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tdm 18

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Ingress travel can be disorienting, but there’s no need to worry! All side effects are temporary and lessen with each trip. Your body may experience several sensations at once: being pushed forward as if a hand is resting on your back, momentary and startling blindness, a gentle ringing in your head. You may have difficulty discerning whether it is hot or cold, but where you have been prodded is noticeably warmer than the rest of you. Some may suffer from dizziness while others are perfectly fine. You notice that the area you are in is filled with a soft cerulean light and feels slightly humid and dark despite the glow around you. Regardless of your current state, however, the stress of initial Ingress travel forces your body into unconsciousness.

Waking up is another story. Or maybe it isn’t.

You find yourself in a nondescript room; sometimes with others who have found themselves in the same situation, sometimes alone. A medical tech is always present to explain what’s happened before giving you some clothes, a TAB, and a guide that discusses things in further detail. This entire process also consists of a complete work-up of medical history and current health in order to obtain your signature—a specific frequency that will allow them to hone in on exactly where it is you’re from in order to get you back there.You spend your first week on the Ingress Complex while other accommodations and arrangements are made for you.

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phanos

⋆ Phanos is classified as Exploration Class (EC) and is open to all travelers. The dry heat on the planet is overwhelming, but it's important that as many people as possible visit so that scientists can track down the origin of a strong signal pulsing somewhere on the planet. Its frequency indicates that if it is found, Ingress engineers may be able to hone in on people's signatures to send them home. However, frequent dust storms on the planet's surface are causing interference. It is strongly advised that investigators visit in groups—and keep their mouths closed!

⋆ Between dust storms, at the ege of the sandy plains, travelers will notice a series of pyramid-like structures. The smallest ones are just a few feet high, and the largest reach as high as ten-story buildings. Those who press on will find the terrain more difficult, as they must trek through increasingly dense clusters of pyramids of all sizes. Eventually, the pyramid 'forest' clears to reveal the largest pyramid of all, the size of a small mountain. Its peak is guarded by nests of griffin-like creatures which are no larger than a medium-sized dog. Those with combat skills should be in no danger, unless a whole nest attacks at once!

⋆ Multiple stone doors built into the top of the pyramid lead into a surprising space: a sleek lab, filled with incredibly advanced technology. Scientists, engineers and techies could happily spend years studying the equipment and deciphering the data it contains. But in the darkest corners, there's a quiet chittering...are the travelers really alone?

OUT OF CHARACTER INFO

FAQ | LOCATIONS | RESERVES | APPLICATIONS | NAVIGATION

For mature or graphic content, please label.For questions, please direct them to the FAQ or the Feedback page. Any scenarios listed (unless otherwise indicated) can be used as game canon. As always, be kind and have fun!

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Ingress Compound

It's like she's been transported to a city of the ancient ones. Maybe the Elysium they spoke of, where survivors lived out their remaining days under a world that was ending. It's the inside of Gaia, it's the tiny lab where she found the ancient armour, but it's new. It thrums and whirrs around her and the metal glistens in the artificial light. The people scurrying around make it seem all the more alive around her.

"This is what it must have been like," she says to herself, awestruck, standing in the middle of the facility concourse and taking it all in. With the clothing she has on, armed to the hilt with a bow and arrows, spear and even what looks like a primitive shotgun, she sticks out like a sore thumb and doesn't even care.

Phanos: pyramid

Out there in the dust storms, with the air thrashing furious and gritty in her face and visibility at maybe a few Scrapper lengths, Aloy can almost pretend she's back in Carja territory, back in the deserts between the Sacred Land and Meridian. The fact that she is not in Carja land, not even in the same world as Carja land, can never truly escape her, though.

"Sand tastes the same wherever you are," she murmurs to herself with a tiny laugh, grains of it biting her lips.

Each of the storms is relatively short, though, sometimes blowing themselves out in mere minutes like a child having a temper tantrum - screaming itself into exhaustion, catching its breath and starting again. The breaks make it easier to climb the giant pyramid mountain, although as soon as the wind stops, the sand settles into the handholds, so she has to pause to find them.

Only near the top, as the peak narrows, does she see anyone - she ignored the recommendation to travel in groups, and it seems someone else did too. It would be easy to leave them be, at least until they reach the top - and she would rather do that, too - but the winged creature suddenly dive-bombing them puts a stopper in her anti-social tendencies.

"Watch out!" Before the words are out of her mouth, she's pulled her bow off her back and is nocking an arrow, taking careful aim.

