JANUARY TDM/EVENT

[monstertruckers]

code

The storm drives the Convoy to the very summit of the mountains, before hitting a blinding pitch. The wind howls and drives snow in a way that promises to freeze everything… And there’s also a twist of smoke in the air, to further blind everything.

There’s one thing visible through the storm: a massive fortress clinging to the side of the mountain. The Convoy pulls up into the shelter. It seems this will be the best place to wait out the weather, even if the storm lasts for weeks.

It’s a cold welcome for new arrivals. The garage offers scant protection from the elements, and a winter storm rages outside. Snow, lighting, and thunder all blend together and do their best to break the windows and doors of the structure.

The storm itself shows no signs of abating, at least until several days have passed. So it’s up to the new arrivals to figure out how to survive the storm, find better shelter… And weather the strange changes foisted onto them.

01: SUMMONING CIRCLE

New Drifters arrive to a cold and half frozen garage, almost swallowed up by snow drifts. The Convoy is just visible through sheets of snow falling from the skies, and it is parked in the shelter of a nearby fortress. Getting out of the garage and reaching the fortress will take some work, though.

Starting with digging out through the snow. At least there’s a shovel or two inside the garage and the gas station. But digging through the snow is still cold work, and it’s imperative to duck back in the garage and find ways to warm up.

There’s still a small fire burning in the corner of the garage, near the summoning circle. It curiously doesn’t seem to need fuel to keep burning… Though throwing more on it will certainly increase the heat of the flames. Be advised that the fire will also burn clothing and flesh if a Drifter gets too close to it.

02: FORTRESS

The abandoned fortress offers some reprieve from the elements… But the prior battles have found a way to seep into the stones. Ice and Fire both have an effect on the surroundings.
+FIRE Condition: Arcane lava is flowing through the foundations and seeping up through the stones of the building. This is especially clear in the kitchen and dining hall. It may be toasty to the touch, but it also threatens to set things aflame; objects and people alike. Drifters weak to fire will suffer from the increased temperatures.
+ICE Condition: The extremes of the fortress are freezing over in enchanted ice, leaving only the main hall and kitchen with any heat. Drifters who lack ice affinity risk frost bite and hypothermia while exploring the other areas of Bastion. Direct contact with the ice also carries a risk of encasing the limb or the entire Drifter in ice. Might need some help getting chipped out.

In the midst of all this, there are still rooms and beds available for those who want a change of pace from the convoy, or bedrolls for those who want to camp out in the main hall.

03: START UP

After digging out, one can see that there are various cars surrounding the garage. Some of them parked directly outside and sheltered from the worst of the storm. But a few are further out, and will also need to be dug out of the snow.

There’s also a certain connection between different newcomers and cars. Something that suggests a particular vehicle is theirs, backed up by possessing the key to that vehicle. 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 the sort of thing that 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.

04: WILD ELEMENTS

Even when taking shelter in the fortress, the storms from outside have a way of seeping through the bricks. And trying to take root inside any Drifters. Cold mists and winds seep into the castle, along with fire traveling across the floors and lightning crashing against the roof.

Drifters exposed to extreme elements will find those same elements seeping into their blood.

Teeth also grow along portions of the walls in long fangs, ready to snag at any newcomers. Drawing blood on those teeth can result in changes in the new arrivals… As well as pulling a monster out of the hallway to try and draw more blood.

These monsters frequently manifest as:
+Gyuki, a spider and bull demon fusion.
+YinYang, a Frankenstein abomination
+And Malzeno, a strange eldritch dragon.

05: FUEL PUMPS

The fortress also holds a network of pipes leading through the halls and connecting to the gas station. Text from the Convoy asks for at least a few Drifters to follow the pipes to their source, and activate them. Following those pipes leads to a chamber in the base of the fortress, with basins full of liquid.

Glowing and quicksilver liquid, at that. Liquid that looks like it could have been poured straight out of the moon. An inscription on the tanks reads “Moonshard fuel refinement” while a stack of papers details the various attempts to distill moonshards into an energy usable by humans without mutating them. It seems they’ve mostly succeeded with this attempt: once the valves are turned on, the fuel can be pumped into the Convoy and top off almost depleted fuel tanks.

