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.
photoshooter: (BITE FIST 📷 Um um um)

[personal profile] photoshooter 2018-03-07 04:29 pm (UTC)(link)
Uh.

[He shifts back again, one hand guarding his heart, like losing his soul is a very real threat he can all too easily imagine.]

Wh-what do you mean, people don't need souls down there? Don't they stop being people without them?
photoshooter: (FLUMP 📷 He's beauty he's grace)

[personal profile] photoshooter 2018-03-07 04:47 pm (UTC)(link)
--Eeyyaaah!

[Yeah, no, that's a mech he heard scraping along the walls, he thought he was crazy, he's not crazy, he's just dead if he doesn't do something!

The something he chooses to do is fire on it. The wind picks up in a frantic panic, though; his first shot glances harmlessly off the armor and his second goes wide.]


Why is there a robot in here?!
newlawtolight: (exile's rose)

[personal profile] newlawtolight 2018-03-07 06:04 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh goodness no. That is quite a common misconception.

Even without your soul, you would still be you. You don't turn into anything else, or melt into a puddle, or burst into fire or any of that other nonsense. Indeed most people find there's very little difference between having their soul and not having it! Some even feel better without it and all I have abstracted have no regrets divorcing from it.

[A bemused chuckle.]

Where I come from is funny in that way. No one Judges a human without a soul, so its much easier to unburden oneself from having one. If you ever did have one.
photoshooter: (CODED 📷 Open book with missing pages)

[personal profile] photoshooter 2018-03-07 07:46 pm (UTC)(link)
[Funny, how he flinches and stays flinched through all the 'nonsense' she lists: turning into something else, melting, bursting into flame. He just stands there, white and wide-eyed, until that last offhand comment.]

I--!

[And then stops abruptly. Of course I have a soul! is what he wants to say, but.

But what if he doesn't?

Self-doubt comes back to him with all its crushing weight. Noct and the others said it was fine, that where he came from doesn't mean anything, that he was one of them, no matter what--so it wouldn't matter, right? He's with them, always.

Except they're not here right now.

Prompto sinks back on his heels, bites the inside of his lip, and shakes his head.]


I don't--I don't understand. What's all that stuff about judging, or... how would not having a soul feel better?
newlawtolight: (E SUN THE SUN THE SUN TH)

[personal profile] newlawtolight 2018-03-07 08:03 pm (UTC)(link)
[She still smiles; she can sense that he was, at least, listening. The smile, thus, softens. Would he understand, she wonders?]

Some Powers in my universe...they look down on those without souls, those who do not fit into their designs to the letter. Burn them with the light of their Law. To those Powers, those like us are wrong, against their Sequence, their will, and Are-Not. They would say that they shouldn't exist.

[Her hands clasp around her umbrella, just a little. As if she is parting a deep secret to a comrade-in-arms.]

But there is nothing really wrong with them, save that they do not have souls. Souls...have power, but it is a power bent to the Law of their Sequence, you see. Those with souls have a burden towards obeying that Law...they have no choice but to do so. Having a soul chains you to a purpose you may not, in fact, wish to further.

Those without souls do not have power in their Sequence...but, they have a measure of freedom that is feared. Oh, there are plenty who still have souls who look for freedom, also. Who look for an alternative. Some do, but many don't. They cannot help but be chained, in some way.

[She closes her eyes beneath her sunglasses.]

Tell me. Have you ever looked up to the sky, to the very stars, and wondered why they are so cold and silent to you?
Edited 2018-03-07 20:04 (UTC)
newlawtolight: (buzz in the air)

[personal profile] newlawtolight 2018-03-07 08:05 pm (UTC)(link)
That's right, Fallen London. Formerly of Great Britain. It's quite the tale!
photoshooter: (INHALE 📷 You guys...)

[personal profile] photoshooter 2018-03-07 08:24 pm (UTC)(link)
[Listening to her, the panic of his existential crisis quiets. There are things he understands in there, catching his attention like the beautiful scales in the sand.

'Those like us are wrong, and Are-Not.'

