route666rp | APRIL EVENT LOG

APRIL EVENT LOG

The grassland gives way to rougher terrain, green fading to cracked red earth with scraggly sharp-edged plants dotting the landscape. With no trees, the sky overhead feels massive, and almost oppressive with how the sun and moon shine down. It’s entirely at odds with the biting wind that often whips across the flatlands. The ground occasionally breaks open into crevasses or rolls along in arid hills, but it remains stark thorn brush for as far as the eye can see… Save for one strange, ominous tower on the horizon.

01:TOWER OF TRANSFORMATION

The tower looks like a giant fang, trying to bite the sky. A strange pressure emits from it and rests on the skin. Drifters can get closer to the tower, but the terrain is covered with puncturing spikes and sharp thorn brush. It will take a TOUGH vehicle to get close without getting cut. Anyone who bleeds within sight of the tower discovers their cuts are transformed; a monster’s form waits under their skin, and transforms them one injury at a time.

It takes several days to get close to the tower via Convoy, with how the road snakes and winds towards it. Drifters won’t be able to reach it without offroad vehicles until April 15th. Getting close to the tower reveals that it is formed out of a strange metal much like the Husks… And that numerous creatures have been melded into the tower’s surface. A strange red ichor seeps out from these forms. Coming into contact with it heals wounds and can revert one transformation.

Drifters can take some of the fluid with them, if they have means to carry it… But only one extra dose; any more makes the fluid unstable and neutralizes the effect entirely.

01-A: TWISTED MONSTERS

The land here is still littered with Husks, ready to break open to fight… But these monsters are more twisted than usual, and seem to be composed of multiple organisms. Prowling cat-centaur esque brutes called panthera protectors, ungainly catoblepas, reptile energy draining bloodhound dogs, and flying lion-bird anzu are all ready to attack with tooth and claw, to make Drifters all the more like them.

Given the influence of the tower, Drifters can feel their forms twisting, the more wounds they take, and the more the moon begins to form into something almost whole. By April 15th the wounds and moon are almost impossible to resist without either vials or message mementos. And those wounds are determined to drag a change out of Drifters. (Of note, Drifters who took on Harpy or Naga traits last month will find those changes can come back to them unnervingly easily, and blend with other creature changes to become a true chimera.)

These changes grow worse until the moon glow and shards reach their absolute peak on April 20th. At this point Twisted Land occurs.

02: ROAD ATTACK 

A week into the thorn brush, chaos starts at sunset. The first warning is a metallic howl echoing down from the hills, followed by a rumble that could almost be thunder… If not for the fact that the sunset stained sky is completely clear. A swarm of metal sweeps over the hills, heading straight at the Convoy.

Running at the lead are more of those canine robots. The Convoy database again identifies them as ‘chromehounds’ and these are clearly in better repair; their fangs and claws are all razor sharp, and they are swiftly closing the distance. Close behind the hounds is a scattered assortment of scrap metal vehicles. The creatures driving aren’t quite human but also aren’t quite monsters; instead they are mechanical forms with just a few remnants of flesh on them. Robot riders and raiders, determined to harry the Convoy.

The goal of the raiders is to crash their vehicles into the Convoy, to slow or halt them. Drifters will need to either fight at a distance… Or hope that their monster side is tough enough for close and bloody combat!

02-A: ATTACK AND AFTERMATH

The attack patterns of the raiders depends on who they are targeting and how transformed the Drifters are. More monstrous Drifters earn full fury, and the vehicles blare with static and a patchy message: “…Purge… Corruption… By steel.” The raiders are determined to kill monsters, even at the cost of their own lives.

By contrast, less transformed Drifters may be overlooked, or only looked at suspicion. But if examined long enough, the raiders will eventually conclude less changed Drifters as still corrupt and attack them, especially if they are associated with the more monstrous!

Afterwards, mechanical salvage can be found to bolster the Convoy vehicles. The machines display a moon stabbed by a sword. It is the same as the symbols on the trap cars from February. Several raiders also carry odd talismans that resemble a rosary formed of tiny computer screens. Many of the screens are broken, but a few carry flickering text: “Your charge: To hunt the Warped. To purify the broken land, purge all sickness that twists us. Only then can Nirvana be opened, and the world reborn without corruption.”

03: OASIS

Just off the road are scattered oases, shining like blue gems in a red wasteland. The waters run surprisingly deep, with monstrous statues submerged in the depths. These statues resemble all 13 types of monsters, some of them even coloring the water depths into shades of green, purple, and red.

