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

So I noticed.

( both talon's operations and the fact that she was annoying them. if you listened long enough you heard a few things, and ana had gotten good at doing that. that and her wanted posters were also a give away )

But that wasn't what I wanted to know. ( it was useful information though, giving her some of gabriel's opinion and also a little bit about his state of mind, and where his thoughts jumped )

What do you want here? We're all trapped.

( trapped and each as aimless as the rest, even if some had gotten more engaged than others. though perhaps he'd already attempted his objective in killing jack. she knew he'd been trying to find a way for a long time, but what now when jack couldn't be killed? not permanently )

[Ana's question is one he's been asking himself for months, even before he'd finally found the key to what he thought would end Jack's life once and for all. The obvious answer was to go back home and pick up where he had left off -- but he'd taken short cuts to achieve what he'd really been after, and it had turned out it wasn't as satisfying as he thought it would be.

He doesn't answer right away, because he can't tell her the honest truth -- that he doesn't know anymore, that what he thought he wanted didn't actually bring him any relief or joy. Because if he said it out loud, then he'd have to acknowledge it himself. And if all of that was true, what had he been doing for so long? Why was he even still here, wasting space and breathing air?

The silence stretches impossibly long. Long enough for Reaper to know that he has likely given himself away. That seems to matter less around Ana, even if he was still upset with her for choosing Jack instead of continuing to strike out on her own.]

Doesn't matter what I want here. "Here" is temporary.

[At least, it would be for Jack, Ana, and Sombra. He hadn't quite decided if it was worth going back yet.]

It does matter.

( gabriel don't you do the stubborn thing on her. or maybe it wasn't him being obstinate but about the state of their relationship. if he didn't trust her, as he claimed, then he wouldn't be willing to tell her something that could be personal )

Here might be temporary but we don't know how temporary, or if we can use it when we get home.

( given that ana hadn't remembered being here when she'd returned there was a chance that they wouldn't, but given what she'd started building, and wanted to keep building, she wanted to go with a more hopeful approach )

You mean if you can use it when we get home.

[Whether or not that was true, Reaper was too paranoid to consider that he wasn't being used in some way. Ultimately, what happened to Talon as an organization didn't matter to him. He was a figurehead, and he knew it. Akande was always the one pulling the strings, until he needed a second opinion.

He was always the second opinion. He was starting to accept it as his lot in life. It made things less infuriating, and made it easier to complete tasks without thinking about them extensively.]

If you believed we were going to remember anything, you wouldn't be here now. Talking to me.

[Because it worked both ways. Whatever she divulged unto him could be used against her and Jack.]

You want to know what I want? I want both of you gone.

[Maybe then he could continue acting like nothing had changed -- that he didn't feel so weighed down by being so purposeless, forced to consider that he might have made a mistake more costly than he could ever imagine so many years ago.]

If it was ever going to be easy, you would have been gone before you even got here.

You know things aren't so easy.

( and, her and jack's demise aside, things would be less satisfying if they were so simple. but part of what he said is right, and ana does need to be careful, but she's also not above taking a risk )

Besides. You approached me.

( not very 'i want you gone' )

[Here, Reaper is quiet. She's not wrong. He could have left as soon as he saw her, but he didn't. Things would never be that easy, or that simple.

But he can wish for it. Its probably the only thing he wants anymore. A quieter life, where he doesn't have to think so much, born from a life-time of being a schemer.

Now that he has nothing to scheme, he's forced to think and it feels awful.]

I didn't have a problem with you until you got in my way. That shouldn't surprise you.

Before or after I found Jack?

( 'choosing' jack was his excuse for his feelings on her now, and ana was quite aware that she'd been a nuisance to talon's operations long before that. whether or not he personally had a problem with it... she didn't even know why he was with talon )

Jack was only half of the equation.

[He is way more than half, but she had started bothering him before he has shown up. His appearance only made things worse.

She had disappeared. Things had already begun to fall to shit, but it hadn't helped. She must know that.

Either way, the interrogation has grown tiresome, and whatever he had planned to torture her with had floated out of his mind. He wasn't sure he could follow through on it anyway, even with his vision slowly returning to him.

Reaper stands at full height, twisting the empty nanite between his claws. For a moment, it looks like he might return it.

Instead, he pockets it.]

You should go find him again.

Perhaps I will.

( there's a few seconds before ana steps away, her gaze on gabriel as if she's studying him, though she can't see anything under that mask.

after a couple of steps ana stops, not quite turning to look at him but she adds-- )

You could too.

( after everything, after killing jack, he was still welcome back )

[He hears her, but he does not answer. For a while, he just stands there and watches her until it is clear that she is waiting for him to answer.

At that point, he turns on his heel to walk in the other direction.]

No. I can't.

[Even if he wanted to (some part of him does miss the well oiled machine they built together that he could disappear into), he was committed to Talon. He was doing work there, using methods he knew would work and methods that his old associates didn't approve of.

Maybe some part of him wanted their company again, but he wasn't living a fantasy; they wanted Gabriel back, the man he used to be. Not him, as he was now.]

August Event Log: Part I

hitting the road

storm front

wild life

old familiar places

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject