on praise, right?” Treeka mused, sitting such that her feet dangled over the side of the pot. “So then, do we want to see the best things first or save them for last?”
“What is the best thing?” Dema asked, excitedly shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “Not gonna lie, I kinda wanna get to giving praise already… This is such a cool place! I wanna meet everyone on the train if I can. Can we?”
Omi giggled, holding her hand up to cover her mouth. “Oh, sure. Well, in that case, I’d say most people would agree that the best part about the Campanella would be the Lavish.”
“What’s that? Like a bathroom?”
“You’re thinking of a lavatory, Dema,” Bell murmured.
“Oh…” Dema scratched her head. “Wait, then what’s a ‘Lavish’?”
“I guess I’ll just have to show you,” Omi said mysteriously. “It’s a place unlike any other you’ve ever seen… or, well, technically, it’s exactly the opposite.” She wiggled her fingers to add to the mystique and then dashed to the mirror. “Just follow me for now, I’ll explain in a moment.”
Then, without as much as a glance back toward them, Omi slipped through the teleporter like through a crevice between furniture. Theora exchanged a glance with Treeka, who was holding back a chuckle, then they stepped closer to inspect it.
“Can’t use [Identify] in here,” Bell lamented, since the Skill needed System access to function. “But I suppose we just walk through?” Probingly, she reached out her tendrils to run along the edges and stand. “It’s warm to the touch,” she murmured, and then continued in a lower voice, “Feels a little disgusting.”
“Really?” Dema joined Bell’s side and touched the reflective surface. “Damn, you’re right! It’s warm! That’s kinda fun…” She pushed, and the glass gave way a little, then absorbed her finger like a bouncy membrane. “That’s…”
“Disgusting?” Bell offered.
Dema giggled and turned her head to blow Theora a kiss. When Theora offered a hand, Dema pulled her and Treeka through the mirror with her.
It was warm. Like jumping into hot sand in summer, except the sand was gentle and gave way easily. On the other side, they found Omi waiting patiently, sitting on a small bench next to a heavy, bolted door. A soft thrumming soaked this place, one that had not been present in the lounge.
Bell joined them only a moment later, and now they all found themselves in an extravagant railway carriage with framed windows and ornamented wooden walls that were painted in aquamarine and red. The mirror stood next to a door leading to the previous carriage. Up ahead, at the other side of the room, was another door with thin crimson lettering denoting it as the ‘ENGINE ROOM’.
The windows still showed the forest; the train had not yet started moving. However, something didn’t quite check out.
“Wait a second,” Dema said, knocking against a door out of the train to their right. “Aren’t we on the upper floor? Why’s there a door here? Is it fake?” Then she gestured to the lettering above it, saying ‘THE LAVISH’. She peeked out a window to find nothing behind it. “The Lavish is in our forest…?”
“Not fake!” Omi said, sitting on a bench beside the ‘exit’. “Just special.” She knocked against the door, and it resounded hollow.
“Ah, so it’s a magic door?” Treeka asked, leaning over the ledge of her pot to get a better view, so Theora lifted her a little.
Omi let out a, “Mhm!” and the sound came out a little squeaky. “Yep! We are now in the engine carriage. The locomotive.” She gestured to the mirror. “There are two of these teleporters on the train, in carriage three and four — and both of them will send you here. The one in the lounge is facing the back of the train, toward carriages five and six. The other teleporter is in the dining carriage, toward the front side of the train.”
“So everyone can easily access the engine carriage?” Dema asked.
“So everyone can access the Lavish!” Omi squeaked. “But yes. The teleporters make this the most ‘central’ room of the train despite its location. Unless you’re in the very last coach, it’s never more than one carriage away.”
Dema scratched her head and looked at the door. “Damn… so what is it, then?”
Omi smirked and got up — she now stood on the bench, rather than in front of it, yet barely even managing to overlook Dema. “Well… who wants to open it? It will look different depending on who releases the seal on the door. Who wants to do us the honour?”
“I guess I could,” Bell offered and grazed the door with a few of her tendrils while tangling the others into a braid, which she then wrapped around her body. She reached out a hand toward the center of the door which featured a small indenture that was denoted by an arrow. “Place my hand here, I assume?”
“Yep!” Omi said. “There, perfect, now you just have to—”
And with that the door swung open into the wall, revealing a mass of wobbly blue. Something appeared to be hidden behind the area; Theora couldn’t clearly recognise much through the tiny, blurry viewport the entrance granted. Except that it looked like… water. A lot of water.
Dema gasped and whispered, “So it is a bathroom after all.”
“Oh,” Bell let out, stepping closer to the entrance. “It’s underwater…?” She hesitantly looked back at Omi, who just gave her a shrug.
“It’s different for everyone.”
Bell frowned, gently poking through the intersection between air and liquid with a tendril. Shortly after, her head followed, her bell hat entering first until her face joined after. Just a moment later, she pulled herself out, beaming. “I think I know this place. Can we go in?”