But there is still a risk. Coming into contact with the fuel can instill a sudden, ravenous hunger and push new changes to the front. Prolonged exposure activates all traits at once, and will only revert the person when another monster has been hunted down, and their energy absorbed.

06: IF THESE WALLS COULD TALK

The walls of Bastion reach an impressive 20 feet up and stretch for long distances… And have Husks merged into them, often in the hallways and occasionally in the rooms. The Husks clearly belong to either the Silver Tear or the Steel Wardens, given the insignias on them. Many of them are locked together, frozen in a fight. And their last words and thoughts are written on the walls in gold and silver script.

Most of the words are frantic, about defending the moon shards from heretics or freeing the moon shards from confinement. But if any of the words are read aloud, the Husks react by merging together and spawning a berserk heavy tank/tankceratops. Or a large Burner type monster. OR a dragon dinosaur with exploding, punching fists. Drifters may also get caught up in the monster changes, and fuse their own monster forms together!

07: MONSTER FUSE

An element saturation isn’t the only strange thing in the fortress. Anyone who makes contact with the fortress stones will find themselves building a resonance with a fellow Drifter. This grows stronger the more time they spend in the fortress.

Until finally the bond solidifies on the next change the Drifters go through and hits a fever pitch. The next threat they encounter WILL force a transformation. When that happens, their next change fuses their two monster forms together into something new.

Their fusion form is a combination of two Drifter’s traits. It is also twice the size it would normally be, and is well suited to taking on any giant sized monsters. It can even give Drifters a brief insight into the memories of their partner, as the fusion takes place.

When this happens, both Drifters can switch control over their merged form. Those with greater synchronism will have more control, while those who squabble and fight will find that their monster form becomes more feral and savage. This fusion lasts until the threat abates: when that happens, the fusion breaks apart, and Drifters return to their prior state.

08: STORM CALL

There’s something outside that isn’t just the storm; it calls out in a howl that can make the blood run cold, and also pulls at one’s feet. Until it hits a point where the Bastion doesn’t feel like a restful place. Drifters who hear the storm call need to step outside and find the source; the storm itself isn’t particular on if they search on their own feet, or behind some wheels.

Drifters who travel on their own feet will swiftly be overwhelmed by the storm, and a moon warp hiding in the snow, and forced to transform. It doesn’t help that there’s wild saber-tooth Barioth wyverns prowling the wilds and ready to pounce.

Being inside a vehicle helps to shield them from the worst of the storm and the changes, and also gives Drifters more traversal options:
Tough cars are capable of wading through even the deepest snow without getting bogged down, as well as towing any stricken or stuck vehicles out of the drifts.
Fast vehicles can follow rivers of fire and lava that move through the wilds, without burning up due to prolonged exposure.

Eventually Drifters will find their way towards the summit of the mountain, and the discovery waiting beyond.

09: MONSTER CHANGES

Between the weird fuel, the teeth in the fortress, and hostile elements trying to force changes, new arrivals can quickly find their humanity getting worn away and new monster transformations taking place.
With the cold weather and regal structures, the environment calls out to Undead. As long as the elements rage, all Undead traits are available and also:
+Warm Blood: Undead can easily track living bodies through the wilds and the fortress, sensing the warmth of their blood in contrast to the storm.
+Rivalry: Tends to form rivalry with other Undead monsters, becoming territorial and protective of potential food sources.
+Ice Affinity: Undead find themselves better preserved by the cold and thriving in it, energized and strengthened by the snow, and even taking on glowing blue veins and eyes.
+Fire Fear: The presence of fire inspires aversion, and even terror and need to flee from it. Smaller flames like candles provoke unease, larger flames like a bonfire result in more panic.
+Holy Symbols: Presence of Steel Warden symbols (a sword piercing moon) can cause unease in Undead, and even repel them a location.
+Snow Shift: Exposure to snow forces the Undead into a more bestial form. This could resemble a bat, wolf, or deer/horse/bull.

10: FROZEN HEART

At the summit of the mountains is a collection of freakishly tall and twisted trees. In their branches is a collection of frozen hearts growing like strange fruit. And further up is a massive object that looks like a deer skull with branching antlers. The ice storm flows from its eyes and mouth… And it shows no signs of ceasing without destroying the skull.

