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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Ingress abuse. It sort of makes sense - if it's powerful enough to transport people, dozens of people, to whole different worlds, it should probably be protected.

That doesn't make her like being blamed for it any more. At least when people assumed she was like every other Nora it was because she was a Nora. Now she's being lumped in with a group of people who are all nothing alike. Not a tribe or anything else connecting them. But-]

I heard people talking about being on a ship that crashed here. They just found you and took you there? I'd thought... [She can feel wetness on her hands, and hopes it doesn't make her lose her grip. They're not carrying it, but it's still heavy.] ...everyone arrived through the Ingress from different worlds.

It was called the Moira. And the Ingress brought us there, too. [He grunts, looks over his shoulder to make sure nothing is creeping up, and then keeps at what he's doing.]

The Savrii felt that no one else should use Ingress technology but them. We were trying to find the makers of the Moira's Ingress and we discovered they'd been completely slaughtered. All of them. Every last one.

The Savrii took us- nnng -back with them because they decided that we weren't a part of the construction of some Ingress that wasn't theirs.

There was a settlement here, too. It was empty. The Savrii are pretty good at their sweeping generalizations. [He says it with the slightest touch of spite.]

[... So much for thinking the Savrii seemed like kind people. They'd come across that way while helping her get her bearings and giving her quarters - despite her being the interloper.]

Great...so as long as no one ever makes Ingress technology, makes their own version of Ingress technology or thinks about making Ingress technology...we're fine.

[...And as long as no one ever annoys them in any way, or apparently you get dumped in a wasteland.]

Why wouldn't they just send us home? If they're the one true keepers of the Ingress, they should know how to use it.

Pretty much. They feel that no one else should have access to Ingress technology and shouldn't be trusted with it. But rather than sharing the hazards of using it or teaching them how to prevent it being dangerous, they just killed everyone.

[Which says to him that the Ingress itself is dangerous just because of its founders.] From what I know, the people of the Midway Hub had developed their own version of the technology.

They were sending us home, a few at a time. They needed to locate the source of our signatures. Sending us here isn't just a group punishment for the actions of a few. It's justifying our mistreatment to their masses and its- [he huffs with another heavy heave, for some reason just chatting away about political matters as he sets to it] -it's a power play. To show they can get away with doing whatever to us that they want.

That...sounds familiar. [She mutters it to herself, an old habit. For a moment she can almost see the holographic form of Ted Faro, standing above the Alphas as he proclaimed humanity's past too dangerous for its future to ever learn of.]

They can't get away with this. [She says this louder, peevishly.] They got our permission to send us here by lying to us - they won't get it again.

[But then she looks up and around them, at what seems to be a storm starting to take shape in the far distance, the dead land around them.] If we can even get back.

[He slows his tugging to stop and think, unstrapping his pack from his back to go through it.] Wait. We're probably using more energy than it's worth. We can cut off the parts that are the meatiest and take those to safety.

[They'll just have to make it quick, to avoid the looming storm bearing down on them.]

I don't think they care that much about permission. Though I think it's a little funny that they betrayed our trust to teach us some sort of lesson about respecting them. [He has a knife out, cutting away at a leg, frowning deeply to himself.]

We might need as much of the animal as possible, we don't know how long we're going to...

[He's already cutting. That works too.]

They seemed to care about it somehow. They made sure we all agreed to go somewhere. I guess it's less trouble than rounding us all up and pushing us through.

[Taking a knife from her boot, she starts to cut at another haunch.]

Do you think they mean for us to get back there? [Assuming that energy signature is an Ingress, assuming it still works, assuming they can get through it and it doesn't just take them to yet another dead world, or worse.]

We would have agreed anyway.

How much do you know about the intermediaries? [He's not made much of a secret of his suspicions of them, but at the same time much of his secrecy is in how up front he is. Hiding subversion behind bluntness. A largely ineffectual member of society who owns an eatery and had aspirations to start a business specifically dedicated to rescuing people in perilous situations.]

And... [he slows cutting, pausing thoughtfully, before shaking his head.] I don't know.

I know that this will harm a lot more people than it appeases. [The Savrii grossly underestimate how dangerous these people are. He knows he's underestimated the intermediaries, too, but he knows from his own skill judgements that the people brought through by the Ingress are some of the most incredibly talented individuals that he's come across.]

I just realized that I didn't ask for your name. [He sounds apologetic. He'd told her a bunch about the Savrii before even attempting the personal touch. Of course, as he's piling meat into a poncho for quick transport, it makes for awkward introductory conversation.]

Oh-- [She'd completely forgotten as well, to be fair.

Something about being spattered in blood to the wrists and wrapping cuts of meat into a makeshift bag wrapped together from a skirt seems to make introductions the last thing on people's minds.] I'm Aloy, and I didn't ask yours either.

And - actually, I've never heard of the intermediaries. No one's mentioned them yet. I don't think anyone's had the time to fill me in on everything.

What are they?

Probably not. They were the people at the meeting that convinced us to come here. To collect things as a penance for those of us that screwed everything up.

The intermediaries are the peace makers, and theoretically the only form of near government the Savrii have. I was suspicious because they seemed to make peace pretty quick. They got a good history of 'integrating' people.

Anyway. [He stands with a couple of limbs under his arm. It'll be a lot easier than hauling the whole corpse.]

Either they're appeasing the paranoia of their people, or they're integrating us in a way that I can't guess yet.

Oh. [So she's met them and she didn't even know who they were.] I don't suppose they made a quick guide to all of this, did they.

[When she gets up in turn, she has as many cuts of meat as she can get wrapped in her skirt, leaving her in her shirt and pants. It'll wash.]

You think this might be some kind of Proving? A rite of passage?

[She's half-joking.]

Their quick guide is more... 'network friendly'. [Perhaps not a term she knows, but the tone in it clearly suggests that their initial introduction usually consists of raw information without suspicious circumstances.]

A rite of passage? [He repeats.] Like facing the damage of an Ingress to show us a point.

Possibly.

Definitely not one most of us deserved to go through. [He thinks that, perhaps, maybe he did. But since they were all shoved in his sympathy for the Savrii's situation has run dry.]

[She doesn't know the term; she's heard of the network - she just used it - so she can kind of work it out without overthinking too much. But parts of this conversation are very enlightening, while others are only making her more confused about this place. It's not a feeling she likes very much, especially when she's not in a place where she can figure out the answers.

She can't just find some ruins and point her Focus at this. (Not that all of that was easy at the time)]

If they're making a point and we can't all understand it, it's not a great point they're making. [Totally not sounding peevish at all there.]

So what do you think? Did they leave a way for us to get back, or are they planning to leave us wandering around this place forever?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

August Event Log: Part I

hitting the road

storm front

wild life

old familiar places

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