Phantasmal Rift Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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phantasmemes2018-03-01 07:08 am
phantasmods) wrote in phantasmemes2018-03-01 07:08 am
Entry tags:
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.
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.
no subject
[She pauses, as if reluctant.]
We also perform abstraction for those willing. Others call it selling your soul, as if we're doing something wrong, but it's all very legal and formal, you see. One hardly needs to keep a soul down there anyways.
[s h r u g]
We've certainly done fine without them.
no subject
[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?
no subject
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.
no subject
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?
no subject
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?
no subject
'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.
no subject
[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.]
no subject
No! Don't come any closer!
[Denial--ten percent reasoned horror, of course, but ninety percent kneejerk panic. For a second, even though the scenery doesn't change, he doesn't flash back to that facility before his eyes or hear the voice of his nightmares, Prompto feels like he did in those labs, with that man. The only reason his gun's still in its holster is because he still isn't used to having to physically draw it.
Instead, his hand's out, too, but in refusal. In no. He inhales short and sharp, holds that breath with his heart in his throat, then squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head. Back, back. He draws his hand back, shrinks back further, draws backwards in every way.]
No. No, I don't want it. I-I-I appreciate that--that you think it'd be a good thing, but I. No. I c-can't. Sorry.
[After one more moment spent trying to think of something else to say, he blurts out:]
I have to go. S-see you!
[And he bolts.]