etrayalogs | SOLMARA

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SOLMARA

⏵ LEAVING ETRAYA ⏴

Whilst most individuals will be making their way to Camp Etraya, the select few that have volunteered (and those who Aurora chose to be the fifteen she could support travel for) will be directed to come to the hospital, where a portal made of a swirling purple energy awaits. Aurora will meet them beside it, several backpacks placed by her feet by companion bots on their way out to their camp duties.

"I'm sorry I cannot be of more assistance," Her voice is soft, hesitant in a way Aurora generally is not. "I would send my back up in this body to accompany you, but I am... using an extensive amount of my own resources just to keep this portal open, and I want to ensure our city is safe, too." Each name has a name on it, or a symbol that represents the character it has been brought for. For those who do not recognize their packs, Aurora will lift them and offer them out herself. They all contain basic survival needs, including breather masks, modular tool kits, hydration capsules, thermal cloaks, solar-charged lanterns, ration packets, medkits, as well as items specific to them that they may require - medication they may require, sunscreen, anything Aurora could think of that they may need that she could pack away.

Once they've all gathered their packs, she raises a hand to gesture them towards the portal.

"Your earpieces will continue to function, but will not be able to reach outside of their protective barrier. I understand some of you may have the means to communicate over long distances without the assistance of technology or magic," her eyes linger on Nate Grey momentarily, before she addresses the group as a whole once more, "And I would, if you can, lean on that to reach out to those who remain behind. While they may be on their own mission, I have left it... open, as best as I am able to. I wish all of you the best of luck. And please do be careful - I cannot guarantee your return from death should anything happen to you on Solmara."

Lips press together tightly. Aurora hesitates, before offering, "I would, if you could, keep a look out for Ithaqua. He is still registering as one of mine, but I have not been able to find him within Etraya."

The portal awaits them. Aurora will still be beside it to answer any further questions as best as she can, but she cannot step through alongside them.

⏵ OUTSKIRTS ⏴

Once they've stepped through the portal, they will find themselves in a small forested area full of barren trees called the Mirkwood Strip. Even the air in Solmara smells different: stale, and musty, despite how dry the environment around them looks. Where Etraya was covered in greenery, Solmara is covered in sand. It's a ruin of torn up roads, steel skeletons where buildings had once been, and jury-rigged machinery can be found throughout the city bubble. Scorched earth beneath a blood-orange sky, it barely feels habitable, let alone like a place for those competing to save their own worlds. Its outskirts are near-empty, full of those who have left Alrys' good graces and a few patrols to keep the half-starved deserters from rising up against her.

There are a few individuals wandering among old buildings who may look a little less torn up: city bubbles are initially designed to suit those who will be arriving, after all, and some of these citizens look at home in sands and heat, even if the lack of nutrition is less than ideal. Some don't require it, but are fed by the bright light in the sky itself.

Everyone outside the large barrier Alyrs has put up around the hospital and the numerous buildings around it are either fighters, scavengers, or left over torn-apart corpses, waiting to be revived or worse: too torn apart to be revived in their original bodies. Either way: most this far out will know they aren't meant to be here if they blend in well enough: Alrys may have eyes on the hospital to look for any new arrivals, but outside of her scouts, who would know?

If they wander closer to the barrier surrounding the city, they may find small cracks in the shell that protects them from the planet's hostile environment - not quite big enough to fit an entire body, but big enough to pry open so one could make it out. Perhaps this is where the warning of the incoming Solmarans had come from: someone slipping out and trekking across the planet to leave behind the banner.

Where Etraya has wildlife, Solmara has predators. Large creatures hide amongst the dunes, in the trees, the caves, and mountains, just waiting for the opportunity to get a nice-sized bite out of an unfortunate traveler.

⏵ SOLMARA ⏴

But they didn't arrive here as tourists: the Etrayans came with a mission: figure out what's wrong with Borealis, and free the citizens of Alrys' control. And do so so - they'll need to get passed Alrys' defenses, break through the gates she and her people have put around the main buildings, and infiltrate the hospital.