“If you can breathe underwater, sure!” Omi squeaked, trailing down one of her antennae with a finger like combing a long strand of hair. “The Campanella will warn anyone from entering who isn’t physically compatible with the destination.”
Bell just shook her head letting out a quick, “Just follow me!” as she disappeared into the water.
Dema shrugged as she approached. “Maybe she’s gonna make a barrier?” She disappeared inside too, and Theora, still carrying Treeka, followed with a nod toward Omi.
The water was cool, but not cold. Stepping through was a very different experience to that of the mirror — they seemed to be made of different kinds of magic. The one here appeared a lot more ancient; more profound. It wasn’t just two points in space overlapping, folding, and connecting like a one-sided twisting band.
The surface revealed a world of aquatic wonder. Long-leaved plants rocked sideways in a stream of crystal clear blue water, surprisingly bright for how deep down it seemed to be — maybe about twenty metres, with the surface light thrown down in glittering cones. Luminescent sea life filled out the shadows; mostly glowing fish, with gleaming jellyfish and coral interspersed as well.
This felt like… felt like sitting in a blob attached to the underside of an island in the sky. A place that wasn’t supposed to exist and yet did, a place that they shouldn’t be in but were. It was the mercy of the train that kept them both here and attached to it.
Something didn’t quite feel right with this place in and of itself, and it took Theora a moment to understand why: the trees and bushes and flowers growing on the floor of this lake weren’t sea plants. She recognised all of them from the surfaces of Himaeya. It felt as if an entire valley had suddenly been engulfed by a flood but decided it would keep growing anyway.
And, it turned out after Bell motioned for them to take a sip, the air was breathable. “It’s the Sunken Valley,” she said with a smile, bubbles coming out of her mouth as the sound was somehow properly transferred through the water. A few loose tendrils enthusiastically floated around in the surrounding water. “There’s a waterfall upstream that infuses the lake with enough oxygen.”
“That’s—” Dema let out, together with a sudden burst of bubbles, and then scratched her head after taking a breath. “Really?”
“Gosh,” Bell continued without getting dissuaded as she probed around. “Old Bell used to love this place. I never had the chance to go. This is so cool.”
Omi giggled — she was the only one Bell was protecting with an air bubble, though Theora didn’t mind because the water was warm enough.
Treeka shuffled around on the pot in Theora’s arms. “Wait, so are we actually here? Is it like, a teleporter… like the mirror?”
“Feels different,” Dema mused.
“Ah, yeah, I don’t think so,” Omi said in a slow chirp. “I mean, I don’t really understand the details, but there are some protections in-place so you can’t get lost from the train and so foreign entities can’t join. So it might just be an elaborate copy? Or some magic alteration. Essentially, the Lavish takes places of your childhood to show them back to you. It’s a way to connect to our homes even though we’re far away.”
“That sounds absolutely amazing,” Treeka let out. She couldn’t get enough of the surroundings; perhaps she never had the chance to hang out much underwater. “Can you like, choose a destination?”
“Nope!” Omi squeaked. “That’s part of the thrill! It’s kinda random and never shows you the same place twice. Once you’re out it’s gone! Will show us a new place from Bell’s childhood next time.”
“Really?” Bell sounded somewhat disappointed. “I was hoping I could return here.”
“Chances are it will show you an even prettier place next time,” Omi said with a giggle. “But that’s totally fair, this place looks amazing. Still — for now, let’s leave again so I can show you the rest of the train?”
“Maybe Bell can stay here for a while, if she wants to see?” Dema proposed. “But like, either way, Bell?”
“Yes?”
“We can go here once we go back to Himaeya! Let’s visit?”
Bell beamed at Dema and nodded. She took another look around and sighed, letting a bunch of bubbles out of her mouth. “Fine. Fine!” She turned to Omi. “Thank you for showing me. I’m ready to leave…”
She didn’t sound all that ready, but made no objections when they made their way out. As Omi said, the train didn’t allow anything from outside in, so getting back conveniently dried them of all water. Outside, Omi turned to the stand next to the entrance of the Lavish, with a thick book propped on top.
“So that right here’s the praise log,” Omi said. “If you find something you like about the train, make sure you write it all down. It’s not enough to just praise it in front of your friends and such! It needs to happen through the proper interface to be effective. There are some additional functions — for example, you could add the train to your favourites and subscribe to it to recei—”
Suddenly, the room flashed in bright light, and a crow fluttered in through the mirror. Omi fell silent at the sight for a moment, her expression turning tense.
“Everything alright?” Theora heard herself say on instinct. She’d barely spoken for a while, and her voice came out slightly strained. She cleared her throat, which she immediately regretted because it could have made her come across as hurrying Omi along.
“Yes, sorry,” Omi responded. “Just seems like it’s best we get going.” She sighed and beckoned the others to follow before moving past the crow and the mirror to approach the exit toward the first carriage. “Anyway — now that we’re done with the Lavish, let’s quickly show you the rest of the train. First, your rooms!”
