memestertrucks | MARCH TDM

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After tumbling through shadow you find yourself in a shrouded, ruined garage. It’s full of shattered windows and broken mechanical equipment, with all sorts of sharp edges to watch out for. Between that are strange symbols scrawled into the ground. Outside is cloudy weather and the beginnings of a storm flickering and rumbling.

Beyond the rundown garage is a rundown gas station surrounded by rolling, grassy hills. Close by is a Convoy of vehicles, either parked or driving up to station.

01: SUMMONING CIRCLE

This time the summoning circle and car garage is attached to retro diner, and an old wind turbine, barely still spinning and providing fading power. There’s also a broken radio playing a message about Nirvana and imploring people to head north. In fact, there’s a large amount of broken electric equipment in here and spitting sparks.

A fan circles overhead, stirring those sparks and creating a breeze. Trails of paper are attached to the fan, spinning lazily about. If Drifters choose, they can easily retrieve those paper talismans with little more than a slight static shock. While the paper is tattered and smeared with ink and blood, the following can be made out: “Broken in two […] Nothing to lose-“ “Moon mourns, call her down, ease her pain-“ “Need […] Better vessels from afar. Stronger souls-“ “Imbue with moon sigils, Give blessings of moon, share her pain. Put the ritual right.”

Hard to say what that all means, but it seems to have something to do with the summoning circle here. And there’s lingering power crackling through the building. The sort that makes the lights flash and flicker… And line up eerily with flashes of thunder on the horizon.

02: START UP 

New arrivals will have a similar experience to before; a Convoy waiting outside for them, and a collection of vehicles, one of which feels like it belongs to them. The key to the vehicle may already be in the ignition, on the dashboard… It may have even been on their person, ever since they woke up in that garage. Either way, Drifters have the keys to the vehicle now.

…But there’s a few rough edges on these vehicles. Flat tires, cracked windows and mirrors, maybe some stuck doors and locks; all of them requires two pairs of hands and supplies. The garage can take care of the supplies… Now it’s just a matter of finding some extra hands.

03: STORM WARNING

There’s something odd in the sky; it shifts between a dark cloud, and a collection of birds. As the thing draws closer, it clearly becomes a mix of both. Car-sized, dark feathered birds and skeletal avians fly in a thundering flock, and turn the sky stormy in their wake. That alone is bad… But what’s worse is how the shiny chrome of the Convoy and vehicles draws the birds. As they dive towards the ground to snatch at the shiny metal, they pull the storm and bring a tornado with them. The Convoy does its best to anchor to the ground, but lighter vehicles and Drifters might not be so lucky.

The garage and diner takes it worst of all: the electric devices start spitting sparks and can even act as homing beacons for lightning strikes if a Drifter with electric abilities gets too close to them. Any remaining, intact windows shatter as the storm winds pick up, pelting Drifters with razor shards. And water starts pouring in, further shorting electric equipment and soaking anyone to the bone. There’s even a strange droning, siren like noise to warn about the storm and cut into one’s hearing. It’s difficult conditions for anyone caught up in the blow-out.

04: WEATHERING

Once the main force of the storm hits, the following happens:
Diversion: Those with Fast cars can drive away from the station and divert the birds. They’ll want a second Drifter to come along; either to snipe at the pursuing birds, or keep eyes on the terrain! Eventually the birds will tire or get culled enough that the storm disperses.
Updraft: There is the risk of getting swept up in the tornado winds. Damage, injuries… And a particular quirk this storm has. Drifters who spend more than a minute in the storm winds will find that they begin to take on traits from the Harpy monster. These traits increase in potency if the Drifter experiences hunger or violence. As the weather clears and days become calmer, the traits fade.
Downburst: If Drifters get slammed into the ground by the storm, or the dark birds flying about. They may also find themselves drenched with rain. Any injury they take mends quickly, but is replaced with scales, as the Drifters begin to resemble a Naga monster. These changes grow worse if they tell lies, but disperse with the storm.
BIRDS: The birds themselves are vicious: those afflicted with Naga traits are seen as prey, while Harpies are seen as rivals. The birds are deadly, but also clumsy if forced to the ground. The screens on the Convoy recommend crippling the wings before finishing the bird off on the ground.

