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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It is lonely alone. The phrasing makes Yori quirk a sympathetic smile. Neither of them were designed to be so far from their fellow programs. At least he's accepting the energy for now.

In case that changes, Yori's kept a worried eye on Calla, walking just behind him. She sees at once when he falters.

Well, he's awake now. She wanted that.

"Leave that till you finish charging," she informs him, taking firm hold of his wrist and tugging him on. She really can't afford to let them be left behind, she's having enough trouble walking as it is.

She's not sure any argument will convince him, but she might as well try. "We all need to stay together, Calla." Especially the vulnerable noncombatants.

He stubbornly continues to pick at the tape as best he can, even when Yori takes one of his hands. “That’s not why you put this on. I would’ve kept up just fine without the charge.” That shouldn’t be the case. He should’ve crashed from lack of energy days ago. Instead he had picked himself up and followed along, processing too sluggish to even remember why he had stopped.

He’s starting to remember now.

He’s too drained to keep up trying to disentangle the battery from its web of tape for long and eventually he drops his arm to his side with a frustrated huff. He doesn’t even have the agency to let himself crash. How typical.

“It’s a waste of energy, you know. Either we make it back to Thisavrou and they’ll delete us or we’ll just wander around until something else kills us. In either case, I’d rather be too tired to care.”

He mutters something else under his breath, low and resentful. “Even if you want the company.”

He might have kept up, running on basic protocols...or something might have damaged him in the unwary state. Yori considers for a moment how to point out the dangers.

But he knows the dangers, at least in general terms, his own words prove that. Details aren't likely to change his opinion. She's even less sure how to offer Calla any encouragement when she doesn't have very much herself.

"Company? I'm not that eager to argue with you." Yori shakes her head. "It's more that I really wouldn't want to limit my calculation out here with so many risks. It didn't seem right not to give you a little energy."

She pats his shoulder, tentative reassurance. "I've been wandering for a long time. It can be worthwhile, wherever we end up." She's found Rinzler and Alan-One. Calla might find new friends, new family. "The Ingress goes to more places than Thisavrou."

Well. It can if anyone ever figures it out, or else at its own strange random whim. That's beside the point. "Isn't there anything you'd like to learn or do when you have all these people to talk with?"

He doesn’t move away from the hand on his shoulder, but neither does he acknowledge it. “You’re assuming I’m like you—and I’m not.” His tone is frustrated. Ever since he stepped out of the Ingress, everyone has expected too much of him. “First, I don’t mind ‘limiting my calculation.’ If anything, I function better when I’m not calculating because that’s not what I’m for. And I wasn’t written to wander either.” He gives a mirthless huff of laughter. “I wasn’t even written to leave the building. If I hadn’t been so stupid, I wouldn’t have.”

He’d got what he deserved eventually. He should’ve known Thisavrou wasn’t what it seemed. He should’ve known that even on a planet with no laws, there wouldn’t be a place for him.

He shakes his head at her question. For a moment, the bitterness in his expression softens. When he speaks, his voice is quiet, almost mournful. “I just want to go home.”

"All the more reason you need to be as aware as possible to manage things you weren't written for," she points out. "Neither of us were written to wander, but since we're stuck, we might as well try to do it adequately." No reason to put more burdens on their fellow travelers.

Home. Yori thinks of Encom, both in happy moments and the ones when derez seemed inevitable. She'd long ago decided it was no longer the place for her, but that doesn't mean she's stopped missing everything familiar, everything she was written to do and everyone she was written to work with.

"I know," she says quietly. "You will always want that. But things won't always be as bad as this."

Yori gestures at the barren lands with her free hand, a metaphor of how little hope there seems to be. She's sure it will change sooner or later. The change might be worse, but it might also be better. "What did you like to do at home?"

Maybe conversation will give Calla something a little less desperate to process.

“You don’t know that,” Calla mutters, looking out at the barren landscape. Even if they do manage to find a way off this planet, there’s no guarantee they won’t end up somewhere equally bleak. Or worse.

His first response to her question is a long, sullen silence. But he’s already thinking about home and dwelling on the past proves easier than contemplating their present or future. “I liked… before the first guests came in for the evening and we had the entire place to ourselves.” He shrugs, defensive. “I don’t think I would’ve liked it if it were that way all the time, but it was nice when it was just a few hours of the day.” It was conducive to their functions as well—their guests liked them better when they were in good moods and a few hours spent on their own always helped with that.

“We could put on music we liked, play the games, talk about whatever we wanted…” Nostalgia is already creeping into his voice, despite his best efforts otherwise. “It made it feel like the Gardens belonged to us, instead of the other way around.”

It was a stupid fantasy, one that always came crashing down the second the first Creator stepped into the building. But none of them had been written to be particularly smart and it had at least been fun to pretend for the handful of hours they had each day.

"I've been in a lot of places worse than this and a lot of places better than this," Yori points out. "At this point I could hardly miss the pattern. We'll get someplace eventually." At least, they will if Calla's willing to hang on and not force everyone to leave him behind.

That does sound nice. No need for the guarded tone. "I'm glad you remember it so fondly." Yori had never had that kind of freedom at the factory, though she'd pretended sometimes in her quarters, clinging to memories of better times.

Music in particular is a strange fascination to her. "What music did you like?" Someone's got to have similar tastes. Users seem fond of their arts. She appreciates that.

Calla doesn’t see much good in remembering it fondly when he can’t go back, but he keeps talking all the same. He supposes it’s no more ridiculous than talking about any other place, given how unlikely it is that they’ll escape this planet alive.

“Anything we hadn’t heard before. During opening hours, they play whatever’s popular on rotation all night long. It becomes just noise, eventually.” Not that the Creators seemed to care. As long as the music changed every week or so with the radio, they didn’t complain. But they usually weren’t the ones dealing with the same cycle of songs for days on end. “Anything different was a welcome change.”

No one had ever played music where Yori worked in the Encom factory, but it's a neat concept she would like to hear more of.

"We could ask people here to play what music they brought with them. Or even sing. It's sure to be different."

Separate systems, separate cultures, nothing on Calla's noise list is likely to reappear. Out here with so few resources, Yori can't point out new data on the Savrii networks, but after living with the crew this long she has some idea how the Users feel about their songs.

Calla gives a mirthless chuckle. How can Yori still be so hopeful?

“I really doubt anyone is in the mood for singing. Least of all to us.”

There are some things a program only learns from surviving one high-risk scenario after another. Yori isn't sure how to speed the acceptance process up for Calla, but she'd like to make it a nicer journey than her own.

"Stranded with no way out is exactly the time when the Users are most happy to sing to complete strangers, in my experience," she corrects from observation of the Moira crew. "When they don't have anything more urgent to do, singing makes some of them feel better." She glances up at the sky. "After we camp, we can ask around."

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August Event Log: Part I

hitting the road

storm front

wild life

old familiar places

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