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

1 Road Attack

The one thing Sephiroth is good at is mass destruction in a place he really doesn't have to think about collateral damage. He's human enough on first glance to get a pass by the initial sweep of raiders, but as soon as they become hostile to anyone, he retaliates. Once he'd assured himself that the hounds and drivers are all machines, or at least machine enough where there's no longer a 'person' and only the programmed creature, there's no reason to hold back anymore. And the longsword he prefers to fight with, longer than he is tall, seems to slice through machines as easily as it does flesh and bone.

Not a word is said, to the machines or anyone else out here. He's ruthless in his efficiency, and anyone under attack is someone to be defended with alarming strength and speed for all that he still LOOKS unchanged. Tactics shift, if the person he finds himself fighting nearby is capable in their own right, or needs a little extra defending.

He's keeping watch, through the growing field of debris, violence and scattered parts of vehicles and robots, for anyone who matched the descriptions he'd been given over the network; who knew what monsters might try to take advantage of the chaos, but attacking someone already identified as an ally was unthinkable.

2 Tiny Watering Hole[CW: self-harm]

The path to this particular water hole had been cleared more by large animals and monsters than by people, but Sephiroth's military truck sitting a short distance away also did significant work in plowing a path, the rest patiently by hand with a weapon more suited to parting flesh than hacking bushes, but it means there's a winding trail to a sheltered bit of water between towering stones, mostly red flowers dotting the debris field.

There's a smell of blood and death, the misshapen creatures that had been using it as their own drinking place slaughtered and tossed off the path, a tempting scent to any suffering the chimeric urge for fresh meat. But not all of the scent is from the dead monsters, a sharper, more bitter chemical tinge to those with senses sharp enough to pick up on it.

It's there the SOLDIER had been intending to fill more bottles and containers of water for the caravan but had stopped at some point to tend to his own injuries in the cooler shade of one of the leaning stones, boots and heavy jacket left to one side in a neat pile, the deadly longsword nowhere to be seen. Countless people have wounds from the recent conflicts, but he's not used to an injury lingering, they should be well on their way to healing and they're ... not. None of the thin cuts look like they're caused by any monster, likely gained in the effort of clearing a way here, but they bleed. Red, vivid against pale skin, but not quite smelling right. The black feathers on the ground and the rows of red dots on his skin are probably completely unrelated. Maybe. And the shaven off clawtips, and gleaming metallic silver scales dotting the ground from where they've been shorn off.

Clearly it's fine, because he looks utterly, unshakably calm about having to actually bandage his wounds for the first time in his life, feet already heavily bound and red slowly staining through the cloth bit by bit.

3 Aftermath, Junkyard Diving

Now that the violence mostly over, with the tower dealt with and things.. more or less settling down, Sephiroth can be easily found in the ruins of the raider fleet of vehicles, picking his way through the debris with unnatural grace, investigating one after another ... driver side doors on any large vehicle.

With a measuring tape. Just anything won't do, he's after something specific.

[Wildcard option: Sephiroth is always lurking. He's quiet, he's shockingly unobtrusive for a guy his size, he helps where he can, and he goes for violence pretty much immediately as soon as monsters or evil robots are involved with a sword he keeps pulling out of nowhere. Wanna play with any of this instead of what I have? Gimme a PM, I'm flexible but awful at toplevels.]

The scent is powerful and alluring; so much slaughter carried on the wind some distance from the source of water. And... Vincent is nearly to its source when his senses snap back into a more human perspective.

Sharp, sterile. Monster do not bandage their wounds and use antiseptic agents. Perhaps not in direct sight yet, but near enough in proximity for the alert and battle-hardened to be aware despite the stealth. But then the changes Vincent has undergone since they entered the desert of thorny bushes had not yet forced him to abandoned his boots. So there would be the sound of metal to his steps.

For a second, after checking his hands and finding them thankfully as normal as ever- a part of him had feared they would both be replaced by real claws, not just metal ones upon the gauntlet- Vincent pauses a moment to rub one hand over his face, focusing on the clarity of his human self. It's a practice, a mantra he's gone through countless times before.

Just... usually to recover from a half remembered outburst of his other form and not this... full awareness of how he's been. Once he's sure he has himself under control of the impulses, inasmuch as he can, the man takes those last steps forward.

Though... he wasn't expecting to find what he does. The War Hero of Wutai does in fact bleed.

Vincent isn't hiding his approach, yet he doesn't make some pithy remark on the circumstances either. And at least for now, there's no compulsion on the former Turk's part to attack Sephiroth for meat or challenge.

Though the caution and eyes upon the first SOLDIER suggest he's not sure where Sephiroth stands.

"Need a hand?"

Making an offer like that is more than just some words from an altruistic comrade. No, Vincent is testing the level of threat currently present.

Metal boots on stone and gravel is hardly a stealthy approach, and it's the lack of stealth that keeps Sephiroth from preparing for another attack, listening and watching instead. That didn't even sound like the machines that had assaulted the caravan. So when a recognizable shape in red and black appears down the path he'd made, he doesn't immediately lunge to his feet in defense of his kills, he just watches in measured assessment.

The ex-Turk doesn't cut a normal silhouette anymore, with those behemoth-esque horns and long, heavy tail. His pause and rubbing a hand over his face might be innocent, might be wrestling with monstrous instincts, or worse.

