APRIL EVENT LOG

[monstertruckers]

code

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

Comments

Monster Shift

[firstsoldier]

[Sephiroth has been watching for a while now.

Most people avoid injury when they can, and he'd gone out of his way to try to not suffer the scratches and cuts of the thorns once he realized he wasn't healing the way he should be, but this guy .. is very obviously doing it on purpose.

He does nothing. Says nothing for quite a while, he just watches Jayce. Watches as gaping, decayed-looking lethal-seeming wounds heal themselves, as antlers fall off and are replaced with a horn and sallow skin soothed into colorful hide like a stellar cloud. Of all the changes the SOLDIER has observed, this one seems to be the most gentle .. and it must feel good, or at least addictive, if the man keeps deliberately causing more.

And he himself, with wounds bound, deformations carefully hidden away beneath bloody bandages and evidence of his efforts to rid himself of the changes equally buried under cloth or black leather, can only wonder. Being approached, perhaps because of those same stained bandages, earns Jayce a long, measuring stare. Sephiroth's eyes have always been strangely catlike, but it's easy to assume the slit pupils are the only visible, obvious signs of change.]

...No.

[For all that Sephiroth can be intimidating when he chose to be, the response is almost gentle, and his question cautious, as if concerned of causing offense.]

These are minor. What.. you've become now, it seems to have healed your own wounds..?

[hexrot]

[ respectfully, jayce inclines his head and rests most of his weight on his best hoof. it was— a battle of balance on the way his legs bend and carry now, but nothing that was beyond a few days on accustomed training with his gait. he was pretty good with his balance. ]

My wounds were . . . Unique, I guess. To my initial changes.

[firstsoldier]

[If nothing else, he doesn't at least have hooves to worry about. Everything else was already enough.]

And ... more appealing, I take it, by how you have been repeatedly seeking further injury?

[Years of practice means there's no sound of judgment to the question, at least, but it does reveal he's been watching for a while.]

[hexrot]

Not so much the appearance, [ jayce had foresaken his pristine golden boy looks for his more rugged exterior the moment his life changed in that ravine. it's not about looking in the mirror and seeing a broken man in a tattered stag's build. jayce rubs his wrist, where the source of his bright white scarring clashes with the nebulae swirling around his body. ] but feeling— alive.

[ it was about seeing and feeling himself dead. dead. and dead. a corpse looked back at him in the bathroom. ]

[firstsoldier]

[That's not a euphemism, given some of the gaping wounds, or what looked like wounds before. He'd looked like a walking dead man. The kind of thing the science department itched to get their hands on.

The kind of thing that would be breathtakingly terrifying to be, surely.]

..In that case, I hope it lingers for you. Some did, after the rain.

[Most did go away, resolving themselves in time, so many avians and scaled people losing those traits. He lost most, but not all, of those changes. This.. prismatic form was surely preferable to what came before. One horn instead of two, healed instead of torn open.

He hesitates for a long moment before continuing, brow furrowed a little.]

Does aiding others help that feeling?

[hexrot]

[ if he had a choice between this and dead, he'd most certainly choose this. if there's anywhere to sit, jayce would take it; his leg no longer housed an open, jutting fracture, but that didn't mean he was free of the strain and disability. he chooses to sit across the man and rubs at his scarred wrist. while multicolored and shimmering like stardust, the spiderwebbing and runic script beneath his thumb was still there for his comfort. ]

. . . It's an urge. A duty. [ and how he knows that it's different from something that belonged to him— ] More often than what would be normal.

[ for him, at least. ]

[firstsoldier]

[There's plenty of space, on the sturdy back bumper and covered bed of the truck Sephiroth found himself saddled with. Maybe not the most comfortable, but it's clean, and any possessive impulses are immediately and strongly squashed. Denying someone somewhere to even just sit, when they'd obviously been in terrible shape so recently, was pointlessly cruel.]

A.. compulsion?

[But not a bad one, it seems. Such a thing was useful, wasn't it? Better to want to heal than want to kill. The colors are watched, the strange way they shift depending on the lighting and angle.

His urges, the strange flashes of impulse, were not so beneficial.]

My only injuries are from the thorns, and are minor at best. But if it will help with these.. unwelcome changes for you..

[hexrot]

[ jayce huffs; it's well meaning, close to a laugh. he doesn't do much of that, as of late. ]

I wouldn't call these unwelcome, [ and with a gesture for the man's hand, he adds, softly: ] excuse me.

[ jayce's hovering palms, now a faint glow of gold, find a clinical hold just above one of sepiroth's lesser injuries. it is a genuinely gentle touch with the best intentions, and once the connection is made, the flood trickles through. slow. tranquil. and that, on top of the scrapes sizzling clean off flesh, a calmness is shared. ]

[firstsoldier]

[Compared to what came before, this had to be better. Psychedelic colors and healing was better than being a walking corpse.

Though the impulse is there, always there to flinch away from anything like a touch from someone else, Sephiroth remains carefully still. It's been over a decade since he put up a fight with any medic of any form, and he wasn't going to ruin his record today.

All his injuries are comparatively minor, but not all of them come from thorns. As Jayce's new power mends the damage done, that much becomes rapidly obvious as between bandages can be seen promptly regrown healthy gleam of pebbly silver scales, of short tawny fur that had all been carefully and meticulously removed no matter the damage doing so caused. The sense of external calmness blunts the frustration that bubbles up.]

...Ah, I'd thought so.

[But it does feel better; even minor hurts can be aggravatingly persistent on the edge of awareness.]

[hexrot]

[ it doesn't take long, relatively speaking, but jayce does take his sweet time in allowing the magic to seep into the cracks of pain and damage to complete them and make them whole. it's a moment to rest, and it's one where jayce feels the most peace.

it's so strange to feel such peace when mind and body were in constant turmoil. an end to ssuffering that didn't require distractions. ]

How's that?

[firstsoldier]

[It's not unpleasant. No cold bite to go with it, no sharp bitter smell of antiseptic, the slow cessation of irritating pain and the influence of foreign calm makes it a better experience than he's used to when it comes to healing.

But there's something a touch rueful in the faint smile that crosses his expression as he cautiously runs his other hand along where bandages had hidden injury to see if pain lingers.]

The pain is gone, but the feathers and scales returned.

[And fur. Mismatched, all of it.]

Thank you. Minor or not, little hindrances add up.

[hexrot]

Glad I could help.

[ it fills him with a satisfaction that is much more positive than swallowing blood and gnawing on bone. it's . . . helpful. it leaves a better imprint. repair rather than destruction. jayce gets ready to stand on his best hoof, clambering and shoving himself up to stand properly. ]

I'm pretty easy to spot, if you need me for any more.