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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Donnie's been a little more hesitant about picking up weaponry from the fused cyborgs, one strange vision off-putting enough for him to want to avoid a repeat. Instead he's taken to studying parts, seeking to remove whatever amounts to a brain for the them. He's already gotten a couple of samples tucked into a serviceable bag he'd swiped off one of the corpses, and now works on a third, wings spread for balance, his toes curled around a deep groove in the bone of the beast the cyborg's body is welded to.

He's only vaguely aware of Akechi, or at least someone else being nearby, so focused on his work as it is. And then he almost loses his grip on his tools for the sudden wave of pain that sinks into him, gasping as he has to brace himself against the corpse, the sound that had cut through the stillness practically vibrating within his core for the echoes of the emotions of Akechi that follow.

It's such a baffling, sudden shift that Donnie can't help but be confused at himself, unsure why he's gone from a cautious calm to having the urge to rip something apart. The brain components he'd been trying to detach is a loss, his fist closed tightly around the screwdriver he'd been using, finding he'd buried the end deep into the thin covering housing them. His own shock and annoyance only blends with the growing anger that builds up from Akechi, but Donnie just barely manages to keep himself from lashing out at the dead thing in his frustration. He shakes his head, pushing himself away from the corpse, leaving the screwdriver where it's stuck as he clutches a hand to his own head.

Shakily he finally looks in Akechi's direction, not that the other is being very quiet about things. His brow twitches, and for the moment he can only stare, uncomprehending of what's driven Akechi to assault the dead, much less the sensation that seemed to encourage him to want to do the same.]

...It was a vision.

[He growls the words through clenched teeth, trying to ground himself. Trying to remind himself that it was merely a memory.

Donatello deserves an explanation, especially given the likely unwanted emotions that came from Akechi thanks to that sagebrush.

So, with his free hand, he runs his talons through his hair.]

I saw one of the Steel Wardens murder innocent civilians. They were cowering in fear, and she hardly cared.

[It's unsurprising, but it further solidifies Akechi's existing disdain. A ripple of spite accompanies his words.]

[It doesn't help that Donnie's much more receptive to those emotions, not with his own brush with the strangely glowing flora. He hasn't quite realized the effects, but this sudden wave of something has come out of nowhere that it's enough to make him think something's wrong.

Akechi's explanation doesn't quite answer all his questions, but the mention of a vision- hearing the other address him directly in general kind of helps in its own way.

Donnie swallows, feeling that emotion that underlines Akechi's words as he speaks of what he'd seen. Is...this coming from him? It's almost dizzying, trying to work out how he should be feeling himself, but anger's such an easy thing to be drowned in.]

I-I saw something too.

[He squeezes his eyes shut as he tries to focus.]

People... marching down a road lined with weapons. F...falling, turning into monsters as soon as they were stabbed through...

Did they fall onto the weapons and then change? Or did someone stab them?

[That seems like an important clarifying detail. Something to latch onto...

Perhaps it will help Donatello as well.

If nothing else, the rage that once burned through Akechi slowly fades. Little by little, he relaxes, shifting gears to the more pressing matters at hand.]

[Data's always helped him calm down, information something easier to process, factual and without any emotions attached.

Donnie still remains almost curled in upon himself as he recalls the vision he'd seen, but having less of that heat coming from Akechi is making it easier for him to feel like he can breathe.]

...onto. They fell on the weapons, and everything happened so fast from there, they were impaled so easily...

[He shudders. It hadn't been a pleasant thing to watch, but it doesn't sound like there's anything to be pleasant of the memories from this place.]

It's not unlike the barbs surrounding the tower...

[Wounds expediting transformation... But how does it function? Apprehension and bewilderment ripple off of him, but the anger is gone.

It's easier to focus now.]

Were they pushed, or did they merely stumble and fall of their own accord? Regardless, it certainly sounds alarming.

[Donnie nods, finally seeming to relax a little though his brow is still furrowed from the concern of not being sure what had afflicted him a moment ago. He's still cautious (is that him?) and the puzzlement blends with his own, easier things to handle.

He takes in a deep breath, lifting his head to look back over at Akechi, carefully.]

...or the fragments that exploded off the tower when people touched those swords. You didn't by any chance collect any of those, did you?

[Donnie eases himself into a more upright position, looking around warily.]

It looked like they just fell on their own. Maybe from exhaustion? It...it was hard to tell.

-what was that earlier? Something...happened.

