monstertruckers: (Default)
monstertruckers ([personal profile] monstertruckers) wrote in [community profile] route666rp2025-05-06 05:39 pm

MAY EVENT LOG




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











andnevermore: (Default)

[personal profile] andnevermore 2025-05-16 08:09 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah. They...

[ Blake wipes a hand through the symbol she's drawn, defacing it, erasing it. For whatever reason, she doesn't feel comfortable leaving this kind of symbol out in the open. Maybe it's Jayce's experiments lending creedence to the idea that these symbols have power. Maybe she wants to leave as little of a footprint as possible. ]

I don't know, I really didn't like fighting those raiders.

[ Her confession comes with an uncomfortable hunch of her shoulders. ]

Monsters are easy. But the raiders looked human enough. And they had... messages on them. Orders telling them to seek Nirvana, just like us.
hexrot: (Default)

[personal profile] hexrot 2025-05-16 08:11 pm (UTC)(link)
[ snort! jayce's pointed canines flash with the smirk he gives. rising up to his heels, healthy and unaided, jayce accompanies the call to a walk he'd very much love. it means he'll think of anything but those colors. science would be an even better take away. i mean. rex is right there.

he can't help but marvel at the way the dog responds, both in consciousness and limbs. but before any of those questions come to light, jayce has to laugh at his own joke, patting arcade between the shoulders and saying: ]


I'll walk you, too, if that's what you're worried about.

[ heheh. ]
andnevermore: (003)

[personal profile] andnevermore 2025-05-16 08:12 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Blake's shoulders slump, defeated. ]

No, you're right. I think I did know, deep down. I knew he'd always try to find me. That was why... I tried so hard not to let any of you in. I'd hoped that if I kept you all at arm's length, then nothing bad would happen. I wouldn't hurt you. He wouldn't hurt you.

[ She's glad, suddenly, that everything around them is frozen. She doesn't think she could bear to watch more. The fall of the top of the tower Pyrrha was on. The dragon. She'd been too out of it at the time to really notice those things.

Her vision blurs suddenly, guilt and relief and joy and fury mixing sour in her stomach.
]

You all had every reason to hate me. I abandoned you. I abandoned Yang. I was so sure that I was protecting you by running away, but...

I'm just so relieved you took me back.
purplexing: (dubious leo plans)

[personal profile] purplexing 2025-05-16 09:19 pm (UTC)(link)
"To be fair, magic is still a pretty nebulous field of study that I'm not even sure where to start. This is the first thing I've been able to grasp of anything mystical, back home."

He shrugs, moving to shake out the bag now that it's free of bullets, dusting it off.

"Name's Donnie, by the way."
purplexing: (I didn't hear that right did I)

[personal profile] purplexing 2025-05-16 09:24 pm (UTC)(link)
The look on Donnie's face isn't a very comforting one, uncomfortable to be able to actually feel what someone else is, what his brother is feeling. He's not sure how to deal with that.

He ducks his head, like he's trying to hide in he shadow of his wings as he hugs his knees close again.

"...in this very specific instance, I am inclined to agree with you."
solitarysoul: (n.n)

[personal profile] solitarysoul 2025-05-16 09:32 pm (UTC)(link)
"Oh, s-sorry. I'm Levi."
purplexing: (mystic adds flavor)

[personal profile] purplexing 2025-05-16 09:38 pm (UTC)(link)
Donnie smiles crookedly, waving a hand. "Don't worry about it. I think names are the last thing on people's mind around here. But it'd be nice to know who I'm working with." Or looking out for.
fists_of_funny: (yang4)

[personal profile] fists_of_funny 2025-05-16 10:13 pm (UTC)(link)
Damn, even in her thoughts Ruby's got pipes. But now it's time to switch gears again. Once Ruby hits the last note, Yang switches to a favourite tune from a fighting game back home they all enjoyed, specifically the Atlas fighter's home stage music. Not the song itself, just thoughts of Yang doing an acapella version of the theme.