This is where her defenses are strongest, where they will find multiple groups of her soldiers ready to take them on, if they aren't careful to avoid them. And just like Etraya: they have a varied bunch. Some are strong, powerful. Some may be able to see the Etrayans moves two steps before they decide to make them, may be able to easily remove them from the equation.

But the further they get, the more hesitant her forces may seem. Those who had been on Solmara previously will note: this isn't normal. Something's wrong here, different.

⏵ NOTES ⏴

This log is only for the characters chosen to visit Solmara, as discussed with Aurora.

Please feel free to reference Ashlee's map, as this is what we will be using to guide characters through Solmara!

As mentioned previously, we mods will be watching this post closely and will be guiding characters along to assist them in getting to their goal. Our intention will be to boomerang tags back as quickly as possible, until this mission is finished. To this end, we ask that any tag that you want the mods to respond to directly have "@mods" in the subject line, so we don't step in when it's not our time yet, and don't miss anything directed our way.

Feel free to respond to this log in any format that works for you! We would recommend breaking up into smaller teams to make navigating the city easier, but do ask that you keep to at least teams of two or more, to make it easier for us mods and allow your character to have interactions that aren't just against NPCs/mod tags providing guidance on moving forward.

If an OOC thread of what happens as characters move forward is easier for your group, please begin that in the mod queries comment on the Solmara Plotting Post. We'll get back to these threads as quickly as possible, too. This can be used to ask a question such as "What if Accelerator sneaks in passed the barrier and tries to blend in as a guard, what could he find?", "What monster is outside of Murkwood and how would they respond to intruders?", or something like "Max will be going up to some of Alrys' guard and reporting he was able to successfully complete the mission, how will they respond and can he get to Alrys directly like this?"

For all questions relating to this log, please refer to the Solmara Plotting Post. All other questions can be directed to the FAQ.

⏵FULL NAVIGATION⏴

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I. Leaving Etraya

[And once again, Max was preparing to wander back into a familiar world, one composed of sand and heat and unrelenting danger. It was just how his life usually panned out, wasn't it? If he wasn't lurking on the outskirts of the Plains of Silence in his world, he was doing so here in Solmara. But before that, Aurora had at least been kind enough to compose survival backpacks for them.

Before they set out, Max opens the bag with his name on it — and ah, look at that! Looking over his shoulder will provide someone with his name, if they hadn't been told it by someone else. A few items earn a satisfactory nod or grumble, up until he reaches...

Sunscreen?

With a slight frown (a resting scowl, even), he holds the bottle up to the nearest person.]

What is this?

[Wastelanders, with sunscreen? Even with Max's more fulfilled childhood at the edge of society's end, this has never once come up.]

II. Outskirts

[The arrival is without fanfare.

In just a few steps, the air goes from pleasant and clean to encroaching, hot. It warms the skin and dries the eyes quickly, but Max is hardly challenged by it; he imagines Furiosa isn't much influenced either, and he glances back at her before he starts wandering forward. To him, this is nothing. It's like returning to reality after a pleasant dream. To the others, he knows it must just be another unpleasant adaptation to a mission. Foreign lands.

He walks them toward an old rusted fence that has been shreded up, some parts gone and likely used for supplies. Max has certainly snipped some things off for use in the past. Mirkwood's all barren trees, and every so often something big flies overhead. He pointedly says:]

Glasswings. Don't look up, or you'll hurt your eyes.

[... Well. Scott might not hurt his eyes. But everyone else, best not. As they wander in a group, they pass a clearly human skeleton tangled up in some kind of abandoned vehicle — and Max can't help but think of Aurora's uncertainty, before they entered the portal: "I cannot guarantee your return from death." He offers unhelpfully:]

Sometimes you stay bones.

Try not to die here.

