thisavrou_log | december event log

Entry tags:

december event log

Who: Everyone
When: December 1st and on
Where: The Midway Hub.
What: With the Moira destroyed, the crew travel to the center of the Hub.
Warnings: Potential violence. Lots and lots and lots of walking. Please label your content

E
V
E
N
T

L
O
G

the outer gate
"Open up, and let them in."

The Moira is no more.

With the damage done to the ship due to the timeslip, all that remains is a burning wreckage and parts to be taken—if the crew can find anything in the pieces. Recovery and headcounts are the main objective for the first several hours of being planetside, and once things have settled just enough, Captain Ira calls for a meeting and addresses those who are able in person to explain the situation. He draws a rough map of the area and explains where he believes they are - according to the terrain - and where they must go. For anyone who’s listening, he describes things like an “Outer Gate”, an “Inner Gate” and “gate sectors”. Believing this to be the best course of action, all crew are asked to explore and gather what they think they’ll need to make the long journey towards the central point of the Hub. Because the MIDs are no longer working due to the lack of a network, the Captains distribute a newer tech called the TAB. It serves the same functions as the MID but is lighter, slimmer, and has the ability to stick to any surface.

WELCOME TO THE MIDWAY HUB

Now that the smoke from the crash has cleared, and injured crew have been tended to, the Captains get everyone ready for departure by explaining what they know of the Hub. Almost stone-like, the creators built a domed workspace in the largest solid space on the planet they could find. Gates are the only way inside, and anyone who catches a glimpse of the compound will see that parts of the dome are cracked. Yet, everything still appears to be relatively intact. The Midway Hub’s terrain is very rocky and difficult to walk on at times. Below the surface is a honeycomb of intermittently dense and brittle stone that makes travel difficult due to the unpredictable nature of what lies beneath the crew’s feet. Those who can develop the tech from what’s left of the debris might be able to create something to determine which route is the safest. Ships and small crafts can be used to fly, but landing is a problem—rocks jut up in sharp peaks and the clearer spots can't handle their weight. Vegetation is sparse, consisting of twisted dark gray thistles that have sprung up from cracks in the rock and burn when in direct contact with skin, and what could be considered small animals here can be seen scurrying away the closer crew get to them.

☄ WEEK ONE

Crew are asked to hook cryo beds together and to use any appropriate vehicles that can be made or fashioned to fit the terrain to carry injured crew on the journey to the center of the Hub. Supplies are gathered, and the Captains, as well as any crew who want to, give the Moira a proper sendoff, heads bowed as they say goodbye to what’s been their home. Traveling starts out slowly, a line of a hundred-plus crew members making their way slowly forward. Stops are frequent, but camping for rest only occurs at night. Crew are assigned watch shifts, fires are built, injured tended to, and those who are able are asked to explore nearby caves and hunt for food.

Something akin to deer, though striped and only to be found in pairs, can be stumbled across at night. Throngs of dark purple mammels begin to follow the Moirans on their trip as well. They are friendly, curious, and eat the thistle. Meet the intelligent, watchful predators that aren’t easily scared away and follow the crew from a distance as if waiting to pounce. The thistle can be eaten, but only if cooked first, and those who sample the chewy plant raw will experience a burning sensation in their throat that doesn’t go away until the cooked version is consumed. During the first week, water can’t be found.

Anyone who does hunt, gather, or explore should make sure to that their TABS are on and it’s suggested that nobody goes alone.

Nearing the end of the first week, an Ingress can be spotted close by that crew can explore. If anyone dares to go inside, they will find the texture of the ground and surrounding walls to be rather soft. If inspected closely, crew will discover that what they originally thought to be rock is actually a living organism that’s fed off the energy of the Ingress it’s attached itself to. It’s not harmful and squishy to the touch. If pressed hard enough, it secretes a turquoise liquid with the consistency of water that might make a good substitute for that very thing.

☄ WEEK TWO

When crew finally pass through the sector gates, a strange sensation encompasses them, and a depowering of sorts goes into effect. The creators put in security measures meant to put all visitors on equal footing as well as to protect themselves from harm. All crew will essentially have the strength and abilities of the average human. An unforeseen issue, this causes Captain Thán to slip into a coma as he is no longer able to continue to recover at a steady pace, and with the loss of the former Captain’s abilities, crew can no longer be brought back if they die. For the first time, all Moirans are subject to permanent death.

