The moment was completely interrupted as the door was pushed open. Politely, so as not to crash against the wall, but enough so that it grabbed the attention of everyone in the room.

            Peering in was a familiar head and face wrapped in a dark blue cloth, the blindfold covering the newcomer’s eyes though she still was able to give off the impression of looking around the room at everyone. Her wrap billowed slightly as she moved about, nearly springing around like she was about four billion years or so younger.

            “Are we late?”

            “Yes.” The Hunter spoke out in the resulting quiet, voice deadpan along with his features as the Wanderer bounded into the room. However, behind her was a new figure that Pater had only seen a few times in the bar. The gold headwear was certainly distinct, to say the least, though the green and gold-accented mask brought to mind a bird. It did not completely hide the bright, almost glowing eyes gleaming out from the eyeholes of the mask.

            The aesthetic of the clothing was enough to mark the newcomer as one of the South American gods, though not one that had been to these meetings. The new presence didn’t quite cause a stir, though there was a definite perking in the attention level of everyone else in the room. Thankfully it didn’t look ready to descend into anarchy, at least not yet, though Pater was more than prepared to take measures just in case.

            “Is he a new hopeful?” The somewhat lazy but pertinent question had come from Kur, the Sumerian cosmic opting to speak up at long last seeing as everyone else had been struck silent. Even more interesting to note was that the Wanderer hardly seemed to want to contradict or confirm the statement, instead giving the matter a simple waggle of the hand.

            “Kind of.” Well, it was an answer at least, if nothing else. Though it did rankle at Pater just a little, he’d been more or less friends with the Wanderer for long enough that he knew how she tended to operate. Definitely a purpose in mind, though it could be a little convoluted getting there.

            “It’s kind of in two parts. Firstly, I’d been talking with a few people and got an idea. For a way to travel around the In Between with hopefully less fuss!”

            As she spoke, the Wanderer stepped out, coming more towards the center of the room as she addressed the gathering at large, bare feet padding on the wooden floor. The movement drew Pater’s eye to the Triunity cosmic that he’d noticed come in earlier, the one who traveled with the representative of the Middle Way philosophy. The human-looking deity had edged closer to Teller, face calm and sympathetic as he seemed to make some sort of offer of help, though the elder goddess only gave him an equally quiet smile partially hidden by wrappings before gesturing her decline. The moment was brushed aside in Pater’s mind as the Wanderer’s new idea managed to draw some discussion from the surrounding crowd.

            “So, what does this have to do with him?” The lower toned, calmer question coming from Hunter, the elder god’s response more even keeled than his earlier snappishness, which was something of a relief to hear.

            “And what is this about a way to transverse the In Between? We have this already!” Ogoun boomed, cutting through the earlier peace though the Wanderer hardly seemed rattled by it.

            “Yes, but in this case we can partially bypass the Route, as well as planes like Nibiru. It’ll be kind of like a Reliquary.”

            “A Reliquary that acts as a public mode of transportation, instead of a private one.” Hephaestus thought aloud, though the prospect had already drawn some commentary from the other cosmics in the room. Though Pater had his own thoughts.

The idea was simple enough in theory but going to be much harder to carry out in reality; anyone, cosmics, mortals, and otherwise tended to avoid traveling between the cities for a reason. Reliquaries were the only way to do it semi-reliably, though it wasn’t too hard to write someone off as permanently lost if they stopped coming to the Bar after at least a year. And the Wanderer was thinking of a means for transporting multiple people, presumably from all walks or backgrounds? It was more than a tall order; it was very nearly impossible. One accident or disappearance and no one would touch the idea again. Barely anyone was interested in touching it now.

            “Don’t public transportation things need to operate on schedules? Gonna be hard traveling through the Inbetween, even with the Route,” Rush pointed out, leaning back in his chair as his eyes more lazily considered the Wanderer still standing in the middle of the room. But, before she could answer, someone else had something to add.

