MARCH EVENT LOG

[monstertruckers]

code

After weeks in the forest, the trees begin to fade out in favor of grass; miles of it with every shade of green you’ve ever seen, covering rolling hills. The weather tends to be mild, with scattered clouds blown on gentle winds… But the nights somehow seem just as ominous as those in the forest, with the moon uncovered and glaring down balefully like a broken eye. And wide open as they are, the grasslands have their own share of danger and weirdness.

01: MESSAGES

The grasslands are dotted with abandoned electrical poles and power pylons. Ruined electric cables hand off these towers… But along with that are kites and balloons tied to the structures. If a Drifter gets close enough to grab one, they can find a message tied to the tail end. It’s printed with a memory or a phrase that is distinctly from their home, and their past.

If a Drifter holds onto the message, it might just remind them of home and help them resist any changes. Or even pull them back out of a monster transformation! Or it might just haunt their senses instead, and almost make them visualize and hear where they heard that phrase for the first time. Try not to get lost in those visions. Drifters can potentially carry one other message for another character, if need be; especially if they need to revert someone else from a painful transformation. Be advised that doing so will result in haunted senses.

Drifters are advised not to grip the old electric wires too tightly. They might get voices from the past of this world, all crowding their mind; old talk shows, sports games, and news reports on the moon. It’s enough to leave them with a serious headache if you hang on for too long, if not knocking them out completely.

02: TRANSMITTER

Out on the road, Drifters glimpse buildings, which are unnervingly empty. Equally unnerving are strange forms lining the roads, the closer the Convoy gets to the broken buildings. All of them look vaguely humanoid, but half melted and coated in something metallic. Clearly the Husks weren’t limited to the forest, with how many litter the landscape. Some Husks become violent, breaking open as strange ostritch-bird and reptilian monsters claw their way out. Such creatures can be easily dispatched, but still harry Drifters.

Other, inert Husks give off an odd metallic hum. Getting close enough to touch the Husks makes the hum louder, and can trigger behavior changes in Drifters. While the inert Husks can’t force transformations, they leave Drifters restless, on edge, and activating psychological monster traits.

When the Convoy makes camp, it is inevitably near Husk clusters. The metallic hum only increases as the sun goes down. But the Convoy has a counter for that. A haunting melody starts to play on the Convoy speakers, and from any phones; taking the sound closer to the Husks causes ghostly forms to rise up and towards the moon. It puts a stop to the odd humming… At least until the next camp.

03: ROUND 'EM UP

Those with sharp eyes will notice something different one morning, on a nearby hill. It appears to be a flock of cattle… Which might well be a welcome sight for those wanting beef for dinner. As the Convoy rolls closer, it swiftly becomes clear these aren’t normal cattle. Their skin is shiny, scale-like and metallic, and their eyes glow. Those hooves also look sharp enough to punch right through a car door.

These are bull gorgons, the guidance computer helpfully notes. And they are capable of exhaling a petrifying mist; one deep breath is enough to make a person slow, two freezes them in place, and three turns them to stone. Luckily the blood of a gorgon bull can also cure the effect. Drifters won’t be able to capture such dangerous beasts for livestock, but they can still try and wrangle them and harvest them for meat! The skin and horns are both tough enough to be turned into tools, as needed.

Tough cars can easily square off with a gorgon bull and come away victorious. Other cars are advised to try lassoing from a distance, and wearing the animals down before moving in for the kill.

04: BUILDING THUNDER

There’s dark clouds boiling up in the sky. Those who shelter in the Convoy will be spared the worst of the storm… Though the winds have a way of screaming, trying to call Drifters out into the storm. And flecks of metal and glowing moonshard stone have a way of replacing rain and intensifying the storm.

If exposed to the storm outside the forcefield, Drifters experience the following:
Gale Force: Drifters are swept up by the winds and tossed about, and even thrown skyward. Drifters damaged by the wind will find themselves inflicted with temporary Harpy traits. These traits become more intense as Drifters experience hunger or violence.
Deluge: Drifters exposed to rain are at risk of almost drowning, along with shards of Husk metal and moon shards slicing down. Drifters damaged from rain will find themselves inflicted with temporary Naga traits. These traits grow worse as Drifters lie, omit truths, or tell falsehoods.

