monstertruckers (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
monstertruckers) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
route666rp2025-05-06 05:39 pm
monstertruckers) wrote in route666rp2025-05-06 05:39 pm
Entry tags:
- !event,
- fallout: arcade gannon,
- fallout: courier 6,
- fear & hunger 2: levi,
- final fantasy vii: zack fair,
- megaman x: zero,
- odd thomas: jolie harmony,
- rise of the tmnt: donatello,
- rise of the tmnt: leonardo,
- rwby: yang,
- songs for the dusk: v (oc),
- trigun stampede: millions knives,
- umineko no naku koro ni: natsuhi ushirom,
- werewolf by night: jack russell
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.
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.
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.
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.
+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…
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.
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.
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!
no subject
He frowns down at you, heartbroken. Disappointed. Vengeful.
Why must you hurt me, Blake?
His blade swings again, but you aren't there to meet it. You've already picked up Yang, arms firm around her middle, as you run as fast as you can. Through fire, through Grimm, through other White Fang tearing through students.
And the scene seems to slow. You are no longer in Blake's place, you are Ruby once again, separate. Blake all but collapses as she lowers Yang to the ground, and she changes too, no longer the Blake from Beacon, but the winged, fanged version of her current self. Still, her cheeks are streaked with tears as she bends over Yang's body. ]
I'd... almost forgotten how bad it was. I've been trying so hard not to think about it.
no subject
It's only when she separates from Blake's "past self" in the memory that she takes the moment to shudder before she realizes that Blake has changed back to herself.
She's cautious when she approaches but she leans down and puts a hand on Blake's shoulder.]
I'm sorry we couldn't all be there for the both of you.
I think in a lot of ways that was the worst night of all our lives.
no subject
[ The dream around them is not frozen, but everybody is paused in place while the flame flickers. Adam is still on the threshold of leaving the building, framed in firelight. Grimm are still chasing civilians, paused in the middle of ferocious leaps. Yang is prone on the ground between them, unmoving, unconscious. The sound continues, though. The screams. The destruction.
This is the worst night of her life. The worst night for all of them. The night that parts of their innocence shattered under the weight of the destruction of their school, and the deaths of their friends. Nothing has been the same since. ]
It's not like this is the first time I saw him hurt innocent people. I just thought that... by running away, maybe I'd get lucky and leave him behind for good.
[ Blake makes a wretched noise, somewhere between a laugh and a sob. ]
I was so naive.
no subject
...And then her own nightmares will continue.
But she shakes that off because she knows where her focus should be right now. On the present, and on her friend who's suffering.]
Do you think that maybe deep down that you probably knew that.
It was bad enough that you had to leave in the first place, right?
You wouldn't have done that if he was someone safe.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
[ The word leaves Blake astonished for a long moment, but as it settles in, it just feels right. And it leaves her smiling, a wobbly little thing through her tears. ]
You're right. That's what family does.
[ Blake doesn't want to forgive herself so easily, but... it feels a little easier, knowing that Ruby doesn't blame her. Ruby would have every right to do so: she would have seen Yang right after her amputation, she would have had to help take care of her, she would have seen how hard it was for Yang. Blake didn't see any of these things, and she should have.
She lets out a breath. Like a tiny bit of the weight falls off her shoulders. And summons up a wry smile. ]
Sorry to subject you to all this. I guess sharing nightmares is going around.
no subject
[Ruby did experience those things, at the end of the day she realized those were things that Yang had to sort through and stand up on her own two feet. It was one of the hardest things she had to do, but it wasn't something she could just blame Blake for. She knew if Blake had the power to, none of that would have happened in the first place.
She grins and just stays close for now. She has a friend she has to support.]
No. It's okay. I think it helped me understand a little better what you've been through.
I'm just doing my job as leader.
My side of all this isn't much better though. Just in case we wind up doing this again.
no subject
That, she can't picture. Ruby hasn't told her much, nor has Pyrrha. Blake doesn't blame them; up until now, she'd been pretty sparing with her own details. But now Ruby knows everything. Blake thinks she might be kind of grateful for this nightmare sharing thing, actually. It's good that Ruby knows, now. ]
Maybe we'll get lucky and just share dreams, next time. Not nightmares.
[ What a weird thing to have to wish for. That's just life as it now, she guesses. ]
I don't think I'm going to be sleeping for the rest of the night after this, though.
no subject
Oh! That would be great. I've been having this one reoccuring one where a tiny like- super deformed version of me shows up and starts to threaten me. I've been having trouble parsing what it means exactly.
She's got the most adorable little crescent rose right now.
[See. She's definitely willing to roll with it.]
Now that you mention it though- Aren't we still asleep right now? Or how does this whole thing work and end?
no subject
I guess we just... wake up?
[ Blake sounds dubious, to say the least.
She pinches herself for good measure. Ow. It doesn't work. ]
Although I'm not really sure how to do that.
no subject
She winces a little seeing Blake pinch herself, and well she's glad she doesn't have to do that one.]
Okay. Okay.
I've got an idea.
[And she moves to take on a wide stance. Closes her eyes. And then jumps up and stomps her feet.]
WAKE UP!
[And there is a pause. ...And nothing happens.]
Okay. That didn't work.
no subject
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.