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

[bufudine]

Something else turned human, then? He can understand how difficult it is to grapple with doing something that goes against everything you once were. Even now, he struggles to conceive of non-violent ways to spend his time.

Jack, John, himself... they make for a strange collection of people, don't they? They all have a side to them that craves the hunt.

"I'm not angry. I want to know, so I can understand." His voice is soft, as calm and even as ever. "I had my demon before my arrival. Violence is all I knew. But I don't want to keep being that way, too."

[taediosum]

Make myself a target!?

[ He rounds on Danse, briefly, annoyance flaring in his harried glare. But the last thing he wants to do is put himself in a position to get even more attacked. The devourers are already doing their best, seeing their grip on his mind slipping away, but their claws mostly just slide off his scales, and when they do find purchase, Arcade angrily rolls them off the coils of his tail.

He can see how they're swarming Danse; he isn't eager to put himself in that position, too. It doesn't exactly look like the tactical move, from where he's not-standing. ]

[hexrot]

Only you—

[ to be stubborn. if only he had it in him to laugh, if only he had it in him to do anything else but grunt and groan his way through clawing at the grounds to get to viktor, now more desperate than he'd been with the fire. the light he wanted was ahead of him, now. just ahead,, sharp cheekbones and bony frame. he's screamed so much down here, suffered from malnutrition that his voice has gone hoarse, lost its young boyish charm. jayce's grip, upon finding one on viktor is at first too tight— painfully tight, even, as if he were afraid the flesh and bone would slip from his fingers.

when it doesn't, a gasp errupts from jayce's lips, and he pulls at viktor with a hold from underneath his arms, pulling himself along to coil around him like a python. ]

I thought I'd never see you again—

[androidvictoriam]

Look at them! They can't get through the scales! You might as well be in power armor, and you're the only one who is. You have to draw their fire.

[ There's envy bleeding through their link along with the curt, stern words, a clear yearning for that to be him instead, helpless frustration at not being able to fight the way that comes so easily to him after so many long years of practice, but he has to push it aside. ]

You need to lure them so you can crush them in groups, not one by one. Hell, I can round them up for you--but you have to be open to it. Do you trust me or not?

[thetatters]

"It's not easy to explain what I was. It's even more difficult to explain what I am."

This is a thin avoidance. Countless beings have their own term for Great Old One; the concept is widespread, older than entire worlds. Before he was John, he was something eternal.

"But..." He hesitates, and then looks from the sea to Serph, searching his face. His gaze lingers on the sigil stamped there, just as the Yellow Sign curls down from his own eye. It's jarring to reconcile Serph's ever-mild expression with the demon's teeth, and there's some relief in that: John can only hope that he seems so distanced from his own worst self. "Perhaps you do understand. Better than most. Because I... I was much the same."

He lifts his hands, his-and-Arthur's hands, and frowns down at their harmless human fingertips. Flexes his fingers slowly, recalling claws.

"It was more than violence, more than mindless hunger. All I knew was cruelty. And I don't want to be that way anymore."

omg I’m sorry I thought I had replied to this

[faceguy]

Leo is thankfully not startled when she comes toward him, though immediately apprehension is coming off him in waves. He has to think of a way to end this conversation as soon as possible, before she feels any of his bad feelings.

“Yeah, well, wouldn’t want to attract anything,” he excuses, waving a hand to indicate the wilderness around him. The lie rolls naturally off his tongue, though it’s hampered by the feelings of anxiety that have been exposed by the tumbleweed’s magic.

[definitionofcrazy]

She gives a slight smile as she examines the palm Jolie just hit.

"Hey, not bad. Try to keep your feet spread a little bit more, you'll be sturdier."

She turns her palm out to Jolie again, beckoning with her other hand to continue.

"Keep going. You're getting the hang of it."

[definitionofcrazy]

She glances from the one Jack to the other, teeth gritting in frustration again. She takes only a moment to consider between the two before turning and throwing her knife at the one behind her.

And once again, it passes harmlessly through an illusion.

She lets out a grunt of annoyance. For a moment, she considers retrieving the knife- but screw it. She doesn't need the knife. She wheels around, empty-handed, and runs after the fleeing werewolf.

[bufudine]

That was the monster John could be. The one who saw prey trying to escape and dragged him further down the oasis' depths. The one that held him beneath the surface to watch air leave his lungs and life choke out of him in gurgling gasps.

"For us who are man and monster... I don't know if we can escape our natures."

His demon's hunger is unending, but there is a thrill of satisfaction at a successful hunt, a pleasure at the sensation of warm meat and blood sliding down his throat. In this world, he has to hold back the roar of triumph that once marked every kill.