These traits last as long as the weather remains stormy; the symptoms ease as the skies clear, only to flare back up as storms return, and will remain that way as long as the Convoy remains in the grasslands.

04: MONSTER SHIFT, NAGA

This month, Drifters will have access to the serpentine Naga. On top of all Naga species traits being available, the following occurs:
+Cold Blooded: the rain and storms can potentially make Naga slow and sluggish, or inclined to sleep or seek out other heat sources to gain energy; this includes basking in body heat from others!
+Water Divert: With their water shaping, Naga can divert falling rain and even ground saturation to make the area or other Drifters more dry. They can also concentrate water into different areas, and can also change water into mist or ice.
+Blue shift: the scales of Naga become more vibrantly blue, or a strange mottled combination of blue and stormy gray, the more intense the rains become. These scale colors can also reflect their moods.
+Extra arms that are painful and disorienting to grow, and can result in coordination issues.
+Scale Pains: Pain and discomfort when scales grow in, as well as fangs or talons!
+Water glide: during floods from the rains, Naga find they can easily traverse deep water as though they were simply walking (or slithering) across it.
+Thermal vision, making it easy to track others in the middle of storms. Vision may also become disorienting, and eyes become slitted.

04: MONSTER SHIFT, HARPY

The storm will bring a second monster this month, in the form of Harpy. On top of all Harpy species traits being active, the following occurs:
+Storm Rider: high agility and capable of flying through the storm winds without hindrance. Even tornadoes can be mastered!
+Feather pains: itching, or full pain when growing feathers or wings. Talons may also be painful when growing from fingers or from feet.
+Wind Affinity: able to shape wind, including diverting the worst of the storm winds, or summon and focus wind into razors.
+Warbling Voice: words may waver and slip into something more songlike, or even a damaging sonic scream if emotions are heightened.
+Height Call: a need to get higher into the air, whether through perching on buildings or the convoy, or through flight. A sense of euphoria as they go higher.
+Nest Building: a compulsion to create a nest out of spare and soft objects, and feeling more safe inside that space.
+Heightened vision like a bird of prey, able to pick out details even at great distance. This may be disorienting at first, as vision becomes telescopic.

05: ZOLOM HUNT

As the Convoy travels into marshy points in the grasslands, it becomes clear something is following. Something is hunting the Convoy, disturbing the boggy ground in waves and humps as it travels. It’s hard to say what exactly the monster is, just that it’s BIG and feeling out the Convoy, seeing if it can find prey.

Drifters who try attacking as it hunts will see the shape sink into marshy ground and shrink away, before returning. After about an hour of building tension, it finally strikes. The ground erupts in a spray of water, as a thirty foot serpent called a Zolom rises out of the ground.

Going by the hissing surrounding the Convoy, it’s clear there isn’t just one. The Zoloms go for any who attacked them while hunting, identifying those as the biggest threat, followed by whatever looks like the best prey.

In the aftermath, Zoloms can be harvested. Their fangs are sharp, their scales are tough and can make good leather, and their blood, while corrosive, can still be contained in vials for poisons or anti-venom study by the more medically inclined. And the meat may taste a bit gamey and oddly spicey, but it’s still edible. But first, Drifters need to survive the onslaught.

05-A: ZOLOM ATTACK

Constrictor: The lead Zolom constricts the Convoy trailers to try and crack them open and spill any Drifters out. Other Zoloms target vehicles, trying to get at the Drifters driving them. Tough cars can stand up to the coils and ram into the Zoloms enough to disorient them. Fast cars can easily outpace the Zolom, and if needed lead serpents away from the Convoy before doubling back.

Beta and Venom: There's more danger after Zoloms take wounds. Their blood steams as it hits the ground, burning grass and earth and steaming the water. Zolom blood is laced with venom that either burns Drifters bodies… Or burns their thoughts, inflicting them with a berserk frenzy. The Zoloms also super heat the air in a circle and spit out venom as fire. Cars can protect from the firestorm, though only the Toughest of the bunch will be able to drive away without serious damage.

