Entry tags:

August Event Log: Part I

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.

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The landscape is familiar, yet not at the same time. Mei had arrived on this planet months ago, her legs weak and barely able to hold her own weight. But she'd been one of the lucky ones. She recalls others had arrived with objects fused to their skin, among other disabilities. These storms, however, are something worse than the way her legs felt back then. She tries to keep up with the group, but her natural curiosity as a scientist has her watching the storm coming in, trying to form a picture in her mind's eye as to the planet's climate. Soon, however, she starts seeing white spots in front of her eyes, and her limbs start tingling like when she sits on one leg for too long and it starts to fall asleep. Still she keeps moving, because everyone else is too. Her shoulders hunch forward, her endothermic blaster barely still in her hand and the water tank on her back that fuels it weighing her down. She blinks rapidly behind the lenses of her glasses, trying to clear her vision when she stumbles too far to her right, running into someone and dropping her gun.

"Sorry! I'm sorry," she says, though there's little energy to her voice. She feels so drained; so hollow. This isn't the first time she's felt such emptiness, but this time, Mei wonders if it will consume her from the inside out.

Looking up at the figure beside her, she blinks quickly and registers what he's said. "Yes. I have to keep going."

[ ooc: let me know if switching to prose is okay? it's easier on my eyes when there are longer paragraphs of text, but i can zoom in on the page if you prefer brackets. ]

When Venom looks at her, really looks, it's with the calm evaluation of a medic; searching for signs of fatigue (to be fair, they're all feeling it), distress, trauma. For the first few beats, that piercing gaze might not be too comforting— he cuts an intimidating figure, after all, all 6 feet of him— but it relaxes once he seems to get a feel for Mei's condition.

One hand rises in the universal sign for wait, urging Mei to stay upright while he kneels down for her discarded weapon.

"Looks like you're carrying too much weight on you."

The blaster is reasonable, but the water tank is hefty. He can tell that one won't work without the other, but for now, he can offer to hold at least one of the items.

"Give me something to hold."

( ooc; no worries at all! prose is perfectly fine with me. ♥ )

"I can usually handle it," she explains, taking back her weapon with a bit of a pout. The weapon/mountain climbing aid may be bulky, but it's useful too, and seeing how they hadn't arrived where they were told they would, she's glad to have it.

"Are you sure you'd be okay doing that?" she asks, but then a wave of fatigue hits her like a truck and her body stops taking orders from her brain, sliding the straps of the tank off her shoulders and making her set the tank down on the ground for a second. She kneels down next to it with a huffed out breath, turning a valve to close off the tank before she unhooks the hose from it, leaving it hanging from the gun.

"Well, it would help a lot if you did." It's said in a slightly defeated tone. When her shadow had been out there attacking people and she had hid herself away with Kaz, he'd asked if she didn't ever feel like she deserved to be taken care of too. At the time, it seemed wrong to expect that of people, but now it seems unhealthy to refuse the offer when she's feeling so empty and sluggish. "This place is making all of us feel awful. Thank you."

However, before he has a chance to pick up the tank, her weather drone flies up off the top of the tank, making angry buzzing sounds. Its digital screen is displaying its feelings on the matter, with a set of >_< eyes.

"Snowball, calm down! He's trying to help!" The drone hovers back and forth over the tank, and if its eyes had a way to look suspicious, it would. "I'm tired," she admits, holding out her free hand weakly, and the drone swoops down under it so she can give him a weak pat.

"Chill out," she murmurs, trying for a smile. "And save your battery. Back on the tank, okay?" The drone chirps out a noise of agreement and lands back down on top. "Sorry about my drone," she says. "It's protective."

He doesn't doubt that Mei could handle herself under normal circumstances, so he hums his assent to her first assertion while he reaches for her setup. His fingers barely hook around the straps of the tank before Mei's drone descends upon him, and Venom blinks his bemusement aside until its handler makes it back off.

"...Snowball, huh."

The moniker is fitting; Venom sees the resemblance. He doesn't quite smile, either, but he flicks his eye at Mei and gentles his features incrementally.