And he knows well enough that those feelings aren't all from his demon.

"But if we were just monsters, who we hurt wouldn't matter." Maybe it's Jack's influence, but Serph steps forward to carefully take John's hands in his. Jack had spent most of their conversation holding his hand, and Serph had found it strangely grounding. "It was the part of you that's cruelty who tried to take my life. But it's the you who is trying to change that gave it back."

[definitionofcrazy]

Rhetorical question.

[She realizes she was kinda geeking out there for a second, which isn't normally something she likes to do.]

Some of the stuff's happened since we got here, let's just say I'd be down with turning back the clock on it.

[thetatters]

From the first touch of Serph's hands on his, John blinks up at him, eyes gone wide and bright. His fingers tense and hesitate, then relax into Serph's grip.

He still thinks of himself, even now, as Arthur's left hand. He has possession of all the rest, yes, but he does not have claim to it— not without Arthur here to work alongside him in thrilling moments of symbiosis. The hand has felt... earned, in a sense, since he let Arthur take the joint between his teeth. That pain was his. That blood was his.

This pleasure is his. Serph's gentle thumbs smoothing over his knuckles, the warmth of Serph's palms against his own.

"Yes." His voice comes soft and low. "We can try to become better versions of ourselves. That's what makes us human."

cw: attempted suicide mention

[becomerobot]

[Viktor is practically yanked off the ground and into Jayce's embrace. He's warm again, despite the cold and wet clinging to them, Jayce feels alive. Viktor feels fragile. He hates that, longs for his more sturdy form, his body of metal and arcane energy. They're just... men, once more.

His hands curl around Jayce and cling, mindful of the injury scarred across the man's back. It has been a long while since Viktor's fingertips were so soft and giving against skin,]

I'm here, I'm here, Jayce... [a heartbroken chuckle, still caught up in the hazy humor of their catastrophe] ... I'm trying to stop... from dying on you.

[that's what this body feels like, after all. Like being on the edge of death, that final line before oblivion. Viktor could never just go easy into that vast night, he would be dragged out of the world clawing and screaming. Even when he felt such crushing guilt that he might throw himself off that edge, take control back for himself one final time, all it took was Jayce's voice to pull him away from death. He can't just leave Jayce behind. He can't.]

[becomerobot]

A doctor, you said..! [Viktor's handshake doesn't end, he just grips onto Arcade and pulls himself in slightly closer. Insistently speaking... what probably sounds like nonsense.]

-how is my heart!? His heart! Is it strong enough for him-? I might need to build him a better one- mine was never all that good of an organ. Simply the best I had to offer at the time-

[This has clearly set him off into a frenzy, Viktor's got real wild eyes on this particular topic. The dreamscape suddenly winds in tight around them, nothing else seems to matter, at least to Viktor's perspective.]

[bufudine]

Serph nods, running his thumb over the back of John's knuckles like Jack had done when sitting with him. "I'm sorry. For hurting you during the moon warp."

Even though John had been the one to pitch him into the oasis (and the one to drown him), Serph hadn't exactly been particularly gentle in his response after having life breathed back into him. He'd torn into John, cut into him over and over again, partaken of his flesh and blood alike.

But Jack had said John had liked it?

The memory of that conversation completely derails his original train of thought, instead replacing what he was going to ask with, "...But you didn't seem to mind?"

There's an uncertain lilt to his voice, a small furrowing of his brows that sometimes happens when faced with some new human concept he finds particularly perplexing because it's so at odds with his understanding.

[hexrot]

[ jayce's stupid sad cow eyes are so big and hazel that it hurts. ]

Would drinks on me suffice for an apology?

[ he knows it's a no, he wouldn't count it for one, but. he's trying to keep the air light. ]

[thetatters]

The effect is immediate: John melts under the gentle movement of Serph's thumb. All the tension drops at once from his shoulders.

It jolts up again full force at the question.

"I'm sorry as well." He stumbles over the apology, fixes Serph with a pained look. "It was... freeing, I suppose. To fall back into old ways. But— I mean, we can be better than that. Both of us." Jack had entirely the wrong idea, he's sure, when he suggested they'd want to do it again. "I don't blame you, Serph. We weren't thinking straight."

[andnevermore]

Oh, no-- I was born with mine. That's why I can tell when people are new to them.

[ There's a sort of upwardly directed annoyance she's been able to observe with people like Akihiko, Qrow, and Yang. A persistent confusion over the sensation of shifting muscle when their ears swivel toward a noise, or respond to emotional cues. Frankly, it's hilarious to watch.