Death Rattle: With enough tenacity, Drifters are capable of defeating the Zoloms or driving them away. (Spiking them on the top of a nearby tree is optional.) At the end of combat, the Zoloms have a parting gift as they lash, writhe, and snap.

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.

Ruined Buildings: Grow more numerous, encountering one or two a day. Usually in the form of residences, or farms. Many of them have been gutted from both time, elements, and moon warps. But a handful still hold basic supplies; medical kits, canned food, etc. They also hold hastily scrawled maps that show the surrounding area… And a parched looking area surrounding the grasslands. It looks as though the Convoy is heading right towards it.

Farmlands: Occasionally interrupt the rolling grasslands. They look scraggly and overgrown, with sparse crops available. The handful of food in such areas is edible with no ill affects, but the taste profile is confused: apples taste like watermelons, corn tastes like avocados, etc.

Wind Turbines: A few lonely wind turbines still dot the landscape, spinning even without anyone to maintain them. They give a lonely whistle as they turn, perhaps even sounding a little like a whisper… And one trying to mimic the message Drifters may have received on the power lines.


NAVIGATION

Comments

SecUnit | The Murderbot Diaries

[serialmurderbot]

1. Messages in the Wires.

[Here's the thing: freestanding electric cables are dangerous to vehicles and to humans both. Maybe less so these ancient petrofuel-driven lumps, but despite the strange transformations that it is forced to admit are happening, SecUnit remains fairly certain that electrocution is a danger to everyone on the Convoy. And those old towers are still transmitting something.

So the first time it comes along a broken track of roadway and finds a frayed cable laying across the length of it, it pulls to a halt and dismounts.]
Fucking ancient tech.

[It makes its way up to the cable, snagging it by what it thinks is still an insulated piece - only to go rigid as it registers the playback in its head. "We'll be... high winds on the plains coming in from the Southeast, hold onto your hats this morning!" So shocked (metaphoically) is it, that it drops the cable, stepping back from it with hand and head buzzing.]

What.

[The smart move following that would be to leave the thing the fuck alone, wouldn't it? But - no, SecUnit goes right in to grab it again.]

2. Husks, and Scavenging

We'll get this house first.

[Someone's just been caught on the edge of the designated Convoy safe space that SecUnit outlined in its message, so now they get to deal with SecUnit striding up to them and asserting itself. Hidden behind the helmet, it nevertheless turns its head towards them (you?) with the weight of a challenging stare, as though daring any form of argument.

It's already done itself the favor of shoving up the sleeves on its jacket so both gun ports are exposed, and it uses one arm to gesture towards the closest of the buildings to the Convoy's collective campsite. Slightly muffled by the helmet, its voice nevertheless echoes with a strange doubled buzzing, like a grainy recording or the buzz of static.]

What do you need to find.

4. Thunder and shifts

[Mistake number 34 (Of course it's keeping track) that SecUnit has made, since finding itself in the middle of this terrible place: It decides to make one last sweep of the surrounding area, as the storm comes rolling in. Some of the reaction to its "nice suggestions" have left it with the impression that some of these humans are exactly the kind of reckless idiots that wouldn't heed the storm warning, so it pulls up its sleeves and goes out on foot, rather than risk driving the ATV in this weather.

It's made its way to one of the nearby farm buildings, finding a stack of old siding along one wall with the half-formed intent of climbing it to get a better view of the surroundings so it can scan for vehicles or moving shapes.

Mistake number 35: Climbing the building, just as a band of rain sweeps through, pelting down onto its helmet and exposed hands, coating it with water and slicking its grip on the ridge of siding it's using to climb. Its grip slips, it has to readjust -

Then the pain erupts across its hands, its neck - its mouth? It winces, grip faltering, but the real shock - when it looks at its exposed forearms, it sees the skin mottling, fading from the mid-range brown washed out by the stormlight, to a sickly, blotchy grey.

