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











purplexing: (sitting duck)

[personal profile] purplexing 2025-05-17 05:59 am (UTC)(link)
Donnie feels it all the same, sharp in such a way that was contrasting to the heavy tightness of everything else. It actually makes him flinch, and when Leo gets to his feet, Donnie raises his head, looking almost panicked.

That smile's all wrong, even without being able to sense it, but with such underlining it all the same, it's like the twist of a knife.

"W-wait, Leo..." he starts, knowing he's probably crossed some lines that weren't supposed to be crossed, had never really had the problem of being crossed and maybe if he were really better at keeping these things under control then he wouldn't be reacting like this, right?
faceguy: (for the people)

[personal profile] faceguy 2025-05-17 06:15 am (UTC)(link)
Leo only stops from stepping through the portal because Donnie looks actually scared of Leo leaving. He doesn't want to scare Donnie, even if he really doesn't want to be around him while his emotions are apparently broadcasting themselves to the world.

"Yeah?" he asks, like everything is totally fine here.
purplexing: (not so sure about this)

[personal profile] purplexing 2025-05-17 06:26 am (UTC)(link)
Leo hardly needs to explain anything. It somehow hurts more that he can still act so casually in spite of what they both know is happening here.

...how long has he been doing this?

As their self-proclaimed face-man, it shouldn't be a surprise that Leo's gotten so good at playing it cool, at masking everything else in order to pull off what was needed. But this isn't one of those instances.

Donnie can only tell so much when something might be up with his brothers, but how often has he breezed over things like this?

He hesitates, knowing Leo doesn't want to be here, not wanting to guilt him into staying. But...would it be right to ignore?

"...you're coming back, right..?"
faceguy: (so you got a cross to bear)

[personal profile] faceguy 2025-05-17 06:48 am (UTC)(link)
Leo's emotions mix and swirl and stutter at the question. Fear and unease and anxiety, but also a longing. He doesn't really want to be alone, in the end. But he doesn't want to burden Donnie with any of this either. He doesn't want to hurt him.

Wouldn't it be easier on Donnie if he just stayed away until this was all over?

But it's really hard to say that when Donnie is looking at him like that. He doesn't want to hurt him.

Maybe he just... needs to take a few minutes to get his head on straight. Get these dumb emotions out so he can feel like normal Leo for a little bit!

(Too bad Normal Leo is like this pretty much permanently, these days.)

"...Yeah, of course," he finally says, sealing his fate. "I said I'm getting snacks."
purplexing: (can we though..?)

[personal profile] purplexing 2025-05-17 06:57 am (UTC)(link)
"...okay."

He's aware it's a lie and he hates that he knows, that they both know.

...but Donnie understands, and he doesn't hold anything over Leo for it. If it were reversed, wouldn't he do the same? He should be the one to leave. Isn't he the problem?
faceguy: (in 1998)

[personal profile] faceguy 2025-05-17 07:06 am (UTC)(link)
Leo steps through the portal and lets both it and the smile drop.

He should have portaled into the tank, or the kitchen, but instead he stands on the edge of the convoy, where he parked his motorcycle before.

A little drive couldn't hurt, right? Just a short one. To clear his head.

(It's a lie and Donnie definitely felt it.)

He gets on the bike, feeling like the worst brother in the world. He'll come back... eventually.
solitarysoul: (resting)

[personal profile] solitarysoul 2025-05-17 02:14 pm (UTC)(link)
"Yeah, that's true...but you don't need someone's name to know them or notice if they're not around."

Melting down swords? Do they even have a way to do that? A few people fight with them, but there are a lot that are broken out here. "Okay. I'll see if I can find any and let you know later."
solitarysoul: commisioned art (hmm)

[personal profile] solitarysoul 2025-05-17 02:26 pm (UTC)(link)
He shrugs, "Some places it happens gradually, or I have to climb over stuff any way so I don't notice as much. But its still freaky when I notice. I hope there aren't too many more places like this."
hexrot: (Default)

[personal profile] hexrot 2025-05-17 02:28 pm (UTC)(link)
[ no, he thinks, loudly heard. no, no, no, no, and the dark mass under logs and dry canopies shifts in shades, almost as if the wind were blowing at the leaves but it's wrong. the pinks and blues of his tearing velvet pokes out against the dark light, and when he pulls back, his antlers catch on branches. they snap when the spike of panic hates the resistance, but it gives away his location immediately.

i don't know, jack, he ends the thought. ]
solitarysoul: (sniper)

[personal profile] solitarysoul 2025-05-17 02:29 pm (UTC)(link)
[The frame holds the bolt...that must be the arrow. It seems to make sense with how the thing is constructed.]

I tend to prefer longer range myself. But we keep running into enemies with numbers too big to keep away from all of them.