The oasis waters can’t fix or restore physical transformations. But it can cure any heat exhaustion with just a few sips, and restore lost strength. Red water can heal wounds, green restores magic fatigue, and purple can stabilize mental exhaustion and strain.

The statues also create a strange resonance on Drifters’ Sigil marks, particularly when Drifters submerge in the water. The statue resonance can’t completely revert transformations but they CAN spread out the transformation between two Drifters and lessen the potency.

04: MONSTER SHIFT, CHIMERA

Peculiar flowers bloom along some of the thorn brush. Drifters who bleed from the thorns will find that their cuts turn into Traits belonging to either Chimera or Unicorns. Chimeras typically appear from red flowered plants, and become increasingly tougher as they gain more traits. The following is also available:
+Tower focus: if growing extra eyes or heads, vision becomes disorienting. Focusing on the tower will help sharpen vision and provide clarity.
+Thermal flight on new wings, as the hot air coming off the ground helps them soar.
+Territorial hunter vs other fully shifted monsters/enemies.
+Blood taste/frenzy: becomes more savage as blood is shed, whether that is their own or others. If it is their own or an enemy, more aggressive; if it is an ally, more protective.
+An increasingly carnivorous and voracious appetite. Plus a craving for raw meat, and a drive to go hunt it personally; the fresher, the better.
+Tough hide. As 3 or more Chimera traits become active, the skin becomes increasingly tougher and harder for cuts and new transformations to occur.
+A sudden roar that cuts into words, easy for conversations to turn into a shouting match.

04: MONSTER SHIFT, UNICORN

As with Chimera, getting cut and bled by flower bearing thorns will impart unicorn traits on Drifters. This typically comes from thorn plants with white flowers. Unicorns have a knack for stabilizing the more violent changes… And perhaps even stopping transformations from bleeding. The following is also available:
+Horn Resonance, a ringing in the horn or forehead the closer one gets to the tower. Can result in either disorientation, or a boost in healing.
+Shift Healing: At the cost of taking on another unicorn/current monster trait, may heal another Drifter of one active trait. This can only be used once per character.
+An increasingly vegetarian diet, including the flowers off various thorn bushes.
+Increased pain or disorientation in the forehead as horn grows in. May also experience pain in feet (hooves) or back (wings or tail) though healing magic can alleviate pain.
+A compulsion to heal the injured or protect those who can. Similarly, a compulsion to protect the virtuous and aid them.
+Fight or Flight response: more likely to bolt at the sign of trouble with increased speed. If fleeing is not possible (or others are in danger) ready to fight to the death in desperate frenzy.
+Urge to run and be outdoors, gains an almost euphoric sensation when running at full speed.

05: TWISTED LAND

Finally the Convoy draws close to the tower and the moon glows balefully overhead, signaling an imminent Moon Warp. Shards of the tower fall away, exposing something encased in the surface. A chimera monster is pierced and pinned to the tower by swords. Elemental blood streams down, glowing in reaction to the Drifters, and causing the blades to glow in turn.

If Drifters make contact with the swords, they explode in a hail of shards, causing more wounds and damaging the tower. The shed blood twists the landscape. Deserts, forests, and swamps all shift together. With them come the hazards of those environments; quicksand, falling trees or strangling vines, terrible draining heat, all blending and switching without pattern. Such twisting weakens the tower. Further fragments break off and turn into monsters, aggressive and ready to fight. The Convoy braces against the twisting, but warning screens say that the shields are low on power. The shields occasionally waver, letting in the Moon Warp and monsters.

With the damage Drifters inflict in their battles, the environment twisting, and the sword shards, the tower crumbles away. It emits a burst of energy that disperses the land twisting, and ends the bloodshed transformations.

06: SALVE

In the aftermath of the warp, the tower has cracked and broken. A column of wavering light takes its place, reaching thin tendrils up towards the moon.

The red ichor leaks out of the tower in rivers, and any Husk it comes in contact with breaks open without transforming into a monster, instead releasing another glowing shard that travels upwards. Drifters can still harness this ichor to undo one change, though the limits still apply. Submerging in the ichor does not undo more than one change… Though it will stain Drifters with red.

The ichor can also heal wounds, and repair those quite thoroughly, acting as a good salve to mend Drifters from past battles.

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.

Twisted Creatures: Local fauna (flying rabbits, jackalopes, gorgons wandering in from the grasslands, etc) gets caught in the thorn bushes and begins bleeding, and turning into a monster. The process is slow and painful, giving Drifters enough time to get away from the scrub brush and the monster if they wish; or enough time to try and dispatch the creature.

