MAY EVENT LOG

[monstertruckers]

code

Out of the thorn brush, the land still looks twisted and broken. And it turns a lot more jagged as rocks burst up and out of the ground like teeth… And keep reaching upwards, in defiance of all the gravity that should be pulling them down. The further up the rock spires reach, the more they splinter until the stones are free floating. The same happens to the threadbare trees, their branches and leaves breaking off and hovering in empty air. The nature of this place becomes clear: reach too high, and eventually gravity gives up.

01: BATTLE GROUND

The ground grows rougher, pockmarked with craters and rents, like the landscape is scarred. A little further up the road is the source of those wounds. Curious Drifters will find a tangle of rock and metal reaching high up to the sky. It’s a snarl of wrecked vehicles, rock spires… And bodies.

Robotic hunters are half melted into the bones of a giant monster, and the lights have long since gone out of their lens eyes. Many of them still clutch weapons; swords, guns, and bullets by the bag-full. The hunters and weapons remain locked with the corpse of a horn crowned monster with arm length teeth, and it’s clear this tangle is the only thing that keeps the hunters or their weapons from floating off. Drifters can potentially loot the weapons… They just have to be careful about not floating off while they salvage equipment. The footing here is uneven, and the ground looks ready to break with a wrong step.

These hunters also carry prayer screen beads, but the data on them is horribly scrambled. Any attempts to tamper with them cause them to repeat a single message: “I STILL LIVE” before shorting out and shutting down.

02: HEALTH INVERSION

A building grows out of the valley; a hospital that has been turned upside down, and its foundations reach for the sky like weird tree branches. The hallways inside are all sorts of twisted up, and the building can’t seem to decide if Drifters should walk on the ceiling or the floors.

Twisted as the building is, ruins gutted by time and overgrown with vegetation… There is salvage available. Medical supplies, healing potions, healing herbs, all of it is bountiful in the hospital. The hospital is also rife with Husks, but all of them are inert… Or have already been broken apart long ago.

Then there’s the matter of the hospital screens flickering on in the wake of the Drifters. Warning lights try to flicker on, as old electronics try to scan the Drifters. The machines give up flickers of data, declaring Drifters to be “infected.” The old restraining systems of the hospital are still active, as manacles and straps alike shoot out, trying to restrain Drifters. The bonds keep them inert until they can be sedated and enclosed in what look like holding pens for violent patients. Best hope there’s someone around to help break a Drifter out.

03: SHARED THOUGHTS

The valley is overgrown with strange plants that glow with eerie light. Sometimes in camp stray glowing tumbleweeds roll through… And any contact has interesting side effects. Drifters will find they’re more aware and capable of picking up on unsaid things. These powers can the month. Each glow confers different abilities:

Blue Glow: Makes Drifters more empathetic in a psychic sense. They can register the emotions of those nearby, and may start to feel those same emotions.
Green Glow: Makes Drifters capable of projecting their emotions to other people.
Purple Glow: Gives Drifters telepathy, to hear and send thoughts to others.
Orange Glow: Grants Drifters limited psychometry. (Object reading.) Using it in the hospital or the battleground will yield unique visions and messages. Please comment to the mod/NPC thread below if your character wishes to do so!

Drifters can stack these effects, but this can overload their minds and force transformations. Those with Swarm traits will find it easier to handle psionic abilities. Additionally, ALL DRIFTERS who experience psionics will find themselves susceptible to Events 4 and 5.

04: MONSTER SHIFT, HIVE-MIND

Worryingly, extra contact with the glowing plants can not only stack mind abilities, but also force Swarm traits. The more a Drifter is overwhelmed by psionics, the more likely this is. Drifters will have access to all Swarm traits for this event, and the following:
+Psi Hunger. A need to eat psychic energy in the form of dreams, psi-infused objects (like sage brush) or even psychic minds.
+Psi Senses: luckily, Drifters can glimpse heavy psychic energy in the brush through enhanced senses, and pick out strange brain monsters. These are good eating for Swarm monsters… And there’s an unnervingly high number of them.
+Group Mind: compelled to link thoughts with other Drifters, to share emotions, memories, and achieve cohesion.
+An increasing reliance on telepathy/empathy/etc in place of speech.
+Increasing collectivist mindset. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few; this becomes more evident during high stress situations.
+Compelled to spend more time in the wilds, absorbing power from plants and hunting prey in wilderness. May also be compelled to share this prey with others.
+Gravity Affinity: If possessing wings or the ability to wall climb, may freely hunt/traverse corrupted gravity areas.

