phantasmods: (Default)
Phantasmal Rift Mods ([personal profile] phantasmods) wrote in [community profile] phantasmemes2018-03-01 07:08 am
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TEST DRIVE 002

Hello, and welcome to the second test drive for Phantasmal Rift!

Test drive threads are assumed to be game canon for accepted characters unless otherwise noted, so don't feel like you'll have to introduce yourself a second time to everyone you meet! As an added bonus, participation in the test drive comes with the chance to earn up to two items of loot for your trouble! Characters who are accepted can earn one item for having a top level, and one for tagging out to someone else's top level! Your SWEET LOOT will be included with your acceptance notice.

Additionally, characters currently in game can earn themselves a piece of bonus loot for the dungeon by tagging people's top-levels on the test drive! Existing characters get their bonus loot along with the rest of their loot at the conclusion of the dungeon.

This test drive is based in the Fissure nearest to the Station, same as last time! But this time you're coming at the shoreline from a bit of a different angle...

If you really want, though, you can reuse prompts from the first test drive! In particular, there's still landsharks around the new area of beach. Otherwise, here's three new prompts!

OPTION ONE: OCEAN BREEZE

The cavern you find yourself in smells of the sea... And looks like it, too. Large crystal formations, usually in blue or a light yellow-green, glow along the walls and ceiling of the cavern, providing more than enough light to see by. The whole place is damp and a little chilly, and occasional pools of water rise and fall with gentle waves - some outside tide flowing in through underground passages.

More chilling, though, is the wind that flows through the caves, never ever quite going still but varying wildly in intensity. In fact, characters will discover that they have some control over the intensity of the wind - or perhaps some lack of control, depending on their exact response to waking up in an unexpected place. Strong emotions of any sort make the wind stronger in turn; while calm leaves the wind gentle, panic will send it whipping around corners and drive already-distressed characters to take whatever shelter they can, lest they get blown into some cavern wall.

Other than the wind and the crystals, the caverns seem mostly normal for a place that's clearly underwater at least part of the time. The lower reaches of the caverns are full of barnacles, mussels, and other shellfish that await the rising of the tide for their survival, as well as the occasional crab (some of them surprisingly large, up to about the same of a man's head), and bits of seaweed catch on rocky corners.

OPTION TWO: SAY NYA

What's that sound? Is it... a cat?

... No, it's not. It's a meowing seagull, for some reason.

Except for their strange vocalizations (all feline in nature), the seagulls found outside around the cliffs and beaches are all reasonably normal. (Specifically, anyone familiar with the Gulf Coast on Earth will find that they look much like Laughing Gulls in their black-headed plumage.) They're normal-sized and not at all afraid of people...

In fact, they're so unafraid of people, that they'll come right up close to you and nick your stuff! And not just food, mind. Anything they can carry that isn't attached is fair game to be taken and winged up the cliffs to their roosts. Magpies have nothing on these guys.

Good luck chasing them down for whatever it is they've taken, or climbing up the cliffs to get it back. It belongs to the seacats now.

OPTION THREE: ALL THAT GLITTERS

This gravel beach is absolutely splendid in the sunlight, looking like someone shattered a thousand stained glass windows and left the wreckage to sparkle. Protected from the worst of the waves by some rocky outcrops in the distance, the water here is gentle and doesn't disturb the beach much.

Luckily, the glitter does not, in fact, come from glass. Close examination will reveal that the gravel of the beach contains an impressive number of fragments of some kind of hard scale - about a third, if one's going by volume. They vary in size from a large thumb-nail down to nothing, and most transparent in every color imaginable. They're quite hard, and more likely to break into fragments than they are to be ground down by the sand.

But what is it that these scales come from? The answer can be found only at night, when the sun's light disappears. Then, large reptilian-looking creatures - somewhere between snakes and fish - make their way out of the crannies hidden in the rocks around and across from the small beach. In many different colors, they glow beneath the waves, some internal light filtered through their skin and scales to make each appear a different color.

The serpents aren't violent, at least for now, but given that the largest of them is at least twenty feet long... Perhaps it's best not to hassle them.

