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

[androidvictoriam]

That's what I'm talking about! Nicely done!

[ Danse can't feel the sensation of crushing the things, exactly, though there's strangely something a bit like an echo of it, but he can feel the emotions that go along with it, and no small amount of righteous jubilation of his own to see that many enemies taken out in one stroke. ]

Feels good, doesn't it?

[ His voice might still have that same wolfish relish to it even if he were speaking aloud right now, in his own form. But for as much of that vindication as he absorbs, as much vicarious satisfaction as he already feels on his own, he soaks in some of that civilizing influence too, the unfamiliar perspective of someone who doesn't ordinarily take pleasure in fighting. It's strange, to be on a battlefield and have his mind so vividly linked to that of a pacifist.

It pulls him back, makes him look out over the camp with a more restrained tactician's eye again. The enemy's numbers have definitely, visibly thinned now; the other drifters have been just as busy, but he and Arcade have certainly taken out a respectable chunk between the two of them, and the energy of the devourers' deaths is giving a much-needed second wind when he would ordinarily be exhausted and limping too heavily to run. ]

You think you're up for one more round?

[ He's shifted away from that instinct to bark orders, and certainly from being feral enough to just take off running again. ]

[taediosum]

Good isn't the word I'd use.

[ Not even with the echo of Danse's fierce approval in the back of his mind, and the feedback from his sigil, as the few devourers that simply dissolve upon death bleed their energy into it. Angry vindication doesn't leave him feeling any brighter or cleaner than the crush of those devourers left behind, broken limbs and deflated, brain-like bodies shaken roughly away from the coils of his tail as he lashes it sharply to rid himself of the mess.

Still, though, as he raises himself up again to take the same kind of measured, cautious survey of their surroundings, he doesn't shy away from the prospect of ridding them of more of those things. With a terse nod, Arcade shoots him a glance, noting the blood painting his limbs. He can worry about that a little later, though. ]

Just make it quick.

[androidvictoriam]

[ He'll understand that distaste more when he thinks about it later, feel far less envious and more grimly sympathetic that Arcade had to be the one to do the dirty work. Even when Danse kills things at close range, it's only in these past couple months here that he hasn't been insulated from the gore by a suit of power armor, and even here, he's got a tire iron--he hasn't had to do it with his own body.

But it is what it is, and even though he's beginning to feel the pain--he's beaten and clawed enough of them himself to reap some benefits, but not as many--he can steel himself for one more pass. There are far fewer of them left to chase him now, a mercy, but when he leads them back to Arcade and leaps over his tail to leave the brains corralled within it, he staggers a little on the landing.

It's enough. The enemy seems, finally, to be retreating. His relieved laugh is out loud now, a coarse snarling bark that he hates to hear coming from his own throat, and he collapses back against the nearest truck to support himself, more fatigue than injury, finally feeling that battle-adrenaline beginning to wear off. ]

I don't want to imagine how ugly that could have gotten if you weren't here, Doc--

[ Still reflexive, but the cutoff and prompt mental correction, too, is tangible through the still-existing mental thread. Danse may still have his hangups about the intimacy of first-name terms, but it doesn't really get much more intimate in its way than "telepathically linked and the only thing keeping each other sane," so this seems like as good a time as any to let that go. ]

--Arcade.

[taediosum]

[ The longer he's stuck like this, the easier it is to maneuver, and for once Arcade is grateful for that. Slithering so that he can clean the mess from his scales as he goes, washing it away through the hard-packed dirt, alleviates some of the grotesque discomfort of it all, after that last round. Even if they were still being overrun, he isn't sure he could do that a third time, with or without his sanity intact.

He slumps into a loose coil, as close as he can get to sitting down, and drops the ripper beside him, patting down his sides and the few patches of skin he has left to feel for the scrapes and gashes the devourers left on him. Nothing serious, at least. ]

It was ugly enough.

[ A pang of irritable pain accompanies the thought, as he finds the worst of the cuts, just above the scales banding his midsection, putting a bit of pressure on it with one of his extraneous arms. ...But that testiness subsides just as quickly.

He clears his throat, opting to speak aloud, this time. ]

Thanks. That... definitely could've gone worse for both of us.

[androidvictoriam]

[ Danse doesn't know how the hell to go about ceasing to be a twelve-foot-tall monster with teeth the length of ballpoint pens, now that the form is less useful and more "how do I get in a car like this if it doesn't wear off."

Now that the danger has passed, though, and his heart rate has slowed, and he's able to actually think about these things rather than focusing on the heat of battle, his body seems to have mercy on him. He shrinks, gradually, the transformation as inherently painless as it was before, though it doesn't make his limbs less clawed-up. His clothing is more astonishingly intact than the laws of physics would seem to allow, save for some new bloodstains and a zipper that's given up the ghost. His stomach feels like he hasn't eaten anything for a solid week.

He slides down against the truck now that his form is more convenient for it, sitting down on the ground and pushing his sweaty hair back from his face. ]

No need for thanks. We all benefited.

[ His voice is hoarse, oddly rusty-sounding, as if it's been longer since he's spoken aloud than it actually has, but at least it's his again. He tilts his head to scan over Arcade's injuries, predictably ignoring his own. ]

You got those?

[ Looks like it, but it seems worth asking anyway. They've all been lucky enough so far not to have to find out what happens when the sole physician can't heal himself, and he'd like that streak to continue. ]

[taediosum]

[ He should probably be more alarmed than he is, by the sight of that enormous, terrifying wolf-creature gradually turning back into Danse. Instead, it's fleeting jealousy he feels, as simply stuck in this form as he is. He has no idea when he'll be abruptly changed back, and, unfortunately, he values his life just enough not to risk rifling through all the weird new remedies the infirmary is stocked up with in hopes of forcing it. ]

I'm fine. It could be worse.

[ The injuries he sustained just before and mid-transformation aren't all that bad. He's been hurt worse, in recent months, and survived that, too.

The skeptical look he turns toward Danse's still bloodied limbs is equally predictable, sharp and disapproving (if exhausted). ]

Those need to be cleaned and disinfected, though.