One moment it's clinging to the side of the building. The next there's a crash loud enough to echo even beyond the thunder and pelting of the rain as it lands hard on the tarps and stacked piles of wood beams and old milk crates of shingles beneath - and doesn't move.]

5A Fighting

[It meant to hang back from this fight, provide support, after [the storm] and its... deeply embarrassing reaction to that. Stay on its ATV, use that to navigate around the creature's coils and call alerts. Maybe pull non-combatants out of the Convoy. Act like a SecUnit, not a CombatUnit.

But all bets are off when the blood spray begins. it spatters across the jacket and pants, onto its still-exposed arms, and -

It just sees red.]

Fuck this.

[It comes out as more a hiss than words, as the SecUnit abandons its vehicle to launch itself onto the nearest coil, clinging to the exterior scaly body as it starts to climb for the head of the beast. If there's anyone in its way... it doesn't stop. It might even launch itself at them, too.]

Bonus

[For the first month? SecUnit claimed a bedroom, and any time it wasn't out driving, it retreated there.

These days... it tends to get only as far as one of the Common Room couches before sprawling out across the entire length of it, the only sign of life it gives being pulling back a limb if anyone coming through happens to brush too close. It can't be comfortable to be doing that while still wearing the helmet - but that's what it does, booted feet propped up on the far armrest.

It doesn't bother leaving for meals when they get served up, and lingers far into the night - a silent, shadowed presence just asking to scare the hell out of someone who doesn't notice it there.]

[ooc notes: As always, wildcard option! If none of these prompts quite work, please assume that you can find SecUnit elsewhere. It'll always be up for accompanying folks on hunting trips, etc.]

Messages in the Wires

[constantvrunning]

[V had mentally catalogued the towers as like the radio tower - possibly containing answers, if it could be tapped. If it could be rendered safe to approach.

And then SecUnit literally just grabs one, and any other plans V had are immediately dropped.]

What happened?

[They don't want to sound too accusing - not after what happened with the shrines... buuuut some of that definitely comes through in their voice.

Mixed with alarm and concern, but still.]

[serialmurderbot]

[For 3.5 seconds exactly, SecUnit is too busy cataloguing all the audio coming to it through the wires to pay much attention to what V is saying, so they're stuck in a moment of monumental silence, instead. Then it starts moving again, dragging the cable towards the edge of the road as it had meant to do in the first place.]

There's still signal coming through the wires.

[And probably electricity, but - it's fine. It wouldn't be a SecUnit if it couldn't handle some electricity, now would it. It's still cataloguing and reviewing the flood of sound bites, so it sounds faintly distracted, but not annoyed, as it so often seems to.]

Forgot to specify, but this IS pre-storm.

[constantvrunning]

[Alarm wars with curiosity, V stepping close(r, not Too Close), eyeing up the length of thick wire.]

Is it giving any location data?

[The urge to grab some of the cable is rising - or at least to offer some help.]

[serialmurderbot]

[Another pause, a not too-long but certainly noticeable 3.9 seconds this time, as SecUnit keeps its grip. It's done a lot of work to increase its simultaneous processing of multiple inputs, but despite this kind of data sorting being something it does all the time, this feels more like the time it threw itself into a [company] battleship to fight rogue malware.]

No. It's - local media. Old local media.

[It's ready to drop the cable when some fragment of words catches its attention.]

Something about the moon.

5A Fighting

[electrifyking]

[...In Akihiko's defense, he didn't think that point blank lightning would open up a rent in the snake's neck like that. He'd gotten caught up in the coils, and was trying to get breathing room to break out, more than anything else.

With a very angry robot launching itself at the snake, he might get that breathing room after all.]

"LET. GO."

[He still manages to rasp that out, clawing and punching at the coils as he struggles to get loose.]

[serialmurderbot]

[No transformation means no scythe arm for SecUnit to use in either climbing or digging through the scales to do damage - it has to rely on the new claws that the storm has left it with, and those aren't heavy enough to dig all the way through the creature's hide. One shudder of the coils has its grip slipping, the initial momentum forestalled by the monster's reaction, and it's forced to drop down to a crouch to avoid losing its balance on the shifting surface - right above the coils nearly crushing Akihiko.