[How strange has their lives become, that the idea of a failed resurrection fills him with unease? Mm. Well. Hopefully nobody dies. As they go, he'll be available to anyone who may want to wander with someone watching their back.

Just try not to get tangled up with a monster in the wild while we're out, hmm?

(Easier said than done.)]

III. Camp Ghosts

(CW: mental illness, potential ableist thoughts/talk, hallucinations)

[There is something about this Max guy that becomes more obvious the longer people are in his presence: he's the dictionary definition of haunted or something like it. As they journey to find a suitable place to set up base camp, he often stares off for long stretches at a time, and sometimes his lips move, form words that are so quiet that it's hard to hear any of it. Anyone who moves a hand too quickly while he's in a silent, listless state will be met his body jolting and his eyes snapping to attention toward them.

Skittish. That's a way to put it. A skittish creature, especially the longer he's left in a world that draws him back into old ways. Voices trickle into his head, remind him of what he is — of what he'll lose. The ghosts have never gone away, because his brain will never be right. He knows this. He accepts it. Accepts being a psychotic.

The first night in camp, he stays up all night, staring off into the blue-hued distance, battling ghosts that people can't hear or see. You'll get them all killed, someone whispers. Angharad cradles her infant to her chest, eyes gleaming in the distance. Who'll go under the wheels this time? But eventually... eventually he nods off, sitting up with his rifle leaning on his shoulder. He twitches, mumbles in his sleep.

If someone makes the unfortunate mistake of reaching out to shake him awake, they'll find him intaking a sharp gasp of breath just before he swings a solid fist at their face.

The second night in camp, he stays a little further from the others, armed with a thermal blanket around his shoulders. It's not until Furiosa finally intervenes that he gets up and quietly follows after her, his eyes more clear and focused on the woman walking ahead of him. It's the days that follow that when he returns to camp, he finally seems to be more clear-headed and focused on scouting and offering aid to the others who come and go.]

IV. Wildcard

[Literally anything else, hit me up. I'm down! Can do closed starters or anything else needed here under this one. :)]

Edited 2025-05-20 07:13 (UTC)

It's a cream. You put it on your skin, and it helps protect you from sunburns and worse. It should be reapplied a couple times a day, so make sure it's fresh when the sun is highest in the sky.

[She'll pull a similar bottle out of her own bag and squirt a generous amount into her palm, demonstrating the process on her arm.]

Massage yourself until it's absorbed; if you brush against something and the cream comes off, you either used too much or you didn't rub it in enough. Cover all exposed skin; get a buddy to help you with places you can't reach. Recheck yourself in an hour or two for pink spots; that'll show you areas you missed the first time around. Anything covered by clothes doesn't need it. Got it?

[Protect from sunburns and worse, huh? He watches her not unlike how a man from the 1920's would watch a flip phone. Balms and other medicinal things make sense. He remembers antibiotic ointments in tubes not too unlike this, even if it were something only doctors usually had access to.]

Hmm. Reminds me of the warboys.

[Did their strange powdery faces get protected from the sun?

... Not that it mattered much for them.]

How's it work for sunstroke?

It doesn't. Gotta keep using hats and water for that.

[Done with her face, she moves on to her neck, and then her forearms.]

Are you a warboy?

[She won't bother asking what the term means - it feels self-explanatory. And he certainly looks like one, to her eye.]

[He scoffs, something almost a laugh. If you squint. And use your imagination.]

No. Was just fuel for 'em.

[He does not elaborate on that but does explain the rest:]

They're a bunch of half-lives. Used to martyr themselves for a dictator in my world... They'd cover themselves head to toe in some kind of white mixture. [He gestures with his hand, charading swiping this mysterious powder or paint over his head.] Made 'em look like walking skeletons.

Makes them sound like people who don't wear their sunscreen right.

[Shaw mutters, popping the top back on her tube and tucking it away for later. They're going to be here for a couple weeks, and all supplies - sunscreen included - are going to have to be closely rationed.]

