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

[andnevermore]

[ Jayce's awkward little shuffle has Blake flushing, mortified. Gods, she'd hadn't meant to stare that long. It's just-- he's really changed. Like Akechi, like Serph. Some of them only have a couple of changes, but some of them, like Jayce, are really transforming into something wholly different. ]

That pretty much lines up with what I saw.

[ She stares down at the symbol, and finally swipes a hand through it. Jayce's experiments have left her with the notion that symbols have real power, here, and she doesn't want to leave one out in the open. ]

To be in favor of monsters-- what does that even mean? [ Blake frowns thoughtfully. ] To want to let them run rampant and destroy everything? Or... just that it's a good thing when people like us turn into monsters?

[hexrot]

Frankly, [ an incredulous huff; not at blake, specififcally. the silver tears coulld fuck themselves just as much as the wardens. ] it's worse, but you're closer with the latter.

[ there's little of a good thing to connect a cult to. he knows what he dreamed before were too vivid just to be dreams. he still has nightmares of being strapped to an alter when he wasn't whithering in a pit. ]

They've sacrificed their own, forced transformations . . . There's reason to believe it.

[andnevermore]

[ Blake stands, and starts seaching the body of the cyborg half-melted into the giant rib bone. ]

I could almost see their logic. Some of us are getting whole new powers, or magic. Some of us have become unkillable. Even things as small as new wings, or the ability to turn into a giant wolf... I can see how some people might convince themselves that it's better.

[ It doesn't take long for her to find a sheath to go with the dagger, which she straps around her thigh. Then, she starts searching the cyborg's pockets for ammo. ]

Not that I agree. Obviously.

[ She glances back at Jayce for a moment. ]

How are you doing on that front, by the way? You're... a lot has changed since I last saw you.

[hexrot]

[ jayce scoffs; though he does understand what she's talking about. if that a personaly priority, than sure. jayce has more than enough metal parts for his forge-on-the-go, but there's never enough scraps in the midst of a dwindling supply. tool kit hanging from his waist in a bag, jayce's brace squeaks along as he steps closer and grunts with some effort and visible strain on his face to get down closer. one leg bends, the other is much more of a problem. he ends up falling onto his backside with a flurry of dust and his braced leg extended. oof.

going to just pick off the viable parts and screws here . . . ]

I'm what, dead? [ dramatic pause..... and honestly if she wasn't looking at him, maybe he'd look terribly annoyed about it and snapping. luckily— well, what good does that do for him? the quirk his lips give is fleeting and a flop of his ears accompant, but it's there. just a sign that he's trying to get through it. humor helps sometimes. he's got enough ptsd on his plate as is, living a neverending hell loop might as well not be living at all. ] I'm having to relearn my sense of space . . . Walk again, [ he hobbles on his hooves repeatedly to a point that he's considering a cane. his right side is getting compromised more and more by the weight distribution. you'd think being dead meant no pain, but, would you look at that! existing problems are the damn same. ] a matter of adaption.

[ he has things to live for. he'll get through it. ]

[andnevermore]

It's okay. I'm dead too.

[ Blake says it with a wry amusement. She's had time to adjust, and she's apologized to everybody that she hurt, so she's kind of working her way through the whole thing. It's a process. ]

When I bit someone for the first time, that's when it happened. My heart just stopped beating. I went cold. The only time I'm warm these days is after I've just fed.

[ Blake offers a hand, held out to Jayce in case he needs help standing up again. He may be bigger than her, lending doubt to the idea that she could help leverage him upright, but she's a lot stronger than she looks. ]

Having to learn how to walk again must be tough, though. [ She pulls a face, gesturing at her own new bat wings, sitting neatly mantled against her back. ] I'm having to relearn my balance with these things. Threw my combat training way off.

[hexrot]

[ hah. dead jokes. they'll be natural at this . . . if anything a way to process actually being dead. or avoid it. jayce would rather be taking it than crying about it. if anything, jayce takes the offered hand but tries not to let his weight fall too much on her; he'll allow for the help, there's no shame in accepting it. relearning to walk, well . . . ]

Second time's a charm . . . [ the first time he had to relearn walking was when he fractured his tibia. never properly healed, now a permanant disability. ] Are they fully functional?

[andnevermore]

[ Blake hauls Jayce up easily, taking his weight with one hand. She's thrown van-sized Grimm over her head; helping a guy up is no big problem. As she does, she watches the way his brace moves, thoughtful. Unfortunately, she's no expert on prosthetics and braces. She wishes she could help, but.

His question makes her grin, sheepish. ]

I haven't tried flying yet, actually. I've been prioritizing relearning my center of balance so that I'm not a liability in a fight.

[ Also, she gets motion sickness easily. Which is kind of embarassing. ]

I haven't seen that before. [ Blake nods at his hammer. Not the kind of weapon she might have pictured him with, actually, but then, she's used to giant hammers being wielded by short redheads with the power of lightning, not tall scientists with rainbow scars. ] It looks modular; does it shoot anything? Or is it just a hammer?

[hexrot]

[ the hammer's head is driven to the floor and allows for jayce to lean most of his weight on as he stiffens his grip and rises against its hilt. blake's hand is no longer needed in the process. but the hammer itself, actually . . . has disfigured beyond what it used to be. it has a strange, pulsing trait to it. like something living, organic, and at the same time, mechanical. wrong. ]

Arcane blasts, from the open core. [ right now the core is closed tight, almost sleeping. ] It's been with me since day one.

[ he's just never had to bring it out around blake; dangers call for safety measures. ]

[andnevermore]

[ Blake's eyebrows shoot up, and she gives the hammer another assessing glance. Admittedly, she... doesn't know what arcane blasts even are, but it definitely sounds impressive! It must be magic, then?

Oh, gods, nobody tell Ruby. She'd nerd out at Jayce so hard. In fact, Blake has to warn Jayce about this exact possibility. ]

Have you met my team leader Ruby yet? Short, black-red hair, goth, wields a big scythe? [ Blake half-grins. ] She's a huge dork about weapons, and she will babble at you for hours if she finds out you've got a magic hammer. Just to warn you.

[ She starts searching the ground and the nearby cyborg bodies to see if they've got any ammunition. She's run out of her own, so she's hoping she can restock. ]

Have you fought any of the monsters? Or the raiders that attacked?

[hexrot]

[ jayce's relationship with weaponry is a little complicated, but he awkwardly stiff-smiles this one out, anyway. he knew ruby by glance, and they've spoken a few times through the convoy network. i'll be sure to keep it, uh. hidden, is what he thinks to himself, but that is ironic. can't really hide a giant hammer. ]

More than I'd like to admit, [ he was no fighter, and yet, he still gets caught in monster fisticuffs, either because his research led him there or his stomach did. the raiders were the only half-anomalies. he fought because there was no choice to; getting a meal out of it along with scraps was just an extra. rather than looking for ammo, jayce gets right to salvaging actual metal parts from the cyborg cadaver. you never know when you'll need parts (although in jayce's case, he knows he'll need a lot of metal). ] they just keep finding me.

[ the raiders did not like the way he looked enough to target him more than the others, which . . . alright. might be best if he can take the damage. ]