A Spacemas Carol: December's Mod Event Log

[savmods]

Who: Anyone and Everyone
When: December 19 onwards
Where: Avagi... and beyond?
What: Your past, someone's present, and potential futures.
Warnings: Body horror and an associated image in the second part. Otherwise, label your content.

While the Ingress may have been destroyed, the energy powering it remains alive and well. The residents of Avagi know this intimately: from their own arrivals, from the portals that have appeared, and the short-lived changes (as well as longer-lived possessions) that have cluttered the station over the last few months. Recently, whatever force is manipulating this has even gone so far as to revive the dead—demonstrating, perhaps, an unwillingness to relinquish those it has brought to this place. To say this entity is seasonal would probably be a mistake. In the heart of Avagi's storms, there are no stars to mark the seasons, much less connect them to a certain planet's holidays—or the literature thereon. Still, from luck or from intention, the current fluctuations comes with a certain theme...

Past

It starts at the turn of the station clock's midnight. Flickers at the edge of one's vision. Indistinct whispers, ghosting through walls and down corridors. Those who are sleeping will be untroubled, but the wakeful and wary can watch the light build: from flickers to pulses, from pulses to pools. Over several hours, silver mist fills rooms and corridors, varying from a thin veil to dense, obscuring fog. If you step into the mist, you'll feel a sense of displacement; of sound and color, energy and a shift of life. Ingress travel. Except... not quite. Shortly after entering the mist, you'll find yourself free of disorientation and apparently free of physical form, unable to interact with your surroundings. As a quasi-ghost, you've been transported to somewhere and somewhen—a location from the past, back on a world of someone’s origin or from any place you've been since first arriving through the Ingress. While these experiences can vary wildly, some things remain consistent: The past matters: These visits to the past are not repeats of idle afternoons—each has emotional significance to someone currently on Avagi. The past cannot be changed: As real as any given scenario seems, you're fundamentally incapable of altering it. The past event will play out as it did in real life and dissipate when it reaches an ending. Trying has consequences: Attempting too hard to interfere increases the emotional significance, and will consequently draw onlookers further into the scene. You may find yourself anchored to any participant in the scene: first physically (experiencing the scene through their eyes) and then emotionally (experiencing their emotions and thoughts). If drawn in too deeply, you may lose track of your own nature during the experience, drowning in the sense of being someone else.. You are not alone: While immersed in a scene, you'll see nothing but the history playing out. However, at the its conclusion, the fog will once again displace the world around. As it melts away, you'll find themselves back in Avagi's halls—and face to face with whoever else was also viewing that piece of the past.

Present

Whether through one memory or several, eventually, the fog disperses. Only a faint mist remains, gathered in corners of the station's halls. It's simple enough to avoid, and nothing obstructs efforts to return to your rooms, your friends, or any other destination. Nothing, that is, except finding them. The layout of the halls has shifted. The clutter you so painstakingly cleared is back. The GPS on your ACE mistakenly reports that you are floating off in space far outside the station, and any efforts to locate or call your companions results in glitchy static. Something is interfering with your calls—more effectively than the distance between worlds. Inference and intuition are all you have to put together the pieces. The layout has changed, but the construction stayed the same. You're still on the former Ingress station. But not the same area that you called home. This is a different section of Avagi. An inhabited one. Dank, warm air pulses in and out of the vents in odd rhythms. Water damage stains the walls, and some seep dark liquid. There's an odd symphony in the distance: four notes, hummed to a pattern that buzzes in the back of your head. It's possible to wait it out. But if you do explore, you might come across your friends. And together, you might find the source. Further in, a wall of flesh fills the pathways, rising and falling with intermittent, massive draws of air. A fluid wash of features glues it to the bulkheads. Claws and eyes, hands and faces: half-made bodies shifting in and out of recognition with each pulse of breath. And always with the same gold glow beneath the skin. It's a familiar shade, to those who witnessed Thisavrou's destruction. It's the being who destroyed it. Those who flee will escape her notice. Those who wait may watch in secret for a time. Mother's focus seems to be elsewhere...or, perhaps, something else is hiding your presence here from her. Any attack on Mother's flesh shape, or any overt effort to draw her attention, will meet violent, immediate reprisal. You'll experience an immobilizing psychic force before the flesh consumes you. But whether you hide or fight or run, your time on this section of the station will end in the same way: a burst of brilliant, clear light providing transport back home.