05: WHAT DREAMS MAY COME

On several nights the wind picks up, and sage brush is uprooted and sent tumbling into camp. The plants trade their prior glow to something more baleful and crimson. With the wind whipping through the camp, it’s almost impossible to avoid unless a Drifter is already secure in the Convoy.

The effects aren’t immediately obvious, until the Convoy sleeps for the night… And that sleep is different. Namely the sleep is connected, showing both memories and dreams from other Drifters.

Memories from their pasts can blend together to form a strange dreamscape, that connected Drifters can travel through. But those dreams can easily turn into nightmares. Those who were exposed to the fear toxin in February will trend towards nightmares and may have their old fears make a reappearance.
If those nightmares are vivid and unsettling enough, they can force a transformation. (This may be either current monster traits, or a Swarm monster!) And then…

06: BRAIN ATTACK

It happens just before dawn, during the blue hour… Or perhaps it might be more apt to call it the red hour, with how the sky is stained crimson. It’s just bright enough to distinguish something moving in the hills. Drifters can pick out a rustling in the brush; something that isn’t wind. There’s something moving, crawling on claw tipped legs… And looking less like sage brush and more like a brain.

The Intellect Devourers numbers in the hundreds. Their claws scour the ground as they race towards the Convoy and smash into the shield. Numbers start to overwhelm the generator, along with the chaos the brain brush has sown with their psychic echoes.

The psychic echoes increase as they swarm the campsite, trying to drive Drifters into a frenzy with nightmares, fears, and strange visions. The brains are also ready to use those long sharp claws to tear anyone disoriented enough into ribbons, and start feasting on them.

06-A: BRAIN BRAWL

Hallucinations: The Intellect Devourers try to whip up more terrifying visions. Anything to disorient the entire Convoy, or drive the Drifters into a madness that leaves them transformed and too wild to easily counterattack. These hallucinations may be past trauma, or something a Drifter fears happening; the ultimate goal is to leave Drifters panicking, changed, and vulnerable.

Rally: Still, there’s one thing the Devourers didn’t anticipate: and that is how sharing a mental link has given the Drifters an anchor with each other. With all the psychic echoes spreading through the camp, any and all mental links from before can easily flare back up. Drifters who have shared dreams or some form of mental connection may still transform, but their mental link can keep their minds stable and coherent instead of growing feral.

Scars: Whether through brute force battles or mental link resistance, eventually the Convoy is able to shrug off the attack… But there is still some damage done. The shield generator has shorted out, and the Convoy itself has taken a few gashes and gouges. Not to mention any transformed Drifters will still need to be talked down. Luckily the mental links are still in place to help with that, and there’s a truck full of medical supplies to help with patching up any hurts.

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.

Disorientation: When wandering through the brush, Drifters may experience a swarm of disorientation: their thoughts suddenly scramble, they forget where they were going or what they were doing. They may also come to with a set of gashes along their legs, and a sense that they may have seen something in the sage brush move… Or maybe it was just the wind.

Float: Occasionally, parts of the road just give up their hold on the ground and go drifting skywards. Hopefully those chunks of road don’t take Drifters and their vehicles with them. Tough vehicles can likely survive the drop, while Fast vehicles can speed away before they float too far upwards. Drifters caught outside their vehicles will have to hope they have fast reflexes… Or are either good fliers or good jumpers for the leap back down.

Raining Down: On occasion, gravity will flicker and warp oddly… And that means that other odd things can fall where they used to float; rocks, plants, not to mention the odd bit of hardware and buildings. Watch for falling objects of various shapes and sizes!


NAVIGATION

Comments

shared thoughts

[hexrot]

[ jayce would give anything to be frustrated about his damn antler rack because, quite frankly, he hadn't actually cared about them. the only setback they'd caused had been ripping his shirts, getting caught in overgrowth or hitting the frames both in convoy and his own vehicle. luckily, his truck had a spacey interior that allowed for room. it took some accustoming, but hindrances tend to become quite low on the scale of irritations for jayce. it's hard to beat anything out of the ravine, and perhaps the only true thing that keeps him in a strange push and pull of unncertainty, mixed feelings and grievance is being a walking corpse.

he'd be okay with just being part deer. satyr, if you will. he'd be alright with it. he'd get used to the balance of the hooves, swallow the chronic pain in his legs and be thankful he's not alive enough to get laminitis. it's the dead part of things, and newly, a very large, mutated form brought on by a surge of fear that has ruined most of his nights. he hasn't figured out how to turn back. work in progress, and constant scientific failure. being blind now is just another slab of icing on the cake. he could only hear (and smell) people coming.