I did collect a few fragments after the dust had settled, generally from already-destroyed swords.

[Come to think of it, this all aligns with the warnings and writings on the tower.

Setting his free hand on his hip, Akechi thinks back on the messages.]

"Meant to be left alone. The tears used it in their ritual. Now it's out of control, changing everything it can."

Can I get a sample for study?

[At the time, all he could think about was being away from the thing, and keeping his brother safe.

As Akechi makes his recitation, Donnie tilts his head.]

Huh?

It was one of the messages on the tower, along with it being carved from "First Impact remains."

[Still, in light of the question, Akechi nods.]

But yes, I can get you the samples later.

Oh, so that's what it said. Someone mentioned something about that. Once things started exploding, I didn't stick around very close...

[He nods back. At least someone's on top of things. He'll try to be better at it, but he's not sure he can promise anything when this place messes with your head.]

Any idea which side wrote that?

Not the Silver Tears, but it's difficult to say whether or not it was written by the Wardens...

[He runs a hand through his hair, shaking his head.]

Another mystery of many. If we're getting memories, however, there's a strong likelihood that others are as well. It may be worthwhile to compile information to better grasp this world's history.

Yeah... Even if said memories are being found by weirdly inconvenient means, but...I guess we can't be picky if it's information.

I suspect it's the sagebrush. I had experimented with a few different varieties beforehand, and now...

[He gazes down at the severed wrist and the sword in hand.]

Well. It's entirely possible that we read the memories within the objects we touched.

The...

Wait, seriously??

[He looks quite betrayed by this fact. And then he sighs exasperatedly.]

I knew that magic reading had to be something!

[His snout wrinkles as he looks at the blade and the hand still hanging onto it.]

That explains what happened when I touched another sword, back there.

I believe each color corresponds to a different effect. The first one I touched was green, then orange more recently...

[Carefully, he starts to peel the robotic fingers away from the blade. That saber is much to appealing to leave rotting in a wretched corpse's grasp.]

If I had to guess, each color corresponds to some form of cognitive ability or effect. So, we pinpoint the corresponding colors, and then we can categorize their effects.

...I touched an orange one too. And blue....

[He hadn't clocked the effects though. But then he has been feeling...odd now and then, for lack of being able to describe it any better.

Donnie nods.]

Sounds like the most practical way to go about it.

It could be risky to stack too many effects, and yet, that is one way to test how they interact with one another...

[Hmm, given what Donnie said, though...

Akechi pauses, carefully seizing the sheath for his pilfered saber.]

If our common variable is orange, then it stands to reason that it's the cause of the visions. As for green... well, that I'm less certain of.

Probably...

...

But earlier, when you were... [He gestures vaguely.] ...an..gry..? I...felt that.

...it happened with Leo too. I was...experiencing? His emotions.

[His face crinkles at this new information. Frustration bubbles from within him...

His emotions are a close-kept secret, when he can manage it. To have him so readable...

Well, nothing to do about it now. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he breaths a small sigh.]

So, through process of elimination, we can conclude that green results in projected emotions and orange results in visions or memories from objects... That just leaves blue, then, as well as purple.

[Donnie can't help but flinch a little at that sensation, wings folding as tightly as he can manage against his shell. It's easier to tell when something's not his emotion when it's drastically different from what he's experiencing himself. But he's never been particularly good with identifying such things, much less owning up to admitting them.]

Given that the effects seem to have been happening not long after contact, maybe blue effects have some kind of overlap, but I can't say for sure what...

[Now there's an interesting proposal.

Touching his chin, Akechi takes a moment to weigh the options. There's a connecting thread: the mind. Emotions, memories... all these things are grounded in cognition, therefore...]

I think we can conclude that each variation causes a different cognitive effect. If we're considering overlap, then perhaps it's a matter of emotion or memory...

Well, I definitely wasn't getting anything memory-wise from you. Just...emotion.

[He can't help but be uncomfortable admitting that much. That comes too close to admitting he has them himself.]

It's rather irritating. I'd rather not project my feelings to the rest of the world.

[A grumble of a sigh rolls from his lips.]

...But you couldn't have known, and if the blue sagebrush does make you more receptive to others' emotions, then I suppose it stands to reason that it'd amplify my own effect.

Guess I dodged a bullet there. But being on the other end isn't really fun either...

[He lets out a sigh too, rubbing at his arm.]

I think what made it worse was the stacked effect of the vision you reacted to. If they're strong enough I-I think I get swept up in it.

B

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