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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[Right-- they'd missed that part when he'd walked in on an image of Elizabeth sucking the lips off of some Russian guy. Whoops. She laughs a little.] Right. Elizabeth. I'm Elizabeth DeWitt. What about you?

Ha, see? Ask a question, you get asked questions back.

And here come the rabbits.

[The Exo chuckles dryly.]

Name's Cayde. And this is my Ghost.

I promise I won't feed them too much.

Nice to meet you Cayde. There's a step here. [He seems to have done just fine up until this point, but hey, never hurts to be sure someone isn't going to fall on their face.] 'Ghost' sounds like a pretty apt name, it seems to follow you close.

[He nods, taking care in minding where he walks, figuring it's easier to be appreciative than be annoyed and then trip and fall and be embarrassed to boot.]

Same. Too bad it's under the given circumstances, but eh, what can we do.

But yeah, Ghost is fitting, all right. Best partner a Guardian can have.

[It's a good call-- because Elizabeth would judge him so hard if that happened. Also sigh and wonder why everyone insisted on ignoring her.]

Hm. [She takes a moment. This is where a question would go, but she's already said she won't ask too many. Well, there's more than one way to carry on a conversation, she can manage this. Might even be fun.]

So it scans things for you, seems to analyze things too... Probably fits with whatever it is a 'Guardian' in your timeline does.

[That's the trouble with questions, they like sneaking themselves in and all too easily if you're not paying attention. Truthfully Cayde wouldn't mind too much in answering if it were directly asked of him, although it does get a little tiring and repetitive.]

Well.

I wouldn't be a Guardian without 'im. But I guess anything's better than being dead, and I'm certainly not complaining.

I don't know about that, jury's out as far as I'm concerned. [Apparently they need to form a club, though.]

I was well on my way to dying at the very least, and then I ended up here. Unfamiliar place, no real idea of what I'm supposed to be doing here, and a group of people that marginalizes another because they can. Deja vu all over again.

Oh, believe me. Dying's not fun, 'specially after a few times.

[He comments offhandedly as they carefully pick their way onward.]

Haven't been in any immediate situations where dying seemed to be in the near future last place I was, but other than that, I can relate with the whole deja vu thing. Which only tells me things can potentially get ugly. Or uglier. This mess already looks pretty bad.

And I suppose you've done that, so you would know what it's like. [She arches an eyebrow and smirks faintly. Not unheard of, and Elizabeth is starting to wonder if this guy doesn't just have a metal face, but a metal everything.]

If we don't find a way off of this planet, I don't see how we'll survive. Most of us came for a mission to a reportedly 'nice place', not all of us are as paranoid as I am. Supplies are no doubt low, morale will flag, people will panic.

Been a long time since, but uh...yeah. I've had my share of experiences.

[Not that his being basically a robotic form now had anything to do with it.]

I'm sure we're not far from the panicking part. Bar was set pretty low the moment we got Ingress'd. But this place in general doesn't strike me as survivable.

...I don't think anything's meant to survive out here, especially with whatever's happened. From other people I've talked to, things weren't quite the same, last time they'd visited the Hub.

What was your first hint-- the charred animals or the incessant storms? [She smirks.] Rhetorical question, you don't have to answer that one.

But you're right about the Hub being different. I was here before. I drew some things, I'd show you if you weren't. You know. [Blind?] Those large panther-like things weren't this aggressive, if I managed to draw one with fairly good accuracy.

[Somehow, Cayde manages to flash her what looks like a smirk, right back.]

If you wanted, you could show my Ghost and he can just relate it to me later. But I guess it won't make much of a difference for our current situation.

Were those the only local wildlife? What about those Thrall-things? Oh, you wouldn't know what those are- um. No eyes, lots of...teeth? Actually I think the Thrall look a lot better, and that's saying something.

