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

[desynched]

[ Lena glances up at him when he rests his hand on her shoulder. She didn't realize how much seeing Reyes-- normal and whole-- would sting. It's not like he was her commander, and their interactions were brief and professional. Still, he'd been one of them once. He looks so human now. Laughing and talking with his team. His friends.

The memory fades but the feelings linger. She looks over at Jack again, with a smile meant to be comforting but comes out as a wince.

Softly: ] Sorry.

[mylawn]

Don't be sorry.

[It's not like either of them did this on purpose--just another unfortunate happening of the Ingress, or whatever it is that's messing with them this time. Still puts him on edge, especially given the extended simulation the Intermediaries put them through, but this hasn't felt quite the same. He'd been aware the entire time that he was an observer.

Likely the fact that it was his own memory was helpful.]

Not your fault.

[desynched]

[ She knows it's not her fault, but she still feels bad for practically violating his privacy. It wasn't an epic battle written in history or even something like a mundane day at Overwatch. Even a top-secret meeting or something would've been better. But this was personal and private and steeped in emotion. ]

I know. Still a bit sorry anyway.

[ She's not sure how to put it all into words-- how she's sorry that she intruded on a personal memory, how she's sorry that seeing it caused him that much pain, how she's sorry that he lost all of that. ]

[mylawn]

[Jack's hand is still on her shoulder, and he lets it fall away, finding that his hands are better served shoved in his pockets. He knows he should leave well enough alone, but it also seems wrong to let this go. There's nothing for him to explain, not really, but part of him feels like he should offer her more than just pretending it never happened.]

You were looking at Reyes.

[Granted, he was too, but she'd never known him like Jack had. Tracer, active only in the last few years of Overwatch, never really had the chance--not that he thinks she would have wanted to know him at that point, with how far gone they all were.]

[desynched]

[ Lena shifts a little, almost uncomfortable. She hadn't realized it, but he's right. She had been staring.

She could shake it off, lie, evade. But maybe it's time to face her feelings head-on. Rush into them headfirst, the way she does in a fight.

Her voice is quiet, but not wavering. ] Yeah.

[mylawn]

It's okay.

[He hadn't meant to make her feel guilty, but he'd been the one to bring it up. What did he expect? It's an awkward and painful subject for the both of them.]

You didn't know him very well. You're curious.

[About what he was really like, maybe.]

[desynched]

[ He's inviting her to talk about it, which she can't say she was expecting. But she's going to take the invitation. After that memory, she can't help but want to know a little more. ]

He looked so normal.

[ It's not just that he didn't look like Reaper-- it's his mannerisms. No simmering hostility radiating off of him in Jack's presence. ]

[mylawn]

Well, he was.

[As normal as you can be, given what the two of them went through--first at the hands of the US government, then during the Crisis. Jack finds himself wondering if he can pinpoint the exact moment where it all went wrong, but he knows it's more accurate to say it all happened gradually.

By the time he realized he was in over his head, Gabriel had already been committing war crimes, and there had been no going back from that.]

He was the kind of person who saw what needed to get done and did it, no matter who or what was in the way. Good for war time. Not so much for Overwatch.

[desynched]

[ She already knew that from the way Reyes ran Blackwatch. The way he acts as a member of Talon would've told her even if she didn't know. That's not what bothers her. ]

No, it's... he seemed more relaxed around you.

[ Like they really were friends once. ]

[mylawn]

[Jack isn't sure what to say--Lena had only come on board long after the days in that memory were gone and forgotten. Perhaps it was easy to forget that he'd known Gabriel for most of his adult life.]

He was my friend.

[He sounds a little sad when he says it, but tries to downplay it with a shrug.]

I met him when I was a kid.

[desynched]

[ She remembers that sadness that hung over his memory. Everything he'd lost, laid out right in front of them.

Lena can't possibly know how much it hurts-- she has nothing to compare it to. But she can hear the sadness in his voice and tries to imagine it. ]

He was your CO once, right?

[mylawn]

Yeah, in SEP.

[Not that ranks mattered much, when they were all there to be guinea pigs. Jack had been further along in the program than him, too. They aren’t too far apart in age, but by that time Gabriel had established himself as a formidable commander.

Then they'd all gone off to Overwatch, and the rest had been history. What matters for the purposes of this conversation, he supposes, is that Jack has known Gabriel in one way or another for his entire adult life.

Losing him, first gradually and then all at once, was not going to be something he'd ever recover from.]

Went through a lot together.

[desynched]

Did you two always get assigned together?

[ From what she remembers of Reyes, she can't see him and Jack having any kind of synergy. She knows now that Reyes always had an agenda within an agenda, but perhaps it wasn't like that during the Crisis.

It's hard to imagine, and she can't help but feel like she's missed out on something. ]

[mylawn]

Well, there wasn't much assignment while we were being experimented on.

[But he knows that's not what she's asking. There's no denying, however, that Jack and Gabriel were fast friends. He's not sure he would have made it out of the program without him--he certainly wouldn't be the person he is today without Gabriel. That weighs on him more heavily than he lets on.]

But yeah. Got deployed together once we were done. Then we got tapped for Overwatch.

[desynched]

[ Lena is completely in the dark about what SEP was really like-- and the people behind it surely wanted it to stay that way to the world at large. She's seen pictures of Jack before his souped-up super soldier science experiments, but it's nowhere near as dramatic as movies would make it seem. So she forgets, sometimes, because this is the only version of Jack that she's ever known. SEP is a quiet footnote in his biographies and often overshadowed by his heroism in the Crisis.

Lena glances at the spot where the image of the younger trio had been. ]

Why'd they put you two together?

[mylawn]

[Jack certainly doesn't speak much about SEP beyond vague references to the fact that it exists. He could say what he wants, now--NDAs don't apply in space, and it's not like Lena will be telling anyone, if he asks her to keep it quiet. But it's still difficult to talk about, and he doesn't exactly want to trouble her with something that he went through so long ago that it's almost negligible.

For once, it seems easier to talk about himself and Gabriel.]

Worked well together.

[Not that beggars could really be choosers, given the situation they were in, but Jack and Gabriel had a synergy that kept them head and shoulders above the rest. Anyone who knew them back then found it obvious.]

Didn't die.