Future

You flash back to reality amidst a burst of light—but this time, you recognize your surroundings. You have returned to the Avagi you know, and the silver mist that filled the halls has cleared. Over the next few days, most of Avagi will settle back into a state of normalcy. The ACEs are working properly, and station residents will have all the time they need to compare notes on their experiences—and, perhaps, on any plans to act on what they've learned. Avagi is not as empty as it seemed. And one place in particular will remain changed in the wake of the event. The Ingress Memorial, once inactive, has come to life, emitting a swirl of silver light that shifts and flickers, like the light of the portal it once contained. For the next five days, it will offer a vision to anyone approaching it: a single, brief scene from their potential future. Players have the following options: Canon future: Your character catches a glimpse of their future if they were to return from Avagi to their own world. This consists of a canon event. Avagi future: Your character catches a glimpse of their own future on Avagi. This can be a short-term future (i.e. an actual vision of a future scene you plan to play out), or a potential longer-term one in which they stayed on Avagi for months or years. Storm future: Your character catches a glimpse of themselves as a Mirtos—a desiccated husk and incarnation of the storm's hunger. As seen in Thisavrou's destruction, these creatures are carried by the storms and destroy all they come across. The visions can observed by any present when the Memorial is approached. And while the past is fixed, the future is always capable of being altered. What will you do regarding yours?

---

[OOC: Check out the OOC post for more information!]

Comments

[clussy]

(Thankfully for the both of them, Eddie wasn't quite so savvy on medical intellect just yet. A lot of his information came from his mother's paranoia. So he doesn't think to be worried about that.

He giggles lowly, still holding his hands on Richie. He'd be hugging him again sooner than later, no doubt.)

I didn't seem too happy about it. (Not that he could blame himself in that alternate time line. After all, who wanted to have their arm snapped after it had just been broken? It almost made him queasy just thinking about it.

His smile fades a little, realizing now that that hadn't....Technically been him.

It had been another version of him. Richie helping another version of him.)

Am I different from him at all? The me you know?

[beeped]

I suspect you weren't.

[He knows Eddie hadn't been happy about it, but it had been a chaotic time. They were all scared, close to potentially becoming clown chow, and all Richie had wanted was for Eddie to be save, okay, and for all of them to get out of there as quickly as possible. He'd simply done all that he could think to do to help.

Richie can't help but be reminded how miserable of a time it was in the weeks following that, too. Between Eddie being locked away and Bill being a jackass.

The question makes Richie frown, for no other reason than it's reminding him that they aren't the same selves as each other originally knew. He doesn't know how to articulate how he feels about it. It's... weird, to say the least. To know that there's a version of Richie that knew this Eddie first. And the Eddie he knows is...

Well, that's the question for the century, isn't it?]

Not really. It's mostly the fanny packs. And the whole... time thing. [He waves his hand dismissively. It hurts his head a little to parse the timeline concept still.] How do I rate? Against old man Richie.

[clussy]

(It was probably stupid to be jealous of yourself, but it can't be helped with how their relationship was. The other Eddie probably knew more about this Richie than he himself did- and that kind of bothered Eddie. Especially considering that the way he had broken his arm back in his life had been completely different. Different memories meant different feelings and different relationships, right?

He's staring at Richie, his expression once more too serious for a kid his age, and he almost feels anxious at whatever Richie's answer might be. It was stupid- it was so stupid.)

What are fanny packs? (He asks softly, but no, he remembers now. There was something around his waist in the memory. He knows what 'fanny' means and it doesn't take a genius to put two and two together.)

Never mind. The bag thing. (It did seem pretty useful. Like a purse but not.

The question gives Eddie some pause. This Richie, honestly, was a little different. He stares at Richie, before giving a slight smile.)

I like you a little better. Is that bad to say? (Maybe it was. Would he be able to say that if the other Richie were here? His loyalty might not let him. But...)

