thisavrou_log | (no subject)

Who: Anyone and everyone
When: March 6-16
Where: Namalos
What: A reprieve, for now

The light spreading through the battered interior of Avagi station comes with a sense of displacement. No longer a journey they can choose, residents will find themselves traveling somewhere—being sent, it seems, by an echoing voice that can be heard on the edge of consciousness. Whoever is directing you, and whatever their intent, one thing is clear.

There is something—someone—they want you to find.

The silver glow vanishes. Reality returns... if not as smoothly as before. The space around you seems to lurch and stutter, and you feel yourself stumbling against a wall—pressed, for a moment, under a vast and dispassionate regard. And then, this barrier dissolves. As they return to reality, Avagians will find themselves somewhere completely new: far from both the storms and the light that displaced them.

No light. No portals. Around you, you may see your friends and allies—but nowhere is there any sign of a way back.

Namalos

This land is deceptively beautiful—and just as deadly. The thick forest spreads in all directions, filled with bioluminescent foliage that prevents true darkness from ever descending, but it holds few comforts. The temperature ranges from stiflingly hot during the day to frigid at night, and while there is little fauna to be found, the many insects that make a home here are hungry, aggressive—and often venomous. Even the more edible of the available plants come with a bitter taste and little nutrition.

The wilderness may seem endless, but refuge can be found in half a day's walk to the north, where larger life signs may be detected—an oasis of sorts, in the form of a clearing large enough to hold a small city. They are not alone.

Despite its untamed surroundings, the settlement of Namalos appears extremely civilized—even mundane. Unlike many worlds the travelers have encountered, it has a spaceport. Small crafts appear above the sky, descending below to trade with the locals. Perhaps because of this connection to other planets, Namalans appear to have no single native species, ranging from humanoid to tentacled to oddly reptilian.

Although surprised by guests appearing from the land, not the sky, the Namalans will cautiously welcome the new arrivals, offering them temporary quarters in the outer ring of the city where interstellar travelers sometimes rest before embarking on a return trip. There are local scientists who will offer to look for any traces of portal energy in an attempt to see if a portal can be opened again. Still, getting back isn't the only goal some Avagians might have, and those who spend some effort searching may turn up unsettling facts.

Exploration

Life on Namalos is far more organized than any of Avagi's residents are likely to have experienced before. Despite the different species that call the world home, all locals depart their houses at the same time each morning and return at the same time in the afternoon. Traffic flows freely on pedestrian paths and roads, with no lights or overt signage, but no vehicles collide—as if all beings know their place. In the afternoon, children will appear in front of houses at the same time, play games, and return indoors for dinner like clockwork. If stopped, Namalans will politely answer questions asked of them before returning to routine.

Within the city itself, the Avagians may note some places of interest:

The Central Authority: The government building of Namalos is large and ostentatious, but extremely quiet within, with little noise but the soft sounds of data processing—and there is a great deal of that. No courts can be found, but this bureaucratic machine generates an enormous amount of paperwork.
The Spaceport: This facility, located just outside the largest ring of the city, appears to facilitate trade with other worlds in this solar system—and possibly beyond. Passengers on the ships that come and go appear to be interested in commerce, not leisure visits, but will have no unkind words to say about the Namalans. Rarely will they venture into the city itself, and only for a short time if they do.
The Wellness Center: This large complex near the city's inner ring serves as a place of self-improvement for all who wish to pursue it, free of charge. Physical fitness classes that consist of rhythmic, dance-like routines exist in place of standard gym workouts, and spaces for meditation and quiet chanting in an ancient local language are available to soothe the mind. Other spaces are marked for classes on rhetoric and group facilitation, but these are scheduled by appointment only.
The Locked Building: The lack of crime or violence on Namalos means locked doors are rare, and Avagians may go where they please—with the exception of one utterly plain, undecorated building in the central ring of the city. Located in the shadow of the Central Authority, it is guarded every hour by pairs of Namalans who are no less pleasant for their refusal to let anyone pass.

