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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[Even if Snake doesn't admit to it being there, he knows it is. It's always been his job; to take responsibility from those even more responsible than himself. Venom Snake isn't an innocent man in this situation, and it's true that Kaz would prefer this over having lost Venom Snake's personality to the wind.]

[That determination is endearing. That same sort of earnestness that let Snake carry Kaz out of Afghanistan, a story he's probably told over and over to the point of exhaustion but it doesn't matter to him. He wants people to know what this man did, for it to be remembered even as an afterthought of a story. It makes him more real to someone.]

I hope so.

[Kaz's confidence could use some bolstering, but he's not going to rely on Venom for that. What he does have faith in is sitting next to him, and it feels almost like a callback when he makes his next promise.]

Whatever the case, I'm with you, Boss. Think we'll make it all the way back to the ship?

Edited 2017-08-12 01:37 (UTC)

[ The thing about Venom is this: he's a fatalist, but he's not a pessimist. According to word of mouth, this isn't where he dies— he believes it, so the thought of falling here and not waking up hasn't occurred to him.

Which is probably weird, no lie. He knows that people here have lost their lives in ways that weren't preordained, but applying that to himself always seems preposterous for inexplicable reasons.

It's probably why he still manages to be so tenacious. Despite everything, Venom's never entertained the thought of winding down. ]

We will.

[ He says, with the same amount of conviction he'd used to make his previous statement. Chin tipped towards the glowing ceiling, dim lights criss-crossing over the outline of his face. ]

Never doubted it. Not with you around to run backup.

[ A soft exhale, verging on a chuckle. Venom ruffles Kaz's hair. ]

[This is the burden of having some sort of formalized companionship with Venom Snake isn't it? He's achieved permanent permission to ruffle that blond hair to his liking. With unnatural skill he smooths it back (and is reminded that it needs washing).]

I don't know about that. [He admits.] When I ran security for the Moira, it was little more than just a glorified title. I had no actual role that was useful. I tried to make the most of what I could, but I didn't kill Ploiatos soon enough.

[He doesn't place a lot of blame on himself, but he places some.]

I don't think we've been left here specifically to die. I think we've been left to suffer.

[Isn't that their whole lives. But the way he leans into V a little more says that he's tired of doing that for other people. He just wanted to live and go home. He had tried so hard to not be disruptive. But that wallet that was taken from him, Dorian helped him get it back, and he reaches in his pocket and pulls it out and flips to a cropped picture of a young Japanese woman in a 50's style dress and just looks at it.]

Kaz.

[ That broad palm pats once last time before drawing away to settle back at his side. ] I was talking personally.

[ Pragmatically, yes, none of them have done much in the way of swaying the larger picture; he'd meant the backup as skewing more towards the emotional, and the faint exasperation lingers before it fades into vague curiosity. ]

...Your family? [ Maybe he shouldn't ask, but he figures Kaz wouldn't be looking at the photograph if he couldn't handle Venom commenting on it. ]

My mother. The rest of her family died during the Tokyo bombings in World War II. She had a cousin who survived. [He nods and rather than show him like some sort of slide show, he only tucks it close to turn one picture around before he offers the wallet itself to Venom.]

[It's uneventful, really. The pictures are mostly ones taken aboard the Moira or received in the mail. That picture of his mother, the one he'd used to ask around for his father, a large mostly purple Samurai looking robot in a bikini on a beach (here they are at what feels like a long haul punishment and Kaz has this), a picture of John being taunted by the Bucky the both knew, a selfie of him and John relaxing together with both of them in rare and pleasant moods...]

[There are a few more, but the last one added is one of Venom Snake sleeping in their cheap little apartment. That sort of picture one can't help but take when they roll over and catch their partner's face smushed into the pillow in sleep.]

[With those as a visual backdrop that's not just the dull lifeless lighting of cave walls and the drone of storms, he adds.] I feel like there's a lot here that's not right. I don't know if they knew we'd survive this, if it's the storm's fault we're holding out, or what.

[ There's a certain level of comfort that Venom finds in photographs: like animals, they're earnest. They depict a reality set in stone, a memory that's only subjective in the way that they're captured.

He smiles through some of the scenes that Kaz chose to preserve— warm ones, framed neatly and with care. Choice in subject matter speaks volumes about the quality of someone's character. What they hold on to, what they value.