Thorn brush: Clumps of thorn brush line the road. A time or two they even grow over the road and need to be hacked through, in order for the Convoy to proceed. The brush is almost like razor wire, with how sharp the thorns are, and how ready they are to slice up skin.

Watering Hole: Rarely, one can find a small oasis in the bleached land. Unfortunately, many of the twisted creatures want a drink from this place as well; it’s a task to grab water and avoid getting on their bad side.

NAVIGATION

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Faith-san?

[Akechi approaches cautiously, having sprouted a pair of hooked, striped horns and spines along his back.

The scar along her neck is worrisome, to be sure, but clearly she's not thrilled with the changes.

Truthfully, Akechi can't blame her.]

Do you need anything?

[It's all he can ask, as "are you okay?" would come across as patronizing at best.]

[She wheels around, arms raising defensively, clearly on edge.

And then she sighs and lowers them. Her breathing is harsh and ragged. She tries for nonchalant, but the tension and the slight breaking of her voice give her away.]

Settle for a scarf.

[No. No, there's nothing he can do. Nothing she can do. Nothing any of them can do.]

I may have something, if you need it.

[He has been scavenging clothing and other supplies, after all. One might even argue he's been a bit of a hoarder.

But he'll wait for confirmation first. Best not to be too fussy.]

Yeah, why not?

[She was only half-serious, but... yeah. She's thinking neck accessories just became non-negotiable.

She crosses her arms and leans against the jeep, resting her head against the increasingly scuffed and dented metal, and gives a weak laugh.]

... Damn, check me out. Folks been sprouting claws and feathers for months, I'm losing it over a bad neck.

[Her voice shakes audibly. She needs a smoke. Can she even still smoke?

Well, she's about to find out. Honey toffee be damned.]

Pretty stupid, right?

[She reaches into her torn jacket pocket and goes through the familiar ritual of smacking the cigarette pack, fishing out a cigarette, tucking it between her lips, and switching the pack for a lighter.]

I wouldn't call it stupid. The changes come without our consent and outside our control. It's only natural to be unhappy when your appearance shifts in such a way.

[It may be subtle compared to his changes, but it still sticks out, draws attention.

And what could come after?]

Give me a moment, and I'll see what I can find.

[Muffled slightly by clenching a cigarette in her mouth, she mutters a distracted-]

Yeah, I guess.

[The very picture of unconvinced. She runs her free hand over the maimed neck, frowning, the cigarette momentarily forgotten between her lips. She glances at her hand- no blood, at least. Jesus, that would be disgusting.

She sighs and shakes her head, holding the unlit cigarette in her hand again so she can speak properly.]

No rush, yo. If I have to just deal, I can deal.

That won't be necessary.

[Just give him a couple of minutes to go back to his room in the Convoy. Once he rummages a bit, he digs out a spare scarf, then makes his grand return.]

Any issues with the cigarette?

Just the flavor. Thanks.

[Deadpan as hell, but not not true. She accepts the scarf and starts experimentally tying it around her neck, trying a few different styles before she finds one that's not too uncomfortable.]

...You ever wonder why it's us?

Why we're brought here, or why we become these specific monsters?

[There is an important distinction, after all. Granted, either is worth interrogating.]

Both, I guess.

[She takes a long, long drag on the cigarette. Unsettlingly, some wisps of smoke curl out from under the scarf, presumably from the hidden neck wound. She seems to have adjusted to this, because she doesn't react.]

Finally thought I was doing things right, y'know? Rocky path to redemption, or whatever. Next thing I know, I'm on a high-stakes road trip with the world's worst tracheotomy.

[Akechi slowly inhales, hands rolling up tight. She hit the nail on the head, really.]

I had made peace with death, if it meant I got to choose for once in my life. When we banished a false reality dreamed up by a bleeding heart of a therapist, I assumed that would be the end. Instead, I awakened on February 4th, alive. I had no idea what to do, but I eventually chose to come forward with my knowledge and experiences to land a death blow to the corrupt conspiracy that I had played a part in.

[A bit of smoke escapes with a sigh, despite his lack of cigarette.]

Then I wound up here.

Thing with your dad, right?

[She remembers the discussion, though he hadn't been clear about the specifics.]

Not to get all Doctor Phil, but old are you, anyway?

Eighteen... or, well. I suppose I'd be closer to nineteen now.

[He shrugs. Time is a funny thing. He hasn't even considered factoring in his birthday, even if it's certainly been long enough by this point.]

