route666rp | FEBRUARY EVENT LOG

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FEBRUARY EVENT LOG

The Convoy begins a slow path through the forest, and a long road winding between the trees. The vegetation hangs thick overhead, with a perpetual state of dim light hanging over the surroundings. Sunlight and moonlight both have a hard time piercing the gloom. And alongside that is a sense of danger looming in the shadows.

01: DEPARTURE/MINGLE

Dawn arrives after a long and demanding night. As wane sunlight leaks through the forest, the forcefield flickers out. In its place, the Convoy hums to life. Engines thrum, breakfast appears in the dining car, and the speakers crackle with a pre-recorded, automated voice.

“The Convoy will depart in three hours. Please ready yourself for the trip. Secure your belongings, prepare your vehicle, remain as human as possible. End destination… Nirvana. Repeat, the Convoy will depart in three hours.”

The recording drones on a loop, before fading out in a crackle of static. Before departure there’s a few matters to attend to, some more pressing than others:
+Breakfast consists of bland porridge. Some might want better food, and with a decently stocked kitchen, one can make better.
+The showers have lost any hot water. Surely there’s some way to fix the heater or provide some hot water? Or otherwise grumble through a cold shower.
+There’s plant growth where the Husks have been felled. Flowering vines grow over the Convoy, and need to be pruned for departure. The foliage has an odd effect if directly touched, instilling wanderlust and curiosity. The affected feel compelled to wander… Or be curious about others!

02: HAUNTED GROVE

The trees grow into a tangle just a few paces off the road. They almost envelop the buildings, absorbing the structures until only the roofs are visible. The branches become more twisted, and almost arm-like when reaching out to you.

Vines hang like nooses from the trees. And a closer look shows moss ridden Husks draped in the branches. Still, those who ignore those ominous signs can find supplies growing and hanging from the branches; repair materials, and unnerving types of food like canned ham and frozen pizza.

And then… There’s the effect from staying in the shade of the trees for too long. There’s a lethargy that clings to you, even as it eases the changes wracking your body. Resting underneath the grove can heal a Drifter of one change, and leave them feeling soothed… But all of this is by design. The grove WANTS you to stay there and become a part of it, so that it can ensnare you with vines or absorb you into trees. It can restore Drifters, but if they stay there for too long they’re going to need some rescuing.

03: WRECK

There’s a collection of abandoned cars in the forest clearings. Some cars are better preserved than others, some even containing cargo, weapons, and ammo, with a possibility to scavenge equipment off them…

…If not for the traps, set around the wreckage in the form of steel jaw bear traps and snares. All of them are coated in something that leaves the vision blurry and sets hearts into overdrive. If exposed to too much of it, there’s suddenly a reason for that near panic; hallucinations of fears can easily flare up.

There’s also things prowling the wreckage on four metallic canine legs, with gleaming chrome teeth and red headlights for eyes. The guidance computers on nearby vehicles flash an alert as they draw close; identifying them as chromehounds, though these have seen better days. Dented, damaged, but still fierce enough. And still ready to pounce on anyone caught in the traps or drugged with fear toxin.

While the chromehounds can be dispatched, the fear toxin will have to run its course. Closer examination of the hounds and traps shows an insignia of a sword piercing the moon.

03-A: MONSTER NEST

Hostile beasts lurk in the woods. Many are cautious, nocturnal creatures that prefer to emerge at night, and hunt any Drifter who has strayed outside the reach of the Convoy forcefield.

A massive monster nest dwells in a crumbling, abandoned overpass in the middle of the forest. The Convoy does its best to give the area a wide berth, but it’s entirely possible Drifters might still stumble across it: particularly if some of the more annoying creatures like Great Jagras steal food and take it back to the den.

Many of the beasts make their dens in abandoned vehicles littering the overpass: Jagras and Slicemargl take up the better spots, while noxicaps and scavengers linger on the fringes. But the most territorial are the mutant bears, occupying the darker parts of the underpass.

04: SHRINE

The moon glows balefully overhead some nights. An eerie light glows across the sky, like a burning aurora that exacerbates any symptoms the Drifters have picked up this month. Sometimes the trees help to muffle this maddening light. But not always.

There is however a remedy that blocks out the light; dotted near the road or just off the forest paths are shrines carved from stone and wood. The aurora dims near these shrines, and offers breathing room. Small offerings dot the alters, and some are even medicines that can alleviate hallucinations, wanderlust, and the like.

But there’s a price for taking these offerings; the various candles dotting the shrines ignite, flames reaching for the intruder, and burn either a monster change, or a message into their skin. It’s equal odds which one a Drifter receives. The message fades in the span of the month, but offers cryptic words regarding the world, and can be logged in the Convoy database.