The photos of Ishmael are the ones Venom keeps going back to, despite the warmth he feels about having made it on Kaz's 'album'. They're pleasant in a way that Venom can't pinpoint. ]

Not sure what their angle was. If it was to punish us instead of killing us outright, they're taking their time with it.

[ Prolonged suffering as a way to get everyone in line? It's plausible. ]

Only thing I know is that none of them are worth trusting. Not after this.

I wonder if they just wanted to show us what a broken Ingress would do. But... right. Who would trust any of them after this. The most bothersome thing is that the original founders of the Ingress aren't the ones in charge of it now. The people with the tentacle faces? They're not the original Savrii.

I can't find much info, and I suspect whatever transitions happened were slow. Integration and the like.

[But the Ingress isn't theirs in a way, either. They just claim superiority having had the most experience with it. Experience they're unwilling to share, and only know to destroy anyone else that might threaten them.]

The Artifixx hated liars. I bet they would have loved this.

[He glances over and notices him lingering on the pictures of Ishmael. He is happy that V is the person who most recognizes what his tiny little family had meant to him. Two fathers and their idiot child. These photos Kaz managed to print and crop he keeps as a constant reminder of his humanity. After all, it was John that first showed him that their enemies are human, that there are no absolutes. Thinking otherwise is foolish.]

[The Savrii seem like an especially dangerous enemy, more the type to force their adversaries into inorganic change.]

Or it might just be their way of quieting the angry public. Punish all of those who might be a threat. Something I'm used to, too.

[ He turns the last of the photographs over before offering them back to Kaz, wallet and all. The light pat he offers to the object is a silent cue: take care of this.

It probably doesn't need to be said.

And, well. Again, what Venom thinks about in light of this is Skull Face, because as morally defunct as the man'd been, there's no question that what he saw, what he experienced, had more than a strand of truth to it. "Words are... peculiar. With each change, I changed too. My thoughts, personality, how I saw right and wrong."

That's what control is. Changing the landscape, forcing assimilation for the purpose of survival.

(If Venom sees that well-dressed ghoul out of the corner of his eye, tipping his hat, he doesn't dignify that hallucination with a response.) ]

They miscalculated, if they thought this would silence all of us. [ He is, after all, 'Venom Snake'. Some anger doesn't need to be explosive. ] Intimidation tactics are only gonna make more of us outraged. I've seen how some of the others work.

I'm not so sure this is just an intimidation tactic.

I've not eaten for a little while. But I'm still going. I've not drank, either. I only get real tired after I think about it. Until then, I just trudge on.

I don't have energy, but I'm not losing it, either. So I'm not sure that this is real. I think this might be... I don't know. First of all, an illusion to show us what a broken Ingress can lead to. If not them, then the Ingress itself keeping us going. [He's very, very worried that if the former is the case then it's going to be a slow process meant specifically to acclimate them to Thisavrou. Maybe even if it's the latter.]

[But he knows something like that for Snake would be even harder. So he puts his wallet away and slips his real hand through Venom's, twining their fingers, giving him something that at least feels real. He doesn't outright say it, but he wants him to know that he's there for him, and Kaz is aware this is going to be extraordinarily difficult for him.] But you're right. We have people and races here that I saw no evidence of the Savrii having in the past. No people that I recognized. And we've already affected more than any people in the past have for them. [At least for a long time.]

[ At this point, the revelation that this might not be real isn't a surprise. After the first fakeout, followed by a second, followed by a third, even his inability to trust himself becomes a routine. Tell the same lie enough times, and it becomes real.

But despite the novelty of their circumstances wearing off, Venom's expression edges close to a frown. Suffering isn't sport, and he knows that everyone is equal in this mishap, but it brings to mind the possibility of him being a liability later on in the game.

(fix a broken machine once, twice, fine— it still works. break it three, four, five times, and its no longer a matter of finding new components to replace the old ones.)

He scrubs at his face with his bionic, rubbing lukewarm metal along the planes of his tired face, before bringing their intertwined hands up to his lips to kiss at Kaz's knuckles. ]

Sounds about right. We're not going down easy. [ Real or no, imagined or no. ] The only direction for us is forward.

[He remembers what it was like when that parasite had left them with dreams, images crawling into their sleep that left Venom agitated and questioning reality. Kaz can promise until he's blue in the face that he can secure him in reality, drag him back out of a fantasy. But can he?]

