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

[Without someone with biotics, or a bigger squad, "go for the eyes" is about as good advice as she's going to be able to give. She wishes it were different. If there were a place to retreat to, or an air strike to call or Drack...]

[Drack would just bench press this thing into submission, and laugh the whole time.]

[If the human has the face, she'll go for the back legs. To cripple its movements, so it can't lash out if it wants to stay upright. The limbs collapse under it, and it cries out again, screeching intensifying until it feels like the sound is right in their ears.]

[She's really not used to fights like this - small animals she can kill quickly, not giant Stalker-like things that screech horribly and use up half her arrows. Her expression twitches at the noise, a grimace of pain just starting to appear.

She honestly can't tell if it's more hardy than any animal of its size she could imagine, or if sheer rage is keeping it up, but the Stalker is still trying to drag itself towards them when Aloy lines up another shot - then, right as it opens its mouth to screech at them, she fires.

It's a clean shot - the arrow is still jutting from the back of its mouth as it freezes, shudders bodily and collapses sideways.

She hesitantly lines up another shot, but...] That's it.

[And she lets out the rest of the breath she was holding.]

[Cryo ammo. This woman has cryo ammo. Why the hell didn't she think to look up any before they left? Because you had to worry about food supplies, says the rational part of her brain. The rest is busy making sure the monster actually falls. And stays down.]

[For good measure, Vetra fires off a quick burst into its head from close range.]

[Then she lowers the rifle, and turns to Aloy.]

Thanks. I owe you one. [She shifts the rifle to her other hand, extending it in greeting.] Hate to meet like this.

Vetra. You okay?

[She didn't expect the ammo to work so well. There's frost tangling around its fur and making it sparkle in the dim light, and though the ice hasn't quite reached even the back half of its body, the head and chest seem fairly rigid.

Maybe she should try shooting into their mouths when they're already half-dead more often.

Now that she's looking, the alien - Vetra - is tall, very spiky, has legs like a Sawtooth's and...as Aloy takes her hand to shake, turns out to have three fingers and claws.

Now that they're actually speaking and the adrenaline's wearing off, she might look a little awkwardly awestruck.] Don't worry about it. I'm Aloy.

I'm fine, just...running out of arrows. [She glances over at the carcass, arrows jutting out of it and some of them even intact-looking.]

I think technically, my tribe considers this taboo, but they'd probably consider everything here taboo. [And she crouches to start working arrows out. While she does, she looks up at Vetra.] Are you sure you're OK?

[It's completely possible she just can't read aliens at all, but she wants to make sure all the same.]

[At least, in this world, she's gotten used to people giving her that kind of look. It earns a lopsided, very turian grin, from her, through the handshake. Awestruck is better than yelling, after all. And considering this woman just saved her ass? It's more than fine.]

If we were anywhere else, I'd probably buy you a drink.

[There's a snort, as she follows Aloy's gaze toward the monster. If it were possible to retrieve and reuse bullets? Hell yes she'd do it. Taboo be damned.] All the more reason to say 'screw it', right?

[An arrow is lodged in the creature's hide nearest her, so, after watching Aloy, she steps up to start assisting in the arrow retrieval.] I'm not hurt.

Just not a lot a turian can eat in a place like this. Or any place that isn't our homeworld.

[hash tag dextro problems]

[It isn't even the first time someone has jokingly offered her a drink (or, actually given her the drink), and her reaction is the same every time - the reaction of not knowing how to react, an awkward kind of smile and a shrug as she eagerly lets the subject change.]

Thanks. [She nods at the arrow, both hands busy prying the metal point out of the hide.]

What do turians eat? [She looks up in concern.] We might be able to find something if we go farther afield.

[She's not kidding herself - it's a slim maybe. They've barely found food for the humans, and she can barely imagine what it is a "turian" would eat.]

No problem.

[At least in this case, there's no actual drinks to be had. Just the offer. So Vetra lets the subject drop. There are more important things at stake here anyway.]

Nothing we can find here.

[Says it with complete seriousness. With her luck, with the fact of dextros being in the minority, there's no chance.] Got rations. So we're getting by.

[She's not ungrateful for the offer...just awkward.

But she doesn't think about that for more than another second. The current problem is much bigger than that.]

How many of you are there? How long will the rations last?

[She can't help hearing about other people's problems and trying to solve them. It's an old habit.]

Two or three. I think.

[She hasn't seen one asshole since she showed up. The other one is less important. He can handle himself.]

Don't worry. We've been in tight places before. I grew up with mercenaries...

This is nothing new.

You think. [...Although come to think of it, who is she to talk - how many humans are here? Who knows.]

So let's work on getting out of this place before you all run out of food.

[Aloy doesn't have any control over how soon they can get out of this, or if they can. But it feels better to try than just blithely offer sympathy.]

You grew up with mercenaries?

August Event Log: Part I

hitting the road

storm front

wild life

old familiar places

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