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?

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

Comments

[neverheardofhim]

[Varric wasn't sure how he'd gotten back here. There had been light, then nothing, then the sickly green of the Fade. It had haunted his memories for years after he had seen it. In his dreams, he watched it wrap his sickening tentacles around her, drawing her kicking and screaming into the Abyss.

Only there she was, arguing soundlessly with Alistair, hero of the Blight. Varric was gone, left her behind, believing that for some reason things might actually work out.

He waited for that moment, when Hawke would turn her back on them and become the hero the world had forced her to be. Only it didn't happen. The hand that swung out wasn't the woman he remembered, but the elf he'd butted heads with for months.

And rather than condemning Hawke, the finger pointed to Alistair. Hawke and Neriel ran, and the Warden faced her.

All at once, the world faded, green giving way to black, and black giving way to Avagi. His throat felt tight, breath shallow as he struggled to right himself.]

Hawke... [His voice was hoarse, and he spoke as if he was certain he was alone.]

[lavelly]

[By now, Lavellan is well familiar with retreading his past guilts, so his only reaction to hearing Varric's voice after this one in particular is resignation.

Well, this is a conversation long overdue anyway.]

I did tell you the way it happened.

[neverheardofhim]

[Varric showed no sign of having heard Lavellan's words. He stared forward, to the space he had once seen Hawke and Alistair in, as if expecting it to change somehow. For what reason, he didn't know. It was as the elf had said -- he already knew how things played out in Neriel's time.]

Why? [He couldn't recall if he'd ever asked that. Alistair was of royal blood and a damn fine warden. Varric wouldn't have ever chosen Hawke over him, but surely the Inquisitor would have seen the value in allowing such a powerful ally to live.]

Why did you save her?

[lavelly]

[He's silent for a while, contemplating how much of the truth to really tell Varric. Then he decides he doesn't have the energy to spin the truth anymore.

That the truth is ugly no longer matters. Maybe now Varric will stop trying.

His voice is flat, lifeless, as if he's simply reciting something written down.]

People were wary of the Grey Wardens. They'd vanished, and then resurfaced amid rumors of blood magic. Alistair i--

[Fuck.]

--Was famous for his role in the Fifth Blight, but hadn't been relevant for years. He'd also sworn an oath to give his life to the Wardens against the darkspawn, or any other threat to Thedas. Hawke was a civilian, and more recently popular.

The Wardens needed something to redeem themselves, and I'd already realized that without someone to lead them I could more easily fold them into the Inquisition. Alistair's death--a noble sacrifice fitting his station--would achieve both. Hawke's death would have gained me nothing but the anger of people who had built her into a folk hero.

[He turns his gaze to Varric directly, eyes stony.]

It was an easy choice, really.

[You see, Varric: Alistair is dead instead of Hawke because Lavellan found a better use for his death. That is what the Inquisition is, and that is why Lavellan hates himself.]