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

[ Erik doesn't suspect that Wanda is being deliberately obtuse. He can accept that whatever this thing is, it's difficult to describe in terms of what it is, and easier to describe what it is not. ]

If she's weak, wouldn't this be a good time to strike?

[ He stretches out his hand, feeling along the structure of the station to find the edges of the thing. He can't tell what it's made of, it's not metal after all, but he can tell where it is touching the metal of the station. ]

I don't... [Words. Wanda knows several languages and none of them are properly equipped to succinctly describe what's going on.] She can regenerate. I think that's how they used her to power the Ingress.

We need to find a way back.

[ The more he hears about the thing, the more disgusted he feels. ]

Regenerate? Like a starfish?

[ He frowns at her insistence that they leave. ] Are you serious? Just leave that thing on the station? Lurking and waiting, until it's strong enough to wipe us all out? No.

[ He marches in the opposite direction. ]

You may go. I'm going to take care of this.

Faster.

[He should be disgusted. It was super gross.]

I didn't say that, but-- [Aaaaaand he's gone. Frustrated, Wanda takes off after him, protesting the whole way.] --we need a plan, more distance--

[Pietro would have stopped long before this point. The Avengers would probably have agreed they couldn't just charge in blind when Mother made such short work of her. But Erik is a force unto himself and logic isn't going to work.

But maybe that shield of scarlet blocking the hallway will.]

I am not letting you go to your death!

Edited 2018-01-15 17:54 (UTC)

[ Erik's progress is halted by Wanda's barrier. He frowns and tries to poke it, determine how to get around it. It's not precisely a solid thing, but a field that simply... stops his hand from moving. With a strange feeling on his skin, as if the air was becoming a glove that is two sizes too small.

He turns to face her. This is starting to irritate him. ]

I understand you're upset. There's no reason for hysterics. I'll be fine. Now, will you kindly get rid of this. [ He gestures at the shield. ]

[The barrier doesn't waver even a fraction.]

Because you think you can do what ten of us couldn't.

[She wants to spare him from this. Shoving the experience into his mind halfway defeats the purpose of their argument.

But it's not out off the table.]

[ Erik lets out a small sigh, and turns to face Wanda fully. ]

Yes. Because I can.

[ He can pull submarines out of the sea, stop a nuclear missile barrage, throw stadiums and rip planes out of the sky. He can destroy entire planets single-handedly. If anything, the notion that it would take ten people to match him is a laughably low number. ]

You can go.

Edited 2018-01-23 00:04 (UTC)

No, you can't.

[It's almost laughable, to be underestimated so badly, but Wanda has to remind herself that this Erik has never seen her fight. She's told him she was meant to be a living weapon, though what exactly that means has been so far left to the imagination.

Maybe it's time for a demonstration.]

And I am not leaving without you.

[The wall lowers...but at that exact moment scarlet tendrils surround Erik completely, lifting him from the ground and preventing him from moving so much as a pinky.

And like this is completely normal, Wanda just turns on her heel and heads in the opposite direction while he floats after her. She wants to be mindful of his past traumas, but this is literally the only way she can think to stop him before he tries something drastic to bypass her shield.

And if he's going to hate her now...well, at least he'll still be alive.]

[ He almost retorts Yes, I can, but getting into such a childish bickering match with a woman who, for all intents and purposes, is his daughter galls his pride. So he settles for the next best thing. ]

You don't know what I can do.

[ As it would happen, he's just as ignorant about her abilities. And quickly finds himself suspended in the air behind her. He struggles against the scarlet energy surrounding him. gritting his teeth because that's pretty much all he can move. ]

Put me down!

[ Her powers have rendered him inert, but he is not powerless. He reaches out with his senses and locks himself in with the walls. The bulkheads creak and buckle . A pained groan escapes him as he's caught between her magic and his powers, both forces far stronger than his actual body. ]

[That gets her to turn around, red flickering in her eyes.]

Not if you're going to do stupid things!

[Put him down? Absolutely not. But Wanda can see that it's hurting him and so she does ease the constant forward tugging.]

You don't know what she can do. I've seen it. And you are coming with me whether you want to or not.

[ If Erik were in a more reasonable state of mind, he might have comprehended the full weight of the red flickers in her eyes.

But he's pissed so he doesn't.

The pressure eases enough that he can breathe and so he does until he can speak again. He grits the words out between clenched teeth. ]

I can rip off the Earth's crust. Because of trace ferromagnetic elements in it. This station is made of metal. I can rid us of this threat.

It doesn't matter if your mind isn't protected! You won't have time.

[There were forces on Thisavrou-that-was that were stronger than both her and Charles, so powerful that neither of them would ever have guessed their thoughts had been tampered with. And Mother herself is on an entirely different level than the Mediators.]

[ That gives him pause, and he relaxes his hold on the bulkhead somewhat. ]

So I just need to make my helmet.

[ It's not really a question, more of a revelation. Really, he should have done so immediately on arrival. ]

[She feels the resistance lessen and takes what opportunity that leaves to try to pull him forward again.]

If it wouldn't stop me, it won't stop her.

[And it's almost laughable to think something so simple could do anything at all. Machines seem to be the only thing immune to her powers; even the Savrii could be overpowered with their unfair advantage removed. What could a helmet possibly do?]

I haven't made one yet. It would stop you. The telepathy, anyway.

[ He insists stubbornly because it's true. Charles, Emma, none of them could penetrate the helmet, no matter how their powers were enhanced. ]

I can handle the rest!

A Spacemas Carol: December's Mod Event Log

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