That, among all those words he just doesn't understand, strikes a chord, and when she closes her eyes, he glances up, even though there are no stars out now but the sun. Why don't the stars care about him?]


Because I'm nobody.

[He looks at her again, hand finally unclenching slowly from his shirtfront.]

Nobody special. It's not like they're up there for me.

[personal profile] part_time_person 2018-03-07 08:34 pm (UTC)(link)
[Instinctively, Julian took a step back, inhaling slowly. There would never be a situation where someone seeing him like that wasn't unnerving, but that reaction was promising, or at least, it was better than the nightmare scenarios he'd been braced for.

Still, he nodded, putting his earring back in quickly. Despite the spike of adrenaline at the sight of someone watching him, his voice was quiet and flat, with only the tension in his shoulders betraying how on edge he was.]


I would appreciate it if you wouldn't mention this to anyone. Reactions are rarely this positive. My luck has never been that good.

[personal profile] part_time_person 2018-03-07 08:38 pm (UTC)(link)
Most of the time I think would rather have no special abilities at all, honestly.

[Without powers, he could have a normal life. No fear of someone realizing what he was, no wondering if people would leave when they found out... it would have been a different life entirely.]

Are you able to make anything you remember clearly?
newlawtolight: (UN THE SUN THE SUN THE S)

[personal profile] newlawtolight 2018-03-07 08:49 pm (UTC)(link)
Indeed. We are, to them, pests to be quashed.

[She approaches him, closing the gap. She doesn't get too close, though she does offer a hand.

She takes a breath through her nostrils.]


But...I know better. You are more than that, and can be even more.

[She can smell just how beautiful his soul is. How much more beautiful such a soul's owner would be, touched by the Dawn itself, soul offered to its glory?]

You can show the stars just what you think of their cruelty. You have that choice and no one can take it from you. Prompto.

[That last word is a quiet whisper.]
Edited 2018-03-07 20:49 (UTC)
foolishjustice: (Crow-Simple deduction.)

[personal profile] foolishjustice 2018-03-07 08:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Any clear liquid, though I can't replicate harmful qualities. I can also alter it based on my imagination, I create what I visualize. It can also have one of three supernatural effects, the one I gave you heals minor injuries.

[He pushes his mask up onto his forehead to get the beak out of the way of his next drink of his own coffee.]

[personal profile] part_time_person 2018-03-07 09:11 pm (UTC)(link)
What about things like honey that aren't quite liquids? [His father's people loved honey and so did he. His parents knew he'd had a rough day growing up whenever he drank a jar of honey, a habit that had gotten much harder to maintain on a college student budget.]

If you can't do this often, shouldn't you save it for someone important instead of wasting it on me?
foolishjustice: (Nice day isn't it?)

[personal profile] foolishjustice 2018-03-07 09:26 pm (UTC)(link)
Honey is a bit too thick, that's why I was happy to find the beehive. Maple syrup is probably around my upper limit for viscosity.

And I can do this three times every twenty minutes, so I'm not really worried about using it for people who don't need the special properties. Besides, I have a much more powerful healing ability, so all I really consider in my choice of when to use it is if the person I'm offering to will appreciate it.

[personal profile] part_time_person 2018-03-07 09:46 pm (UTC)(link)
I wonder if you could make liquid charcoal or if that would be too thick to make work? It's handy as an overdose remedy in emergencies.

How many powers do you have? [It seemed like Goro had a neverending supply of them, at least to someone who had lived his whole life with a small, stable powerset.]
foolishjustice: (Strange isn't it?)

[personal profile] foolishjustice 2018-03-07 09:56 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm not sure, but one of the three potential effects of my drinks is to cure poisons.

[...Give him a moment, he needs to think about that.]

There's the Wildcard Persona user ability, each of my six Personas has a different set of up to eight magical or physical skills...I have two Psyches, which are psychic abilities that anyone can use if they have a Pin compatible with their Imagination...then there are the Composer abilities, such as Corvus Cantus, flight, energy blasts, and a few other things related to ghosts and managing the afterlife. Most of that last category doesn't work when I'm outside of my territory, though.