The frozen hearts are giving off a cold aura that freezes anything that doesn’t resist ice. Drifters will need to neutralize the hearts to dispel the cold aura. The hearts can be melted by fire, shot down with ranged weapons, magic, etc. When burned, the hearts give off a smoke that causes a terrible hunger and need to hunt in anyone who inhales it. Shattered heart shards also rain down and embed themselves in Drifters, and cause a berserk fury in those they cut.

But with each felled heart the barrier of the skull weakens, as does the storm. When the last of the frozen hearts falls, the storm skull fractures and breaks apart like brittle ice. Drifters can deliver the finishing blows, ending the storm in the process. After that, the way down the mountain becomes clear, and the Convoy may continue down without worry.

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.

Fortress Library: Books and screens seem to have fused together. Assorted data about monsters is on display here; everything from hunting strategy to contradicting praise of their strength. (Read: all lore information from the monster pages is available IC.)

Dining Hall: This time around the gas station and garage are empty of supplies… But there’s plenty of preserved foods in the castle kitchen and dining hall. Though the hot dishes are almost painfully spicy, and the cold served foods can almost freeze a mouth shut.

Snow Fields: Surrounding the fortress are fields of snow, ready to bog down anyone who wanders too far into them. It would be next to impossible for anyone to make it far on two feet without the aid of a vehicle… Or the aid of a monstrous transformation.

Fire Snow: The storm can wildly swing between temperatures, from freezing to burning with how the snowflakes fluctuate. They can suck warmth out of a Drifter’s body on contact, or risk burning any exposed skin.

Armory: The Steel Wardens kept an armory and arena close by for sparring. Various weapons and armor are stored here; some antiquated, some modern and augmented with technology. And everything but the older models are badly damaged by the elements; frozen over and metal crackled, or half melted from fire. They won’t have much use as weapons, but could be used as metal materials.

View from the Peaks: When the storm clears, one can look out from the peaks and see what’s next. A strange, twisted landscape stretches out below the peaks. And beyond that is something on the horizon; a massive city reaching upwards, and the buildings intact and gleaming. Going back to the Convoy reveals a new update in the database: Nirvana is near. And will be reached in an estimated 60 days from now.


NAVIGATION || RESERVES || APPLICATIONS

Comments

storm call

[androidvictoriam]

[ Danse has something of a complicated relationship with the sound of approaching vertibirds. In his earliest experience with them, they'd been dangerous enemy technology, and then when the Brotherhood had commandeered them, the noise of the propellers had become a source of comfort and relief, safety and rescue and alliance.

Of course, to the foes of the Brotherhood, they'd remained as terrifying and deadly as ever, and they'd been particularly persistent in reminding Danse of that firsthand once he'd become one of those. However untouched his memories of Revan might be, coming back to him in most of the ways that matter when it comes to recalling who people are and how things work and why he has a pair of embarrassing furry ears stuck to the sides of his head, his reflexes and instincts are still halfway stuck in their stasis from home, and when he hears Arcade's truck coming, instinct takes over. He ducks, dives for the nearest snowdrift when it's the only thing that could possibly provide cover for his neon-orange uniform in this endless whiteout--

--and remembers, as the cold shocks him back to his higher senses, that there is only one person with a vertibird here, and that person is Definitely Not Brotherhood. (Or Enclave.) Granted, what Arcade might have to say about someone venturing out into a storm like this probably constitutes its own hazard, but Danse will still gladly take it over...well, any of the alternatives. He climbs out of the snowbank and gets in without further ado, dusting snow off himself and generally starting to melt all over the seat. ]

Thanks. I, uh, wasn't expecting you.

[taediosum]

[ Arcade would have had plenty to say about trying to hike through a veritable blizzard on top of a lightning storm - if he weren't already out here doing the exact same thing. Just without the added layer of insanity of doing so on foot. (But it feels like a particularly thin added layer, at that.)

Still, he might've come up with something, even so - if the drifter piling abruptly into the other side of the truck's cockpit, half of that snowdrift he tried to dive on and all, were not familiar in the weirdest kind of way. ]

...I could say the same.

