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

[He actually flinches. He flinches like he's been kicked in the chest. Maybe it feels like he really has been. He's not completely sure why. If he somehow expected Lavellan to understand it... of all people...]

We were fine! We were just fine...!

[His hands pull up over his head.] Why does everyone always say that!

I don't -- I don't get it! We were happy, dude! He like... he thought I was worth something-!

Nobody else ever did that!

[Lavellan is quiet, and lets Sideswipe finish. He lowers his hand, keeps a respectful distance away.

There's no easy way to make him see. Maybe he'll never be able to see. But the least Lavellan can do is try to help.]

You didn't look happy to me.

Then you--! You didn't see the good parts!

[That would make it okay again, wouldn't it? That would make everyone understand. They'd see it was a good thing.]

[They'd understand why it hurt so bad, even now, after Riptide had been gone so long.]

You're not listening, either! Nobody ever told me I was worth anything! Just some criminal, just some slacker kid bot! He was different!

Why is that a bad thing!

It isn't.

[And he hates that apparently that's an uncommon thing for Sideswipe to hear. How much had he contributed that, even unknowingly?]

But that shouldn't be the only reason you're with someone. It should be a partnership. Give and take in equal measures. An alliance. What I saw--

[He cuts himself off, because he's already said that, and he doesn't want to make Sideswipe shut down about this.]

Maybe you're right, and I didn't see the good parts. But what I saw was you taking care of him, and not the other way around.

He didn't... have to. I can handle myself! I didn't need to be taken care of!

[No, he thinks. No, Lavellan is wrong. He hadn't seen the rescues. Hadn't seen the ways Riptide had looked out for him. How even just letting him stay with him was an act of care.]

[No one seemed to understand that. Even people who had been here for the whole thing.]

[He scrubs his hands furiously over his face.] He did what he could! But they -- they just broke something, man. Broke something in him. He couldn't ...

Couldn't be like he was.

[If Lavellan wants to change Sideswipe's mind, it clearly won't happen here. Even if it could, Lavellan is the wrong person to do it--he's barely functional himself, has the wrong perspective. All he could say is that he wouldn't want to do to someone what Riptide had been doing to Sideswipe.

They broke something in him. He inhales sharply.]

Who's they? What did they do?

... his name was Tarn.

[His voice lowers. Quiets. It had been the first taste of real war he'd ever had. All he'd known before were Steeljaw and his criminal pack. But that guy...]

[His arms loop around his knees.]

And he... he killed Riptide. I dunno how many times. [Even now, so long after it happened, the words come out shaky. It was just sick. Beyond anything he could really understand.] Just because he could.

Then he'd show up. On the network. Just to torture him. And -- and Nobody did anything!

Nobody tried to stop it! Nothing! They just let it happen to him! Dude -- I had to stick with him...

... he didn't have anybody else on his side.

[Lavellan is quiet for a long while as he absorbs this.

He isn't the right person to be having this conversation by a long stretch. He doesn't know what happened, he wasn't there, and he's never been good at this sort of thing even when he did and was. But Sideswipe needs something right now, and he's the only one here.]

I'm sorry that happened. And... it's good you wanted to support him. But--

[But.]

There are still limits. He still treated you badly, and he left you. Whatever he was struggling with, you didn't deserve to be dragged down with him.

[And here it is. If he wants to make this stick, he has to live by example.

He takes a deep breath.]

I did the same thing, that night when you found me in the corridor. I shouldn't have put that on you.

You don't have to accept it, but I'm sorry.

He didn't. He needed -- he needed to take care of some stuff, that's all. That's... that's all.

[It's three hundred years later. Three hundred years of unanswered messages. He'd let him down, in the end. Gone silent. Maybe Riptide left, but Sideswipe hadn't taken care of his side like he should have. Hadn't been a good partner in return.]

[He hadn't been able to help.]

Ratchet said -- the old timer doc bot. He said it was fine. It... I was doing fine.

[Not really, but hey, that's how Sideswipe took it. He drags the back of his arm over his face. Scrubbing at little motes of light under his eyes.]

What're you talking about? You didn't do anything... I was there. I... helped.

That's all.

[It's hard not to wince. Even if Sideswipe doesn't think he needs to hear this... he does. And Lavellan needs to say it.]

You did. [He tries to sound reassuring, because he knows Sideswipe can be sensitive about this. And the last thing he wants to do is drive him off.]

But I shouldn't have let it happen in the first place. I should have--been able to take care of myself. My problems are my own.

[He scrubs his own eyes in turn.]

I made them yours. That's what I'm apologizing for.

But that's not fair!

So what, I'm just supposed to ignore stuff when my friends are having a problem? I'm just supposed to like, walk away? Are you serious?

[That's... what he's taking Lavellan's words to mean here. It's not something he understands at all. You're supposed to help when someone you care about is going through a bad time. That's just what friends are for.]

[Isn't it?]

Sideswipe, you're... you're not understanding me.

[He makes a grimace, like he's in physical pain.]

You didn't do anything wrong. I did.

All you did was be compassionate. But you're young, you--taking care of me shouldn't be your job. I should have been strong enough not to let myself go that far.

What?

[Lavellan is right about one thing. He doesn't understand. Not even a little. He just stares at him. Wide-eyed.]

[Like his friend suddenly sprouted a different head.]

Dude -- I'm older than you. I'm not a little kid or something! Why can't I ... help?

A Spacemas Carol: December's Mod Event Log

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