Jaws-for-Faces? Yeah, I drew them, too. Here. [Elizabeth pulls the book out of a large pocket in her coat and flips through the pages, looking for the right ones.] If we get out of here, you'll have some great material to have nightmares about.

Lovely. Not that I really sleep much anyway, but who doesn't want images like that fluttering through their thoughts, eh?

[As Cayde comments, his Ghost pauses, swiveling about to see Elizabeth's work. Leaving the Exo to walk into a wall.]

-ow!

Oh-! Sorry, Cayde!

[Elizabeth winces and her attention goes to Cayde who's apparently kept walking. Maybe she should have told him she was stopping to show his Ghost the sketches.] Sorry...! [She's actually a pretty good artist-- there are plenty of sketches of the large panthers, a less-detailed but still-horrifying sketch of the Jaws-for-Faces, along with a quick sketch of their hands, and several sketches of a stupidly handsome-looking man.]

[Cayde grumbles, rubbing his face, but he stops trying to go anywhere, seeing as how the other two have stopped.

The Ghost looks over the renderings that Elizabeth has done, its shifting points mimicking a widening eye.]

Oh! These are amazing! Frightening, but they look quite accurate! Cayde's not such a bad hand at sketching either, actually.

-oh, who's that?

[Now that she's looking at the sketches again, she can almost recognize the face. They look like the man she'd seen in the observation deck before Cayde and his Ghost had interrupted the discovery of her unexpected romantic life.]

...I don't know. Someone who I liked enough to sketch, I suppose. [And kiss. But maybe Cayde's Ghost hadn't caught onto what he was looking at before she closed the tear.]

[The Ghost seems to side-eye her at that, its upper plates twitching up just slightly like the arch of a brow.

Cayde turns his head towards them.]

Maybe it'll come back to you. Sometimes memories come back to you when you least expect 'em. From there it's up to you whether you try to hang on to them or let them go.

[...hey, what's he arching his plates at her for? Elizabeth frowns back at the Ghost, silently asking what he finds so strange about this.]

[But what Cayde says does strike a chord with her, and she looks over at him and then back at the man's face in her sketchbook.]

...How do you let them go?

[At her look, the Ghost actually seems to appear sheepish, drifting back behind Cayde.

The Exo pauses, probably not expecting to have to explain. He shrugs a little.]

You just...stop trying. To remember, that is. There's always something that lingers, I think. Now and then you get a snatch of it, and it's like grasping at something floating in the breeze. You can either keep trying to grab at it, or let it blow away until it's just not in reach.

That's what most Exos tend to do, in regards to their past. Just stop trying to remember. Guess I prefer things the hard way.

Guess I do too. [She frowns and closes her journal, folding her arms around it.] I have this feeling I was happy, though. Here. And I want to remember that but--

[But part of her wonders if she's only torturing herself. If it will ever come back to her. And if it did, what would the point be?]

Memories wouldn't change what's happening now. They might not even change how I see everything now.

It might be important to you, if you've clung to it.

The memories I've got vary. There are somethings I wonder that I'd be better off not remembering- they're not all pleasant. But they're experiences, proof of...I dunno. Something Before. And they're mine, good and bad.

[There was a time when Elizabeth had been ready to give up, to let Atlas scramble her brain and take her memories and life away. It was a dark moment, one she isn't proud of, but that part of her exists. The part that was once willing to give up everything, stop carrying the weight of her entire story, and live braindead until Atlas decided she was done.]

[Her memories are terrible and hard to hold, but Cayde's right.]

I don't have much, but I had this. If anything, I guess that makes it more important to have.

[The Exo nods at her.]

And who knows, maybe you'll figure out the missing pieces?

Maybe. [Her mind goes back to the man she was kissing. Obviously he's not in Thisavrou anymore, not with their group of people-- so what happened to him? What happened to their relationship? Does she want to find that missing piece?]

What happened to your memories? [Enough about her, she's feeling too analyzed.]

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deal_me_in - 2017-09-10 20:47 (UTC) - Expand

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