During this week of travel, broken ingress machines and parts will be found scattered among the rocks, and new crew will come through. Unfortunately, these Ingresses aren’t in good shape, and anyone coming through will be in varying states of distress—some physical and some mental. New individuals will either have suffered an age slip, growing older or younger than their original body, some form of body transformation (perhaps that shiny thing they were wearing is now part of them somehow), or an extreme weakness they had never been subjected to before arriving on the Midway Hub. The new people will be offered to join their group, once found, and seasoned crew will be asked to explain to them where they are going and what they know.

The rest of the week will be a mix of greeting the new arrivals and continuing to travel to the center of the Hub. The closer they get, the less frequently they’ll see animals, and more caves will begin to pop up.

☄ WEEK THREE

Entering the third week of travel, settlements and houses begin to crop up and are prime areas for exploration and general supplies. Those who go inside may find items that have been left behind and evidence showing that those of varying species and cultures lived in the homes. Some appeared to have been scientists while others were explorers, but all living quarters are deserted. Crew who are less lucky in their search might come away with no fresh supplies, and others might walk into traps or safeguards left behind by previous tenants; these come in many forms, from mild paralysis to temporary unconsciousness. As there are more residences, there are also more caves. The entrances vary in size, and light sources will be needed to explore. Once inside, crew can find purple underwater streams, which can be consumed, and glowing surfaces. When crew drink the water, it temporarily restores powers, a few minutes tops, and then, extreme lethargy settles in for a couple of hours.

Further into the cave systems, crew will come across these lovely creatures that are attracted to sound and track through scent. They are highly dangerous and attack simply to feed. Killing them, though, is surprisingly simple as they are just as vulnerable and weak as everyone else. They are vicious in demeanor but only as strong as an average human.

The closer to the Inner Gate crew get, the less homes, wildlife, and more caves there will be.

☄ WEEK FOUR

The Captains, aware that the crew is exhausted, stop and make camp for the first few days. Someone mentions that it’s the holidays where they’re from, and the Captains do their best to throw a party. Set up at the base of a cave, tents are built and fires roar. Soft music is played in the form of guitar, thank you Ira, and Cúrre brings out some legumes that taste like cherries when roasted. There isn’t much in the way of decorations, but crew are encouraged to dig through their pac-discs and contribute to the festivities.

After a brief respite, crew learn that the entrances to Gate A and Gate B are inside one of the caves but any signs or markings have long since worn away or been destroyed. Groups are split, TABS are synced, and crew explore carefully until an entrance is found. Crew discover Gate A first, and all crew are contacted to gather there. The Captains will remain at the cave entrance until all crew are accounted for, and then, they’ll enter through the gate together.

( ooc; For questions, go here. Please comment to activity check to receive new ranks (if applicable)! )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ He watches. Hums under his breath— a low hm. ]

So you two played a lot of hide-and-seek.

[ Note to self: 'both of them are travelers over wide spans, but they kept in touch'. That's significant— Venom can think of a few relationships that have followed that pattern, and none of them have been strictly casual.

Y'all keep confirming what he's already suspicious of, but he's actually kind of enjoying watching these two being not subtle at all, so he's. Just going to try not to rib them too much. ]

Edited 2016-12-26 02:16 (UTC)

You could say that.

[He'd only just picked up the lead that would take him to her when he was pulled here, but 76 isn't interested in getting into the technicalities. It's clear by now that Venom is having some kind of thoughts about all this--76 knows because he'd be having thoughts about this too. All he can to right now, however, is press onward, because to back away at this point would be that much more suspicious.

For all he knows, it might be fine.]

What soldier has not played that?

[She gives Venom a shrug with a smile. Really, there's nothing she's hiding. Or even playing coy with. Just...half-truths.]

Especially ones who have no army.

[ Do you ever hit an awkward moment in a conversation where you kind of just, trail off and wait for someone to come up with something clever or game-changing to say because you've run out? Venom does. This is it.

A stretch of agonizing silence follows a mild yeah.

Venom reaches for his RPK-74 (an antiquated model, probably something Ana or 76 would find in a museum instead of a battlefield) and starts doing some idle maintenance to give his hands something to do. ]

...Difficult for a soldier without backing to make a name for themselves as a bounty hunter. [ Is what he comes up with, mostly with respect to Ana. ] Where were you trained?

[Oh, no. This is the part where it gets dangerous, and 76 gives every indication that he’s just going to let Ana field this one. He’s not about to talk about himself in any real capacity—even though he knows that anyone with half a brain can easily pinpoint him as American special ops. Venom has already jumped to that conclusion, and he’s not about to give him any more to work with.

But this is about Ana, anyway, so all he can really do is sit back and hope that she doesn’t let on more than than he can afford.]