So, look, about Alrys. When we kill her--

[When, not if.]

-- you're going to want first dibs on doing the job, right?

... Wouldn't mind taking the shot.

[It'd be a lie, if he said otherwise. Knowing he could put her down, end her reign, it does give him some concept of closure. Regardless, Max is also more rational than some would think a 'raging feral'.]

But the important thing is that someone does.

Can't afford to miss at any perfect opportunity.

Sure, I know what they say about best-laid plans. I'm not questioning your priorities - just trying to figure out where mine are going to land.

[ He had warned her, but it's still strange to be in a place so like home.

This group is capable. Volunteers with different specialties and strategic minds. She doesn't need to lead, but she steps up where she can, hunting, scavenging, and planning. And she cares about the goal too, but there is only one person Furiosa is really interested finding here on Solmara.

The shot doesn't belong to her though. ]

Calibrated the scope for you. [ She plants herself next to him in the sand, starting this conversation without salutations. It's efficient, as she returns his rifle. ] You drift left.

[ Not a big deal close range, but shooting a far off target means drifting left starts to mean a bullet that misses by meters. Point is, she noticed and she fixed it for him. She'll make a sharpshooter out of him yet. And that seems to be the end of it for awhile, content to sit in companiable silence.

Until: ]

Come closer to the fire. I'll watch your back for a few hours. Then we can trade.

[Max's gaze flicks, a subtle sign in the dark that he's not completely there when she approaches. Her voice is an easy way to distract himself from the accusatory echoes that chip away at his mind — Furiosa has never been one of his ghosts, never had led him astray in his own mind. Perhaps it's because his own mushed brain recognizes that she leads forward and not astray.

A soft hum. In a better mood with a clearer mind, he would have scowled and offered her dry wit. But he does drift left. He drifts a lot, actually. In a lot of ways. And she seems to know that well, because she offers him something he's been hesitant to do. The truth is, he's not very good in groups. Or wasn't, anyway, until he met Furiosa and the wives. Lightning in a bottle.

(Or perhaps he underestimates himself, because he always does.)

A shadowed gaze is turned toward her. One that is probably turning from someone else who isn't there.]

M'fine. Fresher air here.

[Translation: there's a lot of people in one space, and he's not sure how to deal.]

[ Ah. Yeah, he must be in bad straits if he's not even gonna argue with her about his aim. It's not exactly a surprise to see him retreat into himself here, but that doesn't mean she likes it.

She can chase off a hound that comes to bite at his flesh and tear at his skin, but these ones are worse though. These are the haunting kind that sit between your ears, barking seeming to echo back every terrible thought you've ever had about yourself. She can't chase those dogs off. She can't even fight off her own. ]

Okay.

[ Translation: she knows it's not really about the fresh air, but she is going to be strategic with picking her battles. ]

Then I'll take the first shift while you sleep.

[He picks at a small but irritated spot on his arm, some little cut from their journey that has become a bit of a source of self-soothing. It gives him something to focus on — not exactly a healthy way to do it, but he's at least not staring off into the Plains of Silence with a death wish like he'd done in the past.

Her offer sounds tempting. Really tempting. He obviously hasn't made very good friends with sleep since their arrival here... not that he was chummy with it before Solmara either... He huffs a breath, then says:]

You actually gonna wake me up for the second shift when yours is over?

[This feels like a trap to get him down. Which will definitely work, but still.]

[ Her? Lying to force him to get some rest? Yes. Of course that's the plan. It's pretty transparent. ]

Promise.

[ She holds her hand out toward him, palm open in an invitation to shake on it. Somehow she thinks she'll be forgiven for this white lie. ]

[In the absence of Dean, she will... apparently default to trailing after the most Dean-adjacent person in the group. Sorry, Max. That's you for now.

