MAY EVENT LOG

[monstertruckers]

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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

[purplexing]

The turtle fusses a bit with the strap on the bag before managing to unfasten it so he can pull it free without having to try maneuvering it over anything. He dusts it off, taking a peek inside the flap.

"How do we know if we're missing anyone or not? I don't believe I've ever heard anyone do a role-call or something before we set out each morning."

[solitarysoul]

"Uh....I-i guess we don't. All, no...most of the people I recognize are still here. I don't know what happened to the rest, maybe they went off on their own." Or died. They were probably dead.

[purplexing]

Slowly, Donnie casts another look in Levi's direction, maybe just a little unsettled. It'd be kind of terrible to be left behind and no one realizing they were missing anyone. Getting to know other people probably helps there, but...it's still troubling.

He makes a face, not wanting to think of the alternative, even if it might be pretty obvious an option. Being off on your own in this place doesn't seem very wise.

[solitarysoul]

Levi cants his head a bit, not sure why Don is giving him a look. "So, um, anything good in the bag?"

[purplexing]

"Uh-" Starting a bit, Donnie looks down. Right. Bag. "Er...ammo, it seems. You in the market for bullets?"

[solitarysoul]

"Oh! My rifle uses .303s so if there are any of those I'd love them. If you don't have use for the rest I can take them. I can, um," He looks down at his bag, "Well I might have some stuff to trade if you want."

[purplexing]

"Never used any actual guns before." Only laser ones. He holds the bag out for Levi to have a look. "You'd probably know better than I would if they're what you need, but either way you can have them. I just want the bag."

[solitarysoul]

"Okay, sure, no problem. I can take them all and find people who need the ones I don't. Thanks!" He swings his satchel around and starts moving the ammo from Donnie's bag to his. Some of it goes in smaller bags within the satchel but some of it he doesn't have a specific space for so they just go in the bag.

"Y-you sure you don't want anything in return?"

[purplexing]

Donnie shakes his head. "It's fine. I mean, we're all kind of trying to look out for each other since we're all stuck here anyway, right?" He smiles faintly. "Maybe give me some shooting tips. If you find a rifle no one's using, I think it wouldn't hurt to figure out how to use one and maybe have it as backup in case my mystic-tech doesn't work."

Or he can't focus enough to form any weapons with it.

[solitarysoul]

"No problem. I've trained recruits before, its always better to teach people what to do than just let them figure it out with something like a gun."

[purplexing]

"Understandable. The only kind I've used are the ones and adjacent sorts of firearms I've built." As normal fourteen year olds do or something. Two years later, Donnie hasn't really invested a lot of time in physical weapons since discovering his mystic abilities, but he still builds them out of magic the same way, if only for temporary use.

"Mostly accustomed to a laser rifle, but I figure an actual one with physical ammo will have more of a kick."

[solitarysoul]

"You've built firearms?" But not used them, apparently. "There are people here with laser weapons...or things that fire beams of light or something. You might be able to find something like that on these weird metal guys."

[purplexing]

"A laser rifle, a cannon, tranquilizer gun...bowling ball launcher- I don't know if that counts though..."

Donnie shifts his balance, holding his hand out to the side. There's a purple glow that stretches out, tracing lines in the air, parts, it seems, the intricate inner workings of a weapon before they're housed by equally glowing panels that hide them away. It doesn't take but a few seconds for it to build, and then he holds up the stylized rifle.

"At least I don't need to worry about ammo when I do this, but...it's only as good as I can maintain the focus for. I guess I could eventually build something, but I'd need parts and time. Otherwise it seems the most available are the bullet kind of guns," he notes as he gestures towards the one the cyborg corpse hangs onto.

[solitarysoul]

Levi studies the rifle from where he is. "...I guess that's some sort of magic?"

[purplexing]

"More or less," Donnie says wryly. He looks around, bracing the weapon against his shoulder as he takes aim at one of the small free-floating rocks. A neon magenta shot goes flying as he squeezes the trigger, shattering it into smaller shrapnel that remains floating there.

[solitarysoul]

He watches Donnie shoot, paying more attention to the gun itself than what Don's shooting. "Interesting. That seems pretty useful."

[purplexing]

He lets the rifle dissipate, breaking up into pixelated motes that fade away. "Extremely useful. And not limited to weapons, which helps a lot when things are scarce in a place like this." The turtle sighs. "But again, only so good as I'm able to focus and hold it. Simpler things don't take much work, at least."

[solitarysoul]

"Oh, that really is useful. I don't think magic worked like that where I come from. But I knew almost nothing about it anyway."

[purplexing]

"To be fair, magic is still a pretty nebulous field of study that I'm not even sure where to start. This is the first thing I've been able to grasp of anything mystical, back home."

He shrugs, moving to shake out the bag now that it's free of bullets, dusting it off.

"Name's Donnie, by the way."

[solitarysoul]

"Oh, s-sorry. I'm Levi."

[purplexing]

Donnie smiles crookedly, waving a hand. "Don't worry about it. I think names are the last thing on people's mind around here. But it'd be nice to know who I'm working with." Or looking out for.

[solitarysoul]

"Yeah, that's true. We have more important things to worry about than just names." He cants his head. "Is there anything out here you're looking for? I could keep an eye out for you."

[purplexing]

"Names are still important. I for one would like if someone noticed if I went missing."

Donnie tilts his head, looking back at the cyborg. Is it a good thing or a bad thing to consider it more of an object than once a person? The former made it easier to scavenge off of, anyway...

"Was thinking of melting down some of the swords to use for a new staff, so if you find a few and no one wants them as is, I'll take them."

[solitarysoul]

"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."

[purplexing]

"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.