"You're a scientist?"

Shifting the topic of conversation to something more palatable, Venom hefts up the tank so that it rests comfortably against his shoulderblades. It's heavy, but not unmanageable— he nods at Mei to indicate that he's ready to keep going, and silently prompts Mei to start walking first so that he can take up the rear. Just in case she falters again.

"Yes," she answers, which works for both of his questions at once. Her steps start off slow, like she's having trouble getting started again, but soon she manages to get into the rhythm of the steps without focusing too hard on them. If she does, she'll probably grow too exhausted to move. Her gun still hangs low in her hand, but not yet in danger of dropping again.

"I'm a climatologist," she explains. "Snowball helps me monitor things and collect data when I'm out in the field." She pauses to look ahead at the group of weary travelers in various states of distress. She doesn't want to slow anybody else down, and she pushes back her feelings of exhaustion for a little longer. It just needs to be pushed away until she doesn't feel it anymore.

"I'm Mei."

Venom could always offer to carry her, but with her luggage and her determination, it almost seems like it would be a disservice. Which isn't to say that his opinion won't change, if he spies her pushing herself to the brink.

She's already getting there, and he can tell that even speaking is taking its toll. Being a soldier who isn't naturally inclined to being talkative, the silence would be fine with him; still, he can appreciate when it won't be good for morale.

"Mei. Call me Ahab."

He gestures towards himself, letting the motion linger before seguing it into an offer of an arm.

"And take it slow. You're not alone here."

~~A-mei-zingly~~ Amazingly, Mei's face brightens at the name, and for a brief moment she looks less exhausted than before with this bit of familiarity. She really should have considered that even though he's a stranger to her, he could be a friend of a friend.

"I've heard of you!" she says, in what might almost be an enthusiastic voice. Were this any other time and place, it would be, without question. "Kazuhira has mentioned you before." With a smile, she slips an arm around his offered one. Since Kaz knows him, that means he's all right in Mei's book, and she really does need a little bit of extra assistance today.

"You're his C.O., right? I should have known. He described you." He was... kind of drunk at the time, so it was all "one eye, shrapnel horn," and Mei just let that slide without asking about it.

Well, Kaz wasn't wrong: here's Venom with his single eye and his unmistakable shrapnel horn. Mei's newfound enthusiasm is vaguely disarming, but he rides through it and offers her a faint half-uptick of his lips for her trouble as he braces her securely to his side.

"You're a friend of Kaz's."

He doesn't phrase it as a question— he can tell that she's fond of his XO, which is a point of camaraderie.

"Might've heard a few complaints about me, huh."

Joking, since he doesn't expect that Kaz has. It's just a way to keep the conversation light.

It might be even more disarming were she not so out of it. Mei's natural state is one of genuine delight and excitement.

"Ha, noooo. At least, not yet. He hasn't said much, but it was nice. You helped him when the natives attacked him." Something else they have in common, since Mei came across Kaz as he was telling off more natives, and she got him to walk away before a brawl commenced.

He'll have to meet her under better circumstances, next time; as it stands, the landscape is far from welcoming, desolate and bare as far as the eye can see. Thunder crashes somewhere behind them, sending tremors along barren rock.

Still, Venom's tone is patient. Calm. He rarely breaks from neutral, and keeps Mei on the right track.

"...We're comrades. He would've done the same for me." A light mm, as he steps over an obstacle and makes sure that Mei doesn't trip on it. "He's been helping you out?"

"As much as I help him!" she stresses, sidestepping the bit of debris. "We've known each other a couple of months now, and I know he's got my back just like I have his. I'm glad I finally got to meet you since we're probably alike in that we want to keep him out of too much trouble." Her grin is lopsided and tired, but genuine all the same.

"So tell me about yourself. Whatever you'd like to say. And I'll do the same." There's no time like the present to get to know each other, especially since they're walking in a dangerous wasteland.

Her assertion that they should keep Kaz out of trouble garners a vague half-smile, one that says that Venom agrees with the sentiment. The people around him have a tendency to embroil themselves in sticky situations; ideally, he'd want to be around to bail them out.