And you know what? It really does go with everything.
solitarysoul: commisioned art (Default)

[personal profile] solitarysoul 2025-05-16 10:27 pm (UTC)(link)
"Yeah, that's true. We have more important things to worry about than just names." He cants his head. "Is there anything out here you're looking for? I could keep an eye out for you."
fists_of_funny: (yang31)

What Dreams May Come

[personal profile] fists_of_funny 2025-05-16 11:13 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, that... mountain...thing sure is impressive. But in front of Yang is a bar, and the name is cool enough for her to go in and check it out. She saunters in and takes a seat at the bar.

"Hey, you got anything non-alcoholic?" She asks.
fists_of_funny: (yang25)

What Dreams May Come (You Know I Had To)

[personal profile] fists_of_funny 2025-05-17 12:07 am (UTC)(link)
The nightmare doesn't have to go far. Yang finds the van vastly more preferable to the sterile rooms of the Convoy, and she's ridden shotgun with Blake enough that its become homey enough for her as well. So when Blake curls up to sleep, Yang is right there beside her. And they both remember this moment.

At first, Yang thinks this is her nightmare. The fire, the screams, the roar of Grimm swarming the Beacon grounds as the life she'd become so accustomed to burned down around her. This is the night that broke Yang, for a long time. She'd already been fraying, but this, this moment is what that unravelled her completely.

But the nightmare has never been from this perspective before. And the thoughts and feelings—Blake's thoughts, Blake's feelings— overwhelm Yang in that moment, making her initially unable to parse what is happening. And Adam with his stupid hair and edgelord mask and smug little smirk...

Adam Taurus still fills Yang with feelings of dread that mingle easily with Blake's. Part of Yang's mind is trying to be heard over the flood of Blake's recollection, trying to assert itself herself, but Yang can't quite fully hear it before Adam stabs her.

And then she hears exactly what she expected to. Her own voice screaming GET AWAY FROM HER with a rage Yang hadn't realized she was capable of before that moment, and she can only watch with a kind of horrid fascination as she sees the dream of herself engage her Semblance and launch towards them.

Brothers, her form was sloppy. It's like everything slows down just so Yang can truly understand how easily Adam baited her. She does exactly what Tai criticized her for, she overcommits to the attack, she doesn't even try for a misdirect, she leaves herself wide open because Yang knows all she can see in that moment is Blake with a stab wound in her gut and and doesn't know if she's already too late. Yang wants to call her past self an idiot, but...

There was nothing else she would have done. And Adam does what he did. This part is new. Yang remembers a single, searing moment of pain greater than any she'd ever known, but she was unconscious before she even hit the floor. She didn't have to see her arm continue to arc through the air, getting farther and farther away, disappearing into the flames.

Blake has to live with this memory every day.

"Goddamn, you really love to hear yourself talk." It's a bitter condemnation, and all Yang has in her to do or try. Trying to fight Adam or change things would be pointless, but this is the closest look Yang has gotten at him, and honestly? She's already sick to death of what a bag of hot air he really is.

Then she puts her head down. "I'd really like for us to both wake up now."
Edited 2025-05-17 00:13 (UTC)
guidemyway: (Volume9-Ruby-149)

[personal profile] guidemyway 2025-05-17 12:14 am (UTC)(link)
[Ruby kneels down and squeezes Blake's shoulder supportively.]

I think we all kind of figured out that you had the best of intentions with what you were doing.

Hard to hate someone when all they wanted to do was protect you.

[She thinks on that last bit. Then just smiles slightly.]

That's what friends-

[She pauses for a moment and thinks about something Weiss had said in Atlas.]

That's what family does. We'd never leave you hanging.
andnevermore: (011)

the bottlecap

[personal profile] andnevermore 2025-05-17 12:24 am (UTC)(link)
There have been so many nightmares going around that Blake's glad to wind up on a beach at sunset. It's an unusual dream, for her -- her dreams are normally far weirder, and far less still -- but she takes the opportunity to relax anyway. It's only once Yang pulls in that it registers that this truly is a dream.

But it's more than that. It's a memory.

The bottlecap hadn't stood out to her before, but once Yang picks it up, Blake knows viscerally: it's hers. It's the same Sunshine Pop! bottlecap that she'd had in her pocket for months, the same one she'd lost on a beach in Menagerie. It's a relic of a simple, but vivid memory, the first time that she and Yang had really sat down and connected, reaching out to each other in conversation. The first time she'd opened up about the books she'd loved, and allowed Yang to see a part of herself in a time where Blake had largely been committed to remaining nothing but a reclusive shadow.