And Sephiroth bides his time, unmoving. If he were suddenly attacked, there'd be one more corpse in the thorns--

It isn't until Vincent actually speaks that he reanimates, returning to tying off a bandage as if nothing were out of place, the mask of calm unbroken. The smell of his ~~prey~~ slain enemies were still thick in the air, but he wasn't ~~hungry~~ interested in corpses, they weren't likely to suddenly reanimate. This intrusion .. visitation, passing by and likely little else, was hardly a reason for concern, was it?

"There are more containers that need filling, if that's what you mean." He does bleed .. and he shouldn't still be doing so, not with such minor injuries. He doesn't sound quite right, changed teeth forcing a different way of speaking, but he ... sure SEEMS perfectly in control of himself. "The water seems clean."

Vincent ~~is trying not to breathe too heavily the scent of meat~~ has his face buried in the collar of his cloak, largely unreadable. His eyes are still red, he sounds normal; no mouthful of teeth to compensate for. For many it might take a second glance to realize he has a tail at all thanks to the long train of worn fabric.

The tip of it lashes in absent tics. He seems not to notice nor be thrown off by it.

The former Turk studies Sephiroth for a long moment; far longer than necessary to suggest he's wary. Not that he isn't, but his interests fall elsewhere as well.

"Sure." Why not? That's what he means. Or he'll help out. Slowly he paces first toward the collection of containers, then to the water's edge. There will be some dedication to the task, crouched and mostly turned toward the process of collecting the water.

"....It doesn't help."

The words drift back. Quiet, moderate.

He stays where he is, quiet, observing. Part of him is sharply alert for signs of aggression, just not the sort one would encounter versus monsters, waiting instead for the arrogant, overconfident displays of bluster he occasionally found when facing against Wutai's elite. Or a young freshly enhanced SOLDIER riding high on treatments and feeling a bit too big for their boots.

He's waiting for a challenger, to his kills or the watering hole, and he is on some level aware of it and disconcerted by it.

It's not his spring, and Vincent isn't contesting his ownership of it.

"..I'm sorry?" It doesn't help refocuses him from waiting for some display of attempted dominance or contesting his place.

The blood is not just prey. The shorn claws, the torn scales still littering the ground. There is nothing that would convince him that Sephiroth had somehow lost all of that in the battles against the beasts lying dead in the thorns. These were what had drawn the man's attention in that other way. For a moment, Vincent stills. His right hand tightens a bit around the container he's holding.

But he forces himself to continue, now sure he can keep his voice even as he caps off the water and sets that aside. Then turns to face Sephiroth fully.

"It all comes back. You're only hurting yourself."

The cape's long folds shift as the tail lashes; while Vincent seems to move with grace that belies someone trying to become accustomed to new limbs, he doesn't have complete control on the display of emotion.

"...You don't have to like it. But don't cripple yourself fighting it."

A precarious illusion, one way or another. There's a reason beyond thorns that his feet are bound as they are, he'd simply not gotten back to putting his boots on; not everything can be easily cut off or shaved away. Not everything. But enough.

"Does it?" For all that the circumstances are less than desirable, panic hasn't ever really set in. This was happening to everyone as far as he could tell, he just.. didn't tolerate it on himself. It's easy to remove scales, or feathers. If that's all it ever was he'd be fine.

Except he can run his tongue over teeth no longer designed for an omnivore's diet, and those wouldn't be so easily removed. "Your concern is kind but misplaced. These will heal in time." Slower than they should be by far. He shouldn't still be bleeding. That was too normal, waiting for clots to form the way they do on ordinary people. "Should combat be necessary, I will be unhindered. You and the others will remain safe."

"Yes." Vincent isn't going to mince possibility here; that Sephiroth can shave away things here and get away with the illusion of being less a changing monster. Though personally he doubts it'll be much different in Revan. So he sticks with certainty, one gained from experience.

"Hrmph." Concern is it? The noise Vincent makes in the wake of that suggests it's nothing so grand even before he elaborates. "Are you sure about that? I doubt I'm the only one suffering from the trip here."

Well, he knows for sure that Sephiroth's combat skills haven't suffered. Nor the enhancements. And... it's fairly clear the man does not have a Restore materia on hand.

"There's no support team in the wings." Waiting to swoop in and patch up Shinra's prized weapon so the cameras never catch a glimpse that their 'hero' is mortal as anyone. Vincent retrieves another container and goes to fill it.

That draws a moment's pause, challenge weighed and decided ... unlikely. That was a perfectly ordinary comment from someone who didn't know what he was capable of. "You may test your doubts as to my fitness at your leisure." He's fought longer with far worse injuries than thorn scratches in the past and doubtless would again, changes or no.

"Support teams are a luxury and one often absent. This is no different." His smile is brief, behind a curtain of silver bangs. "For all that I am not as unstoppable as the news claims I am, I am also not a porcelain doll in need of rescue and pampering. I won't break so easily against thorns and scratches."

This was all deeply disturbing, in a profoundly unignorable way he didn't like to think about, the doubts and fears since childhood as to what he really was ground against uncomfortably, but it .. wasn't just him.

It wasn't. They were all changing, failing. Becoming the things he was tasked to destroy.

The thought is shaken off before it can settle too firmly into place.

Sephiroth | Final Fantasy Vii

2. so i herd u had raw meatz

delicious free meat in the picky bushes

ugh not the picky bushes. :C

Accursed pickies!!

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