ARRIVAL ▒ 001

[ataraxites]

CHARACTERS: Any and all.
LOCATION: Basecamp, Medical and beyond.
WARNINGS: Implied (and possibly explicit) nakedness.
SUMMARY: The Tranquility jumps for the first time since crashing.
NOTES: Can be found at the bottom of the post.

T H E   C A M P   ( C U R R E N T   C H A R A C T E R S ) The sun is low in the morning sky when the alarms start. Wailing through the air, they bring with them a sudden silence; activity around the ramshackle camp of shelters and tents falling still, faces turning towards the ship. Listening. The realisation makes the moment hang, stretching. In reality it only lasts a breath. Movement starts at a single point, spreading outward rapidly - those of the Tranquility's original crew turning to salvaged equipment, gathered supplies, the small shelters they've constructed. Building the camp has taken weeks, and in comparison dissembling it is insultingly easy. There's fear in the speed they work at, but efficiency, certain items prioritized over others: what can be carried, what they cannot afford to leave. "Pack up everything you can, quickly," Any of the crew say, vehement, if they catch you with idle hands. "We're too close. We have to get away from the ship." It's an evacuation, and already many of them are setting out, taking the path carved out of the ground by the Tranquility's crash as fast as they're able to walk, supplies and equipment and the makings of what shelters could be pulled down strapped to backs and carried in arms. They don't stop. They don't look back. It's ten hours later when it happens. A tremble in the earth, shaking up through the trees, sending the jungle's wildlife into distressed flocks of movement and alarmed cries. Under the high sun the wreck of the Tranquility begins to cord with lines of white light, threading across the hull like veins, some patches remaining dark, standing out against the vision like splotches burnt to the back of the eyelids. There's no great sound. In an instant, the ship is gone, a soft whomp, a feeling of air rushing past, the trees bending towards the site as if blown by a fierce wind. It's only a second. With a crack, the wreck returns, a rumble rolling through the air like thunder. The earth shakes. The trees tremble. The ship groans, the sound echoing out like the cry of a wounded beast. The jump has passed. But what did it bring with it? M E D I C A L   ( N E W   A R R I V A L S ) You wake up, alone in the dark. There's a breathing tube jammed down your trachea, and you're suspended in a tube of clear blue fluid. Through the fog you can see shadows of movement, the muted sound of alarms crying. Upon registering your level of consciousness, the gravity couch drains the fluid surrounding you and retracts the breathing apparatus; the doors in front of you open, and you're suddenly dropped several feet onto the opposite wall. The impact is painful, winds you, and it takes several seconds to overcome and persuade uncooperative limbs to move. All around you is chaos: the sirens of alarms are shrieking in your ears, close and claustrophic in the wreckage of the medical bay you've awoken in, lit dim and red. Around you, others are waking up, falling from other gravcouches, stumbling to their feet. Light catches your eye, and you look up to see a huge rend in the outer wall high above you, overhung by broken structural beams and damaged cabling. Climbing up takes all the strength you have. You emerge in bright sunlight, surrounded by an immense, vast jungle. As your vision clears, you realize you stand on the hull of a colossal spaceship, crashed on an unknown world, two moons hanging heavy in the sky above. In the distance, far out on a great swathe of torn up earth through the jungle are a clustered crowd of figures, moving towards the wreck. Your welcome party, but are they friend or foe? N O T E S The crew will not fight any player characters to make them leave, but will be very insistent that they can't stay. Anything remaining within a mile radius of the ship when it jumps will be irreperably damaged. Soft organics will be pulverised, while all trees and plants will initially appear fine but crumble to pieces within a day (or sooner if disturbed). Non-organic material will also be weakened, bending or falling apart when touched. Newly arriving characters venturing through the medbay will discover their inventory items somewhere in the heavily damaged locker banks. They will also be able to find jumpsuits and other standard clothing in the wreckage. The alarms will cut after two hours, a which point a looping audio message telling passengers to make their way to the blue lifts will be audible. The lifts, if investigated, will be missing, leaving only empty elevator shafts. The wreck will show increased signs of instability for a few days after the jump, and will have seemed to have sunk further into the rock of the cliff than it was before. If you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to contact us via PM, the FAQ or Questions pages!