While some amount of leniency is shown to visitors, the Namalans find disruptions to their routine extremely grating. As strangers disrupt their streets and lives, Namalans grow cold to the prospect of indefinite guests. Those staying in the city for longer than three days will be asked to pay back the hospitality of their hosts, and assigned a task with which to do so. For children, this will consist of school attendance, but adult jobs can vary from stamping papers to mining ore. All complaints about the suitability of an assignment will be thoroughly disregarded, and little sympathy will be provided by your temporary coworkers to those unable to keep pace.

While technically free to travel through the city, Avagians will find that no matter where they go, nearby Namalans keep watch. Their gazes are neither malevolent nor friendly, and can only be deterred through distance—though somehow, outside of the temporary quarters, they will find at least one local always in sight.

Even more curiously, the longer they remain, and the more time they spend personally interacting with Namalans, the more absorbing they may find the local rhythms. Wake up, work, dine, sleep without deviation. They may even find themselves slipping out of awareness for brief intervals... but in such a peaceful place, is this really a bad thing?

[OOC: For more information, or to note particular disruptions your character might cause, please check out the OOC post here!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

     "Not altered, but Exos do tend to experience memory loss- although that's more in part of their past-"

     "Um, hey guys, I'm right here," Cayde says flatly, turning an equally flat look between them, his eyes settling upon Vetra as she speaks again.

     Between them, his Ghost fidgets. "I know what happened... We'd come across a pair of bodies, but the cause of their deaths was unclear. And then we found another Ingress memorial, only it was unlit. It wasn't long before the storms broke through..."

     The little AI seems to shudder at the recollection, and while Cayde looks intently at his Ghost, the Ghost avoids eye contact with him. "The corpses...they...they were changed. They came alive, driven by the storm. Broke through, and the storm came surging after. Cayde, he-" A hesitant look is finally cast in the Guardian's direction. "It was too fast. He threw me through one of the doors with the others, sealed it off so the storm couldn't get to us. When we were able to finally get to him, he was unresponsive. There were a couple of others likewise caught by the storm. I-I thought I could just heal him like usual, but it wasn't working. It was like everything was constantly being drained..."

She nods once -- she remembers that conversation a few months ago to the same effect. About Cayde and his kid. Before things went robotic for him.

The Exo gets a flat look of his own from Vetra. The kind of look you give kids when adults are talking.

"Unlit? You mean it wasn't turned on?"

She has to repress the urge to pat the poor thing. Shuddering fear isn't a good look for the Ghost, really. So sue her, it's adorable. "So the bodies came to life because of the storms, and started ... going after people? What the hell--"

It sounds like something out of a bad movie. A really bad movie. But then her attention snaps to Cayde again, as the Ghost continues. The sort of hyper focus of a species once accustomed to being predators. Like a hawk staring down potential food.

"What happened next, Ghost?"

     "Exactly. It...the room felt the same, but there wasn't any light floating above it. Not until later- something that some of the others in our group did, it activated it. Or maybe awakened it..?"

     Vertices drooping, the Ghost shakes itself out, angles reasserting their position as it resumes. "They all woke up again, eventually. But none of them were the same. It was like they were slowly deteriorating before our eyes."

     Cayde knows that Vetra's looking at him again, but his own eyes are unfocused, fixed on a point beyond his Ghost, beyond the present.

"Hell if I know. Nothing like that was happening on our side. Far as I know? The memorial we had never changed."

Her eyes flick to the Ghost. Then back to Cayde. Over the bits of him visible to her. The way he's not looking at her, or at the Ghost.

"Is it happening now?"

She doesn't like where Ghost's story is going. Slowly deteriorating never means anything good, in the end. Not unless someone stopped it.

     "No? Well, maybe it's because this one also had to be turned on... I...can't say for sure what happened after I tried to speak with it..."