is he doing all right? if the black void of his face could show any emotion, it'd be of exhausted, sour incredulity. it doesn't have to be seen, at least. it is felt like the strike of a hammer.

peachy, the thing responds with a dripping bit of sardonic bite, but only in thought, and one that shared. ]

health inversion

[hexrot]

[ "infected" . . .

jayce takes note of that; systems could be wrong, but they don't lie. jayce's hoofsteps are right behind danse at a safe distance, a very distinct cli-clock of his limp echoing off the hospital walls like a chamber. not only was it necessary to partner up for expeditions (safety measures), jayce would prefer to keep their medical supplies as stocked as possible for arcade to do the best of his ability. he's quite dead, but from time to time he finds those threads and bandages on him to keep his insides from falling apart. zombie perks.

jayce's reaction time is an abomination thanks to being both predator and cervid— he hears the terrible clicking of machinery sputtering to life and faces the attack just as a metal tendril snags danse's arm is snared. with a good grip on his hammer, jayce already positions his legs with the weapon's heavy head behind them, ]

Keep still—!

[ so that in a swift, swinging movement— he can crush and snap the manacle's hold under a space-distorting crunch of the mercury hammer's corrupted strike.

they should move fast; there's more than one. ]

battleground

[hexrot]

[ a funny mirror flip flops back at her: jayce, with cervid ears up with attention, then flopping down to relax with his own melancholy sigh. he sees the knife. his own hammer is down. ]

You're not so far off, [ a joking huff as he gestures to her blade; he knows he looks like a monster. is a monster. the last time he really sat down to talk to blake, they . . . were definitely going through the horrors, blake at a more heightened alarm than jayce had been. different positions in their similar, albeit different changes. jayce had already been dead, then. today, and now, he is quite a bit more cervid. he has the ears, a tailored fit in his slacks for the tail, the handsome (but rotting) antler rack and two hooved legs in the place of human ones. at least, the weight of his shuffling hasn't changed. he still limps with a distinct cli-clock of hooves dragging on stone and small little metal snaps from the brace that hugs his left leg. modified now, to fit how he's become digitigrade. ] what'd you see?

[faceguy]

Leo’s expression changes again, and with it his emotions. Concern, worry, fear, anxiety, all of them swirl together as he leans in a little closer to look at Donnie, eyes scanning him for any changes. There’s a little resignation in there, too; he knew it.

“What do you mean, you can feel it?” He tilts his head. “What, like… me getting mad because you pinched me?”

vegas

[hexrot]

[ who comes right through the door isn't someone new. he may look that way; high standing, haircut immaculate and dressing in a pristine white-red waistcoat and boots that rise to his knees. jayce talis was younger here, the trauma had yet to burn the wrinkles into his skin. he looked like a show pony: clean shaven, young, a bit tired but still bubbling with a mirthful sort of youth that he could never go back to— not in the real world, anyway. that . . . figure . . . thing . . . does get him to falter a bit, but rex makes his absolute day. arcade's presence has jayce's shoulders relax from the taut tension, and he drops to a single knee to greet the dog in turn. ]

—Hey, buddy—! [ who's a good boy??? oh you are the goodest boyd that ever did boy, but rather, the construct of his everything. jayce's eager eyes are dragging all over the canine's metal implants, awed and wondered in a way the jayce of today had dimmed like an expiring star. oh, there was a question earlier. dream logic has jayce circling back to what made sense, call it dream logic: ]

Ah, yeah, thank Gods. The Council had me picking out drapery and, [ he almost blows raspberries, clearly frustrated, waste of time he mutters, but instead just lets the click and hiss on his tongue die out on rex's panting and his own big hands scruffing up the animal's neck with abundant affection. ] he's incredible.

[taediosum]

[ Outside, it looks as if the world might be ending. But, in the mind of a child who's known nothing else beyond the far end of the base, it might as well have been. Smoke billows across the tarmac between raging fires, blending with the dark sky and making the destruction around them seem to range on infinitely.

There are plenty of threats, out here - but none of them seem to notice one lone soldier or the child with him. They're too busy locked in bloody combat with each other, the two sides barely distinguishable but for the occasional suit of power armor or flag-wearing recruit in fatigues. There are other things, out there, too, shadow-shapes that move through the darkly roiling clots of oily smoke pouring from burning buildings and destroyed vertibirds and vehicles. The flicker-fast race of nightstalkers chasing prey through the dark, silent except for the blended, menacing whisper of a hiss and rattle. Buzzing, fluttering cazadors the size of men, whipping past through the smoggy air.