[Her reflexive thought is that he's crazy young to have gone through all that. Then she remembers that she was sixteen herself when she became a Slayer, not quite seventeen when she became a murderer, and just over eighteen when she went to prison.

... And that thought is really messed up, but there was a point, anyway.]

Yeah, well... dunno about most of these people, but you definitely don't belong in a place like this.

[She sounds a little bitter when she says it.]

I don't know.

[He peers toward the sky, toward that eerie moon.]

I robbed an innocent girl of her mother, and by doing so, enabled my worthless father to make her believe it was her fault. She endured years of abuse at the hands of neglectful relatives and by the time a decent man rescued her from that predicament, she had retreated into herself.

Most of my other targets were merely jobs. I turned a blind eye because I saw my goal as worthwhile, but I'm not stupid. I enabled atrocities, and no amount of explanation or excuses will change that.

[She's silent for a long while after that story, aside from the sound of her occasional puffs on the cigarette.

After a few long moments, she offers-]

If it helps any, I tried to help my boss turn into a big-ass snake demon and eat the local high school.

[She couldn't really argue with the guilt he was feeling. What, it was okay because somebody else told him to do it? Wilkins told her to kill the volcano guy, and the demon with the Books of Ascension... she'd give anything to take that back. When she was on her self-pity tours back in prison, if it wasn't Buffy's face haunting her, it was usually theirs.

She takes another long drag, leaning back against the jeep as she flicks off some excess ash. Her tone is a little more serious when she continues.]

So what'd you do about it?

That's... quite the admission.

[Some might argue that high schoolers deserve it. Akechi may be cynical, but he's not that cynical.

Still, who is he to judge?

His wings flex slightly, barely more than a twitch. What did he do? Well...]

As for what I did... Put simply, I sacrificed myself so they could put an end to my father's crimes. Then I sacrificed myself again, when it seemed as though I'd been resurrected in a false, idealistic reality. We all believed that such a world was but a gilded cage, so we fought with everything we had, even if it meant I might die again.

[...]

Then I woke up on February 4th, alive despite everything. I had planned on exposing everything I knew about my father's conspiracy to land the final death blows and eradicate any stragglers. Instead, I ended up here.

Edited 2025-04-25 13:06 (UTC)

I dunno. Sounds like you did a better job with your screwups than I did.

[She stares at the glowing ember at the end of the cigarette for a few moments.]

Throwing your life away ain't it, though. Smarter and better guy than me taught me that.

[She finally looks back at Akechi with a strained smile.]

Sometimes I hate him for it.

It's annoying, isn't it? The way certain people smother you with concern... The Phantom Thieves had every reason to despise me, yet still asked me to join them in taking down my father.

[He slowly shakes his head.]

I never got that opportunity, nor did I get the chance to strike down the false god that made me its puppet, but I did join forces with them in the end. Since I'm still alive... Well, that ultimately depends on whether or not this was a one way trip.

It's a pain, for real...

[That gets a chuckle out of her. It could be annoying, because sometimes it was so hard to keep going, to keep fighting, to live instead of just giving up.]

... Still, kinda nice having somebody finally give a damn.

If we had gotten it sooner, perhaps our lives would have turned out better.

[He's thought about it many times. Lamented it, even.]

"Redemption" is a curious thing. Simple in fiction, but in reality... well. I suppose there will always be an element of subjectivity to it.

Hey, we made the bed, we took a bellyflop into it. I can jive with that part. I just wish the 'rocky path' didn't have to be this damn rocky.

[She takes another puff of her rapidly dwindling cigarette. A little smoke curls out through the scarf again. Yeah, you're definitely not gonna want this one back, Akechi.]

I was expecting, like, rough gravel, yo, maybe some potholes... Right now it feels more like we're fallin' down the grand canyon.

Well then. It's a good thing one of us has wings.

[He spreads those wings for emphasis. Terrible joke? Perhaps, but she opened the door to it, really.]

[She gives Akechi a long, unimpressed stare at that...

And then she cracks. She can't help it. She shoves him lightly- 'painless' lightly, not "Slayer" lightly, don't worry- in the shoulder as she starts laughing.]

God, you can't just say corny-ass lines like that.

[And yet, it's the least stressed she's looked since he found her. The laughter seems to completely cut through the misery and tension she was holding in, damn near doubling her over.]

[She's right, of course. It is corny, and rather out of pocket for someone like him, at that.

But her laughter does stir... something, and he finds it hard to complain.]

Perhaps the Phantom Thieves infected me with their sentimentality. I'll have to give them some choice words when our paths cross again.

APRIL EVENT LOG

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