In Egypt, as part of the security forces.

[It's a fairly unrevealing answer, though Ana didn't have anything to hide like her partner soldier here.]

While I prefer not to toot my own horn, in my younger days, I was known as one of the world's best snipers. If one can imagine me being younger.

[At this point, for her, it's like looking at a photo of your grandmother as a college graduate with a full life ahead of her and going "Wow this person is cute, who is it?" Or, it's how she imagines it.]

[ 76's silence is Not New, and it's patently suspect, but Venom politely refrains from pointing out the obvious. Now, the subject of Ana tooting her own horn, though— ]

The best, huh.

[ Please, Ana, everyone here is over 50, let's not have a competition about age. Instead, Venom picks up on the subject of her sniping, because that's a subject that's near and dear to his heart.

He swivels, squints into the distance, and points to his 10 o'clock. ]

Range, about 550 yards. [ A beat, and he rephrases— she's from Egypt, they'd use different measurements. ] ...500 meters. Center of arc is a boulder with two cracks on its face. There's a branch hanging from a tree to the left of the arc.

[ Implied: can you hit it? ]

Edited 2017-01-05 14:42 (UTC)

Still the best. That hasn't changed.

[76 can't help but say that, even though it's inadvertently revealing that he's known her for quite a long time. Perhaps he's just that excited at the prospect of trick shots to prove that Ana is Most Definitely the World's Greatest Sniper.

He leans a little to take a look at the target Venom is pointing out, raising an eyebrow in Ana's direction.]

She can hit it.

[Ana reaches down to pick up her rifle. Not the one she used in her time with Overwatch but, like 76, it was something she stole from them. With the concept taken from Dr. Ziegler's equipment, turned into ranged equipment by everyone's favorite Swede, and modified into an offensive weapon by Ana, it was quite a thing.

She tapped the scope lightly and gave her similarly eye-patched counterpart a grin.]

I have done four times that distance in the past, but with a different rifle. Are you sure you do not wish to add any other conditions?

[ Okay, now Venom is going to go ahead and quirk his lips up in a ghost of a smile, obscured by scars and shade and a tip of his jaw to the side. No one can tell him that 76 didn't just border on proud, didn't just seize an opportunity to make a comment which was roughly the equivalent of a parent singing his child's praises to a nonbeliever.

(What did we learn today, kids? That even supposed terrorists can take the time to sound fond.)

Thankfully, Venom has enough propriety not to heckle. ]

Don't have a scope. [ Meaning that he can't look 1200 meters ahead to pick out something for Ana to shoot, even if that would have been more exciting. His half-smile lingers around his edges. ] Think you can hit it with your nondominant?

[ Unless she's ambidextrous?? In which case, yes, hats off to her. ]

[She can hit it without a scope, is what he wants to say, but this time he manages to keep his mouth shut. His body language, however, is another story--76 is leaning forward with interest, clearly engaged in the current topic. He might actually be excited. Venom has no idea how good she is, and now he's going to see it happen. 76 can't help but be a little overly-smug about the whole thing.

Venom might even be able to hear him grin behind his mask.]

Show him.

[Said like she even needs him to tell her.]

[She can practically feel how 76 was feeling at the moment. While he was doing his thing, she was also sure that if there was a contest to beat up fifty people at once, Jack had it in the bag too. They each had their good points.]

It took some time to learn but...

[She kneeled down and tilted her rifle a little, to use her non-dominant eye, as it was. It would be a position that would cause problems in normally scoped rifles but Ana had spent more than enough time zoning it in to her own needs.

Ana jacking the bolt back and forth, pushing in an empty dart. No sense in wasting anything. A couple moments of lining it up, she pulled the trigger with the sound of a silenced shot and the dart flew out, lodging itself exactly where Venom had pointed out.

Considering that it was a dart and not a bullet, there was a bit more than normal skill involved with that too.]

[ Venom knows that the request was, to put it immaturely, 'mean': from one FOV-impaired soldier to another, leveling a scope to a nondominant hand with a nonexistent eye is, well.

It's hard.

Regardless, her dart flies straight and hits the target without so much as a millimeter of error, and Venom is impressed; it shows in how he gets up and cranes forward, how he almost whistles between his teeth. ]

Beautiful shot.

[ Not an ounce of patronization there. It is what it is, and despite the stillness of his tone (he never veers too far off of his placidity), Venom is genuine in his assessment.