05: STASIS WARNING

Pockets of something… Wrong lurk on the road, or just off the path. Many of them are lined with Husks twisted into horrified expressions. Others are little more than a faint distortion and ripple in the air. But once a Drifter wanders into the pockets, the effects become all too clear.

The pockets are alarmingly still when stepped inside. This stillness tries to seep into anyone in the pocket, making them stiffen, their thoughts go sluggish and almost halt… But the Sigils on their skin dispel this before it can completely overtake a Drifter. Sigils disperse the field with explosive results; bursts of fire or electricity, surges of plant grown, rock explosions all burst as the field is dispelled.

The one warning for these pockets are strange symbols and the words ‘STASIS’ inscribed on rocks, trees, and signs around these pockets, warning about them. A couple crisscross the roads needed to take out of the forest. It seems that a Tough vehicle could easily wade in and survive the explosions of magic, while a Fast vehicle would be capable of outracing any trouble… While those on foot will need to hope for the best, or for fast healing.

06: RADIO HOUR

After several days of travel, and around nightfall the Convoy approaches a resting point ringed in Husks. It resembles a log cabin, with some unnerving traits; first, the trees near the cabin become more rigid and geometric, almost like pylons. Second is the large radio tower growing out of the cabin itself. Once the Convoy is in range, the radios, phones, and screens all crackle to life. Screens display a broadcasting logo, followed by an emergency signal drone. Astute Drifters can check the dates that pop up, and realize that this is an old recording.

“Attention, this is an emergency broadcast. Seek shelter immediately. A moon warp is imminent. Repeat, a Moon Warp is imminent. Impact: falling moon shards will cause destruction and distortions. Prepare by seeking cover inside shields. Those caught outside will be twisted. Seek shelter immediately.”

Outside the Husks pulse, and the broken moon shimmers. Several bright spots in the sky grow brighter… And larger, as shards of moon fall. The Convoy comes to a wrenching halt. A warning siren echoes, before the Convoy deploys its shield. Those inside are safe from the worst of the Warp, able to hide out in the Convoy. Nothing like a good time to bond with whoever you’ve been shut in with, right?

07: MONSTER HOUR

Those outside the Convoy will be in for a rougher time. The glow from the falling moon shards has a way of piercing into the brain and forcing a full transformation for as long as the Moon Warp lasts.

During the Warp, there’s plenty of trouble for Drifters. The Husks glow before bursting into a pack of violent, wolf-esque gryphons called Nargacuga, and a host of other beasts. These monsters favor scaling trees for dive attacks, or hauling Drifters up into the branches. But with their focus on the Drifters, the Nargacuga are easy prey for the chromehounds nearby, which pounce in a tangle and clash.

By dawn, the Warp has worn off. The Nargacuga are dead, while the chromehounds have been smashed. Transformed Drifters have two options in the aftermath; either they've burned off so much energy fighting they revert into an exhausted state. They will likely be suffering from disorientation and require rest, healing, and anchoring from others. Alternately, Drifters run wild ahead of the Convoy as something draws them north; they will have a chance to revert next month, in the Messages prompt!

07-A: MONSTER BRAWL

One particularly large and ferocious Nargacuga leads the pack of monsters… And seems to have a particular hatred for technology. He attacks the radio tower, doing his best to knock it down, and then strikes at the Convoy only to be deflected by the shields. Once he’s deflected, he vents his rage on the Chromehounds.

The radio picks up something from the lead Nargacuga each time he bleeds, and a patchy broadcast happens, with different fragments heard by different people:
1. “Serenith has ordered. I obey. Obliterate every trace of Wardens, cull their human flock. Justice for the packs they murdered.”
2. “Keep bleeding them until the moon Breaks, just like she ordered.”
3. “They gave me a place and a pack, where I could hunt.”
4. “Be ruthless. The Steel Wardens aren’t different, with the children they cull.”
5. “Hate… Loss… Blood. Always more blood.”

In its death throes the Nargacuga obliterates any remaining Husks, littering the area with quicksilver pools. Drifters must be careful around these pools, as contact with them will cause all pre-assigned monster traits next month to linger without special treatment.

MICRO ENCOUNTERS:

PLEASE NOTE! These are small bits of set dressing for players to include in threads if they wish, rather than full fledged prompts or events. You may handwave your exploration of these areas, or thread them out.

Radio Trees: A strange line of geometric trees leading towards the radio tower cabin. The closer a Drifter gets, the more they can hear faint music and old broadcasts regarding moon phases.

Hunting Grounds: An area of burnt out husks that have already burst open. There’s a few monster carcasses scattering the area, along with broken weapons and bullet casings. A symbol has been carved into the monsters, or a moon pierced by a sword.

Forest Flowers: A clearing that lacks the grasping trees from before, and instead is taken up by crystalline flowers. They give off a pleasant fragrance, and help to relax characters. Can be crushed into a medicine to help cure long lasting fear toxin effects.