[personal profile] part_time_person 2018-03-07 04:49 am (UTC)(link)
[He kind of wishes he could refute that, because he's gotten much better at being expressive over the years, but as his classmates remind him, he has a long way to go before he can be considered normal. And Goro hasn't seen Julian on an off day or, worse, during a disassociative episode. He's had friends before who lasted up until that happened.

Those friends were different, though. They were human and normal. Maybe this time, this would last.]


My father's people don't really have expressive faces or voices. They speak telepathically, so they don't have to rely on those things, and those kind of things don't come naturally to me. I'm trying, though. I don't mean to weird anyone out.

[What is self-esteem.]
have_hat_will_travel: (Wistful)

[personal profile] have_hat_will_travel 2018-03-07 04:50 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah. But of course, it also means I'm kinda aimless now... Which is a problem.
superstylishsquid: (Huh?)

[personal profile] superstylishsquid 2018-03-07 04:51 am (UTC)(link)
Don't suppose you've got any...uh...hot chocolate? If not, just about any kind of soda's fine.

[personal profile] part_time_person 2018-03-07 04:53 am (UTC)(link)
More like I don't get around nature much. If this were a city I would be confident in my sense of direction, but here, I don't trust myself not to get lost.

[He shrugs, following at an unconcerned pace. His city upbringing hadn't lent itself to many moments out in nature outside of the park, and caves were wholly unfamiliar - at least visually. On an instinctual level, this was the sort of environment his people were supposed to live in, according to folklore and myth, albeit not by the sea.]

I don't think we have seaside caves like this back in Washington at all, actually...
founderinglight: ([beep])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-03-07 04:55 am (UTC)(link)
I am always prepared.

[He practically sparkles and... yep, there's a mug with a red stripe, and it's full of hot chocolate. Still steaming, even.]

Also, be wary about that soda remark, as apparently my tastes in the matter have been known to terrify lesser mortals.

[Time to crack a Dr Jalapeno.]
superstylishsquid: (Huh?)

[personal profile] superstylishsquid 2018-03-07 04:56 am (UTC)(link)
Mm...speaking of aims, I don't suppose there's a guy around named Joe? Red hair always shoved under a backwards hat, dumb looking goatee, about as loud and obnoxious as they come? He's the hero I'm sworn to defeat, so it'd really simplify things if he was around.
superstylishsquid: (Would you look at that.)

[personal profile] superstylishsquid 2018-03-07 04:59 am (UTC)(link)
Good thing I'm neither lesser nor mortal. Granted, my own tastes do run on the sweet side of things.

[Food and drink make for a much less grumpy demon, though.]

I'll see about paying you back for this later. I'm sure I can come up with some sort of minor favor to offer.
foolishjustice: (Strange isn't it?)

[personal profile] foolishjustice 2018-03-07 05:09 am (UTC)(link)
Ah, that explains why the first thing you said to me sounded as if it was telepathic. If it would be more comfortable for you, I'm already accustomed to telepathic communication.
founderinglight: ([hold])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-03-07 05:10 am (UTC)(link)
Probably not for you, then. I like spicy things - possibly more than is sane if you ask a few of the others.

[Astolfo still seems to cry a little watching him down the soda he's drinking like there's nothing unusual about it at all.]

And don't concern yourself over it.

[personal profile] part_time_person 2018-03-07 05:13 am (UTC)(link)
I don't actually know if that would be more comfortable. I've never really had a chance to try conversations with people, outside of my parents. I could try. Usually I just accidentally lapse into it if I'm startled or stressed.
founderinglight: ([late with spacebucks])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-03-07 05:14 am (UTC)(link)
Mmm, well, I've done my share of travelling and camping, so worry not. You're in good hands.

[Not that it isn't still going to take them a few minutes to get out to the beach, but that's just walking. And occasionally stopping to consider the shiny things.]
dubiouslychthonic: (sorry were you still talking)

[personal profile] dubiouslychthonic 2018-03-07 05:20 am (UTC)(link)
[The offer takes her by surprise; she blinks at him, then chuckles.]

