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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.
dontcallmedeku: (Did you see that?!)

[personal profile] dontcallmedeku 2018-03-04 06:22 am (UTC)(link)
That sounds really interesting. What kind of plants are your favorites?

[Body language was everything. It made up most of the communication between people. The way Julian looked at the beach was telling. Perhaps he never got to go and was from somewhere far from any beach. Maybe it told of a sheltered life. Maybe a fear of water. Whatever the case, he didn't have enough information. That's why they were here right now. That and whatever was causing all of this to occur.]

[personal profile] part_time_person 2018-03-04 06:35 am (UTC)(link)
[He had heard botany was interesting about as often as he'd gotten good reactions to his half-human status: never. For a moment he looks at Izuku as if trying to figure out if he's serious.]

Cacti, succulents, edible flowers, and tree hybrids. I don't really find discussion of invasive plant species interesting, even though rationally I know it's important.

[Julian idly cracked his ankles in turn, mentally comparing the beach to the one his family had visited when he was growing up. The seagulls were the same, but the scant plant life wasn't the same on the beach as in the Pacific Northwest.]
dontcallmedeku: (Why hello there)

[personal profile] dontcallmedeku 2018-03-05 02:29 am (UTC)(link)
[Izuku nods along. He honestly finds the idea fascinating. What people dream about, what they want to do and be, their dreams. Dreams were important to everyone. Everyone had to have a drive if they wanted to succeed. Not having one only lead to despair and failure.]

I've heard of Cecti, succulents, and edible flowers but tree hybrids? What kind are there?

[He continued to smile. He was happy to talk to someone like this. He could talk to his classmates back home but there was always this air of deception to it. He couldn't be completely honest with them. Here, he had nothing to hide it seemed. At least until he found out if anyone from UA or the League was here too.]

[personal profile] part_time_person 2018-03-05 02:45 am (UTC)(link)
Trees have species families whose veins are usually genetically similar enough that, if you rip bark off of saplings of trees from similar enough species and bind the wounds together, they grow into one tree. That's called Frankensteining trees, which is the base test for if species are similar enough to try to hybridize. My class is studying peach tree hybrids right now.

Theoretically, if trees with traits like disease resistance and high fruit bearing density can be crossed successfully, then the results should be able to produce more food for people, especially in regions where people are sorely lacking in other options for nutrition. It could help a lot of people.

[Izuku no, he'll talk botany at you until the sun sets. He wasn't used to having people even smile and nod along at the tree related talk, even though his parents did their best to pretend to be into it.]
dontcallmedeku: (Cute boi)

[personal profile] dontcallmedeku 2018-03-05 03:00 am (UTC)(link)
That sounds amazing. I wish I had a notebook and pen so I could write this down. That sounds like it could help a lot of people. I hope the research goes well.

Maybe you could continue it here? If we ever find people, that is. Maybe they have some kind of school here. I mean, if there is civilization, there should be education. Right?

[personal profile] part_time_person 2018-03-05 03:07 am (UTC)(link)
There have been promising breakthroughs with lumber tree species in the past decade. It's not the most exciting work, but I really think we're on the verge of being able to do a lot of good in the world.

Maybe. The plants here may be different than what I'm used to. But it would be nice to be able to help people out while I'm here.
dontcallmedeku: (I am a villain)

[personal profile] dontcallmedeku 2018-03-05 03:08 am (UTC)(link)
[Izuku nodded. Julian was the kind of person he wanted to help. He wanted to help people and Izuku would be willing to help in any way he could.]

I feel the same way. Let's help the people here together. In any way we can.

[personal profile] part_time_person 2018-03-05 03:21 am (UTC)(link)
[Admittedly, it was a boring kind of help, but it was vital. He couldn't help people on any social or emotional level; he didn't know how. He didn't know how to do a lot of things that other people could, like comfort one another or make others laugh. Science, though, that he understood. That, he could use.]

In any way we can except you doing physical labor until we're sure you're not concussed. I don't want anyone to get hurt here, including you.
dontcallmedeku: (It's it a nice day?)

[personal profile] dontcallmedeku 2018-03-05 03:31 am (UTC)(link)
Of course! We wouldn't want to push ourselves beyond our limits. I won't do anything too rigorous until we find a doctor and I get my head checked. I promise.

[He nodded and looked around the beach again.]

Sitting here is nice. We can enjoy the scenery and just talk. This is nice.

[personal profile] part_time_person 2018-03-05 03:43 am (UTC)(link)
Good. You seem like a nice person. I wouldn't want to push you.

[He idly pushes his hair behind his ears, blinking in the sun.] Mmm. Reminds me of going to the beach with my parents. It's been a while since we got the chance to do that... I should ask them when the weather gets nice back home again.
dontcallmedeku: (Hey there!)

[personal profile] dontcallmedeku 2018-03-05 03:49 am (UTC)(link)
You seem like a nice person too.

[He looks out at the ocean and nods.] I should do the same with my mom. We haven't had a day out together in so long. We will do what we can here and get home so we can do that.

[personal profile] part_time_person 2018-03-05 03:53 am (UTC)(link)
Thanks.

I hope we're not here too long. My parents will be really worried.
dontcallmedeku: (I am going to kick your ass)

[personal profile] dontcallmedeku 2018-03-05 01:13 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, if we want to get home we should start exploring. No one has come by yet. Maybe we can find someone if we head up the beach. There is bound to be a home or even a town somewhere along the shoreline.

Or we could move away from the water and see if we can find a road.

[personal profile] part_time_person 2018-03-05 01:27 pm (UTC)(link)
So long as you're sure you're good to walk. [He gets up, reflexively cracking his ankles and wrists in turn, looking down the shoreline.] There might be a road connecting to the beach. There usually were back home, even on private beaches, to allow emergency access.