04: MONSTER SHIFT, NAGA

This month, Drifters will have access to the serpentine Naga. On top of all Naga species traits being available, the following occurs:
+Cold Blooded: the rain and storms can potentially make Naga slow and sluggish, or inclined to sleep or seek out other heat sources to gain energy; this includes basking in body heat from others!
+Water Divert: With their water shaping, Naga can divert falling rain and even ground saturation to make the area or other Drifters more dry. They can also concentrate water into different areas, and can also change water into mist or ice.
+Blue shift: the scales of Naga become more vibrantly blue, or a strange mottled combination of blue and stormy gray, the more intense the rains become. These scale colors can also reflect their moods.
+Extra arms that are painful and disorienting to grow, and can result in coordination issues.
+Scale Pains: Pain and discomfort when scales grow in, as well as fangs or talons!
+Water glide: during floods from the rains, Naga find they can easily traverse deep water as though they were simply walking (or slithering) across it.
+Thermal vision, making it easy to track others in the middle of storms. Vision may also become disorienting, and eyes become slitted.

04: MONSTER SHIFT, HARPY

The storm will bring a second monster this month, in the form of Harpy. On top of all Harpy species traits being active, the following occurs:
+Storm Rider: high agility and capable of flying through the storm winds without hindrance. Even tornadoes can be mastered!
+Feather pains: itching, or full pain when growing feathers or wings. Talons may also be painful when growing from fingers or from feet.
+Wind Affinity: able to shape wind, including diverting the worst of the storm winds, or summon and focus wind into razors.
+Warbling Voice: words may waver and slip into something more songlike, or even a damaging sonic scream if emotions are heightened.
+Height Call: a need to get higher into the air, whether through perching on buildings or the convoy, or through flight. A sense of euphoria as they go higher.
+Nest Building: a compulsion to create a nest out of spare and soft objects, and feeling more safe inside that space.
+Heightened vision like a bird of prey, able to pick out details even at great distance. This may be disorienting at first, as vision becomes telescopic.

05: RAIN, SHINE, OR SALVAGE

Upon culling enough birds, the storm disperses. The monster avians dissolve as they drop into streams of energy, feeding into Drifter Sigils and providing limited healing. And handful remain intact when they hit the ground and can be harvested for meat, feathers, and possibly even talons.

There is one extra problem, in the form of falling debris. After being pulled up into the sky, wreckage (and possibly stray Drifters) are going to drop back down. It’s advised to look out for falling objects and people. It might be possible to salvage something in the form of scrap metal for any vehicle repairs, but such a task requires two.

06: STORM SHOT 

The storm can be dispersed in one of two ways. One is waiting the storm out. The second is a battered collection of machines melted into the roof of the garage and gas station. When touched they burn the hands of Drifters, but also fire a jolt of lightning into the storm. One shot lessens the effects of the storm, repeated shots completely disperses the weather.

In the aftermath of the storm, something different rains from the sky in the form of glowing, quicksilver feathers. These feathers can suppress one avian or serpentine trait for a month, and can also drain away any Naga or Harpy changes from the event completely.

Alternately, the feathers will allow Drifters to temporarily access flight for one day. Doing so completely robs the feather of its magic: only one effect can be chosen from a feather.

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.

Windy Days: Preceding the storm are gales of strong winds, enough to stagger Drifters or send them staggering into other people or other vehicles.

Diner Is Served: While the retro diner attached to the garage has only limited food stores, curiously there is a respectable amount of cooking equipment that can be plundered. Portable stoves, pots and pans, spoons, and the like are all available for the taking.

Fading Storm: In the aftermath of the storm, the garage and diner look like they’re on their last legs, barely held up by their shelving. Anyone who wants to try salvaging had better move fast and carefully, before the entire thing comes crashing down.

NAVIGATION || RESERVES || APPLICATIONS

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I. New People?

Coming up on the garage and diner isn't a surprise, really, because they've been running into a variety of other buildings, homes, and shops, so this just seems like one more of those along the long road. Jack parks his VW bus outside, hops out, and immediately starts scoping the place out.