            “And such things would be a lure for Leviathans. Too easy to devour a large group out there, and they would definitely welcome the energy.” The Hunter pointed out, the words getting a quiet scoffing from another part of the room.

            “You might as well ask to befriend a Chaotic.” Though, even as the somewhat scoffing words were out in the air, Kur briefly straightened, about to say something before Ogoun spoke up again, tone deadpan.

            “Yes, I am aware of what the Circus employs. I still think you are all insane for doing so.”

            “But there are Chaotics that show signs of sapience. Strong ones. They are hardly much more different than…say, a particularly powerful spirit.”

            “A powerful spirit that occasionally devours life and energy. Some more often than occasionally.” Rush pointed out, arms crossing as his voice lilted somewhere between sardonic and poker-faced.

            “Not every single one will be the same, chaos-based cosmics are more than enough proof that there is no baseline when it comes to things bred from that aspect.”

            “But even a chaos-based cosmic, at their core, does not crave metaphysical stability. A Chaotic does, hence the life-devouring.”

            “Either way! We’re getting off topic.” The Wanderer cut in, once Rush had finished speaking. Though both he and Kur didn’t look totally ready to get back on track, they were grabbed along with the rest of the room.

            “The exact model I was thinking of was a train!” Wanderer’s words were punctuated as she withdrew a roll of paper from her robe, rolling it out and displaying a rather cohesive blueprint for the vehicle in question. Though, while Pater was not exactly staring down at the image, he couldn’t help noticing that it looked rather similar to another god’s handiwork.

            “Was wondering why you’d wanted that…” Hephaestus murmured, eyes yanking to him though the Greek god hardly gave them a moment of consideration as he gave the Wanderer a more lightly amused look. She returned it with a smile.

            “You were helping with this?” Hades asked, an eyebrow quirked at his nephew.

            “Not really knowingly. Someone had a brainwave about a train of all things while visiting and I tried my hand at it. At least on paper.” Hephaestus’s words were quiet, but the death god heard them all the same, giving a nod as he turned his attention back to the blueprints. He could guess who the someone was, as he watched Wanderer enthusiastically point out various features and ideas she had apparently scrawled in the margins.

            “And I know the train cars themselves have to be bigger on the inside, kind of like the Bar itself, so I made sure to incorporate that too though there are plenty of humanoid facilities, that way the train car can help with every one that wants to ride!”

            “That sounds great, but how exactly are people going to get on the train? And for that matter, how in the heck is the train going to know where to find passengers? If it’s doing sweeps of the ‘Verses, that’s going to take a helluva long time for just one round trip.” Rush’s point did make the Wanderer briefly stall, before her grin came back at a thousand watts as she went on.

            “I was thinking of using the concept of train tickets! The passengers need tickets, of course, so why not take that and turn them into a sort of portable station for the train? If someone has a ticket, then the train can be enchanted to hone in on it! Of course there would be set stops, in the cities, but if someone is not in any of them, but they have the ticket, the train will….will have a sort of ping, and be able to tell where the ticket is and that it’s being held by someone.”

            “You’ve clearly put some thought into this.” This coming from Kur, though the Hunter hardly looked any more invested. Neither did Ogoun, though a few of the others were trying to get a closer peek at the plans. It was a little hard given that it was a veritable crowd, with Orochi trying to sneak a glance from above and the rest crowding in below. Pater kept to his corner, reasoning that if the blueprints survived this encounter, then he could have a look at them later. At least some, such as Hina, Silap, the Triunity representative, and the Middle Way representative were far more aware of the size constraints of a group this large as they were hanging well back despite their interest.

            “Figured I should have something ready beforehand. Makes it easier to plan overall. Did…anyone have any suggestions about what to add? I’ve mostly got some basic plans for the train cars, but I’m open to ideas.”

            “It has to have a bar.” One of Orochi’s heads blurted out, the words ringing loud as everyone either froze or glanced up at the head that had spoken with nothing short of pure bewilderment.

