The Lost Souls
"The longer you stay, the more you forget."
A Play-by-post modern fantasy RPG on Roleplayer Guild. The roleplay started on September 5, 2013 and is run by the Fox of Spades and co-gm's Orpheus and Crescendo.
The Midnight Train to Nowhere focuses on a group of humans who board a magical train on New Year's Eve. The humans hop on the train in hopes of getting a wish granted, but instead of receiving their wishes, the train whisks them away to a wonderland-esque place known as Nowhere.
Nowhere is a world unlike any other. Rabbits with rifles march around cities, whistling war tunes as they march on. Sky pirates prowl the skies in search of chaotic stars and dragons wage wars against walled cities. It's a magical place, but beneath the constellations and stardust is something far more sinister. The longer you stay in Nowhere, the more you forget. The humans try to leave, but it isn't that simple. The only way out is a scavenger hunt for the strangest of items. In a world where one plus one is a yellow hummingbird, will they be able to brave the odds and finally go home?
The Midnight Train to Nowhere provides examples of the following tropes:
General
These tropes apply to the story in general.
- Anyone Can Die: So far there are twelve dead humans and nine living humans.
- Arc Words: "The longer you stay, the more you forget."
- And I Must Scream: The fates of those who do not manage to complete the living list.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: The humans all came to Nowhere because they wished for something.
- Cool Train: The Midnight Train is a train of fleeting stars and neon lights. Plus, it flies at the speed of light.
- Crapsaccharine World: "A setting which, at first sight, looks nice and cute." Check. "You're probably thinking you've just stepped into a Sugar Bowl. Suddenly, you notice something wrong, and upon investigating, you realize that every single thing below the surface is horribly wrong and dysfunctional" Double Check.
- Down the Rabbit Hole: The humans board a magical train and find themselves in Nowhere.
- Dream Land: Nowhere is a place where dreams and nightmares come to life. Did you have an imaginary friend when you were a kid? Chances are he or she or even it is in Nowhere now. The laws of physics and all things sensible do not apply to Nowhere. One plus one is not two, but a yellow hummingbird.
- Fire-Forged Friends: The Lost Souls start out as absolute strangers and some do not like each other at all, but several dangerous missions later and they all learn to rely on each other. There's no doubt that they have each other's backs.
- God Save Us from the Queen!: Subverted. The Queen of Nowhere is loved by all her subjects and brings joy and cheer to the land.
- Magical Land: Nowhere
- Ship Tease: Songbird and Brandy, among many others.
- Shipper on Deck: Most of the roleplayers are this.
- Suicide Mission: Most of the missions are this.
- Talking Animal: Nowhere has plenty of these.
- Trapped in Another World: The humans in Nowhere.
- The Wonderland
- World of Chaos: Flying trains that travel at the speed of light, sky pirates that hunt down chaotic stars, ice cream mountains and soda lakes. Uh, nothing makes sense, and did that whale just fly?
- Seems to have been slowly developing in the direction of World Gone Mad through the course of the last few chapters.
Characters - Lost Souls (Present Cast)
Ace Tain
- Fiery Redhead: made literal by her turning into a fire knight in chapter three.
- Genki Girl: Ace has a lot of energy and is usually the one who drags others along.
- Heroes Prefer Swords: During the third chapter she gets a flaming sword.
- Personality Powers: chapters three and for had her to have fire powers.
Harper Riddle
- Blind Without 'Em: His glasses aren't just an accessory
- Cowardly Lion: When push comes to shove, Harper is dependable and will do what ever he can to make sure everyone makes it home.
- Nice Guy: Harper is mainly this.
- Only Sane Man: While Nowhere does fascinate him, it also scares him out of his wits.
Inadi Sihma
- Blind Without 'Em: Potentially.
- Cowardly Lion: Like Harper, he isn't the bravest person out there, but when his friends need him, you can bet he'll be there.
- In an OOC-interview, he mentioned that it was hard to keep his glasses on through all the action, and that they have nearly fallen off eight times.
Jasper Golding
- Beware the Nice Ones: Jasper is easily one of the nicest and most sympathetic. However, during a fight with the hooded figures, the living list is stolen and she loses it, even going as far as to throw a handful of goop at Sacha
Jasper: "Who the f*ck do you think you are, huh? Walking in here with your black cloaks and nonchalant invitations! We don't know what the hell you want with 'OUR' list, but," Jasper's chokehold on ???'s wrist gave her the chance to take the Living List from the female and that's exactly what she did, "This," she held up the list which was securely enclosed in her palm now, "Is ours. Not yours!"
- The Klutz: It's a good thing she's a healer.
- The Medic: She becomes this in chapter three and if not for her half of the cast would most likely be dead.