[ The shock doesn't stop him from just as abruptly taking off again, hard enough for the whole truck to rattle in another buffeting gust of howling wind. Shadow-shapes are already circling back outside, though, only barely visible beyond the dim circle of light cast by the headlights (but far too easy to taste on the gasp of that icy wind that fell in with Danse). ]

You know, I'd really appreciate it if you could just tell me now whether or not you're some kind of dangerous hallucination. It might save us some awkwardness.

[ It's only partly an attempt at pale, deflecting humor. ]

[androidvictoriam]

[ Danse leans forward in his seat to squint at the seething sea of monsters below, and let himself be even more appropriately grateful for the timely rescue, even if he does entertain a brief wistful wish for a door-mounted minigun to do something about them.

But that would make conversation impossible, and it's a worthy tradeoff, even if he doesn't feel like it's been as long since he last saw Arcade as vice-versa. The reaction would be an understandable enough one regardless. This is not where Danse expected to find himself again either, and his lack of ability to explain what had happened to him or where he's been for two months doesn't render the situation any less in need of explanation. ]

I'm not. I suppose I would be flattered if you were hallucinating me, but I don't know why you would be.

[ He inclines his head vaguely toward the instrument panel, with a faint hint of admiration. ]

You've certainly gotten the hang of this thing, after all.

[taediosum]

That makes two of us. But I've seen weirder.

[ And much, much worse, of late. But he doesn't want to talk about phantom deathclaws and new scars barely healed.

His newfound hobby is a much less volatile topic of discussion. Arcade glances at him (the look in his eyes still a mix of uncertainty and surprise and cautious mistrust), before switching his focus sharply back go the frosty expanse of the expanded windshield. Visibility is next to nothing, but only next to. ]

I wasn't going to waste the opportunity. The autopilot did most of the work.

[androidvictoriam]

[ It's not exactly an unfamiliar look to be receiving from Arcade. It's most of what Danse remembers, for reasons that usually had more to do with the politics of the world they left and less to do with any of this one's dangerous magic--if only because Arcade was at least willing to talk about the former with him, sometimes. He'd thought they were at least consistently on the same side with the latter, but in a way that only ever got shoved out of sight and out of mind after the fact, as if it had never happened at all.

He gets the sense that he's missing some context here, but that's only to be expected. ]

Still. You fly like a natural.

[ It's a high compliment, from someone who always did think that was one of the coolest hobbies a person could have. Maybe he hadn't been too optimistic to think Arcade would take better to flying than driving, after all. After a moment, he sobers. ]

You don't have to look at me like you've seen a ghost, you know. I can't blame you for...presuming me dead, if I was missing, but all I did was go home.

[taediosum]

I know someone who'd likely disagree.

[ His answer is more to himself than to Danse, focus not wavering. But it's lighter than his usual efforts to dodge praise for things he feels he had an obligation to, regardless (which is most things, really). And the quick, perfunctory follow-up is accompanied by a short-lived flicker of a tense but genuine smile. ]

Thanks, though.

[ The rest of Danse's commentary earns him less grace. Though that isn't his fault, either. Arcade just... doesn't believe it. That the answer to all of this is just, what? Waiting to vanish one day and miraculously return to where they came from? (And only to potentially reappear, later?) Yeah, that sounds a little too— ]

Convenient. But you realize that's pretty much exactly what a ghost would say, right? Next you'll tell me you remember the way home, too, and all I have to do is step out into the snow.

[ It's more sarcasm than accusation (but still only kind of a joke). ]

[androidvictoriam]

"Convenient" is the last word I would use to describe getting jerked around between worlds at the whim of...moon magic, or whatever the hell happens around here. What do you want me to say?

[ His annoyance here, similarly, is not directed at Arcade himself. This is exactly the kind of wariness Danse would approve of, under any other circumstances besides these particular ones where it happens to be inconvenient for him. The reality of the situation does sound ridiculous enough to be a trap. He pulls off one glove so that he can more effectively rub his eyes. ]

I'm sorry. You're probably not wrong, although I don't know where you're getting this sudden expertise on the minutiae of how ghosts operate. Either you've run into something I didn't, or you're not the skeptic I thought you were.