He'd very surprised to find actual people inside, not mosnters. He both brightens and seems worried at the same time as he trots inside to greet them. He looks pretty human, pretty normal, with his crook-toothed smile and restless hands-- except for the six tails flipping around behind him, four fix tails and two serpent tails.

II. Upgrades!

Inside the garage are parts. Big parts. Metal siding and a metal frame for mounting said metal siding onto a van about the size of his. He hurriedly pulls the VW bus up closer to the building and gets to work, defting avoiding husks and newcomers alike. He's not exactly very strong, so if anyone wants to come help hold thins up while he screws them in place, he'd certainly welcome the assistance.

"Oh, I hope these will hold even if I can't weld them," he frets. He has many skills, but welding is not one of them. Hopefully big screws will manage.

III. Tornado time!

Jack is not much help when the storm hits the garage, because as soon as it does, blue-white fire engulfs him and he turns into a good-sized, six-tailed gray fox with white fire glowing from his eyes, pawprints, and the tips of his tails.

"Oh no, not again!" he exclaims, still apparently able to talk. He attempts to bolt back towards his van, but the wind is awfully strong. Anybody want to keep him from getting blown away?

Somewhere between Jack being swept off his feet and being blown straight up into the bird-haunted storm, a scarred and heavily-muscled arm lashes out to snag the fox around the middle and tug him tight against a large body that smells of heated metal and machine oil and, oddly, singed feathers.

"I gotcha!" assures a woman's voice, and that might be familiar as one of the new arrivals, if the bright red skin of the arm holding him in a grip that's probably too tight to be entirely comfortable isn't.

Even with the wind and driving rain, she radiates heat like a small furnace, and there's a faint sizzle as water hits the glowing, metal-riveted vents that dot her shoulders like horrifying freckles, visible if he turns his head much at all.

He gives a startled little yip, but then goes limp, letting his rescuer do her thing. She is... surprisingly warm, indeed, especially with the rising chill wind. He can't quite cling, he doesn't have thumbs and he'd rather not try to use his teeth to hold on lest he hurt her, but he does try to spread his fire around as much of her torso as he can. It keeps small objects from hitting her where it's flickering, at least!

The fire isn't hot. It is, if anything, a bit cold.

Karlach shivers a little at the icy flicker of blue-white fire across her skin, so different from the familiar burn of her own. She doesn't protest, however, let alone drop him - it seems similar enough to some of the protective spells the mages she's accustomed to can spin that she'll assume it's benign until proven otherwise.

She tucks her other arm beneath the fox's hindquarters so he's not just dangling uncomfortably, tucking him carefully against her chest, hunching a little around him to shield him from the wind that seems determined to toss everything that isn't weighted down up into the sky.

"Which one's yours?" she calls, because while she hadn't seen him change, magic fox still says, to her, probably smart enough to point the way.

At any other time, this might be embarrassing, but storm-fox Jack doesn't really have a lot of shame. Well, really, regular Jack doesn't either. Still! "The big blue van! Kind of round-looking! That way!" He holds up a forepaw to point.

Yes, he talks still. And after meeting John and Serph, with next to no understanding of modern technology or terminology, he's not going to assume she knows what a van is, hence the description.

It's really not far, parked right at the big open garage doors, where he'd been affixing its protective plating. The protective plating is probably the only reason it hasn't been picked up by the storm. It's big and heavy and not going anywhere. Hopefully.

It's a good call on his part. She's already heading for the garage and what safety from the weather it might afford, but it's only at the description that she shifts their path slightly toward the van itself.

"Right," she says. And then, "Fuck!" as a gust of wind staggers her. It doesn't quite knock her off her feet, but it's a near thing, and the storm only seems to be getting worse. She doesn't quite break into a run - with the drenched ground and the wind, that would kill her balance - but she moves as briskly as she can, not seeming terribly slowed by her fluffy passenger.

He tries to make himself as small and easy a passenger as he can. He hooks claws carefully into whatever closing she has, trying to both secure himself and take some of the work of holding him in place onto himself. "If we can get inside," he calls, trying to stretch up closer to her ears, "I can drive it to the convoy! The bigger vehicles beyond the buildings! Their shield might be able to keep out the wind."

