August Event Log: Part I

[savmods]

Who: Everyone
When: August 9 and onward
Where: An unexpected destination
What: The newcomers go on a trip and end up far from where they expected
Warnings: Potential violence. Please label your content!

NOTE: PLEASE READ THIS OOC POST FIRST.

When the time comes for the travelers to go on the off-world trip that will help restore Thisavrou, they are not alone. Others who have settled on the planets longer and come to call them home are also prepared to travel; through the Ingress and do their part. Yet when the newcomers step through, whether they stepped through the Ingress seconds or hours apart, they will find that they have arrived at the same time, and only newcomers are in sight.

What awaits them is not a land of plenty. The land is barren, and dark storms in the sky resemble those held at bay by the Ingress complex—but much, much closer. Those who traveled on the Moira may recognize the landscape; though they have come through at a different point from the crash, they are on the Midway Hub. And there is no portal back. They are trapped.

hitting the road

Though some have been here before, the Midway Hub is not as they remember it. The storms fill the sky, leaving it dark and ominous even when they are not sweeping across the landscape—but they have clearly done so in recent times, and often. While never a lush land, large patches of ground an acre or more wide looking nothing more than utterly dead; the thistle that naturally grows is brittle, black and unable to be consumed even with the usual preparations to make it edible, and here and there animal corpses are found twisted into unnatural poses, but seemingly uninjured. These places are particularly concentrated near the broken Ingresses litter the landscape. While Midway Hub as a whole may seem naturally arid, these dead spots leave no hope that anything can possibly live there again.

The travelers have two options: stay where they are, or move on. While it might seem that they've been tricked into coming here and been left abandoned, those with the technological ability to do so may detect a sign of hope: a familiar energy source, far in the distance. Although none of the Ingresses they pass will ever work again, the faint energy shows that one still-functioning Ingress lies far in the distance, days away.

Although technological scanning or impressive memory of the landscape indicates that they are not separated from their destination by one of the gates that divide the land, they are also far from the shelter of the facility at the center of the Hub. Any attempt to travel in a direction other than that of the energy signal will result in a strange disorientation after several hours, bringing individuals back to their original path as though they've gone in circles. Meanwhile, though travelers will feel the need to slake their hunger and thirst through any natural water sources they discover, wildlife they can hunt for food and any supplies they have on them, if they don't find sustenance, they'll find that they will never pass out or reach the point of starvation. Instead, they'll be left alive and awake but feeling utterly hollow.

storm front

At regular intervals, the energy storms above descend onto the land, bringing not rain but violent clashes of negative energy and thunder so loud that nothing can be heard above it. The passing of the storms leaves some strange effects. The ground is warped and rotted by their touch, even solid stone degrading to a spongy surface. The air is tepid and oddly charged. Prolonged contact with air or ground will not supply energy, however — it drains it from organic and synthetic life alike.

Those who remember their last trip to the Hub, or simply explore in the right direction, may come across the cave complexes with their glowing surfaces and streams. The light is dimmer now, a sickly green, but drinking from the streams will still restore the energy lost, for a time. This time, however, the lethargy that inevitably follows is much more severe, and the drinkers are left with a raw, empty feeling leeching in from the wasteland around.

Those who are exposed to the storms, either by finding themselves in very close proximity or even closely observing them for too long as they approach, may lose their sight, or hearing, even much of the ability to feel touch — whatever sense they used in observation. What lingers in its place is a numbness. A hunger. And as time passes, the time between storms decreases; what seemed like hours between the storms becomes scarcely one, and their intensity grows.

wild life

Sentient beings are not the only ones affected by the storms; these creatures, attracted to sound and able to track by scent, and these panthers, which once looked normal but have been twisted by the storms into more monstrous forms, are numerous enough that travelers must be constantly alert for their presence. Though natural predators, the threat the creatures represent is not itself natural. They are also more aggressive. Some strange instinct drives them, not a need for food. While the panthers themselves can be caught and their meat cooked, it has little taste, offering nutrition but not satisfaction.

old familiar places

Although it's difficult to track the passage of time without day-night cycles, after what seems like more than a week of the travelers' unexpected trip, the storms abruptly come rushing in at the group of travelers, as if they're herding the group to move faster toward their destination and the Ingress energy that awaits them. The true nature of that destination becomes clear when debris appears on the horizon; the energy comes from the wreckage of the Moira, the interstellar ship that crashed here months ago.