They're beyond the facts of the situation (whatever they really were, to spawn that familiar nightmare) and out in the open clash of old, dead fears and new, living ones. Some of the soldiers are dressed in leather and red-painted armor, clashing savagely with NCR troops.

Arcade looks pale and a little sick, stricken - until he takes a sudden, jerking step forward, as if he means to break into a run. He stops short, looking back up at Danse almost guiltily, before reaching for his armor again, as if to drag him along with. ]

They're leaving—

[ The without us is implied in his desperate, imploring expression. Out on the very opposite edge of the chaos, just glimpsed through the smog, there's a still-functioning veritbird, preparing to take off, as a last few evacuees climb in through the open side door. His mother is there, with them, he's certain of it somehow, but in the moment he isn't quite sure how to articulate that and be believed. ]

[purplexing]

His lips press more tightly together with that new wave of emotions, familiar ones that he can't particularly label but more often than not they've been pretty much one big ball of such that's never completely gone away since the events back home. Donnie looks away, trying hard not to scoot back, doubting that would work anyway.

"Yeah... And just now with...stuff," he says, waving his hand around vaguely in a swirl.

[purplexing]

A breath escapes him as the scenery begins to shift partially. Donnie looks out at everything beyond, wet and dreary, frowning with uncertainty as he spies the tower.

"...wow," he says, sounding a bit flat but what else do you say? They both look like terrible options, even if he doesn't much mind the rain. If he absolutely had to pick between the two, he'd probably go for the wet.

[taediosum]

[ Arcade makes a non-committal sound at his explanation. He both recognizes Jayce and doesn't, both understands what he means and is completely out of the loop. The dream carries him on, either way, in the malleable fashion dreams so often do. ]

Keep buttering him up like that, and I'm going to get jealous.

[ Setting his book aside on a shelf near the door (half the rest of its contents so old, faded, or torn they're undoubtedly illegible), Arcade motions to both of them. ]

Come on. He could use a walk, and you look like you could do with a little fresh air. Get your mind off of... important things. Like drapery.

[ Rex woofs in agreement, but probably only because the operative word there is "walk." ]

[taediosum]

Well, there's the bar, or...

[ Holding his cigarette in the corner of his mouth for a moment, he reaches back into his bag, this time retrieving an old, dusty bottle with a scraped-off label. There's clear liquid inside, and he offers it to her. ]

You can rinse it off here, if you're worried that stuff's going to bake in.

[purplexing]

...I touched an orange one too. And blue....

[He hadn't clocked the effects though. But then he has been feeling...odd now and then, for lack of being able to describe it any better.

Donnie nods.]

Sounds like the most practical way to go about it.

[solitarysoul]

"Oh, that really is useful. I don't think magic worked like that where I come from. But I knew almost nothing about it anyway."

[solitarysoul]

"Um...t-thanks?" He's not sure he agrees with that compliment. He's pretty sure he's scary looking like this and, well, that wasn't good now.

[solitarysoul]

I think this is the first bow I've seen here. Crossbow? I-is that what that one is?

[solitarysoul]

He turns to look. Right, the stairs that were always there, he feels silly for asking and heads over to them. "Y-you are? Are you sure?"

[soldiernoclass]

"Well, yeah," Zack offers with a shrug, as he finishes setting up his hasty, makeshift target range. There's three bits of shrapnel of different sizes that he's set up on their sides, all facing toward her. "But you have to learn to aim before you learn to compensate."

Backing away from his handiwork, Zack nods decisively before gesturing to Jolie. "So show me what you've got!"

[soldiernoclass]

"I'm— I'm okay!" He coughs a little, choking on the thickening smoke as the fires surrounding them leap higher. It's more or less the truth, though, the rough sound of his voice aside. He's scraped up and breathing hard, but uninjured, as far as he can tell. Somehow, that doesn't make him feel any better, though.

"What about you? And - that guy you're with?" This time it's not the smoke that makes him falter, as he tries to recall the shape of the person he saw her supporting. As he tries not to think about the shape of the blood he glimpsed on her.

"I think I can find my way around this..."

[faceguy]

With stuff. Oh.