The Bull bumps into her by chance on his way out. The scientists had made a call earlier for anyone capable to collect samples and such, to do the odd security job and transporting. It's the glowing weave of her armor that catches his attention first, and then the look on her face.

She's new, obviously. And she's come armed— smart. And she's a redhead— even better.

"The what now?" he asks, overhearing her, head tilting as he looks down to her level.

She's not looking the man's way at first - for once in her life, she's so taken with her surroundings that she barely looks round.

"The old ones," she says, like it's obvious, even though she's already been told no one here will know anything about her world, nothing at all. "This is what the ruins must have been like when--"

That's about when she looks round properly and sees...sees...

At first, as her gaze pans upwards, she thinks he might just be a very big, very off-colour Oseram in a horned helmet, like her mind is trying to force the person in front of her to make some kind of sense. Once she's looked him up and down fully, her face no longer awestruck and more like dumbstruck, it becomes clear that he makes no sense at all.

"...what the ruins must have been like when the old ones still lived in them." Then, still openly astounded, "The people here look a lot different, though."

"Shit!"

Nate drops to the ground immediately, instinctively recognizing the warning tone that means real danger is near. He'd seen (and shot) a few griffin-things on his way up here, but he'd thought he was in the clear now. Apparently not.
go!"
Rolling to the side to get up on a knee, he calls out—not to the woman with the bow, but to an unseen third figure. "Barkley, go!"

Through the sand charges a robotic dog, a German shepard made of smooth metal, launching forward to protect his master and anyone else from the pissy, beaked creatures.

Hitting a dive-bombing ball of feathers and fur is harder than it looks - she hits it, but in the chest instead of the head, and it pulls up with an angry shriek mere inches above where its target was seconds before. She grabs a second arrow, and another, nocks them both at once -

- then swings the bow around instinctively as a machine bursts into her line of sight, galloping forward. For a second she wavers - it might have been overridden, and her shooting it would only reset its programming - but she can't tell; it doesn't look like a machine she's ever seen--

She hazards a glance at the person she's inadvertently teamed up with - whether or not she shoots depends in that instant on his reaction.

In the back of his mind, Nate's aware that that was some good shooting. He's no archery expert, his only experience coming from a drunken trip to a renaissance faire shooting range, but he knows speed and accuracy when he sees it. So what if she didn't hit the head? He'd never have even gotten off a shot.

This just makes it more important to keep his robo-buddy from being her next target. Frantically, Nate waves his arms, trying to catch the woman's attention.

"Don't shoot! He's my pet!"

Aloy's eyes are on the machine, but she sees the flapping arms in her peripheral vision before the shout comes - quick as a flash, her aim swings back to the winged creature. It banks over them, past where she can shoot at it safely - she backs up and turns, trying to line up the shot, but it's fast and good at getting into the spots just out of her range. Just like the Glinthawks back home.

She doesn't have time to ask what he means by his pet.

The thing dives, wings close to its body, blood pattering the sand below - Aloy has to drop and roll out of the way, but past Aloy is the next closest target: the machine, or maybe the man, whichever one it can hit first. By the time she's back on her feet, sand in her hair, she can't risk firing again, not in time to stop the attack.

[Nate's relieved when she doesn't take a shot at Barkley—it might not have killed him, but there's probably not a veterinarian for robot animals—and less thrilled that the griffin escapes to get into position and dive right at them. Right at him.]

Shit!

Too bad it's not high noon in the Old West, because Nate's quickdraw of the pistol in his gun belt would fit right in. Under pressure, he's not necessarily a crack shot, but with the griffin this close, he doesn't have to be. He fires off two shots, both of which hit the beast, but of course they don't kill it.

Grievously wounded now and clearly super pissed, the griffin slams into him, knocking him off his feet as it knocks the breath out of him and claws at his chest.]

The loud bangs of the weapon make her jump - she's seen weapons like this, even handled a couple, but she didn't expect something that size to make such a noise - but she hasn't got time to wonder.

Man and beast go tumbling to the ground, and Aloy could have taken a second to consider her options, but instead she barrels forward, bow returned to her back and lance in hand before she can think -

The point of the lance is so long that when she puts her whole weight into the thrust, the tip pierces one side and an instant later the other - then she lifts the lance, flailing mass of bloody feathers and all, pivots and swings it hard, throwing the animal off so that it crashes into the ground a few feet away.

And without so much as looking down to make sure the man she's trying to help here is even OK, she follows it - stabs - twists - and it finally stills.

That's when she looks around properly. "Thanks. For the help."

Look, she's sociable.