Old man Richie is a little more...(Racist, insensitive, rude. People thought this Richie was bad? Had nothing on the Richie he knew.)

You're the same in pretty much all ways except you- (Eddie reaches out and puts a finger gently against the middle of Richie's chest to indicate him.)

Seem more self-aware. Granted, the you I know was always really self-aware with me, but he needed to be told 'beep, beep' more.

[beeped]

Oh really?

[Richie isn't even sure what to say. It's a boost to his self-esteem, for sure. There's a total of two Richies (that he knows of) that Eddie can choose from, and it means so much that Eddie prefers him. He's okay with being equal, but it would've... felt bad, he thinks, if he was second rate at being himself.

But it gets him thinking about this Eddie, and the one he knew first. Is it bad that he can't between the two? Both are just too good to him, and the only way he could ever be happier is if he had double the Eddie Kaspbrak in his life.

Instead of saying as much, he's throwing his arms around Eddie's shoulder and rubbing his cheek against the side of Eddie's head.] Jesus fuck Eds, how are you so cute all the time?

[clussy]

Dude. You had this really shitty 'African Slave' voice and you used it at Mike. Yeah, this you is a lot uh- smarter.

(To say the least. This Richie just had a whole lot of sex jokes, which though at times made Eddie blush all over, were still greatly more tolerable to deal with.

Eddie would have been glad to know he was at least equal. He thankfully doesn't have the time to ask, because Richie is suddenly wrapping Eddie up and nuzzling him. Eddie gives a small shriek of surprise, and then a greater one at Richie's words.)

What did I even do!

[beeped]

I'm a fucking genius. [The response comes immediately. He knows people think he's stupid, but he once had a fancy report card from Derry High School that could prove otherwise.

But then he's scrunching his face up.] The other me is a real prick, isn't he?

[It's weird. But moving on--]

You existed, that's what you did.

[clussy]

Mostly.

(Eddie didn't fully want to let on that Richie really was smart. Not when he'd gush about it. But Eddie himself was the number one person to defend Richie.

He scrunches his own nose up and pinches his fingers together.)

A teeeeensy bit. He's still you but...

(From the fifties. Which meant there was a lot more things to be awful about.)

Richie! (He squeals, covering his now bright red face.) You're such a jeeerk.

[beeped]

--but my jokes are better.

[Which is debatable, given the amount of times he's joked about Sonia Kaspbrak's bleeding vagina. But that's beside the point.]

Since when does pointing out the obvious make me a jerk? [Just for that, Eddie's getting his cheek pulled. As if that wouldn't happen anyway.]

[clussy]

That's a word for it.

(Eddie might act snide often, but really, Richie and him had oddly similar types of humor at times. There was a reason the two of them could be heard giggling like maniacs in the dead of night sometimes.

Eddie makes a low whine at his cheek being pinched. He gives Richie's hand a shove.)

Nooo. Teasing me makes you a jerk.

[beeped]

[Richie is a mess of giggles the moment Eddie smacks his hand away.]

It's not teasing if it's a statement of fact.

[He's absolutely teasing, but that's beside the point. Eddie Kaspbrak is the cutest person in existence and Richie is so lucky to have him as a friend.]

[clussy]

(Richard Tozier. He reaches out and grabs loosely at Richie's hair to give it a tug. His form of pinching Richie's cheeks.)

You're so full of it.

(It's universally true that Eddie Kaspbrak is the cutest person in existence- you'd be farfetched to find anyone who disagreed. But that was also besides the point.)

[beeped]

[Richie yelps--completely overdone and over-the-top, but he's all about reactions. Now isn't any different. He makes a point of rubbing at his scalp once he's ducked away from Eddie's hand.]

No I'm not.

[His tone is defiant, and instead of elaborating, he lets it hang there. Eddie can do with it what he will.]

[clussy]

(Eddie winds up gaping at Richie uselessly, because it was hardly the reaction that had been expected. His face begins to burn, and he closes his eyes because.

Just because he needs a fucking second.

Once the strange, tingly moment passes, Eddie rubs at his face and suddenly grabs Richie's hand.)

C'mon. Let's go play in the Greenery.