- White Hair, Black Heart: Subverted. Anything but evil.
Leila Noelle
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander
- During the battle with the chaotic star, several sky pirates were sent falling to their deaths. However, instead of getting the heck out of the breaking ship, Leila pauses to fangirl over a black hole.
- During a fight with zombies, Leila pauses to consider gathering samples for the sake of Science.
- Instead of breaking her candy handcuffs, she decides to save it in case they ever need food.
Leila: ”Rock candy.” She mumbled as she looked at the cracked pair of handcuffs. She tried to pull the other half off as well, yet it seemed that it wasn’t damaged enough to break. Soon she gave up and decided she might as well have it hang there for another while - who knew when they’d suddenly need food.
- Raven Hair Ivoryskin
- Hyper-Awareness: she does this an awful lot in her earlier posts.
- Sherlock Scan averted, however, because she usually strays off to compose irrelevant mathematical models out of her observations
- Promoted to Awesomeness by Analysis briefly during chapter Three, where her body temporary has the ability to actually perform the tasks she can imagine, gained via amulet magic.
- Teen Genius
- The Stoic
- Not So Stoic: as of Chapter Five.
Lesley Labelle
- Ambiguous Gender: Mainly because of his gorgeous, curly, bubblegum-pink locks.
- Vincent, Harper and a few of the others believe he is female.
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander
Ran Yuvaves
- Adult Child: Ran is pretty much this.
Riley Grayson
- Fiery Redhead: she becomes a fire mage in chapter three, making the trope literal.
- Fearless Fool: Apparently, running up to a fire breathing dragon sounded like a good plan.
Toby Turner
Characters - Lost Souls(Left/Deceased Members)
Eric
- Cool Old Guy: The man was in his eighties!
Emily
- Death of a Child: When the chaotic star rams into the star fisher, Emily falls off the ship and to her death.
Hakuren Zabluda
- Danger Deadpan
- When the Siren tried to drown them he managed to stay pretty calm, same goes for when the catbus was about to crash.
- Snark Knight: Prime example.
- The *Snark-to-Snark Combat in chapter three happened between Leon and Hakuren.
Leon Elliott
- Snark Knight
- The *Snark-to-Snark Combat in chapter three happened between Leon and Hakuren.
Mado
- Ax-Crazy: The girl has endangered the lives of her teammates plenty of times.
- Mado cuts Elliot with a knife when he refuses to let her drive the sky ship.
- She lights several cherry bombs, nearly killing everyone on board the Shakespearean. Luckily, Brandy threw the bombs overboard and saved everyone. Mado also destroyed the Shakespearean's deck by driving a sky ship right into it.
- Hearing Voices: Mado had several imaginary friends who let her to do dangerous things.
- Put on the Bus
Vincent Grieves
- Jerk with a Heart of Jerk
- The other humans wished for inspiration. The power to save their loved ones, or for the truth. Vince wished for booze, women, and money. He also wants to rule the world.
Characters - Nobodies & NP Cs
Avian
- Dragon Rider: literal or not.
Brandy
Cello
Dissonance
Martini
- Floating in a Bubble: Martini uses a bubble to float around and uses them to move others around as well.
Serenade
- Only Sane Man
- especially important when her sister's around.
Songbird
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold
- impled to have decided multiple times from his job as the Queen's tea supplier, yet failed to leave everytime he "saw the Queen's puppy face".
- Snark Knight
Songbird:Well, Mr. Grieves, how nice of you to join us. Fancy the sky’s much bluer when you’re sailing through it.
- White Hair, Black Heart: Subverted, though he is a bit of a grouch.
Hooded figures
- In the Hood: obviously.
???
- Identity Amnesia: Doesn't even remember her own name. This trope also applies to the cloaked figures as a whole to some degree.
- Mysterious Watcher: The Hooded figures as whole. They appear multiple times. simply watching, in various scenes.
- "Just outside the window, a cloaked figure stared, took one last, long look then walked away."
Gary
Luke
Sacha
- Gentle Giant: Despite his size he is actually quite gentle.
- When Jasper (someone who is supposed to be his enemy) falls face first, he offers her his handkerchief.
Porlogue - The Midnight Train to Nowhere
Chapter One - Captains of the Sky
- Cool Airship: The Shakespearean Star Fisher is an airborne pirate ship that [i]has a theatre on board[/i].
- High-Altitude Battle: The entire Sky Pirate Chapter was one big sky fight.
Chapter Two - The Curse of Siren Lake
- First Kiss: Jasper and Harper, as a distraction tactic to get away with their information gathering.
Jasper: First kiss gone. Not sure how to feel about it. Didn't mind sharing germs with him. Is that weird?