            “We would need a bartender. Let’s think about getting engineers and a conductor first.” Drove wryly pointed out, the Wanderer straightening up at his words.

            “Oh, that reminds me! There’s one more part to this that I wanted to officially put out, that Viracocha here was going to help with the project, and when the train was completed, he wanted to be the…I suppose the term would be head engineer?”

            The question was more directed at Viracocha himself, the golden-garbed god giving his blindfolded compatriot a thoughtful look before speaking up in a low rumble.

            “I suppose it would be.”

            “Still gonna need a lot of staff. Probably at least several engineers, guessing the train’s not exactly gonna be small,” Drove pointed out, a finger tracing over the drawn lines. “Also, will this be a reliquary vehicle?”

            “So a reliquary guide would need to be commissioned.” Hades’s eyes flicked to Wanderer’s own covered ones, her jolting up a little like she could feel his gaze through her blindfold.

            “Yes, I was going to ask Hephaestus about that…”

            The Forge god in question straightened at the sound of his name, though when he realized what exactly he was being addressed over, he couldn’t help a sardonic eyeroll even as his face gave a small quirk of a smile.

            “And I was wondering when you were going to ask, given that I know I noted on there that a vehicle that size and traveling to as far-flung parts of the Verses will need a reliquary.”

            “Right, I did see that…” The Wanderer hummed, looking far more sheepish than a billion-year-old entity had any right looking, especially considering the dark blue blindfold. “So, did you have anything in mind?”

            “In terms of a reliquary?” Hephaestus started, before considering the blueprints again. “It has to be a calm, even-keeled personality, especially if it’s going to be dealing with the public on a regular basis. It’s also going to take some fine-tuning to make sure it can properly interact with the cars, unless you’d rather I just focus on having it be housed in the engine itself?”

            “No, I think that allowing the reliquary to have some measure of control over the cars is probably a good idea. If there is a problem, they can find out where it is and what’s happening a lot faster than someone would if they had to go through the whole train.” The Wanderer’s switch from timid to musing was a somewhat welcome change, and seemed to cajole the rest of the group as Pater looked from face to face. If there wasn’t a sort of begrudging acceptance, there was outright interest.

            “How will the reliquary be able to view the inside of the cars?” Simbi was the one to speak up now, water-blue eyes tracing over the bare, drawn skeleton of one of the cars. And he had a point, such a thing would not be small, especially for a vehicle as expansive as a train…

            “Maybe through glass? Mirrors, reflective surfaces…much like any other spirit. Perhaps it could even have a few proxy bodies to work with!” Wanderer’s words grew more excited the more she talked, though there was another question coming in from the wings as Hades spoke up.

            “How many proxies are you planning to let the reliquary have?”

            “Depends on how they’re made. Maybe condensed light? We are working with a mirror, so reflected light could work, and they could use as much as they needed!” It was a sound idea and reply, but Kur immediately had a rejoinder to it laced in a quiet chuckle.

            “As long as the lights don’t go out.”

            “Alright, so we’ll have a back-up set of golem bodies! Not that many, and only for emergencies, but that’s a back-up plan that could work!” Wanderer’s answer was seemingly accepted, but just as quickly another problem occurred to one of the others, this time Simbi being the one to pose a question.

            “What about the passengers? How will they be able to go from car to car, especially out in the Inbetween?”

            “We could try to have some sort of covering for the gaps between the cars…” This came from Hephaestus, the god bending a little to take a closer look at the blueprints as though the additions he was thinking of would magically appear. At the same time, Rush had his own input on the moment.

            “You would still have to make them able to be ejected. If a Chaotic gets into the train, that’s going to be your only way to properly deal with it.”

            “Apart from killing the damn thing.” That came from the Hunter, it being the first words that the elder god had spoken about this whole venture that leaned somewhat positive. Didn’t exactly help Pater gauge just how enthusiastic Hunter was about this plan, but the fact that he did speak up was helping ease that tension. A communicative party was at least one that likely wasn’t about to cause trouble.