From where she's sitting on top of her van, she stretches out one bat wing, looking rueful. ]

These are new, though. I'm having to totally relearn my center of balance, which has messed with my combat training a lot.

[andnevermore]

[ Blake hauls Jayce up easily, taking his weight with one hand. She's thrown van-sized Grimm over her head; helping a guy up is no big problem. As she does, she watches the way his brace moves, thoughtful. Unfortunately, she's no expert on prosthetics and braces. She wishes she could help, but.

His question makes her grin, sheepish. ]

I haven't tried flying yet, actually. I've been prioritizing relearning my center of balance so that I'm not a liability in a fight.

[ Also, she gets motion sickness easily. Which is kind of embarassing. ]

I haven't seen that before. [ Blake nods at his hammer. Not the kind of weapon she might have pictured him with, actually, but then, she's used to giant hammers being wielded by short redheads with the power of lightning, not tall scientists with rainbow scars. ] It looks modular; does it shoot anything? Or is it just a hammer?

[andnevermore]

That's... weird. Maybe it could be your world far in the future, or some kind of parallel world.

[ It feels bizarre to be contemplating something like that, but Blake's getting used to it. Being brought here has proved the existence of many different worlds, it can't be that much weirder to acknowledge the possibility of parallel worlds.

The CD ticks over to the second song, Pop by NYSNC. Which is also not metal. ]

Maybe that means that, if we keep scavenging, we can find some of those bands you like.

[andnevermore]

[ Blake frowns, worry creasing at the edges of her mouth. She saw the cracks last month, and if they've gotten wider, that could be seriously dangerous. She's not sure a cape is going to do anything to protect him. ]

Have you thought about armor? Something lightweight that could protect the cracks instead of just covering them up?

[ Because seriously, they get attacked like every month. Blake hasn't seen Leo fight yet, but he's clearly used to it, since he has katanas. ]

[andnevermore]

Blake blinks at the casual mention of aliens. Look, she's gotten used to the concept of multiple worlds existing, but somehow, the concept of aliens hasn't yet really come up. Even if it seems... kind of obvious.

"The cars look kind of similar to my world, too. The outsides, at least. The engines look a little different." At least, according to Yang who's been tinkering with them.

She takes the CD back, and puts it back into the nook between the seats. She's got a whole collection now, and it's only growing.

"I guess the more important question is where we're heading," Blake admits, "but I think it's useful to find out as much about this world as we can. Even the little things help, you know?"

[andnevermore]

[ Blake still doesn't like it, but she knows Akihiko's right. They were just defending themselves against attack. The raiders had converged on their position, swarmed them, and seemingly done their best to kill everyone they saw.

But suddenly, all she can think about is how she'd attacked Akihiko in much the same way. Her gaze goes to his neck, but she can't see if there's a scar. ]

I--

[ She starts, and then stops, and then makes herself start again. ]

I'm sorry. For attacking you. I could say that I was out of my mind with hunger, but that just feels like an excuse. Did I... I don't really remember much. Did I hurt you?

[andnevermore]

[ Blake can't quite conceal a smile at Ruby's powerstance, even when it fails to wake them up. ]

Maybe we just have to wait for it to happen naturally.

[ She's glad, at least, that everything is largely frozen around them, that the nightmare isn't progressing. Blake leans back against an upended table. She still feels jittery just being in this room, seeing the firelight shine against the blood on the ground, but... she feels a tiny bit better for having shared. ]

Gods, it's strange to think how different our lives would be if this had never happened. We'd still be in class. Doing boring essays for Port. We'd be in our second year now; maybe we'd get trusted with some more complicated missions, even.

[andnevermore]

Yeah. I've been training a bunch, figuring out my center of balance all over again so I'm not a liability in a fight. There's a whole-- wind resistance thing going on, like a big parachute that slows you down.

[ She still hasn't tried flying with them, though. Admittedly, she's kind of nervous to try. She's never been great with sudden bursts of chaotic movement -- she gets motion sick -- and flying and getting it wrong could mean serious injury. ]

Have you tried to fly yet?

[ Blake half-grins, sheepish. ]

I haven't. I guess I'm kind of nervous.

[taediosum]

[ Ugh. Gross. If only the Lord had seen fit to grant him the will to resist a man with big, sad eyes even for like, five entire seconds. He huffs, not even really managing an indignant eye-roll.

It's still a no, but Arcade isn't the type to hold grudges, either. Or at least he tries not to be. ]

That sounds like a start, at least.