route666rp | MAY EVENT LOG

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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

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Jack is out early, checking his traps for small animals he can cook in his van. The only power he's picked up from the sage is a light empathy, enough that as he crouches to deftly dispatch a feathered lizard caught in a snare, he pauses and looks around. There's someone there, though he can't see them yet, can't hear breathing. He's not close enough to hear the heartbeat, even with his more sensitive fox ears.

He peers into the dim predawn light. "Hello? Are you all right?"

[ closer to dawn than dusk, jayce can't be too sure he's cleanly tucked away from the light's future reach, but he does try to stay closer to nature than civilization. he tries, but he's awkwardly wedged underneath a crooked tree and uplifted log at the valley's edge. he cannot see, cannot speak— so nothing quite speaks in return to jack's inquiry.

but jayce hears. he smells. fingers curls into grass and gravel as he attempts to flatten himself to the earth. there is, at least, an exchange happening, mind to mind that he cannot control, a feeling that cannot be fabricated or masked: a spike in his worries, and a sharp, insistent no as an answer.

he would've rather said "everything's fine, go back". not everything is possible when you are half deer, all rot and even more monster. ]

[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?

[ 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. ]

[Jack zeroes in on that motion, that noise, approaching slowly.]

I'm not going to hurt you, I promise. I probably couldn't even if I wanted to. I don't know how to fight or anything.

[He even left the knife back with the lizard, so he is completely unarmed.]

May I see you?

[ if the creature could snort properly, it would. instead. a sputtering sound, wet and wrong, comes out of somewhere from the faceless void. probably from what was left of the oral cavity, hidden by so many fallen slabs of flesh held by threads of sinew. it's not you i'm worried about, but that came off incredibly hostile, and uncaring. an unfiltered, intrusive thought, perhaps because the reason he hides is from someone and not everyone.

i'm sorry, he follows up, taking a beat of hesitation to encourage him to step out. ugly. massive. absolutely hideous, and using his ears to focus on where the voice is coming from. he has no eye sockets to see with. i'm the problem, not you. ]

Oh dear.

[Jack sizes up the deer skeleton person with concern. He can't possibly be afraid of him, not with him radiating discomfort and apology like he is, but he can worry.]

You, er. Have clearly had some changes. Is this-- are you always like this now?

[That would be extremely difficult to manage, Jack thinks. Worse than Serph's snake tail by a long ways.]

[ doubt and uncertainty swells from within the creature. he doesn't know how to answer that with confidence. it would be a damn problem of many facets, if he was stuck like this for the rest of his undead life. actual death just may be better.

i could only hope not, jayce adds. i was scared. this is the next thing i knew. ]

[Jack nods, and continues his approach, slowly, hands up to show they're empty. He offers,]

It may be temporary, if it happened all of a sudden. I turned into a fox for the span of the storm-- it was very inconvenient to not have thumbs.

[Of course, a six-tailed fox was not as... dramatic... as an undead deer thing. Still:]

Others have had temporary transformations, too. I managed to talk a few of them back into human form. Or human-ish form.

[ jayce can't see them, but it's still the thought that counts. if he knew, he'd appreciate you, jack. more than he does for the help with his clothes, which . . . well. one change is completely gone, now. in tatters.

it doesn't exactly compare, but it's an attempt to connect that jayce sees. rather than leaning into the chip off irritability, he leans in the opposite direction. thankfulness there is anyone to talk to about it at all. at least i still have arms, is an attempt at minimizing his suffering. he's still got hands. the rest of his sitting torso, all cervid and rotting hooves . . . actually attempting to walk is chaotic.

you'd just— talk? ]

[Jack closes the last distance and moves one hand closer, stopping before touching, but clearly making the offer to do so if Jayce would like to be touched.]

Well, the other person did most of the work, each time. But having someone else talk them through changing back into a mostly human person seemed to help. Maybe it was timing, and I was lucky, but maybe it was useful to have someone talk about what being human-shaped feels like.

[ jayce cannot see it; only hear the crunch of pebbles and grass under feet as jack nears him. he wouldn't know who would want to touch . . . this, but jayce is a tactile person at heart. touch was a language he was well versed in, and as frightened as he would, he'd allow it if there were no signs of danger.

he'll give it a shot.

two legs, a painful gait. my right might as well hurt as much as the left. hooves don't help my balance . . . and i might need a cane, he ends that thought with a huff. his bracehadn't been made with comfort in mind. just efficiency in getting its job done. any chafing and bruising were dulled. funny how he's already including hooves. i miss feet.]

I could probably figure out something for a cane for you.

[It would take some testing of branches next time they find a tree, and some whittling, but Jack knows the basics of both.]

I would miss feet, too, I think. I miss not having to be careful of how I sit, so I don't squish the tails. There are a lot of them.

[He huffs lightly, then gets back on topic, carefully putting a hand on the end of Jayce's skull's nose.]

Think about... think about breathing. Think about how it feels for your human chest to expand and contract, the muscles involved. Think about how it feels coming into your nose and mouth. Little things. Think about the littlest things you can about being human.

[ a brief flash of thought that doesn't quite make it to the forefront resounds, that a cane is on his list of things to manufacture if he didn't already have a line up of things to do: solar panals. viktor's heart. donnie's staff. dance's firearm. leg brace maintenance. and jayce probably would just keep leaving personal matters last on the growing list . . .

oh. was it the muscles he didn't have in his chest, or the way he'd purposely not pay attention to his breathing when he breathed, because his lungs would prod out? augh, the imagery.

Maybe something that's not breathing. ]

Okay. Okay, hmm.

[Jack hasn't seen Jayce's human chest in a while, it's always been covered in clothing, but he does remember seeing Leonardo's heart beating visibly in his, so he re-evaluates, giving Jayce's skull-nose a gentle pet, as much for hopeful comfort as because he simply does not keep his hands still easily.

That's an idea, though.]

You have your hands still, yes? Think about those. The usefulness of thumbs, the way your fingers curl around something when you hold it or pick it up. The way the muscles in your forearm react to moving your fingers.

[ thank god he's not actually person shaped right now because then that would look weird. luckily, jayce is tactile by heart, and these little gestures are comforting for him.

jayce thinks of what else he does with his hands; precious things. his preferred tools. they create. little images of brief memory flash as he attempts to see them himself, through his minds eyes as his actual hands, palms up, begin to gently flex and rub against fingerpads. of forging, hammering out impurities as a smith. engineering, solding parts together. creating. for embracing, remembering the touch of his palm flat against his mother's back as she squeezed him tight. the way his hands curled around mel's with his head in her lap, her face framed in beauty and bittersweet remembrance, where he'd kiss her wrist with profound gentleness. he missed her, even when they've grown apart. accepting vows, tight around the hilt of a hammer that both was and wasn't his. jayce keeps thinking and thinking until each fleeting memory begins to pile, one on top of the other. until he is using his pinky to gently hook into the cuffs of viktor's current golden-metal decor. jayce.

he is doing a good job so far, at keeping focus. if i had a favorite part of me, jayce starts, incredibly soft compared to his current exterior, they'd be my hands. ]

Edited 2025-06-14 17:05 (UTC)

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MAY EVENT LOG

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