thisavrou_log | A Spacemas Carol: December's Mod Event Log

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!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

--Lavellan!

[Because, of course, he hasn't learned his lesson. Hasn't learned these are just visions. That nothing can be changed by charging in. By trying to stop or save or protect anyone. He doesn't run into a wall, this time. He skids to a stop, instead, near empty air where there had been a mirror.]

[What even had he intended to do here? Drag the bald guy back by the ears? Would that have even helped?]

[He turns, quickly enough, toward the elf, looking at him a little wide-eyed and worried.]

Are you hurt?

[Lavellan doesn't respond, because in the events of his memory there is no one there to respond to. Instead he stares, dumbly, at his own arm alight with energy and already in the process of disintegrating, like he doesn't understand what he's seeing.

Emotions flicker throughout the fabric of the scene the more that Shiro lingers: disbelief, anger, something very close to heartbreak. But most pervasive is the numb despair.

When the memory ends, the real Lavellan doesn't look much different.]

Are you hurt!

[He's raising his voice a fraction, because the lack of answer is concerning. More than just concerning. The warring emotions don't do much to help, either. They compound and confuse and make something ache in his chest for this person --]

[-- Say that to the dead and I wish I could.]

Lavellan! Come on!

[He'd told himself that everything he did, every decision he made, served a purpose. That it was part of a great scheme, something greater and more important than individual people and their individual morals. That he'd eroded his self-respect by inches for a reason.

But now he knows the truth, doesn't he, that he and the Inquisition and everything he'd done had part of some game of Solas's. He'd been a pawn all along. Nothing he'd done had really mattered or could really be justified.

When the memory resolves, Lavellan kneels in the same place and position as his past image. He knows, immediately, that someone else has witnessed this, that he isn't left to his shame alone. But he can't bring himself to be the one to break the spell.

So he waits for the other person to speak.]

[Look, from one forced-amputee to another, that was nothing to be ashamed of.]

[But that conversation can happen after he makes sure Lavellan is unharmed now. Right here in the present. The significance of it all is lost on him, for now. All he can think of is making sure the other man is all right.]

[So when silence answers him, he fears the worst.]

Lavellan! It's me. It's Shiro. Can you hear me?

[Maybe he can carry him, if he's hurt. He doesn't look too heavy. Can't be that much more than Lance. Can he?]

[Finally, he looks up to meet Shiro's gaze, still kneeling on the ground. It still takes him a while to speak; his jaw works as he tries to think of something to say.

The one thing he comes back to is embarrassment. Shame, even. That Shiro had to see it, that he's still dwelling on it enough to make this happen in the first place. He knows he shouldn't be.

And yet here he is.

So finally, all he can think to say is:]

Sorry.

[Lavellan moves. He speaks. And all Shiro can feel is relief. He drops down to a knee in front of him, taking the elf's shoulders in hand. Lavellan is speaking. He seems... present. Good signs.]

[Even if the apology isn't.]

Don't be. It's all right. This is happening to everyone who passes through here.

[It occurs to him, after he speaks, that Lavellan is apologizing for the memory itself. But what he says still stands. It's fine. It's all right.]

Are you hurt?

[Lavellan is present now, more or less, but that's not necessarily preferable. He looks down at his arm like he's never seen it before--really, revisiting losing it momentarily made him forget that he still has it now. It's startling how raw it still feels.]

No. That happened a while ago. [He almost says a long time, but that's not actually true, is it?

He sighs and rubs his eyes with the back of his hand.]

Just embarrassed, that's all. Though at least I don't seem to be alone in that regard. [Is anybody reliving pleasant memories?]

[He stays hunkered down beside him. Trying to support him. Trying to brace him against whatever it was in his head. Whatever that vision had been. He's not going to pretend he understood it all -- the arm loss... that he understood.]

Okay. Not hurt's a good start.

[He tries for a smile. Staying on the support role.]

You're not the only one, definitely. Does that help?

[He smiles a little thinly.]

Not really, but I appreciate the thought.

[Change the subject. Chaaaange the subject. This is one memory he really doesn't feel like elaborating on.]

Thank you for the concern. I believe I'm fine. I hope you haven't had to go through anything too harrowing yourself?

Do you need to sit down, somewhere? Get some water...?

[Okay, so he won't talk about it. But he will do anything he can think of to see if Lavellan is settled. To help.]

[It's basically ingrained in his DNA at this point.]

I'm... fine. I'm all right. Nothing I haven't seen before.

I would expect so, since these all seem to be memories.

[Okay, that was mean, but Lavellan isn't really in the best mood either.]

Really, I'm fine. I'm not an invalid.

[It may have been mean, but Shiro gives him a weak laugh, regardless. It's too tired for real amusement, though.]

I didn't say you were. I... just don't know how else to help.

[Lavellan sighs, and forces himself to smooth the edge out of his voice.]

You've done more than enough. Thank you. I'm... sorry I snapped.

It's all right. It couldn't have been easy to go through that again.

[Flashbacks are a bitch. He'd know.]

Take it easy, all right?

[He won't press for more if Lavellan isn't up for it. He'll give him his space.]

It's all right. Thank you. [Again.

It seems wrong to leave it off there, but not comfortable with sharing more and reluctant to pry into Shiro's business, he doesn't know where to go from here.

So that limits his conversation options.]

How many other hapless charity cases have you stumbled over, then?

[Well, it's... something.]

[Honestly, if Lavellan wanted to leave it there, he would have. It's awkward, sure. But there's no reason to push comfort levels.]

I... don't know?

I try not to trip, to be honest.

[See, he's trying to be funny.]

A Spacemas Carol: December's Mod Event Log

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