Or at least lessen it. He knows it kept out most of the rain, the last time the storm reared up.

The leather-and-chain halter she wears does at least provide plenty of purchase for his claws, which will make it easier for him to stretch up closer to those sharply pointed ears. She nods once, and barks another curt, "Right." Otherwise, though, she saves her breath for moving, those ports in her shoulders sparking and sizzling as the exertion pushes her engine to burn hotter.

By the time they reach the van, she's putting off an uncomfortable amount of heat - not enough to burn, not with Dammon's plating in place, but enough that the circle of her arms is like standing next to an active oven on the hottest day of summer. She has to circle the van to the passenger side to have any hope of getting the door open without having it wrenched from her hand or slammed on top of them.

Not that she knows driver's side from passenger side, just which side provides a very, very slight windbreak.

Thankfully, the door is unlocked, because the keys are in the ignition, with Jack wanting to be ready to move the van at a moment's notice. You never knew what trouble might show up at any random place, garage or otherwise. He scampers out of her arms and over to the driver's seat, at which point he realizes his error: he's still a fox. He can't reach the pedals. Hell, he can't even see over the dash without rearing up to his hind legs.

The wind rocks the van, though it's not moving it yet.

"Hurry, get in," Jack insists to his rescuer. She'd probably be safer inside. Probably.

He turns in a quick, frustrated circle on the driver's side seat, trying to figure out how to change back. He talked two people through it before! Surely he should have it worked out now! Except thinking about having thumbs and feet and legs long enough to reach pedals isn't helping right now.

Karlach doesn't argue - the storm's only getting worse, and she knows better than to turn down shelter against the elements. She unslings her axe from across her back, and hauls herself into the van, grunting with effort as she tugs the door shut against the swirling winds that almost seem to be trying another angle, like there's some consciousness behind them.

"I don't know who went and pissed on Talos's altar," she says, "but this is getting ugly fast."

"I do not even think it is the same storm we encountered last week," Jack says, with some frustration, still unable to change back. "There was more rain with that one... Shit, I do not think I can change back. I think it is the storm's fault and I have no control over it."

He looks over at Karlach, eying her with a mix of thoughtfulness and uncertainty. "Do you know how to drive?"

"Nope," she says, with a grim sort of cheer. "Closest I've ever come was riding on-- Uh, never mind. But if you think your wizards can keep us from being blown away, I'll give it a shot."

Given she looks like something right out of a schlocky sword-and-sorcery novel, and not one of the good guys, that probably isn't even a little bit reassuring.

"Come on over, then." Jack hops off the driver's seat, slipping into the homey back of the van to give her room to scoot over. "I'll walk you through it. It shouldn't be too hard?" He hopes. He does recall his own first lessons in driving. They did not go well. At least this isn't a manual.

"Er, my name is Jack, by the way. Thank you for the rescue." Her appearance doesn't disturb him, really. His best friend is made of tree bark and mushrooms, and frankly, actual demons might be friendlier than some people he knows.

The walking tree might, in fact, be a better choice of driver, if only he were present.

"I'm Karlach," she says as she slides over into the driver's seat, just a little bit gingerly, like she's worried she might damage something if she touches it without instruction. It is, at least, less complex than the nautilus ship - though given how that adventure had ended, that isn't entirely a comfort.

"And don't worry about it. I'd have to be a pretty big asshole to just let you get sucked up into the storm."

Ted probably would be. He actually does know how to drive, unlike Karlach.

"You do not seem like an asshole at all, to me," Jack promises her. Once she's settled, he wriggles back up between the bucket seats and paws lightly at the keys in the ignition, right next to her knee. She is much taller than Jack is, and the seat is probably a little too close. He's not going to fuss about it right now, though. They don't have that far to go. "All right. To start the engine, you turn that key halfway around the circle towards me. It will make a revving noise and then settle into just rumbling. I hope."

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MARCH TDM

Jack Russell | Werewolf by Night | Yokai | Current character

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