To her credit, though, she's surprisingly light on her feet for someone who looked so fidgety-nervous before. She pauses thoughtfully, and has to stop herself from immediately glancing up at the mention of the glasswing.]

Can we look at them through sunglasses or something or is that still a no-go?

[There's a pause, and then:] Is it hard to shoot them down?

... Someone'll have to volunteer to try glasses.

[He's certainly not as fun as Dean. Dean's got the 'snarky fun' trauma response to life, while Max tends to brood and go into quiet spells. But you know what? That's exactly why someone like Charlie is a great choice of company. You're a real soldier, ma'am, and we value your service.

He looks over at her, his mind immediately drifting to Capable and her red hair.]

... Never tried before. [He reaches to the holster on his hip, opposite of his rather advanced (and therefore out of place) leg brace. The gun in question seems to just be a basic handgun.] This is the most I've had out here... Not good for shooting things out of the sky.

[He's got a rifle now, though. If the Glasswings go down low enough...]

I'm not gonna volunteer right away, but if nobody else does... it might be useful info to have.

[She's also not entirely convinced that it'll work, so she's definitely not in any rush to hurt her eyes if there's an easy way to avoid it.]

That's fair. I guess it's easy enough to avoid looking at them if they stay up there were they belong.

[He hadn't mentioned anything about them coming down to attack people, so Charlie's just going to roll with the assumption that it's not something that happens often enough for people to worry about.]

Do you know anything else about them? Like what they eat? What repels them? What attracts them?

[ Gorgug doesn't have much interest in talking to people. Not even to impress them (especially not to impress them), and he figures they have enough people willing to talk and gather intel that he doesn't need to bother. That's fine.

Except, there is one person he's interested in. It doesn't really matter if he meets them or not, but it's a personal interest: the person who put up that sign and took the supplies he, Riz, and Rin left out. Part of him wonders about getting the earpiece back when it had largely been useless, and it had been Riz's. Who gave it up because Gorgug thought it would be a good idea.

It might be nice, okay?

So he asks Max about going to see them with him, and that's how they come to be travelling in the camp's last known direction. Gorgug's got his greataxe strapped to his bag over his backpack, keeps his head down when he isn't scanning the landscape: barren, making you pay attention when it isn't. His ears twitch to sounds, but he's not as perceptive as some. They could mean anything. His bot, shaped into that of a chameleon, keeps blended into the landscape using light reflections. A better support to minute details, vibrations against the ground and air.

Gorgug doesn't speak much. His company doesn't seem the type for it, so he focuses on their trek. Max knows what they're looking for--and how skittish they might be to visitors. ]

[Honestly, Max is more interested in the chameleon robot than Gorgug. That's nothing against the orc -- it's mostly just that Max prefers mechanical things over 99.9% of people. That said... it's hard not to twitch at the much longer shadow Gorgug casts over the sand; he's tall, feels like a looming presence that makes Max itchy to side-step out of the shade he creates. He'd felt the same way about that supposed Solmaran spy, too.

After a particularly lengthy time of traveling, Max finally speaks, voice a little rough with disuse (a common problem, when you don't say a word for hours to days at a time.]

What're you, anyway?

[... Wastelanders are very polite.

As unconventional as it is, he's being relatively friendly in contrast to most Wasteland interactions.]

Edited 2025-05-24 22:59 (UTC)

Hunh?

[ It's more of a grunt than a huh?, caught off-guard by the question that at first, Gorgug doesn't know is directed at him; turning to look at Max and seeing his attention on him, blinking, confused. What're you?

--oh. ]

Me? You mean my--?

[ He points at himself, up and down. Unless Max means his profession? ]

Mm. Yeah.

[He nods, eyebrows rising.]

Don't have anyone like you in my world.

[Pretty sure if someone is green, they're infected and dying. That's the go-to thought.

But also, they wouldn't be that tall.

... Or have big, pointed teeth.]

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SOLMARA

Max Rockatansky | OTA

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wildcard: finding the camp

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