[Not unless he wants to use up all his ammo in one fight.]
solitarysoul: (Scope)

[personal profile] solitarysoul 2025-05-17 02:32 pm (UTC)(link)
Good, another subject. "Yeah...those brain things did some weird stuff to people. I-I'm not sure if the shields still work..."
undyingcrow: (shock)

[personal profile] undyingcrow 2025-05-17 03:15 pm (UTC)(link)
[It's... helping him?

Akechi blearily blinks. The nightmare imagery ripples, distorts, but doesn't quite break.

All Akechi can do is dive at another brain, slashing with the sword he stole from the battleground.]


...Joker? No. The weapon isn't right. If it were him, he would have summoned his Persona.

[But he is here, Akechi knows that. He encountered Ren before, at the garage. He's... here, somewhere.

But it's not only Ren. There are others who would fight with him now.]
undyingcrow: (glare)

[personal profile] undyingcrow 2025-05-17 03:22 pm (UTC)(link)
You're right. Death is an exit. The dead need not concern themselves with guilt or regrets. To live is to face reality, the good and the bad. I will have to live with my mistakes every day I still draw breath...

[Memories ripple around him. That woman in a lab coat, begging and pleading before the bullet strikes...

All those faceless targets he either gunned down or, in some cases, their Shadows convulse, surrounded by a strange, red aura, as wild laughter bubbles up from within t them...

Task after task...

Alone in a political office with a bald man in orange-tinted shades, offering congratulations... Opportunities.

The cognition scoffs.]


You reveled in it. You got your own apartment. You attended a prestigious school. Everyone adored you... and it still wasn't enough.

No. It wasn't... they were all shallow pleasures. Decorations in a gilded cage. But I'd sooner accept a challenging reality outside those bars than return to such a wretched life.

[He turns to Faith, no longer giving the doppelganger even a passing glance.]

I'm sure you understand, given your own experiences.
purplexing: (yet the barbs continue)

[personal profile] purplexing 2025-05-17 04:42 pm (UTC)(link)
"That may be, but I'd rather be named than 'one of those green turtle guys'," he snorts.

Where there's a will, there's a way. And Donnie certainly has both. He gives Levi a thumb's up. "Cool, thanks." Meanwhile, maybe he should see what all else he can get from these busted cyborgs.
solitarysoul: (n.n)

[personal profile] solitarysoul 2025-05-17 05:15 pm (UTC)(link)
"I guess..." Names are a bit weird for him. He never remembers to give his, in part because in the army everyone knew your name. Or just used your number. But he never really thought of it much.

He smiles. "No problem."
purplexing: (consult an expert)

[personal profile] purplexing 2025-05-17 05:34 pm (UTC)(link)
Donnie smiles back, turning to get back to work with things. He looks over his shoulder to add, "Oh yeah, and if you ever need anything fixed or have any technical problems, let me know."
solitarysoul: commisioned art (Small smile)

[personal profile] solitarysoul 2025-05-17 05:36 pm (UTC)(link)
Levi nods and offers a wave before going off to look for something else to loot.
purplexing: (mental math)

[personal profile] purplexing 2025-05-17 05:44 pm (UTC)(link)
It's certainly a record for the longest snack run. Donnie's well aware that it wasn't actually meant to be, but he'd stayed where he was for maybe thirty minutes before admitting to himself that Leo probably wasn't coming back any time soon.

And that hurts, but he can only be mad at his place and those deceptive tumbleweeds.

Eventually he'll be found ensconced within the confines of the Turtle Tank. He needs something to preoccupy himself, so he's working at dismantling the robotic limbs and parts he'd scavenged, sorting things into piles and what few containers he's found. At least he hasn't felt any other wayward sensations, but it's been pretty quiet around the Tank's area, enough that he'd put some music on, the bumping bass spilling out from the open rear hatch of the vehicle.
x2bet: (067)

hell yeaah i love a horrifyingly funky deer freak

[personal profile] x2bet 2025-05-17 06:18 pm (UTC)(link)
[Benny will be the first guy to tell you this - It takes a lot of pluck to walk up to a... a whatever the fuck this is. He doesn't even know how to describe it. He imagines himself sitting, sprawled back in an armchair and talking at Swank - "Baby, you won't believe the kind of shit that I saw. I'm gonna need two stiff drinks before I can talk about it, and you're gonna need ten before you believe me". But if anything, it brings to mind decayed Brahmin bodies on the side of the road, coyotes ripping at the skin and exposing muscle - ugh, just some seriously unpleasant stuff. But Benny's never been a coward; It's just a guy. Just a guy who looks like a new breed of centaur, freaky hands in the front and all.