     Cayde shakes his head slowly, not quite in response to Vetra's words, but his Ghost glances back at him, vertices fluttering slightly again. "Cayde..?"

     "...the storm..." the Exo says quietly, optics lidded as something starts to surface from the dredges of a memory he technically shouldn't still have. "Just kept coming, surged right through- no, it was... it was like the Darkness all over again, it just-" His mutterings pick up in volume as they memories become more lucid.

     His eyes widen, and in his mind he's there again, standing helpless, watching the darkness as it comes, ^{Sky is torn open and there's nothing and nobody left in this ruined world but me and the boiling shadow all around} rushing, engulfing, ^{tendrils of pain crawl over my splayed fingers, my outstretched arms, my shoulders, my neck, my screaming mouth as it consumes} feeling the gnawing hunger, never satisfied, the waning light--

     It all happens in a span of seconds from the moment his words cut off, a garbled sound clawing from his robotic throat as he seizes up, staggering back in apparent pain. Gloved hands clutch at his hooded head as he crashes to his knees, curling in upon himself.

     "-Cayde!" his Ghost exclaims, zipping over in a panic, flitting about him in preparation to administer healing before its vertices spike in a start and it floats back slightly. "I-I don't understand, there's...I'm not scanning anything... Some form of post-traumatic stress..? Cayde, you're fine, you're- Wait, what's happening?"

Edited (lol I didn't know 'gray' was an actual font face) 2018-03-16 07:36 (UTC)

"Tried to speak to it? What happened then--"

And then her head turns, slowly, her mandibles flaring off her jaw in concern. One hand automatically reaches out, trying to stable him, before it pulls back. Her weight shifting -- ready for anything. For some kind of unfortunate surprise.

It comes in the form of the muttering. And the sudden collapse of the Exo standing in front of them. She's hunkered down on one knee when he goes down. Not touching him. But there. Waiting for the Ghost to finish speaking before she says anything herself.

"Give him some space." It could be a panic attack? Maybe? "Cayde -- can you hear us? Can you tell us what you need us to do?"

     Hands rest upon the ground, barely holding the rest of him up as he sags, the only sound from him for a while being the cycling of panting breath.

     "Ughh..." The memories flare in and out of focus like a flashbulb, and physically Cayde feels drained like when they'd all been stuck in confinement by the Savrii, when he'd been separated from his Ghost.

     The Ghost starts to hover closer, drawing short at Vetra's words. Its back half rotates with the anxious twitching of its foreangles.

     Cayde shakes his head slowly before finally raising it towards them, seeming like it takes a bit of effort for even that. "...phew... Let's....let's not do that again, yeah?" he says wearily, a weak attempt at keeping things light. "...I'm okay now, I-I think. That was...yeah."

     He lifts a hand, looking at it, remembering now when as a whole he'd started to thin out, which might seem impossible for an Exo to become a walking skeletal form. Perhaps half expecting it to happen again, he sighs in mild relief when nothing else appears out of the ordinary.

"You're okay. Ghost's here if you need it. We're he only ones here."

In case that's a problem. Too many people pressing in close or something -- sure there are other people present, but they're not close by. They're doing other things. Busy elsewhere.

She holds out her own hand without thinking about it. To steady him if he needs it.

"Look, don't worry. C'mon. We'll find some place to sit you down."

Somewhere less in the middle of the action than a spaceport.

He looks up at Vetra as though really taking notice of her this time, his hand moving to drop into the one she offers him, his grip shaky but stubborn. Nodding, Cayde shifts to make a move to stand, obviously still unsteady on his feet but at least the Turian's there.

His Ghost looks on in concern, and then as it decides that for now, Vetra's got things covered, it goes to disappear into the Guardian.

Don't worry, Cayde, it won't be the first time she's had to help cart you around. That was back in the Savrii dinosaur compound, too. She'll help haul him to his feet, keeping her arm and hand there to steady him, when he needs it.

And start shuffling them both out of the spaceport, hopefully away from the most prying eyes.