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

[seeingscarlet]

[For a long moment Wanda almost regrets saying anything.]

No, we were just...walking.

[Just passing through that stuff.

Weird noises aren't uncommon and neither are parts of Avagi not working, but usually that's all it is. Something completely mundane with a rational explanation, even if it does tend to go over Wanda's head. Her scientific education was woefully lacking.]

Do you think something's broken? I don't remember this...smoke? Mist?

[ventifact]

[The scavenger exhales slowly, trying to make up a list of things that could cause a hallucination like that. But once she factors in the fact that the both of them had experienced it at the same time and that it had been so real, she comes up empty.

Slowly, she looks around, searching for some leaking pipe or broken vent.]

Maybe. It could have come from inside the station. We still don't know everything about it. [Including why it had been abandoned in the first place. The hairs on the back of her neck stand up, and grits her teeth.] I think we should get back to the suite.

[seeingscarlet]

[For the first time since their initial arrival, Wanda is actually frightened. It's rare for someone to be able to overpower her psychically...and never once has it been a good thing. She shudders.

It's a big station and it would be foolish to assume it's as abandoned as it first appeared.]

We need to make sure they're all right. And we should try to stay away from anything...strange.

[Like that mist, or going towards those whispers-that-aren't-quite-whispers on the edge of her perception. It should go without saying...but then again, Wanda is used to her brother(s) and certain Avengers Steve who don't understand the meaning of caution.]

[ventifact]

[Luckily for the both of them, Rey has spent the vast majority of her life being cautious, perhaps overly so. Jakku is an unforgiving planet, and any misstep could mean death. She'd always lived by the adage "if you think you need an hour to get somewhere, give yourself two." It had kept her alive this long, and she isn't about to go against it now.]

Right. Stay alert, then.

[And she starts down the hallway, eyes wide and one hand hovering over her lightsaber. Just in case.]

[seeingscarlet]

[Being an orphan in a war zone has given Wanda her own set of complementary survival instincts. When you realize you're in trouble, it's probably already too late.

Scarlet twines around her fingers and despite her powers, she keeps looking over her shoulder. In a way, the absence is more disturbing than if she could sense something this time. Would it be ironically more comforting to know the demon was hunting her again just so she had some idea of what to expect?]

Do you...do you hear that?

[For the first time in recent memory, Wanda can't tell whether the whispers are psychic or physical and that frightens her more than she cares to admit.]

[ventifact]

[Hazel eyes flick down to the crimson energy twining around Wanda's fingers, and Rey follows suit, reaching out for the Force. Her own lingering fear coupled with Wanda's anxiety makes it difficult to keep her hold on it, but she makes the effort anyway. She tries to send her senses out ahead of them, but everything comes back muddled and too confusing. Maybe it's the mist--or maybe it's just her inability to focus. Either way, she holds the power close to her for now, hoping she won't actually need to use it.

She does, however, hear the strange murmurs around them, and nods in confirmation as her stomach turns.]

Yeah. I don't... I don't know what it is. I can't feel anything behind it.

[seeingscarlet]

I don't like it. It's... [It shouldn't be possible, even beings like Mother or the Savrii couldn't hide their presence completely.] ...wrong.

[The only thing that gives her some small amount of comfort is that she can't feel anyone else's distress and no one's called her ACE in a panic. She'd know if Peter was trapped in a vision like that...right?

They round a corner and Wanda's stomach drops. The hallway ahead of them is filled with that weird mist.]

So much for the fast way.

[ventifact]

[Rey nods in agreement--nobody should be completely absent like this. The only explanation she can think of is some A.I. that's laid dormant in the ship has somehow come back online and is doing this, but that seems far too outlandish to be true.

Her face pales when she sees the mist, and one hand grips her lightsaber, white-knuckled. She knows the weapon won't help, but it makes her feel safer anyway. Taking a few deep breaths, Rey tries to think. Then, she looks up.]

We can try the air ducts. Maybe it's a dense gas, and has all sunk to the floor.

[seeingscarlet]

Good idea.

[If it was a regular mist, Wanda could sweep it away, but she's too shaken by the earlier incident to risk it. What if it pulls Rey into one of her memories? Or what if it interacts badly with her powers and something even worse happens?

Wanda glances up, gestures, and...unceremoniously rips the cover off the nearest vent.

What? She isn't Tony Stark. She doesn't carry a multitool everywhere.]

Can you get up there by yourself?

[ventifact]

[The vent tearing itself away from the duct does make Rey wince a bit, but she understands and lets it slide. She does have a multitool on her, but she doesn't want to take the time to use it. Rey looks up at the new opening, and shrugs.]

Probably. Can you?

[seeingscarlet]

I'll be fine. Don't worry about me.

[She's not very familiar with Force abilities, unfortunately, if she even knew what Rey is. Most of her exposure to fighting alongside a Jedi was trying to keep the two of them alive as Luke cheerfully sped off straight into danger.]

Here, I can boost you... [The normal way, of course.]

[ventifact]

[That... sounds exactly like Luke, not only from the stories, but also her brief experiences around him. Rey looks up at the vent then back to Wanda, nodding. It'll be better than trying to Force jump her way up there, which she could grossly miscalculate and bash her skull in instead. Rey has no illusions about her tentative grasp on her power.]

Yeah, alright.

[seeingscarlet]

[Wanda kneels and hefts Rey up towards the vent. Would have been easier to put power behind it, but funnily enough, she also doesn't want Rey to bash her skull in.

She takes one last look down the corridor at the creeping mist and then levitates herself up far enough to haul herself into the opening. Thank goodness the vents are large enough for them to mostly fit. It's not comfortable, but it could be a lot worse.]

I can't believe we're doing this.

[It's kind of ridiculous that weird mist has driven them into the vents...but on the other hand, this seems like something Clint or Nat would do.]

[ventifact]

[Rey lifts herself up into the vent, making sure to crawl forward far enough so Wanda has room to join her. Honestly, she can't believe they're doing this either--but honestly, it isn't the first time the scavenger has squeezed herself into a tight place to escape an even tighter situation.

She grumbles under her breath, but at least the way ahead is clear.]

Better than the alternative.

[seeingscarlet]

[It feels like the kind of thing you see in spy movies that would make Clint and Natasha laugh and insist that it really doesn't work like that.

Wanda's really hoping they won't have to crawl far to pass the mist.]

I think the voices are a little quieter?

[ventifact]

[A few seconds pass in silence as Rey listens, not just with her ears but also with the Force. Slowly, she nods, beginning to move forward. A few yards should do it--she hopes.]

I think so, yeah. That's something, at least.

[seeingscarlet]

[Thank goodness for the taskbots. It's dirty enough as it is and she'd hate to see what they'd look like without even minimal maintenance.]

I'm glad I wore black.

[They shuffle forward a little more.]

Can you see anything?

[ventifact]

[Rey squints ahead of them, slowly crawling through the vent.]

It's just dark ahead. But I think the way is clear.

[seeingscarlet]

Do you need help with the vent?

[She's already made the ship's engineers unhappy as it is. One more vent won't sway the odds of a lecture either way much.]

[ventifact]

[As one of those engineers, Rey would a hundred percent not stand for any kind of lecture. She moves forward a few more feet before finally finding another grate.]

Let me see if I can get it first.

[And she not-so-delicately starts hammering it with her fist.]

[seeingscarlet]

Rey-- [that's not what she meant] Don't hurt yourself!

[ventifact]

[Rey pauses her smashing long enough to look over her shoulder.] I'm fine! And I think I've almost got it. [Sure enough, a few more bangs and the vent pops loose.]