The anxiety grows to a dark buzz inside Leo, and he grimaces. So Donnie can, what, feel his emotions? Great. Great! Cool cool cool cool coolcoolcoolcool-

Leo tries so hard to hide his emotions, most of the time. Always smiling, always laughing, always trying to keep the mood light. In his opinion, it’s all anyone needs from him. Nothing good comes from Leo sharing his feelings.

Except now it’s happening against his will. He can smile all he wants, and it won’t matter if Donnie can feel it, how scared and anxious and tired he is all the time.

“…I knew it,” he says grumpily. “Plants are bad.”

Trauma Hole

[solitarysoul]

[The dream had started as a normal one for Levi, moving through blood soaked, muddy trenches accompanied by the sound of artillery fire. But as he walked the walls became less uniform and dug out and more natural. Its gradual, and Levi barely notices until he spots someone he doesn't recognize and realize he's in a totally different place. A natural cavern of some sort.]

H-hello?

[Levi, clad in an army helmet and jumpsuit and carrying his rifle calls out and takes a tentative step towards Jayce. Most of his dog features have gone, only the nose and red eyes remain to mark him as anything but human.]

[andnevermore]

[ Blake holds up a finger. ]

Just listen.

[ Look, she gets Faith's trepidation. The song starts off simple, just a slow piano tune underneath the singer's voice. But as they listen, the parade drums start kicking off, a rattling beat to accompany the piano. And then in comes the guitar, a soaring melody to start bringing everything together, the singer's voice turning jagged around the edges.

Blake grins. ]

It's one of those songs that keeps getting better and better. What music are you normally into?

[andnevermore]

[ Blake flips the dagger to a backhand grip, idly shifting it out of the way as she takes in-- well, Jayce's everything.

He's changed so much since she last saw him. Suddenly, Blake and her new wings don't feel so awkward, but she still huddles them around her shoulders anyway, a self-soothing motion after the vision that had blazed its way into her corneas. She really can't tell what kind of undead Jayce is; she hadn't been able to figure it out before, and she can't now. Admittedly, her knowledge on zombie lore in a little lacking. She'd always been way more into vampires and werewolves. ]

I, um. [ Blake has to take a second to recover from the sight of him. She turns, and starts searching the half-melted cyborg to see if the dagger has a sheath. ] It was... a cyborg, like this one, marching to confront a group of transformed humans. Some of them were praying to the moon.

[ The sheath she finds is simple, black, and unadorned. It fits well when she straps it around her thigh. With how much fighting they've done lately, she's started to think that more weapons might be useful. ]

And this symbol was there. [ With the tip of her dagger, Blake draws the symbol of the weeping eye above the moon. ] Have you seen this before?

[andnevermore]

[ Blake tucks the dagger back into a different grip, angling it away from Leo. She's still so-- jumpy in this place. She wishes she could figure out a way to stop being paranoid about every small sound and irregularity, but her Huntress instincts are constantly being triggered with the continual dangers. ]

It was... a group of transformed people, like us. A cyborg was going to confront them. A lot of the people were praying to the moon, holding onto this symbol... a weeping eye above the moon.

[ Blake uses her free hand to rub at her temple, warding off the headache that wants to spring up. ]

I guess it's something that happened where we're standing. I just wish I knew what it meant.

[andnevermore]

"It's definitely not from my world, but I don't know if it's from here, either," Blake admits.

She leans into the van again to pick out a CD at random -- the Now That's What I Call Music 8, the one that Shadow found -- and offers it to Jolie to examine, if she wants. None of the artists are familiar to Blake, but maybe Jolie might recognize some of them?

"The genres are familiar, though. I guess music doesn't change that much even across different dimensions."

[andnevermore]

[ Blake laughs, caught off guard. And then admits wryly: ]

I have no idea, actually. But it sounds cool, right?

[ Like this, Blake actually finds a measure of peace in this strange world. The torn and twisted landscape takes on a strange beauty under the moonlight, like something out of a surrealist painting. There are no monsters attacking right now, the Convoy's shield humming gently at the perimeter, and Welcome to the Black Parade is just beginning to kick off, instruments rising in the background, one by one.

She tucks her wings around her, and sneaks a peak at Shadow. ]

I like your wings. [ She says it with a shy little smile. ] They must be pretty new, right? Mine are too.

[andnevermore]

[ Blake absorbs that quietly. As she thinks, she turns to the cyborg half-melted into the giant ribcage, and starts searching it for a sheath to the dagger that was clutched in its hands. With the amount of combat they're seeing every week, more weapons aren't a bad idea.

Finally, she ventures: ]

Do you think we can assume that this First Impact, whatever it was, was what made this world this way?