monstertruckers: (Default)
monstertruckers ([personal profile] monstertruckers) wrote in [community profile] route666rp2025-05-06 05:39 pm

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











definitionofcrazy: (Yeah?)

Hilariously, Faith is a 90s comic reader, so she SHOULD know him. I'm gonna quietly ignore that.

[personal profile] definitionofcrazy 2025-05-16 04:18 am (UTC)(link)
[She stops mid-sawing to look at the speaker. Fortunately, the recent monster changes are freakshow enough that the turtle thing barely even registers as out-of-the-ordinary. However, it actually takes her a few moments to realize what exactly he's referring to.

Right. Dismemberment.]


Don't sweat it, I'll wash the knife before I cut food with it.

[A master of the deadpan comedy, is our Faith. She goes back to sawing.]
faceguy: (can't let this go)

haha please do, 4th walling is in my hard nos |'D

[personal profile] faceguy 2025-05-16 05:10 am (UTC)(link)
Ugh, and I thought my older brother was gross.

[Eating salami off the ground is somehow still a step above this.]

What's so great about that that you have to hack the whole arm off anyway?
definitionofcrazy: (pic#17735135)

YEAH KINDA FIGURED

[personal profile] definitionofcrazy 2025-05-16 05:38 am (UTC)(link)
Not a fan of guns. First crossbow I've found since I got here.

[She can use guns, she's been getting used to them since she got here, but she's much cozier with old-school weapons.]

'Sides, not like homeboy here is complaining.
faceguy: (show them what youre all about)

[personal profile] faceguy 2025-05-16 05:54 am (UTC)(link)
Maybe he's alright with being disarmed by such a charmer.

[Leo still moves back so he doesn't have to look right at it. Yeah, that's still gross.]

Alright, whatever. Have it your way.
definitionofcrazy: (pic#17735138)

[personal profile] definitionofcrazy 2025-05-16 06:28 am (UTC)(link)
[She pauses and gives him another look at that joke, then rolls her eyes and gets back to work.]

Not the place to be squeamish, Blue.

[There's an unpleasant noise of impact. She's hit bone.]

Looting bodies on a battlefield, pretty much never gonna be a picnic.
faceguy: (open up and)

[personal profile] faceguy 2025-05-16 06:34 am (UTC)(link)
Uh, it's Leo? Only my dad calls me Blue.

[Eugh, and that was a gross noise, too.]

And I'm not squeamish! [He thinks his reaction is totally reasonable!]
definitionofcrazy: (Yeah?)

[personal profile] definitionofcrazy 2025-05-17 03:11 am (UTC)(link)
Good, you're not squeamish. So we're five-by-five, right Leo?

[Sorry, her threshold for reasonable squick is pretty high. As evidenced by her now sawing through the bone, mostly with brute strength. She is, evidently, stronger than she looks.

Good news is, she's made note of the name. And his objection to the nickname.]
faceguy: (for a first effort this)

[personal profile] faceguy 2025-05-17 05:59 am (UTC)(link)
...Five-by-five?

[Despite the gross sounds, he's intrigued by new slang.

Also seriously, how is she doing that all by herself? She's like, Raph-strong.]
definitionofcrazy: (94)

[personal profile] definitionofcrazy 2025-05-20 04:15 am (UTC)(link)
"...Old radio slang. Just something I picked up from..."

[And that makes her pause. Pat Lehane is not somebody she's ready to talk about with this guy.

And apparently the momentary flash of unpleasant thoughts is expressed by her suddenly shoving the knife the rest of the way through the bone in a single powerful shove. Whoops. That's gonna need to be sharpened later.]


"Boston, I guess."
faceguy: (with the plan)

[personal profile] faceguy 2025-05-21 04:08 am (UTC)(link)
[Ew... guess she got it off.]

Boston, huh? I've never been to Boston! [He says this with his terrible attempt at a Boston accent. Also, he hasn't been much of anywhere, so it's not like that's a big deal.] I'm from New York.

[The city, of course, but does he even need to clarify?]
definitionofcrazy: (198)

[personal profile] definitionofcrazy 2025-05-21 05:28 am (UTC)(link)
Boston's nothing special. Been in lots of big cities, pretty much all the same. Big buildings, lots of traffic, good clubs, bad crime rates.

[She's not done being disgusting at this point, she's now started to carve away at the arm that's still wedged into the cuff on the wrist-mounted weapon. She does, however, cock an eyebrow at him.]

Better baseball, though.

[Hey, he's from New York, she's from Boston, she's basically contractually obligated.]
Edited 2025-05-21 05:28 (UTC)
faceguy: (turn it up turn it up rock city)

[personal profile] faceguy 2025-05-23 01:56 am (UTC)(link)
[He gasps dramatically, both in defense of his city and to double as covering up the icky sounds of her carving the hand out of the weapon (yuck!).]