[ Because it's tough to maintain any kind of hardline "that's not real" boundary in a place like this, but Danse does recall Arcade being stubborn enough about it in some respects before. Really, the issue seemed more to be that Danse had a slightly different slate of things he was willing to accept and entertain versus things he still flatly wanted to consider fantasy nonsense. ]

[taediosum]

That the world is a logical and consistent place, and this has all actually just been one elaborate and horrific fantasy, while I lie comatose in my bed at the Fort.

[ This time the smile is wry and decidedly humorless. ]

Something along those lines, anyway.

[ But that's much more fantastical thinking than assuming Danse is some kind of malevolent illusion, trying to sidetrack him or get him out in the storm so that he can be some other monster's meal.

Or that he's just reappeared, as miraculously as they all tend to appear here, in the first place. Which is what he's leaning toward, at this point. Even if he hasn't quite worked all of the skeptical irritability out of his system, quite yet.

Arcade risks another sideways glance just to fix him with a look as flat and dry as the Mojave itself. Danse may have been gone for a while, but he was definitely here long enough to have seen some of the worst of this place. Not to mention glimpsed a carnival full to the brim with glowing, translucent, incorporeal phantoms. He wouldn't call those ghosts, either, but sometimes the colloquial phrasing is best. ]

I wasn't being literal. Should I have stuck with hallucination? Elaborate illusion? Freakish apparition?

...All right, maybe that last one's not fair. You're about as far from freakish as they come.

[androidvictoriam]

I appreciate the sentiment. It isn't true, and you know that better than almost anyone else here, but I appreciate that you'd say it.

[ That part comes easily, second-nature, that unique self-deprecation over his origins. That, he can say before pausing for the thought that the rest of it leaves him quietly mired in. All of this has been something of a point of disagreement between them in the past, though never a raw or angry one, just an odd sort of discrepancy in priorities. Danse has simply never hated this place the way Arcade does.

Not that he doesn't abstractly understand the reasons why someone would, or that he hasn't had his own complaints. They just haven't heretofore felt like dealbreakers to him the way they are to others. Hard to feel all that violated by the changes to his body, when his entire life has been a series of different organizations finding different reasons to tell him it never really belonged to him anyway. Hard to grieve or fret over the loss of his humanity, when he's already been there and done that. Hard to fear the experiments and the monsters, when he's always insisted they weren't appreciably worse than the ones back home--

But there's a part of him that knows he's been lucky with that. Even before, he'd been forced to admit that he's seen fewer horrors here than Arcade, but now, foggy though his abruptly-truncated memories of the carnival might be, he can at least grasp the implication that whatever happened to him and Deacon was a mercy. Wherever they've truly been, it wasn't in the thick of it. What he remembers of the phantoms is vague, and little, but that little is bad enough to have been mostly blocked out--and then it had simply been over. And now he's here, and he can put two and two together well enough to infer what might have happened in the interim to make Arcade interrogate him in earnest about being a dangerous hallucination. ]

Whatever happened, I... [ He won't ask. ] I'm sorry I wasn't there to back you up. I'm not sorry to find myself here again, but I'm sorry for that.

[taediosum]

I don't expect you to apologize for something that was never in your control.

[ Not that he doesn't appreciate the sentiment, but. None of his displeasure here is actually directed at Danse. He may be irritable and confused and trying very hard not to let them crash abruptly into something he won't even be able to see coming, in this storm, and doing all of that at once, but none of that is Danse's fault, either. ]

Last I checked, I wasn't your responsibility, either. So you'd better not start treating me like it.

[ He manages to inject some measure of levity into that thinly veiled admonishment, at least. ]

[androidvictoriam]

Says the man who took it upon himself to be the chief medical officer around here for--what, the fun of it? God forbid someone else feels an obligation to people too, and wants to use their own talents to do something about it. But--that's not even the point.

[ He's been indignant enough to set off on a brief generalized tangent, but this is not, in fact, about him lumping Arcade in with the civilians and wanting to protect him out of some sense of duty. ]

I haven't forgotten anything about this place. I know we didn't exactly start off on the right foot.

[ Even Danse knows that might be the most dramatic understatement he's ever made. ]

But I still thought we'd otherwise been through enough together to count for something. You've been some of the best backup I could have asked for. I could have wound up dead of a heart attack, or...lost in the woods as some mindless animal, or who the hell knows what else, if you hadn't been there. I'd still be trying to turn myself into a machine if you hadn't reminded me how it could get people hurt. Maybe it doesn't mean anything to you, but it matters to me.