- Burn the Witch!: An implied origin of the Siren. It turns out, however, she was burnt not in the name of praticing witchcraft, but being a traitor for hiding convicts.
Chapter Three - The Kingdom of Sol
- Accidental Kiss: Haku and Jasper.
- This is the second time this has happened to Jasper.
- This one is arguably less accidental than the first.
- Battle Couple: Avian and Victoria
- Go for the Eye: the initial attack Leila executed against the Mushroom man. When instructed to shoot it in the eye, she proceeded to shoot it elsewhere to redirect its attention, before tackling it in the face and [i]stabbing its eye with a handheld arrow.[/i]
- Fire, Ice, Lightning: Hakuren, Inadi, Riley and Ace. The four of them land the finishing attacks on a giant slime. Hakuren slowed it down with his ice, Riley and Ace lit it on fire, and Inadi stabbed it with a bolt of lighting, delivering the final blow.
- Involuntary Group Split: where the group was divided into two after surviving an ambush from local creatures.
- Magical Accessory: The amulets issued that aid the Lost Souls in their adventure in Sol.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Leila shoots a mushroom monster in the face with an arrow. She hits her mark, but it makes the monster VERY angry.
- Snark-to-Snark Combat: Hakuren and Leon get into one of these fights in the cotton candy garden.
Hakuren: As I recall, dear wingless bird, in our battle with those ruffians, you were the pathetic weakling of the day. While I was busy partaking in the fight, you were in such a daze that you could not lift a rock and throw it right. What does that speak of you, it is not far from even the oaf's mind. "The poor baby" was of greater help than you, the crippled avian. Don't worry, Leon. Even the scantiest of broilers end up in the pot."
Leon: And you think prancing around and displaying your ballet skills was any better? Or was having Leila chucked at you better? It was a fight, dear Hakuren-san, not the Nutcracker.
- Sorting Algorithm of Evil: slimes, then the mushroom monster and the orc, then the eventual dragon.
- Possibly parodied in the sense that this chapter intentionally echoes the typical MMORPG game.
- Breath Weapon: The dragons encountered in this chapter breathed all kinds of things.
- Giant Flyer: The dragons are this. Size of a multiple storey house and capable of flight.
Chapter Four - The Midnight Man
- Anyone Can Die: Pretty persistent throught the whole story, but reinforced here.
- Black Magic: This chapter is pretty much full of it.
- Doomed Expedition: Their trek into the dark side of Nowhere.
- Heroic BSoD: Multiple characters during the second fight.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: The rematch against the witch seems to be this.
- One-Liner: Several during the secod witch fight.
Leila: “This may be Nowhere, this may be your world, BUT THIS IS MY BRAIN, AND I HAVE NOT GIVEN YOU PERMISSION TO MESS WITH IT!”
- badass implications averted as the witch proceeded to effortlessly deliver a merciless beatdown on the Lost Souls.
- Shout-Out: The chapter's title, and the character of the same name, trace their origins back to a creepypasta describing a ritual to summon a spirit into the house.
- Summoning Ritual: The midnight game.
- Taken for Granite: The witch's signature stoneflesh spell turns it victims to stone.
- Teach Him Anger: possibly Leila, in the second witch fight.
- When Trees Attack: The trees the witch summoned in their second fight.
- Wicked Witch: Sunken cheeks, skeletal fingers, "a voice that sounded a thousand years old", and fingernails that she uses to stab people.
Chapter Five - Cogs and Gears
- Virtual Training Simulation: the paintball field was in fact the military's training grounds.
Interlude - Beginning of The End
- Important Haircut: One is implied to have happened offscreen, during the timeskip after their alliance with the Hooded Figures.
-
Nightmare Fuel: as revealed by the Hooded Figures, when humans in Nowhere looses the last of their memories, they turn into bunny guards.
Chapter Six - Apathy
- Electric Jellyfish: Averted, although Numair does take a moment to think about the possibility when touching jellyfish tentacles.
- Go for the Eye: C latching onto the angler's face and shoving a stone into its eye.
- Our Mermaids Are Different
- Unscaled Merfolk: The humans become merfolk under the effects of potions, with varying results.
- Sacha is half-octopus
- Leila now has a large, puffy, biofluorescent dress that's made of jellyfish.
- To an lesser extent, Numair's dolphin merman form.
- Water Is Air: the City of Orion is much of this. Most of Orion is just a regular town constructed on the ocean floor.
- there are also lamps. And working electricity.
- complete with the characters swimming out of higher floor windows disregarding the fact that they are windows. Sometimes [i]through[/i] them too.
- Your Soul Is Mine!: The angler fish sucks emotions out of things.