"I didn't know you'd found it," Blake murmurs. "That's mine. It's got a scratch on the side, under the exclamation mark."

She twists her fingers together, touching the golden ring that sits on her left hand. She'd taken it as some kind of trade of fate, her bottlecap for the famed Princess' ring. Now that she knows Yang found it, it feels like providence.

"I lost it back in Menagerie. I was sure I'd never see it again."
guidemyway: (Volume9-Ruby-30)

[personal profile] guidemyway 2025-05-17 12:25 am (UTC)(link)
"Wait- We have people with egg heads here? Did they have them when they got here? Or did they transform to have those?"

Ruby Rose asking the real questions here.
androidvictoriam: (pb - aghast)

[personal profile] androidvictoriam 2025-05-17 01:58 am (UTC)(link)
[ Even if Danse were used to the kind of dreams that build on themselves and drag in terrifying additional pieces like a growing vortex, this would be enough to give him pause, faintly overwhelmed by the new and unfamiliar horrors that even Arcade's adult mind finds worth dwelling on. Oddly enough, it's the darkness that sinks the deepest hooks into Danse's own fears, more so than the foreign Mojave wildlife or the ever-heightening flames--but all of it is of a piece, and it's only for his charge's sake that he snaps himself out of it with his heart still thudding.

He wouldn't be able to blame Arcade for fearing that Danse wouldn't believe him about the necessity of getting on that flight. If Danse had a track record of believing him about anything important, they wouldn't be here right now. But he takes Arcade's word about this, even if he doesn't know the exact thought process here, because if he doesn't know better now, he never will. And in any case, that 'bird is the only way out of here that he can see. Trying to catch it is imperative.

It would be cruel, and borderline impossible besides, to expect a small child to run that far with time so much of the essence, and so Danse makes the quick decision to scoop him up--the weight no burden at all--and cross the distance as fast as he can with the benefit of his armor to lengthen his stride. Halfway there, he calls to the pilot with a voice that's good for nothing in the world so much as shouting orders across a battlefield and having them heeded. It's particularly well-trained to carry over vertibird propellers, after the Brotherhood commandeered ones like these for themselves. ]


Hold departure! There's one more!

[ Just one, though, because as genuinely touched as he is by Arcade's impulse to turn back for him, he knows he doesn't belong on that vertibird, with as much certainty as he knows Arcade needs to be on it. But he doesn't belong on the battlefield, either, whether he's wearing borrowed Enclave armor or not--wouldn't belong on either side now, even when he would so recently have reveled in throwing himself into that fray. It doesn't matter. He'll find somewhere to be. He hands Arcade off into the arms of someone waiting in the vertibird, someone whose face he can't see. ]

It's all right. You'll be all right.

[ He can say that now, he realizes, even when everything else about this has been frightening and uncertain. Time has at least decided that already. ]
Edited 2025-05-17 02:37 (UTC)
guidemyway: (3999546 (43))

[personal profile] guidemyway 2025-05-17 02:29 am (UTC)(link)
We'll figure it out. If it makes you feel any better I am pretty good at landing a big drop.

[Once he tests the rope she'll take hold and start to climb up.]

I'd offer to let you go first, but I feel like if you were to fall there's not much I could do to catch you.

[Robots were pretty heavy after all, weren't they?]
wereperrito: (poke)

[personal profile] wereperrito 2025-05-17 02:50 am (UTC)(link)
[Well, that's not going to make Jack go away. He dispatches the lizard quickly, so it doesn't hurt itself further on the snare, and then leaves it to approach where that mind is hunkered down.]

It is just me. Jack. Maybe I can help?
wereperrito: (Default)

[personal profile] wereperrito 2025-05-17 02:51 am (UTC)(link)
"No, no. I promise I am not that excited. That was reckless," Jack says hastily. "I can be careful and quiet now, I promise."

As careful and quiet as Jack ever is. Quiet is not a word most people would generally apply to him.