[He wishes he could. But their world has been twisted askew so many times thus far...]

[Those words are familiar, though. Ironically accompanying a past thought of Venom Snake leaning over him and breathing warm air into his face.]

Snake, don't be afraid to ask for help. You know I won't think of it as a weakness. I consider your ability to trust in others a strength.

[For all that he condemned so many people that Snake pardoned, it came with that benefit; Snake knew when to ask for help. This is a very personal matter, fracturing, but he needs to know that some of them are better at holding others together than themselves.]

I'll need your help, too. I'm very angry about this.

[In the way that only Kazuhira Miller can get.]

[ 'Help'. Maybe it's just a part of Venom's design, that he considers 'help' to be the continuing existence of the people around him. All a doctor expects of his patients are to listen to advice and keep persisting, after all; the rest is up to fate.

His mind wanders— trapped in some scattershot half-memory of an operating table— before it snaps, rubber-band-taut, back in the here and now.

Shoulders sagging just an inch, he nods. ]

Yeah. I know.

[ His mouth travels from knuckles to the back of Kaz's hand. A subtle gesture of acquiescence, and to some extent, fealty. ]

Keep me grounded, Kaz. [ When he's tired, when his memories start to fray, he can trust his XO to tell him where he is. Where to go. ] If I start drifting, reel me back in.

All you have to do is find me. [ The rest, Venom can do for himself— he promises. ]

[The world is a weighty place, they've been punished as a whole, through and through, for the actions of a few, and Kaz smiles to himself as if Venom just called him a pretty princess.]

[The topic is heavy and came with the weight of those shoulders. But he still has the sensory awareness to be tickled by bristly pressure and breath to the back of his hand. It's better than most.]

You're easy to find. I'll just be looking for the generous soul people gravitate towards. You'll collect a swarm while you're just standing there.

[It was always good to see Venom Snake taking downtime on base but if he stayed in one place for too long Kaz would soon be wondering why fifteen or twenty of his men hadn't reported in. The levity meant to improve Snake's mood, as well as the reminder of the better aspects of their home.]

[ That memory, he can conjure with clarity: standing on any given Platform of Mother Base, idly smoking until he spies two, three recruits out of his peripheral. Jabbing at him with expectant half-glances during their patrols, lighting up when the Boss suggests a quick check of their CQC.

Venom misses them. His foolhardy Diamond Dogs, his collection of half-found family.

Still, he quirks his lips up just a sliver before releasing them from their perch on Kaz's hand. ]

You've still got top clearance.

...Don't be afraid to bump a few shoulders.

[He lets his hand keep resting over V's.]

Is there anything I can do in particular that helps?

[Speak? Stay next to him? Touch him? He's always a little tentative in his approach because he doesn't want to push him further into a place that he can't claim him back from.]

[He sniffs once. Again. And then sniffs the lining of his current fatigues in confusion. He doesn't say the thought out loud, but he's starting to believe that his inability to smell is more than a stuffed nose.]

[ Kaz doesn't have to worry about that— it's not a matter of anyone making it worse, per se, because he does a well-enough job of conjuring his ghosts on his own.

So he shakes his head, which isn't to say that Kaz can't help. Venom clarifies: ]

I'm good with this.

[ His fingers coil in his XO's in gentle appreciation, before he notices the slight fidgeting. ] ...You alright?

I thought I was stuffed up... But I don't think I can smell anything.

[He sniffs again, before rubbing under his nose with his fingers. It's not as drastic as blindness, but it's settling in that something small is missing. Something he should be able to do is gone.]

Do you smell anything right now?

[Normally when they're this close, he can at least smell the other man's sweat, the toil from their recent exertions.]

[ Venom tends to experience shot senses after spending days out in the field, so a bit of numbness isn't too new. It accounts for his frankly blase approach to his own hygiene, but he can tell that this isn't the case right now; he's run into people with various sensory deprivations along the way, and Kaz is fitting the bill. ]

...Yeah. I do. [ Not really a comforting admission, but it's the truth. ] Think it has something to do with being here?

I think it does, yeah.

Either the Ingress is affecting us or it's... [More in our minds than not. But he doesn't want reiterate that thought with any concerning clarity. For Venom's sake, he desperately wants to be wrong.]

Hell of a sense to lose.

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August Event Log: Part I

hitting the road

storm front

wild life

old familiar places

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