Despite the trauma of impact, large sections of the ship remain surprisingly intact, though few of them are properly vertically oriented. If travelers are able to make their way inside the damaged sections of the ship, they'll find familiar territory, if they are one of those who traveled on the Moira, as well as shelter—something that's increasingly necessary as the storms seem to center over the ship, leaving little hope for survival outside. Useful items may be scavenged from the ship if they are willing to explore, but no personal items of any kind remain.

Strangely, the deeper travelers go into the crashed ship, the less familiar their surroundings will seem, regardless of their orientation. The inward-leading paths into the ship become generic metal, and as with the travel on the surface of the planet, they may find themselves back where they started. And no matter how far they go or how hard they try, they will find themselves unable to make it to the Ingress chamber itself...for now.

Comments

[popkins]

[He listens, absorbing the information, and watching the other out of his peripheral vision. When the man moves, Roland does too and he takes out a large knife from a sheath at his side and helps in cutting through some of the foliage obstacle.

Midway Hub, he thinks, too eerily familiar to Mid-World in name and feeling then. It could be Mid-World on another plane of existence. There are other worlds than these, he hears Jake's voice in his head. Roland's features soften slightly even if his heart hurts all the worse. Roland thinks of the Savrii's genocide over technology and he mentally shakes his head in disgust. It was the same on Mid-World.]

There is a saying on my world: the gods laugh at those who use technology.

How is it worse now?

[warandpeace]

There weren't storms then. The planet was harsh, but there were things that were edible. And the corpses of those herbivores used to be living animals.

It wasn't a lush world, but it wasn't what it's become.

Also I think your gods might need to lighten up. Technology has existed from the first time an ape made a tool. [He tends to be cynical on that. Just because he makes use of so much low tech stuff to fight with.] It's saved a lot of lives and could be used well.

But in this case, the problem came from people wanting to stifle others from developing the same technology.

[popkins]

We stand on the shores of a world which has moved on, been broken, the remnants of their technology so much bleached bone in this Golgotha.

We stand here having been torn from our time and reality by technology.

I cry your pardon, sai. I see differently than yourself.

[Roland continues working alongside the man while he speaks, with very little emotion in his voice.]

[warandpeace]

Fine.

[It's not worth the argument right now. He's not a huge fan of keeping other people in the dark just for other people's personal comforts. Even if it's a state of stagnant uniformity. Peace, sadly, doesn't happen through obscurity.]

[But Kaz has been in a mood, thanks to the Savrii. And it's obvious that for him, this conversation is done. He just keeps walking, because Roland might as well have advocated the deaths of the people here. He had started the collaborative effort to have them cremated so they wouldn't be left to rot in shame. He'd collected their personal effects so they could be salvaged by anyone that happened across this world in search of them. He'd held family photos and IDs and keepsakes in cautious hands.]

[It's thinking of those people that accidentally puts a jagged edge of emotion on a philosophical discussion.]

[popkins]

[The silence suits him just fine. Roland is half tempted to leave the blond man to his own devices but his gut instinct is that they should stick together and so he does. He reasons that ka, his fate, may be bound to this man's ka. The man doesn't remind him of anyone in a previous ka-tet but then again they have only just met and not in the best of circumstances.

Are any circumstances ever favorable, he wonders with some useless melancholy, but he puts the thought away.

It's nearly half an hour later before he speaks again and it's quiet.]

We are being hunted. Do you have any weapons, sai?

[warandpeace]

[They're traveling as a group so he doesn't think too much on it, just lagging to one side. When Roland mentions they're being hunted, Kaz slows his gait and looks around him, scanning the shadows of rocky boulders and disruptions in the landscape.]

[He reaches into his coat and pulls out a gun. Some space weapon, this time the lethal sort; at least he didn't expect a peaceful trip.]

I'm armed. [He says it simply, still scanning the shadows with brutal scrutiny from behind mirrored frames, reflecting the storm on the horizon.]

[popkins]

[Being armed is good yes but only if the blond can shoot worth a damn. Roland glances over and does a double-take at the strange weapon and he frowns at his current companion.]

... what in the gods name is that? Is that a gun?

[Roland is listening to the beast prowling out of sight of the group, but his main attention is focused on figuring out what that thing is and if it's useful whatsoever.]

[warandpeace]

[Kaz looks at it, and then back to Roland.] I know. Took me a while to get used to them, too. [He pumps the barrel as if it's a shotgun, and a line of lights flicker along the sides.]

It is indeed a gun.

[His previous annoyance seems to have ebbed as he is now in possession of a weapon and having a conversation about one. Even if they're being hunted.]