It's the question of 'telling Mei about himself' that makes him stall a beat, though. Times like these remind him how little he has to offer in terms of honesty when people ask him for details about himself— he doesn't know what to say, and his uncertainty flicks across his single eye for a brief second as he considers his options.

"...I'm a soldier. Not that great at smalltalk." So. Here he is, a little self-deprecating in his dry humor. "Start us off."

That seems to be a thing soldiers have in common. In Mei's experience, at least.

"Well, I'm from China, and I worked for an organization called Overwatch for several years until it shut down. Now I've been collecting the data leftover from Overwatch's old Ecopoints to study the world's climate shift." There's a pause and then she sighs. "I mean, I was collecting all that before I came here. But I suppose I'll get back eventually and then I can get back to work."

'Overwatch'. Now there's a familiar term— it seems like Venom's meeting more and more of the organization's alumni.

He quirks a brow in recognition, but he addresses what Mei's just told him, first.

"Climate research, huh." That's a first. He says as much. "—I've met a few people from your world. Didn't know Overwatch had its fingers in so many pies."

"Oh, it did! It was all about saving the world in lots of different ways. Promoting peace, research and development, exploration. But more than that, we were like a family. No matter what division we were in, we all had the same goals and it drew us together." And then it all collapsed while she was asleep. Her shoulders slump a little, but for once, it's not from her exhaustion, but from her sadness over Overwatch's collapse.

"Anyway, I went first. Your turn."

Every time he meets someone from 'Overwatch', Venom can't help but think about Soldier 76— or, well. 'Jack', as Venom half-knows him by now. He understands that the circumstances that befell their organization warped all of them irreversibly in some way, and that 76 feels the blame for a majority of the rift; still, there's something bittersweet about the fact that Mei protects her good memories of it with melancholy instead of anger.

With that said, and with his empathy culminating in a slow, careful pat of palm to Mei's shoulder, Venom finally comes up with a response.

"Something about myself." He clarifies, and he hums his contemplation under his breath. "...Probably heard from Kaz by now that I work in the mercenary business."

Which is literally the only interesting thing he can think of to say about himself, but. That seems insufficient.

"I ran solo missions in the Middle East and Africa. Didn't spend much of that time with other people— just my dog."

Mei has never blamed Jack, not really. Her shadow certainly did, but Mei knew Jack had his own problems to deal with in running for his life and trying to uncover this conspiracy that ended Overwatch single handed. The people that are to blame for this do make her angry, but there's nothing she can do with that anger here, so she can only be sad instead.

"Oh, a dog? Tell me about it! Male or female? What breed?"

Well. She noticeably perks up at the topic of his dog (who is absent right now, much to Venom's chagrin), so Venom runs with it. Pausing for just a moment to reach with his free hand into his pocket, he pulls out his TAB and fidgets with it for a few beats.

Once he's opened up his photo gallery, he scrolls to a photo of his doggo son. Yes, his dog has a matching eyepatch. Incredible.

"...His name's DD. Not entirely sure about the breed— probably a mix of a dog and a wolf."

"Oh, how cute!" she says, looking absolutely charmed. "He does look like a wolf. Is he friendly?" When they get back can she give it pets and treats and cuddles? Can she spoil him rotten because she can't feed her little weather drone?

DD, always popular with the ladies. Venom can't help but chuckle softly under his breath as he pockets his TAB again, single blue eye fixed on Mei with a measure of amusement.

"Yeah. He's friendly. Smart, too." She is free to spoil him as much as she wants!!!!!! But there's a limit on feeding because he is, in fact, a field dog. Sorry Mei. "Looks like we're gonna have to get out of here as quickly as possible, so you get to meet him."

"It's only fair. You got to meet Snowball." Though it's more a friend than a pet, even if she does pat it on the head. "I'm guessing if we can reach this signal, we can get back. Hopefully it's close now. The environment isn't doing us any favors."

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August Event Log: Part I

hitting the road

storm front

wild life

old familiar places

a

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dw please give me notifs??? what the heck

oh no! :(

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