I have a right to regret that I wasn't there when you could have used me. Obviously, you didn't need it. That's not why I would have wanted to be there.

[taediosum]

[ It's a (questionably) good thing Danse decides to go on this tear while Arcade is too preoccupied to interrupt. He has all four hands busy just trying to keep them steady, and all he can really manage is a thoroughly incredulous flash in that otherwise incredibly stressed grimace reflected palely from the dark windshield. He doesn't cut in because he doesn't even know where to start - and that silence stretches out for a handful of seconds more, even once Danse has apparently said his piece. ]

...You think none of that matters to me?

[ His voice is even, but only barely - a shout is buried just beneath the surface of it, an echo of that same incredulity. ]

What do you think I've been doing, this whole time? Just carrying on, assuming you'd just doubled back or gone on ahead of us - on foot, apparently? That you were fine, in a place where so many things are trying to kill us?

No. I thought you were dead. So forgive me for needing a little breathing room between the relative certainty that we were leaving behind a corpse and your miraculous revival.

[ It's only belatedly that he realizes how loud he's gotten, how tightly he's gripping the controls, and he breaks off with a huff, forcing himself to focus on flying again. ]

[androidvictoriam]

I--

[ Nobody but Danse can transition quite so seamlessly from such righteous and verbose indignation into lost and tongue-tied stammering. It's a gift. And it provides Arcade another brief stretch of silence to lock in on the path again, while Danse takes in that emphatic volume and white-knuckled grip with incredulity of his own. ]

I didn't mean that losing someone wouldn't have mattered to you. Nobody could ever accuse you of that.

[ An offensively stupid thing to suggest about anyone who would step up and shoulder the burden of the whole convoy's medical care because nobody else could. But the more Danse watches Arcade's fingers tighten angrily around the cyclic stick even as the flight remains steady, thinks about trying to explain himself any further in a way that would force him to say something stupid like obviously no doctor wants to lose a patient, the more disingenuous he understands his own usage of that vague, impersonal "someone" to be.

Foolish, maybe, to think that Arcade's reluctance to talk about things after the fact rendered them meaningless or forgotten. Danse knows he would have dwelt deeply on those aforementioned events himself in the reverse of their positions, grieved that odd hard-won camaraderie if he'd thought Arcade had been killed, found himself reminded at intervals of things he would have liked Arcade's opinion on and then been left with a sense of emptiness to know he could never seek it again. What reason does he really have to think himself alone in any of that?

Except for this admonishment that caring or worrying about Arcade is somehow still none of Danse's business after all of this, a suggestion bothersome enough to set him off on this tirade in the first place, but it is dawning on Danse now that the dismissal is coming from perhaps a different place than he thought it was. ]

I...I didn't realize. I thought maybe it wasn't as...personal for you as it is for me, but...

[ He shakes his head, helpless, but then rallies. ]

But if it is, then you understand. I might not have thought you were dead, and this isn't some insinuation that you can't handle yourself, but why shouldn't I be upset on your behalf? What the hell kind of friend wouldn't be?

[taediosum]

[ Losing someone— Arcade doesn't miss the minimizing, self-deprecating language, and it just gives rise to that rapid boil of frustration all over again. It's Danse's only saving grace that he doesn't go further and try to turn Arcade's words into some vague platitude, likening himself to an anonymous patient with as much personal significance.

But he's still on thin ice. ]

Be as upset as you want, but don't do it on my behalf.

[ More snow pelts the glass in front of them, a swath barely cleared by the truck's ancient, bent wipers. But if looks alone could melt it away, Arcade would have no trouble clearing the rest. At least until he forces himself to let out another rough, steadying breath. ]

I'm not telling you how to feel. I'm telling you not to waste your time beating yourself up over not having been there. And don't try to pretend you wouldn't.

[ He knows Danse at least well enough to know that overbearing guilt is kind of his specialty. And Danse should know him well enough to know he won't just let that slide. ]

[androidvictoriam]

...you're right. [ Caught out, pegged accurately enough that he can't possibly argue, he can't help the low and rueful little undercurrent of laughter in his voice. ] That's exactly what I'd do.