It notices Akihiko, because - well, one, lightning, and two, he's making his displeasure at being trapped very audible. The helmet twists, fixating on him for a second, its jacket wet with the Zolom's steaming blood. Even with no eyes visible, the atmosphere is distinctly... predatory.

The berserk anger courses through it like acid, but SecUnit knows exactly how to turn this red-black sensation of rage into causing exactly as much destruction as possible.]

Again. [The lightning, it means, the words nearly doubling themselves with the buzzing echo of its voice.]

[electrifyking]

[Akihiko doesn't quite hit that same level of murderous rage... But he's getting CLOSE. He doesn't like the feeling of his ribs bruising and bending, how it reminds him too much of being weak and lapsing his guard. And getting benched for the following month.

He's not going to deal with that again-

And there's also a strange buzz of electricity in the back of his mouth, in the back of his brain, urging him to move and GET OUT of where he's been bound.]

"Working- on it-"

[It'd be good if he could get his Evoker at the right angle to summon his Persona. But he can't seem to manage with how he's getting constricted. But he needs to summon, needs to find a way to call lightning-

His eyes roll back in his head for an instant, the same time another streak of lightning slams directly into the Zolom's head. The following thunderclap can make even a monster snake reel for a breath.]

[serialmurderbot]

[From its experience, when a human's eyes roll back like that they're about to pass out. Hairs raise along its organic skin as SecUnit feels the buzz of the lightning strike as a fuzz of static through its mostly inactive comm, as an ozone taste in the back of its mouth, like an ache in its jaw, the moment before it cracks with an earsplitting shockwave.

It means the zolom is a very attractive target, stunned as it is - luckily for Akihiko. The intense stare dissipates for a moment as the SecUnit finds the gap in the scales that got it covered in blood in the first place, flexing clawed hands, before plunging them into the vulnerable flesh.

Objectively? It's absolutely disgusting. But it's the best way it can figure to hurt this thing.]

Brace yourself.

[For being dropped abruptly, if this thing reacts the way it expects.]

Thunder and shifts

[bufudine]

[Serph had also been caught out in the storm. Weather patterns like this are an entirely new experience for him, but some knowledge of it rises from the depths of his subconscious. It's dangerous weather, generally something to wait in shelter to pass. So different from the steady downpour that fell upon the Junkyard. He had intended to stay within the shields, but Jack...

Well. He lived, but at what cost? His legs, apparently. Which also means he's lost the rest of his clothing to the deluge. But his new, snake-like body is well adapted to the rapidly shifting boggy ground and he can feel the thrum of water magic in his veins. It's different to his demon's, but he senses it would come to him easily were he to call upon it.

Still, he has to get back. If he can orient himself using the Convoy, he can retrace his steps and try one more time to find Jack. But when he sees someone falling from a building Serph instantly changes direction and slithers his way over, snake body easily sliding over mud and muck. Climbing to reach the body, however...

It takes some effort to haul himself up high enough that the rest of his body can follow, but eventually he makes it to where SecUnit lies unmoving. Raising his wings to shield them from the pelting rain -- it's not perfect; he's not exactly waterproof -- Serph leans over to grasp the other Drifter by the shoulder.]

Hey. You need to wake up. You can't stay out here.

[serialmurderbot]

[It wasn't high enough for the fall to have been a deadly one on its own, but a bad landing can happen to anyone, and SecUnit's landing was far from anything that could be described as good. By the time Serph has maneuvered his changed body to the top of the pile, SecUnit is still sprawled where it landed.

That all changes when Serph's hand reaches its shoulder. Whatever daze it was in from getting all air and sense knocked out of it, that changes when Serph grabs it, swiping at him with newly clawed hands. Serph isn't the only one affected by the cold and wet, though, as the gesture is uncoordinated, entirely instinctive.]

Don't touch me.

[It bristles, levering itself up then abruptly halting when the attempt brings it closer to being in Serph's personal space. The droning buzz that had surrounded it during the Moon Warp seems to linger, drowned out only partially by the rain.

