Who: Anyone and Everyone
When: February 10-19
Where: Avagi
What: Life support fails, and a team sets out. Check out
this ooc post for more.
Warnings: Label your content.
Synce their arrival, Avagi's residents have been plagued by minor system failures. Faulty taskbots and infested crawlspaces, supply shortages and the floods last month. For the most part, they've coped admirably, and quality of life aboard the station is substantially improved from what it was. But even as the damage in the lived-in space is scrubbed away, more dangerous poisons have been building underneath.
On February 10, the groaning from the walls will escalate to a harsh scraping, audible station-wide. Then silence falls as the filtration systems die completely: leaving all vents to begin spewing thick, black smoke.
|
| System Failures | |
| (February 10-19) | |
Acrid and hazardous, the cocktail of gases emerging from the vents are the result of three centuries' toxin storage spilling over. A shallow breath can cause a coughing fit, but individuals who draw in too much of the toxic air will find themselves becoming dizzy, passing out, or worse. While effects may vary based on individual biology, all beings who require breath will find their lungs burning and their vision blurred. An hour after the initial failure, the lighting goes out too. With it, all station power: to computers, doors, and any system not hooked up to its own supply.
Investigation:
The electrical failures can be sourced to an automated safety shutoff, override-able from Life Support's main controls. But the mechanism isn't in place without a reason. Generating station power produces more of the dark fumes, and without working filters, they will pump straight into the air.
Wait in the dark (and growing cold), or suffocate more quickly? Either way, your air troubles won't be resolved quickly. Over the next couple days, groups searching Sanitation can track down the vapors to their source. A small mob of taskbots run sad circles in the filtration hub: between the air processing units and a row of shelves along one wall. The label reads Purification Crystals, and a single empty container remains. Survival (Home Team):
Without the crystals, there is no effective way of restoring the entire living space. It may, however, be possible to section off small areas. Able bodies will be required to seal off the fumes and guide those suffering from their effects to safety. Many may need medical assistance, and technical skills will be in even more desperate need: to equip these regions with oxygen and power, and insulate them against the cold that leeches in from the outside.
Some amount of work has already been done, and a few safe rooms are prepped across the station. As days progress toward weeks, however, their air and power reserves will run thin, and some larger sectors may warrant securing regardless. The Greenery contains young plants that are susceptible to the fumes, and those invested in the library's book collection may also want to take measures. The gas has acidic qualities in higher concentrations, enough to eat through paper... for a start.
Contain it? Remove it? Or just try to protect yourselves? One way or another, you'll need to hold out for a while.
|
| Travel (Away Team) | |
| (February 12-19) | |
When Avagi's current population first got here, it was clear that others had inhabited the space before. Recent developments have even proven that these others—or, perhaps, their descendants—might still exist elsewhere on the station now. With the crystals that might repair your home missing, diplomacy is no longer an optional consideration. It's time to meet the neighbors, and hope they come in peace.Navigation:
Those volunteering to undertake this mission will be provided with a patchwork set of maps. However, these contain little to no information on the current state of the station—including which parts still exist. The explosion that tore apart the former Ingress Complex left wide gaps in the structure, many of which have been invaded by the storms outside.
Scanning tech will be required to assess what lies behind the sealed walls, and physical labor to cut through them. As no contiguous paths across the station remain, this process will need to be repeated numerous times. Where no adjoining regions can be verified intact, smaller scouting tools (or group members!) may be required to traverse crawlspaces for a view of nearby rooms. Survival:
Behind the first wall lies a pressurized room with normal gravity—and contaminated air. This will not persist as the travelers continue. Some regions have power, but no gravity. Others contain pockets of unaffected, still-clean air. Few spaces will be fully online before the travelers get there, but local generators can be found that might allow for a night or two of "comfortable" camping. At least one juncture can only be crossed by floating through an empty docking bay. The area contains no power, air, or gravity, but spacesuits can be procured... inside the sealed vacuum of the bay. Creative thinking may be required.
Enveloping the station's outside, the roiling shadows of Avagi's storms have crept invasively into all unsealed regions of the interior. While the Observation Station may have accustomed some Avagians to the view, there's something much more immediate about the shadows pressing at the other side of these windows. The faint patterns of light that ripple through the clouds prompt a sense of malice and exhaustion, one that lingers even when you've turned away. Those who attempt more intense scrutiny may suffer more severe effects.
Certainly, it feels like something is watching back. Discoveries:
As harrowing as the journey may be, it's not entirely without its gains. A few tools can be salvaged from some of the decks visited along the way, and while food is in much shorter supply, there are a few signs that it might not have been, long ago. Wrappers and empty cans turn up in strange places. A few glyphs can be found scratched into one wall: ones that your ACE's translators roughly interpret as prayers.
One sealed room has a large "X" scrawled across the walls despite the detectable presence of power, air, and gravity. Opening it produces a strange sight: two skeletal corpses pressed up against the still-active force field that cuts this room off from the storms. Both bodies show extensive burns to hands and faces, but don't appear to have died from that effect. |
[For questions, signups, or plotting, check out the ooc post. For the duration of this log, characters may travel between teams to whatever extent they are capable. The event will escalate with a second log on February 20.] ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
savmods) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thisavrou_log2018-02-10 04:46 pm
no subject
[That's abruptly all over his face. Speechless. Staring at them like they've pulled the floor out from under him, shut off the lights and air all in one go.]