[ And exactly what Arcade would do in response. Danse is a man ill-equipped to handle anything other than the straightforward. Between Edward's careful solicitousness in trying to spare him the survivor's guilt, and Arcade's blunt demand to cut it out, this approach is getting stronger results (though the gentleness of Edward's is important, needed in its own way.) Slowly, the combativeness bleeds out of his posture, leaving it less tense than it was before. ]

Well...fine. You've made your point.

[ There's still a hint of bluster left in that, but it's performative. Even at the absolute height of their animosity, Danse hadn't enjoyed seeing a look that seethingly angry on Arcade's face, and he would hardly have thought he could want to do anything to incur it now, either--but under the circumstances, he's never felt quite this gratified or oddly relieved to be on thin ice with someone. Sometimes, one needs to be wrong.

After a moment, during a lull in the howling wind--probably he ought to have been taking that into consideration all along, sorry Arcade--he speaks up again. ]

Did I miss anything that wasn't terrible? Aside from you getting good at this.

[ Anything, really. He'd be equally satisfied with mission details or personal gossip or whatever might lie in between, isolated as he's been from anything like it even when purportedly back home. ]

[taediosum]

[ Good, great. Finally, someone just agrees that Arcade is right. Because he is.

He's also perfectly capable of not rubbing it in, focusing instead on letting his own annoyance subside. It still isn't Danse he's angry at, after all, and he doesn't want to keep taking it out on him, either.

And he doesn't want either of them to, you know, die abruptly in a horrible, fiery wreck. Which this truck is probably more than capable of creating, if pushed.

He answers Danse's follow up question with a self-deprecating, sarcastic laugh. ]

Other than Nirvana purportedly on the horizon? I'm not really the person to ask for good news.

[ If he has time for, like, two hours' worth of complaining, maybe. But positivity isn't Arcade's strong suit. ]

[androidvictoriam]

Purportedly.

[ He sounds precisely as thrilled about this as he does trusting, which is to say "not remotely." He's never believed for a moment that Nirvana was going to measure up to the claims, or be a fraction of what hopeful drifters are projecting onto it, but even if it somehow is, it's hard to see it as the reward it should be. But there's probably information he's missing about that, too, and he wants to hear Arcade's take.

Meanwhile, if Arcade thinks Danse does not have time, space, validation and support for two hours of someone else's complaining, he has never spent weeks under siege with him at an increasingly run-down and ill-supplied police station. (Which...he hasn't, of course, but the point is that this is something for which Danse has good experience on his resume. And has never hesitated under other circumstances to subject other people to it, when given the slightest go-ahead, so he doesn't even need to be a captive audience.)

Case in point, he will wait until he isn't anymore, in an attempt to be better about averting the potential for fiery death (though after that earlier tirade, it's pretty much just shutting the barn door after the brahmin are already long gone.) Only after the wheels are on the ground again does he speak up. ]

I feel like I owe you a drink, after all that. I've still got some brandy in my truck.

[ The attempt at a smile that tugs the edges of his lips is weak, a little apologetic, but sincere. He'd been surprised to find any of the pickup's contents intact, after what Edward's told him about what had happened to the vehicles left behind, but it's no less bizarre than anything else about this situation, and it's a blessing he won't question too deeply.

The applejack had met with lukewarm reactions from the rest of the convoy when it had been fresh, but that had been summertime. It's a better drink for cold weather. Danse remembers having brought some over to Arcade's then-ordinary truck for a more expert opinion. ]

I know it wasn't strong enough for Darin, but I bet he'd give it another chance. You can take some back for him if you tell him to keep the criticism fair.

[taediosum]

[ Arcade slumps back in his seat the second that all four tires are on solid ground again. (Well, actually, a few seconds after that, because he can't be certain it's solid enough until they haven't started sliding back down the mountain under their own overbearing weight.) Roughly unbuckling his belt, he all but throws it over his shoulder - but despite the cold, he's wearing a not-so-fine sheen of sweat, after all that. He's going to need more than a few seconds to catch his breath.

Though he does spare that offer a vaguely agreeable nod. And the sliver of a faint smile of his own, at Len's inclusion in it. ]

He's fair. It's just that his baseline starts at basically poison and only goes up from there.