Falling Trees: Drifters are advised to be careful of falling trees obstructing the road, and which may need to be hacked through. Granted, what’s knocking over the trees is another question entirely!

Lakeside: streams and rivers thread the forest, occasionally creating marshy areas. These rivers eventually feed into a massive lake that borders the radio tower cabin. The water is cloudy, and the bottom of the lake covered with the remains of destroyed chrome hounds: they’ve clearly been torn apart by the nargacuga prowling the area.

NAVIGATION

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

1. Departure

[SecUnit found a room after all the fighting went down, collapsed on the bed, and spent the entire night watching old Sanctuary Moon episodes. There are limited larger rooms on the convoy, but - to be honest, SecUnit didn't give a fuck about what room anyone else wanted. If it had to look at, talk to, or think about humans for the rest of the night, it was probably going to do something stupid like walk off into the wilderness. Or actually commit the murders it had named itself for.

Now that it's morning, and the announcements are going out about the departure... well. It really doesn't want to go out there and face humans, still. But the prospect doesn't have it crawling out of its own skin any more. Even better, the weird transformation to their arm is gone, leaving only a shredded sleeve in its wake.

So - while the humans are all busy doing human things like shoving food in their mouths and getting dressed, SecUnit ducks its way out of the Convoy to make a security sweep, and... ]

This is mine.

[The thing that attracts SecUnit's attention to the ATV isn't the keys left hanging off the handlebars - no, it's the black-visored motorcycle helmet and gloves, sitting propped on one of the storage compartments. It snatches those up, only belatedly registering the vines that have grown up around the tires, which it starts prodding, dubiously, with a booted foot. It's probably not a good idea to just drive through those to rip them away, huh.]

3/5. Wreck/Nest/Stasis, Throughout the day

[Of course, it's not as simple as just driving. SecUnit has to take the time to get used to driving the ATV - it has shuttle piloting modules, but those are pretty universally shit, and getting the hang of things takes it some time. Only after it's done that does it move to the front of the Convoy, listening to the building chatter on the radio (and running an audio drama it's been meaning to get to in the background, a narrative detective story that turns out to not be half-bad, if a little predictable).

Periodically it takes advantage of the vehicle's rough-and-ready nature to pull out past the confines of the road and the lead of the Convoy, darting into the forest to scan the abandoned vehicles and the ruins around them. Every so often, it pulls the ATV to a halt, holding up a hand in warning to any other nearby drivers. Threat assessment has been getting a workout today, as something about this area is making it spike.]

Saw something. Hold back.

[Then it gets off the vehicle, taking a few cautious steps forward. Good thing about the shredded sleeve? It doesn't have to worry about that energy weapon damaging its jacket further, so it leaves that one rolled up and primed at the ready. Internally? It's chanting fuck, fuck, fuck this fucking road. Externally none of that shows in its body language. It's a professional. And it's got a helmet, to hide the tension in its jaw and brow.]

6. Radio Star

This isn't a continuous broadcast. But it's old.

[SecUnit had been ready to make a token attempt at exploring the strange cabin and the radio station as the Convoy approaches, but when the broadcast starts up it's distracted, immediately pulling to a halt so that it can focus on the broadcast itself. Its attention swivels between that and the building up ahead, one hand sliding into its pocket, before stilling.]

... Why and how was it activated?

[... It doesn't sound too concerned about the warning itself.]

7. Monster (cw: bug features, transformation)

[Maybe it should have been more concerned with the warning.

The shock of the change is like a zap from the governor module - worse than that, because it burns through SecUnit's brain and down through its limbs. It's like being electrocuted. Like being doused in acid. Like someone decided to put it through a full reformat when its brain was still active, just for fun. Its systems throw panicked errors that its organic pieces respond to with a flood of fear-anger-sheer adrenaline, as it stumbles a few steps forward, collapsing onto elbows and knees as the transformation begins.

With its helmet and clothing in the way, it's hard to tell the full extent of the transformation, but - its skin writhes, as chitinous plates overlay themselves across its body, twisting the shape of it. A deep thrumming fills the air around it, a buzz that sets hair to raising, like a wasp hovering just close enough to be heard. It coils up, frozen in place on the ground --

Until it catches movement, nearby - and its head snaps up, directly towards the disturbance, the buzzing increasing to a nearly piercing hum as it coils itself onto its, feet staring and ready to pounce, bracing itself with an arm - a hand that snaps into a scythe dug deep into the dirt. The helmet masks its face, and its eyes - but it doesn't mask the pressure of threat that its attention brings, as its head tracks towards the closest moving thing.]

Edited 2025-02-07 22:58 (UTC)

[And in this case, the closest moving thing is a nearby demon that SecUnit has seen before.

Serph has staved off his own Moon Warp transformation with a transformation of his own, taking the shape of Varuna and escaping the effects...at least, for now.

