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

[Something blows past him, and the sounds change--no, they multiply. Another one? Attacking the other?

Lavellan freezes, unsure what to do. He's not being attacked right now, which is an improvement--but in the confusion he's lost track of the way back, and he doesn't want to wait around for either of them to remember he's here.

He should use the opportunity to take them both out. Which will mean using his magic, so he'll just have to hope it stays under control. He just hopes he has enough power and control to knock them both out--he doubts he can kill them--instead of just annoy and provoke them.

He takes a deep breath, and flings a burst of fire at the source of the noise--and turns to run down where he thinks is a clear path.

More likely that not, he's just dead. Oh well.]

[The cat is fast. Rinzler's better. He ducks and slices, dropping below gnashing jaws and eeling between blows to strike back with his blades. A wound opens up along its ribs, scoring off the thick bone. Another stab buries his disk fist-deep below its chin. It keeps fighting, but it shouldn't take much more. He leaps over a pair of scything paws, rotates midair to drop down toward its spine—

—and stalls, systems flooding with junk data as oppressive, overpowering heat swallows up everything in sight.

Error. Warning. System over temperature, and he crashes straight into the threat—is kicked off, just as easily in its own enraged thrashing. Rinzler lands in the spongy rocks, rolling by luck as much as reflex as he tries to flush the lag. Orange light. Movement. Heat heat errors where is the attacker; he needs to fight.

Fortunate, that one target is already at hand. Lavellan will have a quarter-minute's time to run before the creature's death scream splits the night. It leaves one very angry sound remaining.

And coming after him.]

[A quarter minute is barely a head start as it is, and a virtually useless one when you're totally blind. It's used up as soon as Lavellan confirms that, yes, he's now completely disoriented. He stops at a tree that feels familiar but, ha ha, how do you really tell?

It doesn't matter. The other one has caught up with him now. He's out of time.

He throws up a barrier and tenses in anticipation. He doesn't want to risk another spell that could damage the area in his condition. Maybe if he's lucky it will lose interest.]

[Rinzler doesn't hesitate. Doesn't stop. He strides right forward, mechanical growl rising, and when the glowing shield intervenes?

Barrier, meet laser disk.

The sound, at least, might catch Lavellan's notice.]

[He jerks back first at the proximity of the sound; it's only a split second later that he realizes it sounds familiar.

After all, he'd heard that same sound plenty that time months ago when his magic had left him.

There's a moment that hangs, as he stands there with his arm outstretched in front of him as a useless defense, as he works out who really must be here in front of him, rather than some horrible mutant cat.

It takes about the same amount of time for him to realize he'd never learned the man's--person's?--name. And that he's just lobbed a fireball at him.]

Y-You?

August Event Log: Part I

hitting the road

storm front

wild life

old familiar places

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no subject

no subject

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