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

Me. You know, Lup. The one that has your face but prettier and so you've been hiding from me since I showed up.

[She drops her arms to the side. He looks kinda fucked up. Or at least he's let himself get rougher than usual.]

Also, Sizzle It Up? Really Taako?

It looks good on a t-shirt!

[Taako just sits back down with a bit of a sad whumpf noise, dragging his hat down over his eyes dramatically so she registers his disapproval of this entire situation. He is incredibly tired, beat to hell, blind as shit, saddled with babysitting the Chance Lance and now this chick again.]

Anyway, I wasn't hiding, I was occupying circles other than your own, because you're a face-stealing stalker. Seems reasonable to me.

[but]

Speaking of, why are you here?

I think there should be a law against wearing a t-shirt with your own face on it.

[She drops into a crouch to watch him, just like she did with Magnus, her hands together on her knees.]

And I'm older by one minute so technically you stole my face.

...Magnus sent me.

[ He had started to open his mouth to object, or snark back (which, you know, feels surprisingly natural for all that this stranger freaks him out), or say anything other than sort of lame little sad "oh" that comes out instead at the fact that Magnus sent her. Which doesn't mean anything good. ]

Well, shit.

He'll be back. He always is. We always make it back.

[She hates that reaction. Because Taako stopped doing that cycles ago. They all did. And it makes it so much easier to deal with if no one says "oh" in that voice.]

Cool, cool, cool, so that kind of vague comment doesn't clear anything up for me. Has he actually kicked it or does that mean he's dragging himself back here but in a more gooshy state? Is this about the Ingress? If you're keeping up with the news, it's down. I'm pretty sure that means done-zo, bub.

[ He knows she meant he just died he just sort of wants to be petulant about it. ]

There's more out there than just the Ingress. Magnus will come back. But if you die, you're going to be really embarrassing about it so maybe let's get out of here before that happens.

[dear god man, you are annoying. Were you always this annoying?]

[ Yes, it's just his desire to be extremely annoying just to piss someone off hasn't been aimed full-force at LUP before. ]

I wasn't planning on dying, since I've got this living thing pretty much under control, thanks. Where, uh, exactly are we going? If you haven't picked up on it yet I'm not exactly equipped for navigating right now. [ Waving a hand in front of his own face, for emphasis. ]

How about out of the cave with man eating giant cats? It ought to help your work on living.

[She grabs his wrist and hauls him up. DON'T LIKE IT? TOO BAD SO SAD.]

[ Hey excuse me, he wasn't done trying to pretend he's not sad about his friend dying? Scrambling to keep all his items in check, the Umbra Staff hanging off one arm and, I guess, holding onto the Chance Lance. Why? What's the point. Nostalgia? He's not gonna stab anyone with it. It's just too many magic items for one dude to handle.

Fortunately he is made of cardboard and horseglue, and thus not very heavy - making him easy to bodily haul around. ]

What, so you can drag me outside to kill me instead? We can walk n' talk, but I still got questions. [He really has no choice in the walking matter.] First, Magnus sent you? What does that mean? You just watched him get his ass handed to him?

Taako, my bro. You're made of cardboard and paper, I could kill you right here with so much as a sneeze.

[She pats his arm like that's some sort of comfort. It sucks being the less good twin but someone's gotta be that one.]

And no, I found him after he had his ass handed to him. By giant cats.

Hey, one of Magnus' last acts was to teach me to use the business end of this bad boy, I got means.

[ Though the Chance Lance is pretty heavy. He'd probably just accept death tbh. ]

. . . You're pretty dedicated to this whole stalking me thing.

August Event Log: Part I

hitting the road

storm front

wild life

old familiar places

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