Blue-grey scales have begun to spread across its forearms in blotchy patches, and when it spots that on the hand it's kept up between them it recoils, dropping the hand away from Serph and holding it as stiffly as though the scales might somehow be transferred to the rest of its body by touch.]

[bufudine]

[Serph immediately pulls back, but not without the claws nicking the skin on his hand. Blood wells from the cut. It's not important. He's not sure if SecUnit's reaction to touch is something new from the monster changes, but Serph mentally notes it all the same. For now he keeps his hands away from SecUnit.]

Are you mobile?

[SecUnit shouldn't be out here. He shouldn't be out here. But how difficult it is to return to the Convoy (or to get to better shelter) is going to depend on how badly hurt it is.]

[serialmurderbot]

[SecUnit feels bad about that, in some back corner of its brain, but the rest of it, organic and digital both, are flooded with alerts and adrenaline from the forced restart the fall knocked it into, struggling to purge the fear chemicals that flooded it at the sudden certainty that it was alien-contaminated.

Just as well it can't hyperventilate - between the helmet and the downpour that would make for a bad time. It doesn't seem to register Serph's question for 2.5 seconds, before it flexes its hand and drops it, testing its legs, and - Ow, fuck. Note to self, Murderbot, don't have your next false memory flashback while you're climbing a building.

It thought... it hoped it was done with these.]

Fine. I'm fine.

[Liar, liar. The scaly patches on its arms start to twinge.]

Husks and Scavenging

[wereperrito]

Jack is somehow not surprised SecUnit followed his van out to the pair of buildings he came to scavenge. He tucks his radio back into his pocket and starts towards the house, giving the husk outside a wide berth. "Anything," he says. "Fabric, food, information, tools... especially if we can find thread. I worry I am going to run out, and I do not have a drop spindle to make more."

He could make one, but that requires, well, a whittling knife and the right kind of wood, which he is on the lookout for, except they're not a forest anymore. And also wool or cotton to spin, which is going to be harder to find.

[serialmurderbot]

It likewise edges around the husk, its attention and body language oriented towards the remnant, even for a few moments after they get past the unfamiliar shape. Only once they're out of what it apparently deems a danger radius does it turn away again, finally responding to Jack.

"You can't reuse the fabric?" It pauses, uncomfortably adding. "I thought humans could still do the same thing as a recycler, it just took longer."

[wereperrito]

"Eh, it depends on how badly the fabric is damaged. I took what wasn't rotten from that car last month, remember, but I couldn't use the remains of your sleeve for anything but padding, or maybe a very small patch, the pieces were all too small," Jack explains, pushing the building's front door open. It looks like this used to be someone's house, from the layout and the remaining, rotting furniture. "And I do have some raw fabric in the convoy already, but the color and type is limited. I want a range to work with so we do not all look very shabby with the amount of mis-colored patches I have to work with."

He ducks to peer into a drawer in what probably used to be a very nice end table, looking for tools or maybe a book that might have survived all this time in its little wooden box. "Best case scenario, really, everyone has at least two full outfits, preferably three, so they have something to wear while they wash or have the other set mended."

[serialmurderbot]

There's a long pause, as SecUnit is forced, abruptly, to start considering a number of very human topics it hasn't really given a shit about before. Like how exactly clothing is made, or was made before fabric synthesizers became a thing, and how they make that happen when it's not possible to just buy a new set using a hard currency card.

"Shabby is better than dead," it concludes, but it shoves its hands deep into its jacket pockets, shoulders hunching as it starts to poke into a closet by the door, finding a pair of old snowboots, the rubber cracking.

"How hard is it to get blood out of fabric." Asking for a friend.

Husks and Scavanging

[becomerobot]

[Viktor has definitely not been paying much mind to designated safe zones. There is scavenging to do and he knows well the value of stockpiling any useful scraps or supplies.

