August Event Log: Part I

[savmods]

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.

Comments

[camouflage]

If they do, they're more blind than I am.

[it's not like he's moved in, what feels like, a hour or so. after taking a catnap, counting stock of whatever he had on him, and enjoying a smoke break with a stranger, he knew that he had to have been here for some drawn-out, measure of time. why doesn't he get up and move one might ask? well, what's exactly the point when you can't see and you're more of a detriment than a help?

but anyway.

john doesn't startle whatsoever when he hears this particular voice. kind of hard to be surprised about someone hanging around when people were passing by this spot every so often and the guy currently talking to him was lugging around something heavy. speaking of, he recognizes that voice. he hasn't actually physically talked to anyone except for a few people, so it's not hard to put the voice to a face.

at least he couldn't be accused of stealing this time around.]

Fancy meeting you again.

[except it's more like hearing and john doesn't look over to where 76 might be at all. instead, he just sits there calmly with his eye closed, continuing to polish off what's left of his cigar.]

[mylawn]

[He imagines that’s both a joke, and a description of his current state, but 76 will give it a few more moments to really determine if Ishmael is afflicted, too. The guy strikes him as someone who won’t accept pity (not that 76 is in the business of pitying) or will readily admit that he needs help, so for now he leaves it unaddressed. leaning against the inside of the hull and giving him a good once-over.

No obvious injuries. That’s good.

76 ventures a few steps closer, gauging Ishmael’s body language the whole way—if it’s adverse, he’ll stop where he is, but after a moment he starts rummaging through his bag.

It’s not that he and Ana expected something like this to happen, but to say they weren’t ready for it would be inaccurate. A bug-out bag is always a good idea, and though his supplies aren’t going to last long if this is an extended stay, for now he has enough to share.]

Here.

[He holds the water bottle out within reach, enough for Ishmael to perhaps feel something in his general vicinity.]

If you need it.

[camouflage]

[a man had said once that a soldier's eyes were too important to lose. that you could make or break a man by taking their sight away. well, he had only been half-right. while losing his ability to see hadn't broken john, it had certainly cracked the persona he wrapped himself up in. when he hears the soles of boots making the one, two, three steps closer to him, every part of the old soldier visibly tenses. not out of fear (big boss doesn't know what fear is, even if john was intimately acquainted with the feeling). it's more like the coil of a rattlesnake, giving fair warning and ready to strike.

had he been able to see, the intention of 76 inching toward him would have been clear as day. john wasn't one for words, not when they couldn't be trusted, but there were no lies in the lines of another person's body.

he's no superhuman; his other senses haven't quite caught up to making up for the lost one. in fact, his hearing is probably a little shit after all his years at war. still, though, 76 digging through a bag is obvious enough, including the fact that he's pulled something out of it. when he hands it over to john, his fingers (though it takes a swipe or two to find where whatever is in front of him is lingering) can feel the smooth surface and oblong shape of the object. a bottle?]

Thanks.

[big boss isn't a man that's allowed to accept pity, but, luckily, his larger-than-life, tough guy act allows him to express gratitude easily enough. john uncaps the bottle closer to his nose, trying to smell whatever it is. just in case.]

Gonna guess this is water. From those caves or from here?

[mylawn]

[76 is already having a difficult enough time dealing with the loss of his hand--the fact that he's trained to fight and shoot with both the only thing that makes this unexpected handicap more bearable. It's the smaller, more mundane things that he needs to re-work, but otherwise he hasn't suffered a loss of actual skill. With people losing one sense or another all around him, he can't help but think about how being incapacitated in such a way assaults his very existence. What good is a soldier who can't see or hear? Who can't shoot?]

Ishmael seems to be taking it well, all things considered, but 76 is sure that he's good at compartmentalizing. Men like them have to be.]

Don't mention it.

[He holds on to the bottle just to make sure Ishmael has a grip on it before he pulls back. The last thing they need is to drop it, so he takes the extra precaution--the reason for which he's quick to elucidate.]

From my supplies. It's safe.

[Packed up before they even left through the Ingress.]