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

[efficacy]

[ Pepper watches him in staid silence as he speaks, condensing months of life onboard this vessel into a few sentences neatly. There's such weight, such heaviness, to the explanation Pepper knows she can never fully understand, not having been there herself. But she knows and understands Tony, her hand settling on his leg right above the knee in silent support. ]

Golden land, indeed. [ It's a rueful mutter, followed by a deep sigh of resignation that makes her shoulders jump up and down. Her gaze roams across the dinged gunmetal gray walls around them, taking in the wreck once more. ]

So, how much of that are you determined to take on your shoulders? [ Her lips flatten into a faint, sad smile as she looks at him again. She's never pulled her punches with him, in good and bad, and she isn't really about to begin now. ]

[arcreact]

[ He snorts, like she's told a funny joke and they're not trapped in a broken, powerless ship on an electric death planet because of a mistake that should very well have been laid to rest by now. ]

I mean, my shoulders were enjoying a pretty nice break before our field trip back to ground zero.

[ An admission wrapped up in a deflection is probably the best he can do.

He tilts his head back and stifles another heavy sigh, eyes roaming over the cavernous roof. It's probably not even structurally sound enough for them to all be in here, but it's almost certainly a safer bet than facing the storms outside. Lose/lose. ]

I really didn't want you to end up in this mess.

[ He puts his hand over hers where it rests on his leg and feels selfish, for the millionth time, for being glad to have her here. ]

[efficacy]

[ Well, that's all she needs to know; confirmation to what she'd really already known. Her heart breaks a little for him, but that's nothing new either. ]

I know you didn't. [ She leans in to press a soft kiss to his jaw and lays her head on his shoulder, sighing soundlessly through her nose. ] It's not that I'm crazy about these near death situations and the like, I'd pretty happily skip those. But I'm not sorry to be here for you.

[ They were a team before he had a Team of the superhero kind. ]

[arcreact]

[ Tony tilts his head so that it rests against hers, the brush of her hair on his shoulder a familiar comfort despite the occasional roar of the storms beyond the Moira's hull. They sit there in silence for a while, just like that. It really is almost nostalgic, in a way. Tony Stark and Pepper Potts against the world, even years before they'd figured out the romance part.

It's a while before he chooses to break the silence. ]

What are your thoughts on novel writing?

[ ... Apropos nothing. ]

[efficacy]

[ To Pepper's credit, she doesn't even blink at the complete 180 turn. She's very much used to Tony changing the subject on a dime by now. ]

Generally positive, but I suppose specifics would depend on the context. [ A smile creeps into her tone now, continuing to rest her head on his shoulder. ] Why, are you planning on a career change? Gonna jot down your memoirs?

[arcreact]

Me? God, no. I can string words together, but not in any combination that's acceptable to the general public.

I was just thinking, y'know, when we get out of this - [ Which they will, someway, somehow. This may be the most dire things have ever looked, but he's not ready to give up yet, that much is clear. ]

This would make a killer sci-fi novel, don't you think? We could pitch it to a movie studio. Or just start up Stark Industries film division.

[ This is hashtag coping. ]

[efficacy]

[ Okay, it's just idle chatter to take their mind off the less than pleasant realities of the moment. She can roll with that. ]

A new frontier, huh? Well, I'm not against such industrious spirit.

[ At least not when they're just shooting the breeze. Neither of them would actually remember any of this when they return home, but she doesn't want to think about that. Not when they've made a life -- as slapdash and patchwork as though it may be -- here to leave behind. Not when they have people to leave behind. ]

I mean, we don't have an Oscar, yet. [ Because obviously you gotta go big or go home!! ]