Comments

Outside

[dino_zarf]

[Wash's first priority during the evacuation was making sure the space kids were safe. If this was going to be a regular thing, they were going to need a new plan obviously.

He's gone to fetch water when he spots a familiar face.]

Carolyn? Any chance you remember Tranquility?

[Says the man with some gaps left in his memory]

[suddenlycaptain]

I don't remember it breaking.

[ But she remembers, and Wash gets a slight smile as she turns away from what she's doing. ]

Well- I guess it broke plenty. But not like that.

[dino_zarf]

Yeah, funny story that...

[Actually all things considered it's probably not actually funny.]

No one is entirely clear on how that happened. There's a couple days that no one seems to remember.

[suddenlycaptain]

Of course not.

[ She sighs. She's not surprised, but it's still irritating to hear. ]

How long was I gone?

[dino_zarf]

About ten months. That jump hit the flight crew hard.

This [He gestures vaguely at the planet as a whole] is about a month.

[suddenlycaptain]

Shit.

[ Ten months. Not quite a year, but almost. Too long, and a lot can happen in ten months, especially on the Tranquility.

Especially, she mentally amends, in this universe. ]

So what's the situation down here?

[dino_zarf]

No one can actually remember how we wound up here, which is right creepifying. We'd gotten a half decent camp going, but Tranquility deciding she wasn't quite as immobile as we thought kinda set that back a bit.

[Aka they're working with what they could grab and run with.]

We've mostly been focused on necessities since the jump. We might be able to salvage some things from the ship, but stability's a concern.

[suddenlycaptain]

You put the camp that close?

[ There's a frown, but- well, that's pretty typical. ]

Not to mention whatever might still be in there.

[dino_zarf]

No one could remember much of anything when we first crashed. Including what the ship can do.

[He shakes his head]

Or that there are things on board that probably weren't polite enough to die in the crash.

[suddenlycaptain]

Has there been any sign of them?

[ She assumes not, if the camp was still so close, but... ]

[dino_zarf]

Not yet. They might be waiting on us getting something resembling comfy. That's when they usually showed up on board.

[Just how it was]

Of course, we've been discovering plenty of new ways that the planet can try to kill us too.

[suddenlycaptain]

Then we just won't have to get that comfortable.

[ Right? Sure. ]

Such as?

[dino_zarf]

Well, the river's acidic so we're stuck with a mix of rain and superpowers.

[He should not be this casual about superpowers as a viable water source]

Plus it's a jungle and that means wildlife. And of course we're playing a fun game of which plants are poison and which are salad.

[suddenlycaptain]

[ Superpowers and magic. Lovely. But at least they have water. ]

The rain isn't acidic? [ A glance down at the ground; Carolyn scuffs it with her boot. Hm. ]

And I'm assuming very little of it is familiar to anyone?

[dino_zarf]

Rain's safe. There must be a better source somewhere.

[Probably in the jungle]

Yeah, this is the same sort of not on anyone's charts pattern as before.

[suddenlycaptain]

Where there's a river, there's a source. Doesn't mean it's good, but...

[ If they follow the river, eventually they have to find something. ]

Of course.

[dino_zarf]

Could be. Or there could be something out there that's not acidic. I think some of the science types are looking for a way to purify it too.

[This is their life. Just like not knowing the planet.]

Gavvers and I are the only ones left from the flight crew you remember.

[suddenlycaptain]

There's always more water somewhere. Even in a desert.

[ "All deserts have water." God, she hasn't thought about the Imam in a long time. Dead, according to Riddick, and yet... ]

What about the rest?

[dino_zarf]

Most of them vanished the same jump you did. It was just me, Gavver and Ilde left. Had to recruit more than usual. Ilde vanished a few jumps after that.

[The random vanishing really made everything difficult]

There's water in deep space even.

[suddenlycaptain]

Shit.

[ God, that's so many. Too many. ]

What about the rest of the ship?