Oh please. You couldn't pay me enough to watch the Red Sox. I almost feel sorry for you.

[Even if basketball is more his game, he will absolutely come to the defense of both the Yankees and the Mets; as long as it's against any other city's team, of course.]
definitionofcrazy: (170)

The cruel hilarity of Faith's canon point being perfectly timed for this joke.

[personal profile] definitionofcrazy 2025-05-27 06:13 am (UTC)(link)
[That reaction actually gets a smile out of her.]

Hey, we've been kicking ass this season. '03 is gonna be our year, I know it.

[She doesn't even sound hostile or aggressive about it, she seems to find the banter genuinely amusing.

Less amusing is the loud sound of the remaining severed arm sliding free of the cuff and plopping onto the ground. Charming.]


Got it.
faceguy: (a motherfucker)

hahah

[personal profile] faceguy 2025-05-29 02:45 am (UTC)(link)
'03!? Oh wow, I wasn't even born yet. And I'm pretty sure it wasn't actually-

[Oh gross, there are those noises again.]

Eugh... great job...
definitionofcrazy: (172)

[personal profile] definitionofcrazy 2025-05-30 01:46 am (UTC)(link)
You weren't-

[She blinks at him, still supremely oblivious to- or just unbothered by- his visible disgust.]

How old are you?
faceguy: (dyin cause you just don't care)

[personal profile] faceguy 2025-05-30 03:50 am (UTC)(link)
[Immediately, he draws himself up to his full five feet and four inches of height.]

I'm sixteen.

[He says it very defiantly.]
definitionofcrazy: (175)

[personal profile] definitionofcrazy 2025-05-31 12:49 pm (UTC)(link)
[Wait. 2019, at least.

Had she been asleep for sixteen years? Longer? Maybe they all had.

Except, no, because some people clearly were from places that weren't like this. It was more than just time in the future. Still, she clearly needs a moment to acclimate to that.]


It's still 03 where I'm from.

[And that's all she manages to say about it. Which she already said. Eloquence, thy name is Lehane.]
faceguy: (a motherfucker)

[personal profile] faceguy 2025-06-01 02:31 am (UTC)(link)
[At least she isn't saying anything about his age. Leo seizes on the topic change.]

Yeah, I think people are from different timelines and different worlds. Even my brother is from a few... [A pause.] ...weeks ahead of me.

[He actually hasn't asked how long it had been for Donnie. Thinking about it too long gives him the heebie-jeebies, though, so he stops. He and Donnie are supposed to be the same age; Donnie's not supposed to be older than Leo!]
definitionofcrazy: (172)

[personal profile] definitionofcrazy 2025-06-01 03:10 am (UTC)(link)
[She was his age when she got called to be a Slayer, and even younger when she did many other things she absolutely shouldn't have been doing.]

So what, this is like some sort of time travel deal, too?

[At first, she sounds alarmed at the prospect... but then the expression turns puzzled, instead.]

...Does that mean we might be able to time travel back, too?
faceguy: (show them what youre all about)

[personal profile] faceguy 2025-06-02 04:54 am (UTC)(link)
How the heck am I supposed to know? [Leo spreads out his hands in a "what can you do?" sort of expression.] We don't even know how to get back to our own worlds yet.

[And sure, if there's some way to do that, it may be possible to time travel too, but it's not like Leo knows for sure.]
definitionofcrazy: (pic#17735184)

[personal profile] definitionofcrazy 2025-06-05 03:09 pm (UTC)(link)
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.
faceguy: (i carry the crown)

[personal profile] faceguy 2025-06-06 05:23 am (UTC)(link)
[Like he's supposed to know what "rhetorical" means!

He guesses he can sympathize with that, though. There's some things he'd like to redo, too... Then again, his future self already sent someone back in time to try and fix his mistakes, and look how that turned out?]


Time travel doesn't solve everything, anyway. You'd probably just make a... a bif... a bio... a biffy... a split time branch.

[Yeah.]
definitionofcrazy: (Anger)

[personal profile] definitionofcrazy 2025-06-11 05:32 am (UTC)(link)
[She can't help you on whatever word you're going for, 'rhetorical' is already on the high end of her scale.]

Hey, as long as I'm back home with a normal neck in one of those branches, I'll take it.
faceguy: (they kiss on the ring)

[personal profile] faceguy 2025-06-12 05:09 am (UTC)(link)
[Three syllables is usually where he taps out.]

Well, it's not like I'd stop you. It's probably not my world you'd be going back to, anyway. ...Unless in about seventeen years your New York also gets invaded by aliens.

[In which case, oops.]
definitionofcrazy: (172)

[personal profile] definitionofcrazy 2025-06-15 01:15 am (UTC)(link)
It better not, I'm gonna be pissed if it is.

[Seriously, dealing with the vampires and demons is bad enough.]

Are we talking, like, little green dudes with rayguns, or xenomorphs?

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