I may end up taking you up on that. What's your name, kid?
superstylishsquid: (I don't know what to make of it.)

[personal profile] superstylishsquid 2018-03-07 05:23 am (UTC)(link)
I don't really mind spicy, it's just not my favorite. You don't get very far in the underworld by being picky about your food, you know.

[personal profile] part_time_person 2018-03-07 05:25 am (UTC)(link)
It would be safer to know, if you live this close to an ocean. [And he wouldn't wish drowning on anyone, regardless of species.] My name is Julian. Julian Kinsella. What's yours?

[personal profile] part_time_person 2018-03-07 05:32 am (UTC)(link)
I went camping once. Then we got banned from the campgrounds after my father fed a bear.

[Good times. Julian can't help being fascinated by the crystals, occasionally reaching out to run his hands over them, but he won't take any until he has time to really sit down and examine them closely.]
matchmakes: (011)

[personal profile] matchmakes 2018-03-07 06:01 am (UTC)(link)
[... Well, he's heard odder things from Owain, so he lets the remark pass without comment.

He takes a few steps ahead to where the tunnel curves, frowning and trying to peer further.]


... Ah, it looks like the path splits up ahead...
superstylishsquid: (Can we not talk about it?)

[personal profile] superstylishsquid 2018-03-07 06:14 am (UTC)(link)
Just wonderful...if we pick the wrong path, I should be able to teleport us back here easily enough. That way we'd only waste half the time...
foolishjustice: (Crow-Simple deduction.)

[personal profile] foolishjustice 2018-03-07 06:17 am (UTC)(link)
Whichever you'd prefer is fine.

Either way, I should probably get you moving toward the station soon. I'm sure you must be tired.
matchmakes: (013)

[personal profile] matchmakes 2018-03-07 06:19 am (UTC)(link)
Well, that's something at least... In that case... left or right?

[personal profile] part_time_person 2018-03-07 06:22 am (UTC)(link)
You wouldn't find it creepy? Most people don't like having their thoughts read. But I actually don't hear much if people don't actively try thinking loudly, so I wouldn't invade your privacy. Not on purpose, anyway.

A little. Thank you for showing me around and... everything else. I appreciate it.
superstylishsquid: (Oh yeah...)

[personal profile] superstylishsquid 2018-03-07 06:23 am (UTC)(link)
Lessee...eenie meenie minie mo...

[He points back and forth a few times, before settling on one path.]

Left it is.
foolishjustice: (Crow-Simple deduction.)

[personal profile] foolishjustice 2018-03-07 06:26 am (UTC)(link)
I'm a mind reader myself, actually. And my... [He hesitates for a moment.] Teammates use telepathic communication when we're on missions.

[He turns and starts along the beach, staying close to the cliffs.]

By the way, would you like something to drink?

[personal profile] part_time_person 2018-03-07 06:33 am (UTC)(link)
Oh. [That's a relief, since it means he can't get accused of mentally eavesdropping on him. Julian breathes out, glad to have one less thing to worry about, and follows Goro along the beach. His footsteps are nearly silent, and the sound of the waves, even interrupted by the meows of seagulls, is peaceful. This is probably the nicest anyone outside his family has ever been to him.

He blinks at the offer, since it's a bit out of nowhere, before timidly admitting,]
I do like chai tea lattes. But college has made me learn to accept all coffee into my life.
matchmakes: (009)

[personal profile] matchmakes 2018-03-07 06:35 am (UTC)(link)
[Left! Hopefully this isn't some manner of terrible decision on their part.]

This really isn't how I was expecting to spend my day when I got up this morning...
foolishjustice: (It's a pleasure to meet you.)

[personal profile] foolishjustice 2018-03-07 06:40 am (UTC)(link)
I'll admit, I'm a little spoiled to a specific blend. I don't know what I'd do without this power.

[With a flourish, he produces a mug of coffee from thin air. It's black with only a bit of sugar, but doesn't smell (or taste) bitter at all. In fact, if Julian accepts it, he'll notice that it's very smooth and flavorful, clearly blended by someone who knows coffee and brewed with care.]

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