For some reason, Nate keeps running into hyper-competent, asskicking women. It's a strange constant in his life, one that's sort of comforting. Definitely not something that threatens his manliness—for one, that'd be dumb, and two, getting killed is way less macho than accepting help.

"You're welcome," he says, sitting up to brush feathers off himself. There's no helping the traces of griffin gore smeared on his shirt. It's laundry day for sure when he gets home. "Thanks for the mythological creature murder. I take it you do a lot of hunting where you're from?"

Hunting of something, anyway. Something that might even be scarier than a pissed-off eagle-lion-crossover, judging from the easy way she finished it off.

It's easy to forget how messy killing animals can be: usually she can do it clean - a single arrow to the head or a spear straight though them and it's done. Now there's gore on her, on him, clumping the sand around them. Machines go down messily, but...well. Drily.

She eyes the corpse for a moment before saying anything - but dismisses it quickly. She has no idea if it can be eaten and no idea if the hide would be good for leather. Maybe later when she has more time. And doesn't have an audience.

"Of course I do," she says, returning to him and offering a hand to help him to his feet. "I have to eat somehow." There's something of a very teenaged duh in that sentence; she's not used to this new-fangled 'having food given to you in convenient packaging in exchange for currency' business yet.

"But usually I'm getting attacked by machines." And a very pointed nod towards the one right there with them - half the size of the smallest Charger and far less flighty.

Nice and matter-of-fact. And, he notes, she takes it for granted that food comes from hunting. Must not have grocery stores where she's from.

He's not too proud for a hand up, so he takes it and then brushes himself off. Slightly less sandy now.

"What, like Barkley here? Why?" He glances from his dog and back to her. "Did someone program them to be assholes or something? This guy's a big goof most of the time. He'll roll right over for a belly pat."

Which is weird, because he is a robot. Must be a lot of sensors there.

Red had stopped some distance away in a side corridor on the Ingress, and she was looking with surprise and wonder nearly identical to the woman's. Only, Red was mystified by her and not the Ingress itself. By the time the woman spoke, Red had not-so-subtly wandered closer as her curiosity drove her feet forward without her much having to think whether she wanted to approach or not.

At least the spoken words gave her an excuse to start up a conversation, rather than awkwardly saying hello without provocation. Red stared wide-eyed at her a moment longer before politely clearing her throat. "What must what be like?" she asked, trying to contain her excitement some but it was still obvious in her eager expression.

For her part, Aloy could sense eyes on her - it was a vague awareness, like the smell of approaching summer rain. She didn't look round, not right away, but she was good at this - good at knowing when someone or something was watching her.

She hadn't been gone from home long enough; at the sound of a throat being cleared, she still expected to turn round and get asked a favour. But she'd never minded that too much. She turned properly to face this woman, her face falling from wonder to something more guarded. Now that someone was actually looking at her, she couldn't help feeling a lot more self-conscious - vulnerable in an odd way.

"The old ones," she offered cautiously. "There are ruins where the old ones lived a thousand years ago. This..." And at that, she looked around again briefly, unable to help herself, and a helpless smile crept back onto her face. "This must be what they saw every day."

What her "mother" must have seen every day.

"But you're from somewhere else." It wasn't a question, but it turned up at the end like one as Aloy took her in properly - odd clothing, the way she looked at Aloy herself: genuine curiosity, without the hint of curling condescension of someone who knows they're looking at a savage. That part was almost nice.

The old ones. Something about the phrase really spoke to her and Red finally took her gaze from off the woman and around to the Ingress again. Yes, she thought to herself, the old ones. Her world had old ones too, before the Process, when people used to build things themselves and posterity had meant something. Her comment had her give a nod, and a soft smile.

"That's right; I'm from a place that was called Cloudbank. It was very much different from this place."

Red greatly wishes to ask of the armor and weapons but that can wait for the moment. "Do you like it? This place, compared to where you and when you come from?"

"Haven't seen too much of it yet," she says with a quirk of the lip, catching the other's eye for a moment in her constantly moving gaze...then finally, just about having her fill of this room, settling to look her properly in the face. "Ask me again in...about a week."

When she's explored the place from top to bottom.

"I'm from... Where I'm from, places like this have been in ruin for a thousand years. I grew up in the wilds. Plenty of machines, but not much else."

Her expression turns frankly curious. "What's a Cloudbank? I've never heard of anything like it."

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tdm 18

test drive meme

welcome to thisavrou

phanos

Aloy | Horizon Zero Dawn

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phanos

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ingress!

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