(God, he misses his sniper too.) ]

[OF COURSE IT'S A BEAUTIFUL SHOT she makes nothing but beautiful shots, except when 76 gets in the way of her beautiful shots, but that's not what this conversation is about. What's important is that Venom is clearly impressed, which means that 76 is extremely smug about all of this. He might even be folding his arms in a smug fashion, that's how smug he is.

Not that V ever really gave indication that he doubted any of this, but still.]

I told you.

[She walks over to 76 to give him a friendly hit on the back. Which she's more into the fist bumping so it's more of a statement of how he's doing a bad job hiding the fact that they're really old friends.]

It is always nice to have support from the sidelines.

Still, thank you Ahab. If you ever need long range support, you are free to contact me. A friend of the soldier here is a friend of mine.

[And yes, she used the "f" word.]

[ He'd have to be incredibly dense not to feel the smug pride radiating out of 76, even if the guy's face is completely obscured by his visor. Ana verifies the obviousness with a friendly palm-to-back and the use of the word 'friend'. Not terribly difficult to put two and two together. ]

You'd have to ask him if he considers me a friend, first.

[ Okay, now it's time to rib 76 just a little. Good thing Venom is nice enough (or sympathizes enough) to follow up that uncomfortable statement with something else. ]

Likewise.

[ That's it, just one word. Directed at them both: I'm willing to cooperate with you both. ]

[UghHHH the F WORD. The F word and the clap on the back, even. 76 is entirely unprepared for the physical contact, but to his credit, he recovers well. He shrugs her off after a moment and turns the gesture into something noncommittal, just for Venom. Trying to avoid providing a straight answer to the question.]

Ehn. He's all right.

[That's as good as it's going to get, Venom.]

[There was a translation to be applied here and Ana was more than happy to give it to Venom. Mostly with a smile as she returned to the spot she was sitting in earlier.]

Seeing as he considers that most people exist only to hold him back, that is quite a step up.

[Ana is more than happy to twist things a bit more to make her old friend seem softer than he was.]

Edited 2017-01-11 21:27 (UTC)

'All right'.

[ He echoes, without any particular sense of malice. The assessment borders on funny, and Venom considers, for a moment, if 76 isn't actually painfully earnest despite everything.

(Maybe all it takes to get on the soldier's good side is to compliment Ana, though.) ]

I won't hold it against him. Working solo isn't bad. [ Here, he'll try to save you a little bit. ] Got one question for you, though.

[ He makes an obvious motion to Ana, indicating that he wants her ear for a second. Just hers, sorry 76. ]

[And so, 76 is powerless as Venom motions Ana to join him for what is clearly going to be some kind of private conversation. He looks about as indignant as he possibly can, given the fact that his entire face is covered.

Ana will know. Ana will know how displeased he is with this turn of events, not that it's going to stop her.

Venom. Venom, he thought you were his bro. Sort of. Maybe.]

[Ana gives a smile to Soldier before scooting over to Venom. A little bit closely since she gets the feeling that he would prefer that Soldier didn't entirely overhear them, though Ana figured it wouldn't stop him from trying to.]

What is it?

[ 76, you can't 'ehn' Venom Snake and then expect him to have your back— that's not how this game gets played!!! So it's a good thing that this isn't actually a game, and that Venom isn't actually looking to throw 76 under the bus, huh.

Before he tips into a conspiratorial space, the audible disclaimer is this: ] Nothing important.

[ Once that's out in the open he angles towards Ana, his mouth obscured. ]

Just wanted to know if you have a name to put to 76's face. [ 'Face'. ] —You don't need to tell me what it is.

[ The reason for his interest is thus: a name puts a stake to things. A name is a pact, a sliver of commitment to something that doesn't boil down to pragmatism or self-denial.

Venom is just a Snake, but he doubts that 76 is just a missing number. At least, he hopes that that's the case (as he does for most people around him, the Liquids and the Solids and the other serpents with actual names). ]

[She leans back a little. He was obviously a competent soldier and not part of the team. Jack's whole "people in danger" sentiment really couldn't apply much to him. But she also couldn't straight up give away anything.

So the best answer was an answer that told V what he wanted without straight out saying it.]

...I won't say that I do not.

[It wasn't whispered though so if Soldier didn't hear, he'd just have to wonder.]

[Ughhh none of this is comforting at all! He'll have to ask Ana what that was about--only for her to refuse to tell him, probably. For now, he stands to the side with his arms folded, looking decidedly unamused.]

You two finished talking about me?

Probably. Though how can you be so sure it is about you?

[She answers before Venom, just because she can. Though she does head back to Soldier's side, to keep him a bit placated.]

Perhaps it was something else.

december event log

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)