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

[hexrot]

[ jayce snaps up from devouring some sort of multicolored lizard that doesn't look the least bit edible. the belly was soft, slimy, but hot inside and spurts blood and entrails into his mouth when he breaks flesh and snaps right through organs in heightened desperation to eat. he hasn't cooked it this time. couldn't wait for it to cook, it's been days since he's last eaten, or the very least that what it feels like. he still has his antlers, discoloration at the bud of his nose and shivering cervid ears under the shag of his messy hair.

having someone down here with him was impossible. it was only a sign that he was losing his god damn mind down here. ]

You're not real . . . You're not.

[ jayce tries not to look. he knows his eyes would play cruel tricks on him. he keeps continues to crunch through bone and swallow quickly, because there's a part of him that's certain he'd vomit. the smell down here is horrendous. his leg is freshly fractured, caked in dried crimson and leaking, multicolored pus. the beds of his nails are black and painfully cracked. everything down here just screams the worst of survival. ]

[solitarysoul]

[He frowns at Jayce, not sure where he knows the guy from or if antlers were normal or weird.]

I'm real. How did you get here?

[He eyes the lizard. Had they really run out of rations already? He might have some on him...]

[hexrot]

[ jayce snorts so loudly it almost seems animalistic. he spits out a chip of bone. his head swings his antlers in a way that brandishes them against the dull flicker of flames sputtering at the fire he's made with human remains. ]

Show me, then. Show me you're real.

[solitarysoul]

How?! I don't even know you're real. This whole place looks fake.

[Or, at least, it doesn't look like where he expects to be.]

[hexrot]

[ he's not real? all this— he can't fathom this all being an illusion of a sick mind already rotting in the crevice. perhaps that's what lifts jayce's lips into a snarl, and causes his spine to crack.

he sees him. levi. the boy without looking so much like a hound. the voice that felt so much like something far too dear to be playing with his heartstrings. ]

Maybe you bleed.

[solitarysoul]

[Levi just glares at Jayce for a moment before pulling a knife out of his boot and cutting a thin slash across the back of his hand. He bleeds, holding the hand out for a moment before throwing the knife so it'll land near Jayce.]

Your turn.

cw: self harm up there

[hexrot]

[ he wasn't expecting it to be real. because it shouldn't be. jayce is the only one in the ravine, company were only vehicles born from fever and desperation. the boy bleeds, and jayce's mind sputters completely. the smell blooms fresh in his nose, delves deep into the pit of his painfully empty stomach. all he can taste on the roof of his mouth is the blood. hot blood, on his tongue. between his teeth. the whites of his eyes eclipse behind black. he doesn't take the knife. doesn't even look at it.

just levi's hand dripping crimson. oh, no. ]

You can't be . . .

[solitarysoul]

[Its not a very deep cut, just enough to let it bleed and once Jayce's seen it he wipes the blood off on his sleeve. Doesn't do anything about the smell though.

That reaction was worrying, though. Just who (or what?) had found its way into the trench or whatever the hell this hole was. Levi narrows his eyes.]

I told you.

cw: zombie gore & body horror

[hexrot]

[ jayce is now accutely aware of how hungry he still is. famished, actually. he doesn't care about the fact that the boy is real or apparition, only that he is solid, leaking and flesh. bone. the pop from his spine sounds a second time, and jayce feels a surge that is greater than he could contain. it boils his skin, melts it to rot and the tattered clothes that cover him. jayce convulses, writhes and paws at his face with painful strain in each flexed finger— his face, that for the record, seems to give way to horribly splitting, cracking bone.

the rest of his growth is grotesque, ugly; his spine stretches, his legs unfurl to four great hooves anchored by a rotting, cervid lower half riddled in holes exposing flesh, muscle, and the ooze of prismatic infection. he is becoming a beast, and one who seems to have clear, staggering intent. the stag mandlible hangs open and clatters, a gutteral, salivating groan pushing through pitch black nightmare to charge for him. ]

[solitarysoul]

[Levi looks concerned for a second as Jayce convulses but once the man starts changing he doesn't hesitate to fire his rifle. He fires multiple times, shots which may or may not hit or even do anything. The beast is too close, though, and he doesn't have enough time to figure out what might even be vulnerable.

He steps back, gun evaporating from his hands as his canine features reassert themselves and more. A muzzle pushes out as fur spreads across most of his body, save for a few places where bony plates form instead. His transformation is less dramatic than Jayce, it simply seems he's the boy in the army coveralls one moment and then quickly he is not.]

[hexrot]

[ nothing much. not when your dead. not when bullet holes only stun progress, doesn't destroy it. once the cervid, undead beast towers to full height, its mandibles clatter like hollowed stones. it does not wait for levi to finish, lunging with a wet, infectious bite that spread arcane radiation by contact. if his bite sinks, the damage would be more than puncture wounds.

levi's advantage might be a canine's speed. jayce is sluggish this way, although highly impervious. little would actually kill him, especially now. ]

[solitarysoul]

[As Jayce raises up Levi drops down, dropping to all fours and then rolling over so he can rake his claws across Jayce's stomach. At the same time he snaps at Jayce's left rear leg.]

[hexrot]

[ it angers the deer clearly, but the dog is in a good spot— jayce has height, uses it to kick his left and ram his front hooves below in an attempt to cage and tramble as any deer would. claws split some hide on his belly, coming undone like felt tearing at the seams, but it doesn't to bother him more than his leg.

his maw splices with light and the whirr of a core building power. building, building, building— ]

[solitarysoul]

[The feeling of Jayce's hide breaking under his claws feels...weird. Maybe he'll wonder about it later, but right now he doesn't have time for that. He lets go of the leg and rolls out from under Jayce. He doesn't dodge all of the stomps and kicks, but he doesn't take any significant damage.

Whatever that noise was wouldn't be so easy, though. Its not something he really recognizes but its easy to tell its leading to some sort of shot or explosion. From the deer-thing's mouth, so he jumps to a position behind it and tenses. His reflexes were well honed and boosted by the canine form. Hopefully he'll be able to leap aside once it fires.]

[hexrot]

[ jayce fires. and fires. and fires— in a fit of frenzy he fires at every flickering shadow, at every corner and sound and crack in the night that he could not see. he fires until the ravine tremors, until the rocks begin to crack and fall away from the impact craters and suspended, corrupted rubble.

the entire cave is falling apart with them still inside. ]

[solitarysoul]

[Levi jumps, dashes and dodge rolls away from the blasts, but with all the attention he has to put on doing that he's not able to do anything to fight back. His ears twitch, though, when he hears the falling rocks.]

Stop! It's coming down!

[hexrot]

[ jayce hears him. he yells, and it's the one thing he shouldn't have done. blind, jayce cannot see, but my sound, the creature snaps his head and sinngles in on the area with his ears, the echo bouncing off the walls.

he bugles and unleashes a final blast to where levi calls for him— and it's that final blast that brings the ravine down upon them. stone, debris, metals, boulders, they all come crashing.

the dream ends there. and jayce, for one, wakes inn startle. ]