He glances around, paws still on Serph's knee. "Is this your dream?"
purplexing: (no i don't believe you)

[personal profile] purplexing 2025-05-17 03:00 am (UTC)(link)
"Names are still important. I for one would like if someone noticed if I went missing."

Donnie tilts his head, looking back at the cyborg. Is it a good thing or a bad thing to consider it more of an object than once a person? The former made it easier to scavenge off of, anyway...

"Was thinking of melting down some of the swords to use for a new staff, so if you find a few and no one wants them as is, I'll take them."
wereperrito: (sneak)

[personal profile] wereperrito 2025-05-17 03:01 am (UTC)(link)
It's a curse! It's magical! Terrible magic, but still. He puts his free hand to Serph's face, worried still, their faces close together with his attempt at support. "I'm good at keeping watch, but terrible at doing something about it if I see something," he warns. The buzzing is getting worse. He swallows a few times, but it doesn't go away, fueled by the need to fix this, to not see his friend, roommate, and who knows what else this helpless and exhausted. "What if I could help?"
wereperrito: (Default)

Re: You know she's evil in the dream because she's making dog jokes on purpose!

[personal profile] wereperrito 2025-05-17 03:04 am (UTC)(link)
Jack's ears perk up and his head turns in the direction of the voice. "Faith?" he calls, not loudly, lest there's actual trouble, but loud enough that she can still hear him. That definitely sounded like Faith, and her smell is everywhere. She had been chagrined the last time she made a dog joke, though... maybe she doesn't know it's him?

He starts padding in her direction, adding, "It's just me. It's Jack."
bufudine: (the usual rainy weather :|)

[personal profile] bufudine 2025-05-17 03:10 am (UTC)(link)
"Then I would accept it."

There's no question about it. He trusts Jack. His comrade. If he says he can help, then Serph will believe him wholeheartedly.
definitionofcrazy: (Yeah?)

[personal profile] definitionofcrazy 2025-05-17 03:11 am (UTC)(link)
Good, you're not squeamish. So we're five-by-five, right Leo?

[Sorry, her threshold for reasonable squick is pretty high. As evidenced by her now sawing through the bone, mostly with brute strength. She is, evidently, stronger than she looks.

Good news is, she's made note of the name. And his objection to the nickname.]
thetatters: human= (share in evening's)

wildcard

[personal profile] thetatters 2025-05-17 03:14 am (UTC)(link)
If one counts purely by duration, then most of John's remembered life has been spent in Hell. The Dark World. But surely time spent there doesn't count as life, not in the way mortals understand it— so by any reasonable mortal metric, most of John's life has been spent here, in Revan. And in a dim underground pit, trapped within the eyes and hand and foot of a man who hated him.

It was reasonable for Arthur to hate him, at the time. And Arthur did... did try to die for him, at the end, in a way. So he can't have hated John entirely. They were still friends. Still: for much of that long stretch, John had little in the way of warmth of pleasure. The highlight of his day, the measure by which he privately kept time, was when Arthur recounted his dreams.

Clear blue skies. A gull wheeling, white and serene, far above. The glitter of the light on the ocean, just past the vibrancy of the beach. He has dwelt on that secondhand vision so long he knows it better than many of his own memories.

But he'd never imagined the salt tang in the air. The sound of the waves, a layered rhythmic roar. The way it all glitters. He stands entranced on the shoreline, gazing out breathless upon it all.
bufudine: (searching for something lost :|)

[personal profile] bufudine 2025-05-17 03:26 am (UTC)(link)
The beach.

It's a pleasant dream that Serph has held on to ever since he woke to his emotions, blood in his mouth and the sound of ocean waves crashing upon a shore he's never seen. It's a dream that had slowly filled out as he collected more and more fragments of his memories. A beautiful ship -- a cruise liner, not a battleship like Gale had hypothesised -- floats at sea in the horizon. A house -- mansion -- settled somewhere further up the shore.

But the vision is incomplete. Serph doesn't know what lies in the spaces between. It's a void in the environment, the type of thing that eyes would simply slide over.

Serph is beside John, wings tucked in close, gaze turned up towards the sun. Unlike his other dreams, the sun is... normal, bathing them in warm, gentle light. "This Nirvana. The one I've sought since the beginning of my existence."

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