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

I would -- but I remember these.

[Which is hilarious, coming from someone with memory issues. Which he's already been to Charles about. But the caves are different. The caves he knows from before.]

[They're dangerous.]

[Even after helping the Professor, making sure he's sitting comfortably, he's staying on his feet. His stance tense, alert. Staring into the caves like he's expecting something to leap out at them.]

We shouldn't get too comfortable here.

[ It's enough to keep him cognizant and aware, that implicit threat. His own gaze seems to follow Shiro's, even as he adjusts himself up against the wall. He gives a sad grimace. ]

I don't think there's any danger of that, my friend.

[ Nothing in this situation is comfortable. "Comfortable" feels like a word that's already a world and a lifetime away. Enough so that he doesn't even pause before asking what he feels must come next: ]

What was in here? The last time?

I'm going to keep an eye out for now, anyway...

[Because of paranoia, of course. Because he remembers the fight in the darkness. The hands groping out of water.]

[He shakes his head, keeping his attention trained on the cave mouth.]

Monsters. Blind things. They tried to kill us when we went in.

I'm not taking that chance again.

Sounds fun.

[ Except, of course, in all the ways he doesn't sound remotely excited about it. ]

How long did you spend out here last time? I've only heard pieces.

Time of my life.

[They can both deadpan joke about this, right? It's normal.]

Weeks, I... think. It all sort of blurred together after a while.

But there were more resources. Wildlife wasn't nearly this aggressive, either.

How long ago was this?

[ It's hard to imagine a world growing this barren in what might be a short while. People who've been here long enough to see it talk about it like it's only been a matter of months, at least insomuch as he can surmise. ]

Less than a year ago.

[He gets where this question is going, and shakes his head. It doesn't make sense to him, either. Unless he's missing more time from the hospital adventures than he knows.]

It wasn't stable, but it wasn't like this, either.

I'd heard some from one of my students, but I don't think even she expected this to be so immediately relevant again. It seems strange, however, that it would have degraded to this degree within only a matter of months.

[ Unless what Jean had said about that "missing year" is at play here too. And he doesn't like the idea of having no way to feel or sense what's on the horizon in that regard. He's no stranger to time manipulation, but he'd always assumed that if he'd had his powers he'd have been able to figure all of that out so much sooner.

Here, there's absolutely nothing. ]

I know. That shouldn't have happened this quickly... there's no sign at all of anything we saw on the way here.

It doesn't make sense.

[To say the least. It probably doesn't need repeating. But he's still trying to work this out.]

Maybe... I don't want to say this, but maybe it's the Ingress.

Killing everything?

[ Oh, that possibility bodes well. Charles glances over to Shiro, concern only growing. ]

What makes you think that?

Yeah. Killing and changing everything.

[He blows out a breath, but doesn't relax his guard on the cave entrance.]

When we were on the Moira, a lot of times, it would malfunction. And warp the ship as a result. Sometimes to the point where it didn't even look like the same ship.

And when we arrived... there was an entire facility dedicated to studying Ingress tech. Except theirs had all exploded. [A shake of his head, though his voice stays steady.] There... weren't any survivors.

Good lord.

[ It's quiet and half whispered. He'd been warned, tangentially, of this whole situation before, but it's never felt half so real. ]

And we have to rely on all of that to still take us home?

[ As if that even seems like a possibility anymore? He sounds more unsure than he wants. ]

Yeah.

[Nothing more can be said, on that front. He still remembers it, viscerally. Opening those doors in the hopes of finding help, and seeing only the corpses.]

[Angela had been there, then. To pull his mind back.]

We might have to. If not here, then elsewhere. I've never seen any familiar coordinates while we were on Thisavrou, and neither has anyone I know of.

This... might be our only hope.

[The impression being, they have to take it, don't they?]

I don't see what other choice we have.

[ Disconcerting as it may be, what other option have they been left with? He doesn't dare call it hope. Not here, not where hope is so tense and fragile. ]

If we don't fancy sitting here and waiting to die at least.

Short of rebuilding the Moira and getting off planet that way? Not much.

[He'd probably try, though. If the ship weren't so badly damaged.]

[Between himself and Keith, they could manage to fly just about anything.]

We won't die here. We'll figure this out.

I know.

[ He doesn't. How can he? How can anyone? He knows next to nothing about ship repair, but even if he did, the idea seems distant and far-fetched as it is.

But he's sure as hell not letting that creeping fear spread any farther than it has to. Hope is difficult to see, to find, to fathom out here. But to kill it, here and now, is the surest way of determining fate for them. ]

We've come too far to stop now.

You're right. So we won't stop.

[There's no other option. They can't stay here. They can't go back without the Ingress. So... onward is the only choice. He won't let his people stay trapped here.]

[His team, or anyone else.]

Can't stop, won't stop. Right?

[That was supposed to be a joke.]

August Event Log: Part I

hitting the road

storm front

wild life

old familiar places

CARRYING

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