Ah, I suppose the Metaverse skills that carry over here also apply, though those are things anyone could learn if they trained themselves to think in the right way.

[personal profile] part_time_person 2018-03-07 10:07 pm (UTC)(link)
[Julian gives him a flat look. He doesn't know what a Persona is, he doesn't know what a Pin is, and he's fairly sure part of that was in Latin, but Goro says these things as if they're common vernacular he should know already.

So he tries to nod as if he understood that, expression blank as ever.]
foolishjustice: (Crow-Ah...)

[personal profile] foolishjustice 2018-03-07 10:20 pm (UTC)(link)
Ah, I'm sorry if that was too technical. A lot of them would take some explanation to understand, as opposed to simply listing off. Not that I would be opposed to explaining, but it might take some time.

[Beware Julian, he sounds about ready to give a college thesis on these concepts.]

[personal profile] part_time_person 2018-03-07 10:31 pm (UTC)(link)
It's alright. My mother is a professor of Balkan folklore, so I know a lot about nonhuman sentient species native to the region. I'd probably use just as many technical terms if I tried to explain powers and things like that from my territory as well. The only difference is that I've been told Serbian is much harder to pronounce than the Latin you just used.

[Apparently 'mrzsrde' needed more vowels, according to most people.]
foolishjustice: (Strange isn't it?)

[personal profile] foolishjustice 2018-03-07 10:41 pm (UTC)(link)
The Latin was actually just a proper noun. It's the name of my bird form, apparently it translates to 'Singing Crow'. I'm not sure what the reasoning is, but death gods use a lot of musical terminology in our names for things. It's probably something related to how a person's capacity for creative thought influences the sorts of abilities they can use.
superstylishsquid: (Oh yeah...)

[personal profile] superstylishsquid 2018-03-07 11:42 pm (UTC)(link)
If he leaves Movieland, yeah. We know what city he lives in, but it's not exactly a small town. Besides, his powers wouldn't even work there, and it just wouldn't be satisfying to crush him while he's helpless.
matchmakes: (007)

[personal profile] matchmakes 2018-03-08 12:33 am (UTC)(link)
[He can't help but side-eye a little for the wording, but...]

I think that if it's that important, you won't have anything to worry about.

[Probably.]

Stuff like that has a way of working out.
superstylishsquid: (Huh?)

[personal profile] superstylishsquid 2018-03-08 12:57 am (UTC)(link)
I guess...he does know I consider us rivals, so he might agree to a duel even if it would be out of his way. Still, I'd have to track him down in a busy city filled with humans and it'd just be a huge pain in my tail. I'd rather just park myself in a position where he has to go through me to get what he wants and make it convenient for both of us.
byanyother_name: (No big deal)

[personal profile] byanyother_name 2018-03-08 04:35 am (UTC)(link)
[Hm. That was interesting. The body language was definitely at odds with the voice but it didn't give the impression of something deliberate. Kurama wondered a bit if that was related to the mental reverb.

Would it be rude to ask?]

Luck has very little to do with it here. Very few of us seem to be average sorts of people, and possibly a third to half of the current inhabitants are some stripe of not entirely human. Depending, of course, on how you're defining humanity.

But of course I'll keep it to myself until you feel more comfortable.

[personal profile] part_time_person 2018-03-08 05:08 am (UTC)(link)
[It often wasn't clear to Julian what counted as rude in a normal situation. Right now? Anything the redhead asked would probably be fine, although answering could get complicated.

He winced slightly at the words 'not entirely human'. Nothing major, and his expression is back to blank in no time, but it's obvious that hit a nerve.]


The numbers were never that close to even back home. Usually, I was the only one wherever I was. Which can be dangerous.

I don't want any trouble.
dubiouslychthonic: (go on)

[personal profile] dubiouslychthonic 2018-03-08 05:26 am (UTC)(link)
Yes, well, I've lived most of my life very far from major bodies of water, I'm afraid.

I'm Jetshard. Sawbones Jetshard, if we're being formal.

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