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











faceguy: (you were a master shredder)

[personal profile] faceguy 2025-05-19 03:01 am (UTC)(link)
Does he need to be? Hmm...

Leo gives a little shrug, and it looks like it takes a lot of energy. "The only way to get me out is for someone to get hurt... Or..."

He looks at something, past Sephiroth, off in the distance. It's just a shiny pink speck right now, but...

"By letting it out."
firstsoldier: (pic#17626943)

[personal profile] firstsoldier 2025-05-19 06:00 pm (UTC)(link)
As Leo's gaze shifts, Sephiroth moves to track it. A pink speck, amidst other strange pink things, he'd dismissed it earlier. Was it important? It must be, given the context, but it doesn't look like anything to him.

It didn't have to, it's not his nightmare. "Then we will neither let it out, nor allow anyone else to come to further harm. The price has been paid, you're already hurt."

He says it with the calm certainty of fact and not hypothesis, stepping deliberately closer to the damaged turtle. Such an impact to leave a crater like this must have caused serious harm indeed, and the closer he gets the more he can tell things have gone badly. A turtle's shell, if he remembered right, wasn't merely exterior protection. It was their ribs. "Come. I will carry you, if you can tell me where we must go."
faceguy: (you were a master shredder)

[personal profile] faceguy 2025-05-20 05:11 am (UTC)(link)
Leo just stares up at the guy like he doesn't get it. Clearly he doesn't. Maybe he's just upset about being stuck here, too, just like Leo is...

Huh. Somehow, he's just now considering that someone else could have gotten stuck here. Another thing to add to his guilt, he supposes.

"Sorry to tell you this, but there's not really anywhere to go. That's the whole point."

The speck is growing closer, though now it's bigger than a speck. Something wearing black, dragon-like armor, around seven or eight feet tall.

"I... if I knew how to get you out of here, I would tell you. I didn't... mean for anyone else to get caught up in this."
firstsoldier: (pic#17626940)

[personal profile] firstsoldier 2025-05-20 10:03 pm (UTC)(link)
"I am less caught up in this than it seems, don't distress yourself on my behalf." That shape is wearing armor. Another being out here? Something intelligent, or a monster? .. Or both, he supposed.

Maybe it was the source of this nightmare. He could understand the crushing misery of isolation, he'd endured it most of his life, but this had the feel of something more specific. What he can see is mulled over, as is what he's been told. The whole point-- "Are you the prisoner then, or is that?"

One black gloved hand rises to gesture at the approaching ominous shape.

There is a certain irony he's oblivious to of Leonardo's prison dimension catching more than one alien parasite in it. Or one alien parasite and one hybrid.
faceguy: (to become a star)

[personal profile] faceguy 2025-05-23 01:47 am (UTC)(link)
"That," Leo affirms.

The Krang grows closer. Leo's breathes quicken as it does.

"He'll destroy everything," he adds, and the voice gets louder. Everybody dies fighting the Krang. "That's why he can't get out. He won't stop until all of Earth is gone."

And that's why Leo can't leave. They can't open the door for him without opening it for that.
firstsoldier: (pic#17626947)

googlin krang like the wind

[personal profile] firstsoldier 2025-05-23 08:24 pm (UTC)(link)
The shape in armor, and what lies at its belly, is studied for a long, long silent moment. The unseen speaker, the echo perhaps of another conversation entirely, puts a lens on what sounds like rising fear or at least adrenaline in the battered and wounded turtle.

It's not an accident, the way Sephiroth moves to place himself directly between Leo and the Kang. He sounds young. Too young to be worrying about things like enemies that won't stop until all the earth is gone. "Then if the threat is removed, you will be free to go. To return to those in that photograph."

How much of this is dream, and how much of this is memory? "Is he immortal?"
faceguy: (you definitely had)

sorry |'D if I hadn't been phone tagging I would have linked a pic

[personal profile] faceguy 2025-05-23 10:21 pm (UTC)(link)
Though the armor itself has a dragon-like maw and eyes that look like a face, the true Krang is visible at its belly. Pink and with a sharp-toothed scowl, it doesn't look like much at first. But Leo has seen first hand what it can do.

Leo watches as the strange swordsman steps in between himself and the Krang. Is he going to fight it? No, but he looks human, for all his imposing stature; there's no way he'll stand a chance.

"No, but..." Leo's eyes grow wider, and he struggles to sit up. "No, you can't- he'll kill you."
firstsoldier: (pic#17626948)

it's fine!!! also, ew. they're gross.

[personal profile] firstsoldier 2025-05-23 10:49 pm (UTC)(link)
"Others have made similar claims, but I remain." The Krang is here, perhaps, for its wounded prey. Leo didn't get those injuries from nowhere, after all, but Sephiroth doesn't seem concerned about being added to the list of injured and dead. It might be overconfidence, this is after all an unknown enemy.

Those of the Convoy were to be defended, doubly so if already wounded. Little pinpoints of dark violet energy mark Masamune's reappearance, the longsword comfortable in his grip. Unless there was more to this ... armor with two faces, he wasn't yet concerned. "I will worry about me, and about this .. 'krang'. Your duty is to see to it you get back to where you belong."
faceguy: (changes hands)

very gross

[personal profile] faceguy 2025-05-27 03:55 am (UTC)(link)
"...This is crazy," Leo mutters, but his injuries are such that he can't get up. He can only watch as the Krang approaches, this (clearly overconfident) mystery soldier staring it down.

"Hmph. So you have multiplied," notes the Krang, his speech perfectly understandable despite clearly being alien. "Another insignificant gnat to be crushed under my heel."

The Krang seems fully unconcerned by Sephiroth's stature or weapon. The Krang have seen it all, conquered countless worlds; their imprisonment in this dimension was only a setback. He moves suddenly, lightning fast, aiming a punch that packs deadly force directly at the swordsman.
firstsoldier: (pic#17626947)

I thought the original ones were bad. Well. one. I think Krang was unique way back when.

[personal profile] firstsoldier 2025-05-31 04:50 pm (UTC)(link)
In reality, this would be little competition, or so Sephiroth thinks. But here, where only memory and dream rule, things ... inevitably change. If this is Leonardo's dream, and his dream says Sephiroth can't stand against such a threat, it may truly be so. His lifetime of skill and power could be meaningless here.

This knowledge doesn't prevent him from patiently taking his favored stance, blade raised, silent. He has nothing to say to this creature, it is in the end a figment of memory at best, and the dreamer was the one of importance.

Everything in the end depends on Leo. Sephiroth's ordinarily more than fast enough to dodge the incoming punch, strong enough to bring the indestructable sword around in one smooth motion to remove the entire offending arm in the doing ... but it's not his nightmare. There is something terribly, patiently experienced in the way he moves, but it may be for nothing as Masamune's brought around as both defense and offense to strike alien metal with ... what amounts to more alien metal.
faceguy: (when you got no place)

I am not deep enough in the earlier tmnt lore to know for sure but I think they all look gross lol

[personal profile] faceguy 2025-06-02 04:50 am (UTC)(link)
The hit is hard - as Sephiroth expected, Leo's memory and nightmare combine to form a creature that is stronger than anything mortal. The crushing force of it may be enough to overwhelm Sephiroth, unless he can come up with some way to convince Leo's subconscious that he can fight back. Right now, simply having a big sword is not quite enough.

Still, Leo watches intently as the battle plays out above him, wondering if maybe, this time, someone can do what he and his brothers couldn't. He's not holding out too much hope, though...

After all, the Krang is already starting its next barrage.