His body also changed dramatically from the last month's moon warp. He'd gone from an average height man relying on a crutch, to a towering eight foot tall, metallic bug of a creature. At least his slouch remained consistent. And his face had turned back to being his human one, if encroached along the edges of his jawline and cheekbones by purple carapace. The third arm growing out of his spine fidgeted restlessly before scratching at the back of Viktor's hair.

Secunit, with its weaponry lined arms on full display, doesn't seem to be changed like Viktor is. The man swore he saw it defending the Convoy a month back using the same, very literal, firearms. Viktor is admittedly fascinated looking at it, though catches himself when asked such a direct question over what he is searching the area for,]

Pain medicine. That is my top priority, for my partner. [Jayce is suffering a great deal after his death and subsequent resurrection, so Viktor is on the hunt for any way to mitigate and manage that,]

And... batteries. Of any kind. [For himself.]

[serialmurderbot]

[SecUnit would say it's pretty familiar with the various uncomfortable ways humans stare at it. When they know it's a SecUnit, the primary emotion tends to be somewhere on the range of 'mildly nervous' to 'oh fuck oh fuck we're all going to die.' Here, the staring tends to be normal, the kind that people do when they think it's a human - mostly indifferent, occasionally annoyed or mildly curious.

Whatever the fuck is going on with Victor's glances, it's less sure about, and that makes it on edge. The assessment isn't helped by Victor's transformation. A third arm does a lot to fuck with its usual body language analysis, it turns out.

On the other hand, it's mostly not hostile, so even if SecUnit stares from behind the helmet's visor, it responds in kind.]

The medical supplies are shit - I doubt we're going to find much better than manual kits and cloth bandages. [Barbaric.] What kind of batteries?

[becomerobot]

Bandages... those would be useful to me, as well. [Jayce's chest isn't healing and they were getting to the point of believing it never would. Bandaging him is probably the next best thing, though some might call it a waste of supplies to even bother.]

As for batteries, anything will do. [if he's being very, very generous to what they might discover in a perfect world-] Those that can be electrically recharged are the ideal.

[Viktor is presently wearing a long cloak with a hood, the third arm at his back emerging from a seam opened to accommodate the spare limb. With his new stature, Viktor's clothing he arrived with barely fit him, so all he really had on was his academy trousers. For decency sake. The fact his other two arms are obscured by the long cloak is definitely not helping any body language analysis,]

Is there anything you are looking for? I can keep an eye out.

[serialmurderbot]

[It isn't quite ready to turn its back on Victor until it's got a better sample set for body language analysis, and the only way it can do that is with its eyes. At least the helmet means that it doesn't have to keep staring directly at Viktor - it just seems to be politely keeping its head more or less turned in his direction as they talk.

(Anyone who's seen SecUnit being SecUnit will know that this is unusual - but for now, hopefully it just reads as 'normal human' and not 'paranoid about being attacked from behind.')

It also pauses as it spots a husk on the front path of the house, considering Viktor's height versus the windows, before silently gesturing for the both of them to go around the thing.]

Confirmed. Medical supplies, batteries. There might be a generator designed for petrochemical conversion. [A beat.] I'm not looking for anything. I'm backup.

Bonus

[solitarysoul]

[Levi has never claimed a bedroom, so since everything's started moving he's just been crashing in common rooms for a few hours over night. If the room is occupied he usually goes somewhere else, but right now there's just one person there. And since SecUnit has that helmet on Levi can't tell if its sleeping or not. So he's not sure if he should be moving on or finding somewhere on the opposite side of the room to try and sleep on.

After a moment of hesitation he speaks up, quietly so as not to wake SecUnit if it really is asleep.]

H-hello?

[serialmurderbot]

What.

[Yeah, it's definitely not asleep. It doesn't move aside from turning its head towards Levi, but the movement isn't at all the slow clumsy effect of someone who's just been woken up. There's a momentary pause, before it adds,]

Shouldn't you be asleep right now.

[solitarysoul]

U-uh...

[Okay, its awake, he was kind of hoping for no response there.]

Y-yeah. D-do you want me to find another room?

[serialmurderbot]

[The answer is probably yes, but that isn't what SecUnit starts by asking.]

Why not the sleeping cabins? The beds are better for sleeping.