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

[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.]

[Shrugging, Cayde figures it's only fair to answer. It's not like he treats it as a big secret, although he might laugh inwardly as the tendency for questions has risen its head again. Them rabbits.]

Fragmented, you could say. It's not uncommon with Exos though. Some of us just decide it's easier to forget your past life. Me, I guess I'm just overly possessive of things that are mine.

August Event Log: Part I

hitting the road

storm front

wild life

old familiar places

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