But how long can he keep this up? Varuna's constant hunger is as pressing as ever, especially after sustaining injuries from fighting other Drifters and the creatures in the area. At Serph's feet lies a Nargacuga corpse, some organs missing, while blood drips slowly from Serph's left arm as a few of the shallow wounds piercing it slowly knit together.

If SecUnit approaches incautiously, Serph's attention immediately snaps in its direction, trying to determine whether the monster before him has its mind.

[Slowly - surprisingly slowly, for someone whose fighting style against the monsters had seemed to involve a lot of throwing itself recklessly into striking range of the monsters to use them as physical climbing platforms - SecUnit scrapes itself up onto its feet in a crouch, the scythe-arm still digging into the dirt before it.

The buzzing changes in quality, fluctuating briefly - a cadence almost like words, that cuts off abruptly, then restarts in the same jaw-aching frequency as before. Minute movements of the SecUnit's head tracking between Varuna's bleeding arm and the dismembered monster corpse at his feet.

A final pulse racks through it, originating in burning pain from between its shoulder blades and it shudders, the strange movement of plate growth settling. The tension could still be cut with an arm-blade - but it's not charging yet. Once again the buzzing modulates, towards something almost sibilant. An attempt at Serph's name?]

[Serph stays still as he observes the monster's lumberous movements. With its head covered by the helmet, its clothing is the most recognisable thing about it. He notes the attention it seems to be paying to his injury and the corpse, and the fingers in his uninjured hand curl into a fist.

Serph's voice is a little more guttural but he still speaks clearly.]

SecUnit. Do you hear me?

[There's another fluctuation in the wasplike buzzing, almost-not-quite short enough to be a proper response past the background hum (less threat display as the seconds drag on and it continues not to strike, but a warning reaction. Keep the fuck away, broadcast in the most basic senses and skin-crawling notes.)

It can't seem to master the sound - something about the way it shifts, there must be more to the transformation hidden beneath the helmet. In the end it settles for a nod, stiff and jerky as the rest of its movements have been.

The hand curling into a fist catches its attention and has it bristling in reaction. Then; ]

Watch -

[Layered with the overtones as the words are it's hard to make them out, and by then the SecUnit is already moving. It managed some acrobatics before, but that's nothing compared to the leap this time, bounding forward several meters in the blink of an eye to land right on the back of an approaching Nargacuga, sinking its bladed arm down into the juncture of its shoulder and neck.]

[Serph grimaces at the buzzing. He really doesn't know what to make of the sounds SecUnit is making, other than them being generally unpleasant.

But his head snaps to attention when SecUnit moves and stabs through the creature that had been approaching. He doesn't feel confident in his assessment of SecUnit's status, but he isn't about to let SecUnit fight alone. The Nargacuga howls in agonised pain, the creature shaking violently to try and remove SecUnit from its back. With a sharp hiss, Serph calls upon the magic remaining within Varuna and encases its front paws in ice, temporarily pinning it down.]

[The way it fights has always been visceral, but now there's an additional layer of viciousness to the movements, like it's forgotten that it still has one arm with a gun, or like it simply prefers bashing this thing's head in with the newly grown armblade.

Even more so with Serph's ice freezing the creature in place, rendering their gryphonic opponent unable to strike back at either of the two transformed fighters. SecUnit drags the bladed limb down from the creature's neck to its back, slashing along the edge of the wing as it seeks a perch in between the creature's shoulder blades.]

Contaminated. [It manages the words in its buzzing, atonal voice.] Don't scan.

Edited (html) 2025-02-09 05:56 (UTC)

[Seeing SecUnit move is almost like when the Solar Noise of 'Nirvana' had driven their demons semi-out of control. That kind of half-mindedness but lack of control. An awareness that isn't there in someone fully berserk... but not fully cognizant either.

Contaminated? SecUnit? Or the creature? The latter doesn't seem any different to the one he'd slain earlier, despite its yowls, its struggles growing weaker from the grievious wounds inflicted upon it by SecUnit.

Which leads him to conclude that it's SecUnit itself that it's referring to. It's more able to think than the other Drifters he's encountered thus far, so... Serph's voice is calm, but firm.]

You are changed. But you are still [a?] SecUnit.

[The benefit (?) of having a mechanical brain - even when it's spiraling into terror, it has the exact degree of how much it's fucked updating in a nice little statistic in some portion of its consciousness.

The creature shudders under it, beating wings as it tries to shake SecUnit off, a move that almost works except for the blade didgging into its flesh still. Its head is fixed towards Serph, tracking his movement more than that of the Nargacuga as it winds up to charge.]

Don't get near.

[Clearer, if only slightly, around the way its voice has warped, strangely overemphasized in places and swallowed by overtone in others.]

SecUnit/Murderbot | The Murderbot Diaries

7. Monster (usual cw: gore... :')

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Radio Star

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