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.] 
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savmods) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thisavrou_log2018-02-10 04:46 pm
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[The surreality of the thought, displaced and inappropriate and in poor taste, is almost enough to crack the flatness that irons the corners of their lips down into something even farther from their typical, false smile than usual.]
What point would there be in "processing" it? He was here. Now he isn't. It's really quite simple.
[And. Smile.]
[Smile, like it'll all fade away.]
Why should one dwell?
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[Because it's never as simple as, they were here now they're not. There's always more to it.]
If you don't give yourself time to deal with it, it starts to eat at you. I don't want to see that happen.
[Not when he's been in that same boat for what feels like months now.]
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[They burst out laughing.]
You're about a hundred years too late on that one, I'm afraid!
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[He doesn't try to lecture them, here. They can laugh, if they have to. They can say what they want or need to.]
[He just wants to make it clear all he's talking about now is Asriel.]
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[Like they said. Years too late. Years. They've not yet become aware of the fact that their fingers have begun to grind around the packet of water, screwing up the foil-like packaging into something that threatens to burst. Their smile is frozen, pale and painted and pained.]
You think this is new? I led him to his death, the first time! I felt it happen. Do you understand that? I felt his body crumble to dust as he held me, dying, refusing to FIGHT back until the very last.
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I didn't know.
[Simply, calmly. Stay in control. Stay patient, collected. No wonder they're hurting. If they've already felt a loss that strong... In as much graphic detail as they're telling him...]
I'm sorry, Chara. [He could tell them maybe Asriel will come back, like Lucio had, briefly. Tell them maybe they'll be able to see him again, but those are just platitudes. Because you could stand outside the Ingress energy for days on end, hoping for a familiar voice, hoping for one more chance, and hear nothing but strangers.]
... I can't tell you how you should react. It wasn't how I meant things to come out.
But you've... got options. If you decide you want to take them, this time.
no subject
[They're being loud. Too pitched, too shrill, too angry. He's only trying to help, and they're just pitching a big fat tantrum. Being a little horrorterror, as per usual!]
What right have I to mourn someone that never wanted me in the first place - who spent his last words in our world disowning me for my crimes?
[What right have they to pretend they didn't see this coming? That it wasn't earned? That it wasn't how it was always going to be? That - ]
[There's water running out between their fingers.]
[They've squeezed it so hard that it's burst.]
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[People to talk to. People who want to help. Part of him is glad, now, that he's as tired as he is -- it's harder to get riled up when you don't have the energy.]
In your world.
What about this one?
[What about this second chance? When Asriel wouldn't leave their side. How concerned he was when Shiro dared pick them up. And how they'd nearly died themselves, in defense of him. That doesn't sound like what they're describing.]
You're allowed to be upset, Chara.
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[Rendering all thought exercises moot. They let the silly thing, the stupid capri sun-shaped package, drop limply to the ground, grind their hands into round fists at their sides.]
[It's better than winding back, and delivering.]
And I wasn't aware I required your permission to be as I am.
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[He honestly wouldn't be all that surprised if they actually did strike out. It'd hurt -- just realizing it hurts. But it wouldn't come as a shock.]
[Still. He makes himself stay calm.]
You don't. I'm not talking about anyone's permission but yours -- because you're acting like you're not letting yourself be upset.
You can say I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong on this. But that's how it seems from here.
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[Even now. Everything they have done and continue to do has been for the benefit of the sole important person in this world, in this worthless existence, in these worthless memories. The one person who mattered more than anyone else, who rose above the rabble of humans who witnessed the suffering of others and did nothing, the monsters who caused the suffering of others and did nothing.]
[Why would that have changed, with his disappearance?]
[It changed nothing, before they knew the solemn reality of what he had become.]
And so this changes nothing.
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[Why would Asriel hate them? How could he? Unless... Chara just wants to think so. Wants to think that way, so it hurts less. Wouldn't it be easier if the people you left behind didn't care about you?]
[So you didn't have to think about what it meant to be separated.]
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[Harsh words?]
[Well, no one can claim they aren't accurate. A real friend would have doubtless forgiven him for that. A real friend would have smoothed it all away with a smile and a genuine apology, trying to soothe away all those agonies that plagued him through his next several dozen, hundred, thousand lifetimes.]
[Harsh words, maybe.]
[But they're his words.]
no subject
You can't miss him?
[He really doesn't understand. But he's trying to. Maybe that will help them. Maybe that will help work things out.]
[Chara was his family. But for some reason, they think Asriel preferred Frisk?]
no subject
[Now that, that one is a lie, at least going by his own word. He claimed to have missed them. But they - ha. They know better, do they not? They know better than to let that slip under their skin again. They know better than to allow that sliver to pierce their SOUL.]
[They know better than to allow him in.]
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I saw how much he cared about you. Back in the jungle. You can't say that and expect me to buy it.
[So there.]
[Let him help you. Somehow.]
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[Oh, yes. Perhaps that never came up. Perhaps he never saw fit to share. Perhaps they ought to have more respect for his secrets, for his sins.]
[But, as Shiro keeps saying: he's gone, now.]
[And apparently, this means they're allowed to be upset. How nice for them, to have his permission!]
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I'm not following you.
[Because... Chara's the one who always talks about their "sins". Whatever that meant. This is the first he's heard of anything like that involving Asriel.]
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[Assuming they can manage to get the words out in full, perhaps they can allow him a better understanding of the context surrounding them - the three of them, and the Determination that sustained them far, far past their respective expiration dates.]
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[If they're sure, he'll let it go. For now. He won't push. Because they're hurting, they're a child who just lost their family.]
[He blows out a breath, and pushes his hand through his hair.]
You're not going to believe me. But... I'm still glad you're around.
no subject
[Note the phraseology, if you will: yet.]
[It is, after all, inevitable, as far as they're concerned. As far as anyone is. Their story is long over, long past, and their sins lay the playing field into position, for other children to traverse and fail and die upon.]
[For other children to suffer.]
no subject
[The calm snaps. For a minute. For two words, there's something sharper. Not anger, no -- urgency. Of course he's glad they're alive. They should know that, by now.]
[Haven't their conversations up to now proved as much?]
I'm glad you're alive. That you're here. Of course I am.
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[Perhaps he ought to prepare himself to be allowed to be upset, when that comes to pass - as it inevitably will, because that seems to be the only fate with any permanence, here. Returning home; in their case, to the grave.]
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I'm going to do everything I can. So you don't have to go back.
[He doesn't know if there's anything he could actually do. Doesn't know if there's a way to help. A way to stop either of them from losing anyone else.]
[But he's going to try.]
[He has to try.]
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[They'd commend him for that, if they thought it was worth commending. Truly.]
[Okay, so maybe they wouldn't. It's not as if seeing them as something worth saving is in any way commendable. Only saviors and martyrs with hero complexes presume them to be something salvageable, and even then, not for very long.]
[Not for very long at all.]
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