It's almost a little too much when it turns his attention to him, but he's pot committed. Can't back out now. Rooted to the spot as he's holding a stack of sadly-bland pancakes, and a couple of small fun-sized bottles that's been decanted with various liquors from the bar (limited, yes, but the Ben-Man needs it more), Benny rallies.]


Your favorite flavor?

[he repeats, out loud. Benny pauses for a moment, distracted by the organs he can see, uh, pulsating. The rainbow shimmer of webs stretched over them is oddly captivating.]

Bad joke, I guess. Hell, I don't even know if you eat.
Edited 2025-05-17 18:40 (UTC)
firstsoldier: (pic#17626944)

/rolls in hello again The Soldier

[personal profile] firstsoldier 2025-05-17 09:30 pm (UTC)(link)
This... isn't real. These shared dreams are hard to tell from reality at first, and Sephiroth's been in so many warzones that it takes strange uniforms, weapons and vehicles for incongruencies to add up enough for him to come to the gradual conclusion that this, too, isn't actually happening.

It feels real. He can smell the smoke, taste the acrid stink of burning, the scent of blood sharp in the air. Yang might have been thought to simply be part of the dream, but she's out of place.

Doesn't quite belong, in the way the rest of this warzone fits together.

"He looks like you."

For all that none of this is right now, really happening, Sephiroth's voice is low. He's seen enough dead soldiers to last a lifetime, and it's almost habit now to treat it with a measure of respect no matter who the fallen is.

They all had friends. Family, loved ones. The locket made proof of that, much as his own had once. Who the man really was, he had no idea.
firstsoldier: (pic#17626942)

C

[personal profile] firstsoldier 2025-05-17 09:45 pm (UTC)(link)
It's close enough to where the convoy stopped that it takes Sephiroth a while to realize it is a dream. These jaunts are a plague, an ongoing nuisance that stripped bear all the things people would rather keep secret, their nightmares laid at the feet of complete strangers, like himself.

But knowing it's a dream means somewhere here is a person who is of the convoy, part of his territory pride traveling companions, and the surest way out is to wake them up.

The scenery though is terribly distracting. This too is a warzone, isn't it? There's no-one, not even the distorted dream-shades of other people, and so he continues his patient hunt, watching and listening for any signs of what - or more accurately who - he's listening for.

Everyone dies fighting the Krang.

He hadn't encountered the turtle brothers in person yet though he'd seen them around; there's no longer the immediate impulse to deal with the 'sahagin' appropriately for their assumed kind. Finding one here in an impact crater of some kind, battered and wounded and still as the grave, is .. honestly a bit of a surprise.

The SOLDIER picks his way gracefully down the crater's walls, the echo clearer with each step. He doesn't say anything at first, taking a long moment to make sure no nightmare-creature is about to jump out at them and continue this battlefield.

"Is this 'the future'?"
bufudine: (smells like Bat poop :|)

[personal profile] bufudine 2025-05-18 12:39 am (UTC)(link)
As Sephiroth moves to the shadows and behind cover, Serph moves alongside him.

He's never heard of a Midgar. But at the mention of Nirvana... perhaps this stranger is a survivor of the Junkyard after all. Plenty of people had spoken of things they had never seen before, the words falling from their mouths before they thought to question what it was or how they knew about it.

"The way to Nirvana was open." And then gate was blasted to pieces. That strange thing that Angel held... Serph's brow furrows. "This isn't the land of peace I envisioned."
firstsoldier: (pic#17626942)

[personal profile] firstsoldier 2025-05-18 01:02 am (UTC)(link)
It's ... only marginally cooler out of the glare of the darkened sun, but he'll take it. So far no further signs of anyone attacking, and aside from a last lingering look at the thing Serph killed, he's moving on. There's no goal in mind beyond breaking potential line of sight of people with guns. He's good at fighting, but he is essentially a melee combatant.

"I agree. One would expect.. green things and water at the least, not this wasteland." The statues too.. what were they about? "Those statues are a little too lifelike to simply be decoration."
bufudine: (Default)

[personal profile] bufudine 2025-05-18 01:13 am (UTC)(link)
[At this point, Serph has wrestled enough with the strange tilt of the world slipping from reality into dreams. He's able to wrest some measure of control... at least over his own dreams.

He appears beside Jayce, feathers billowing as his wings spread behind him.]


God resides in the sun. Five years ago... it turned black when demons appeared. A punishment from God.
fists_of_funny: (yang102)

Scrounging

[personal profile] fists_of_funny 2025-05-18 01:19 am (UTC)(link)
Angel isn't the only one looking for ammo; Yang is stockpiling it as well. Inevitably, their pathe cross, and Yang is loaded with pouches same as her, and she holds up her cybernetic arm conversationally.

"Hey, you got any shotgun shells? Trade you for 'em if you do."