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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[To be entirely honest? None of this surprised her that much in the end. Savrii had always appeared to her as rather secretive people, not that she cared that much, and then there was the recent tension between them and rest of refugees? Well, no wonder they decided to kick them out.

But that they'd appear right back to this wasteland? That.. J didn't expect. Even though in a way it did make sense.

Still looking gloomy, the makeup replaced by an ugly bandage over her face and wearing a big over sized hoodie over her slim figure, J walks with the rest of the group without saying a word at first. Some people are chattering together, both complain and show their shock of the place.

But there's one remark that J catches in her ears and makes her laugh out loud. If you can call the hoarse rattle that comes from her throat a laughter.]

Hah! If you had seen some of the other places we were taken to.

[ooc: J will appear as a "male" here]

Edited (Ooc note) 2017-08-14 00:49 (UTC)

What other places?

[He's never seen 'him' as a woman, her make-up always immaculately done and clothing beautiful. Classy through and through. What Yondu sees is a scraggly youth that's had something rough lately. He's not particularly sympathetic; there's been a whole hell of a lot of people that've been through worse, but he can at least figure that this person got caught up in whatever hell had the Savrii's panties in a twist.]

[Either way, she seems to know what she's talking about.]

Oh. You know. [She waves her hand in the air a little, gesturing at the nothing. There's a brief pause as breathes the air in, allowing her voice to rest a bit.]

Isolated space prison station with lonely robot and zombies. Planet with flammable and toxic air. Colony which runs completely on slavery business. Another place that kidnapped and used kids to do their dirty work in spying others. [She lists with her fingers, really pushing her strength to keep her voice stable and unwavering.]

Take your pick.

See, that kinda thing?

I done it before and I can handle it. Ain't no problem there.

That's why it's a pretty good call to hire Ravagers. [He pats the emblem on his jacket loudly.] We can do about anything.

Ravagers? [She asks, raising her brow up and hint of laughter sliding into her cracked voice as she looks the man up and down again. The name sounds only hilarious to her ears, something that the young delinquents from her previous school would call themselves while hoping to sound cool or shit.

It's almost ironic how despite of the blue color the man's appearance screams of redneck and trouble.]

Ah that so. Does ravager handle this kind of thing then?

[He squints hard though, frustrated.]

Right now I can't handle it the way I'd like 'cause my crew ain't here.

[He grimaces and yes, does have the teeth of a redneck stereotype. If you mixed that redneck with some Eastern demonic mythology. And he has one of those faces that twists up and marrs twice as unpleasantly when he's pissed off about something.]

But I been in worse places.

We all have, dear. It's in the nature of space exploration, I think.

['Space exploration led by incompetent and secretive people', she wants to add but decides to leave it for now. For once it's not because of their previous captains that they are in this mess.]

So, what's your plan?

Keep goin' until we get out. One o' them probably knows how to do it.

Meanwhile I'm just plannin' what I'm gonna do when I get to talk to the people that lied us into this place.

[Which might be its own version of brutal. But he's not happy. He didn't do shit to deserve this.]

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<Ah. Doesn't sound too creative, I'm sorry to say. <small>[She snorts and a small imitation of a smile visiting her face. Well, it's not like she doesn't share the feeling of frustration.]</small>

We'll see. Maybe they'll kill all of us this time.

August Event Log: Part I

hitting the road

storm front

wild life

old familiar places

unfair punishment

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