... did you want me to leave you alone, Chara?
[It's all he can think to say. To ask. He's asked them that before, and they didn't answer. They turned it around and away and never... told him what they wanted.]
[He'd just kept on.]
[He'd just thought it was the right thing to do.]
I can't -- I can't read your mind. I don't know these things, unless you tell me what you want.
[I can't change anything unless I know what I'm doing wrong.]
I'll ask you again. Do you want me to leave you alone?
no subject
[It bites out, hard and intent, unlike the drape of calm they'd been aspiring, aspiring, to cast over their expression like a pall, like a sheet of ice.]
It does not matter how truly you believe it or how badly you wish it or how much you might fight for it.
Creatures like me cannot be saved, Shiro.
And maybe they would simply prefer not to be.
no subject
[He can't honestly believe it. Or maybe, he doesn't really want to. They're a child. They're... someone he's come to care about, for reasons he can't really explain.]
[Or maybe it's that echo in the back of his head. The voice whispering of how much of a monster he was. Faded, after so long. But holding on and waiting to dig its claws back in again.]
[... monster and creature are awfully close. Aren't they?]
Chara, I can't... I'm not pretending anything. It's what I really believe.
But if you tell me -- if you tell me that's what you want... [And he hates these words. He hates every syllable of them. But if it's what they want...] I won't. Bring it up.
no subject
[They glimpsed an awful lot, in December. And others saw plenty else.]
That was mine. Nothing, nothing but complete and utter destruction of all that everyone has ever loved.
Because it was my last chance. Do you understand that?
It was my last chance to let it finally, finally be over.
no subject
[Yes, he did. But it was nothing like Chara described. Not for him. There was hope, there. For himself, and for Pidge. Not something as dire as they're talking about.]
[He lets them talk. Ask their questions and say what they need to say. There isn't much else he really can do, here. Is there?]
Then.
You do want that. That's what you're telling me.
no subject
I have given up on attempting to force my death to mean something.
Do you know how many years I have spent, lingering? How many times I felt myself die?
[They're so tired.]
[They are so. incredibly. tired.]
[And it never seems to stop.]
no subject
[That's why he can't turn away. Why he hasn't.]
Maybe... that's why you're here now.
If that couldn't mean something -- maybe this is a chance for your life to.
[They'll laugh. Or refuse. But the words come out anyway. Offering a hand he can't physically give.]
... You mean something to one person. I can tell you that.
no subject
[Buried in there somewhere is a lesson about accountability; when it is fitting to hold oneself to it, and when it is pointless. They're certainly far from the right party to draw that line, when every consequence and every cast stone has fallen squarely in their corner of the court.]
I mean something to every martyr with a hero complex on the station, I'm sure.
no subject
Because of my blame issue?
[That's. Not where he thought their answer would go. It's way off the mark. Not something he prepared for.]
[Is that really all they think they mean? The only reason he's here, trying to reason this through? The only reason he's never stopped trying -- to help them, to do right by them. If they didn't matter beyond his own problems, wouldn't he have stopped bothering them the day he told the others he'd try to be ... better?]
[Can't they see that?]
no subject
[Asriel's selfless, all-encompassing love that rubbed away the intricacies of their flaws until all that was left was the perfect sibling on the pedestal, the one he disowned the moment someone better and nicer came along. Frisk's insatiable need to save other people at the expense of their own self-worth, no matter how despicable or disgusting those creatures proved to be.]
Whatever reasoning you might claim, whatever sweeping declarations you may hold to your heart - I've heard them before.
And I know how that story ends.
[With Chara, not being the greatest person.]
[Easily discarded. Easily forgotten.]
[Easily ERASED.]
no subject
[Is that what they're trying to say?]
Chara what part of anything we've ever done makes you think that's something I'd do? If you wanted to be alone so bad... you can just tell me.
Plain and simple.
[How could anyone just walk away from this kid? From anyone. There's something that needs help, somewhere in them. Something no one should just ignore or get tired of.]
[It feels like all he can do. Put that offer back on the table. They have to know he doesn't want to do it. Just like they have to know he will.]
no subject
[They know what they are. What the world has taught them that they must be, at all times. The exception to every rule. The anomaly. The demon that comes when you call its name. The thing that must not be spoken of, except in derision, except to be heralded when one is in need of wanton destruction.]
Do not bother feeding me the same overemotional tripe I have endured without fail, only to witness the hypocrisy of those who spoke it.
no subject
Yes or no, Chara. Do you want me to leave you alone?
[He will fight for this answer for as long as he has to. For a real answer. He has to know. One way or another.]
[If no answer comes, then, he's just going to have to keep fighting for them. Protecting them. Being at their side if they're in danger of drowning again. There's no other option.]
no subject
[Why would it matter? In such a contained space with so many variables playing against them, such a thing would be nothing short of impossible.]
All I require is that you stop pretending that you can effect some manner of change on my fate.
no subject
If you don't care, you'll be able to say no.
[He can't do that last part. He doesn't think it's possible -- if only because, to him, there is no pretending.]
[There's trying everything he has to make something change, for the better.]
no subject
[Why should the decision squarely be theirs? Why should the weight always be theirs to bear?]
[Oh, right.]
[Because it always is.]