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: (HUH 📷 Wait what?)

That sure is some Galeforce

[personal profile] photoshooter 2018-03-08 06:20 pm (UTC)(link)
[Wren and her loyal steed aren't the only ones making their way through the caves. A human gasp is suddenly covered up by a pick-up in the unending wind, though it's less a straight gale than a knot of surprised, curious eddies.

A bit above, where another wind-worn tunnel joins the caverns they're walking through, a young man points at Wren's pegasus, astonished and delighted.]


What--what's that?
thoroff: (006)

[personal profile] thoroff 2018-03-09 01:37 am (UTC)(link)
[Mount and master both pause at the new presence, turning their heads almost in unison to examine it. The strengthening wind, while not half as intolerable as before, is still enough to elicit a displeased neigh from Catria, the pegasus; Wren, for her part, lets out a small giggle, finding Prompto's unmasked exuberance endearing.]

I take it you've never seen a pegasus before?
photoshooter: (OHO? 📷 Wanna see?)

[personal profile] photoshooter 2018-03-09 10:44 am (UTC)(link)
I've never even heard of a pegasus before!

[Wow! Wow wow wow. He sits on the lip of his tunnel, leaning forward eagerly for a better look.]

Can it fly? Can you fly on it? It's tame, right, it seems to really like you.
thoroff: (006)

[personal profile] thoroff 2018-03-09 10:54 am (UTC)(link)
[Okay, this time her giggle isn't so small. She moves a little closer to Prompto and beckons Catria to follow.]

Yes, she can fly. Yes, I can fly on her. And I would be a pretty poor pegasus knight if she wasn't tame.
photoshooter: (SANKYUU 📷 Ever at your side)

[personal profile] photoshooter 2018-03-09 11:12 am (UTC)(link)
Her.

[Prompto accepts the correction happily, kicking his feet a little, then with a little "hup!" jumps down to join them.]

She's really gorgeous. What's her name?
thoroff: (003)

[personal profile] thoroff 2018-03-09 11:30 am (UTC)(link)
[The pegasus starts just a little bit when Prompto jumps down to their level, but Wren gives her side a gentle stroke to settle her down.]

Yes, she is.

[There's no small amount of pride in her voice.]

Her name is Catria.
photoshooter: (BACKLIGHT 📷 Rise and shine)

[personal profile] photoshooter 2018-03-09 02:31 pm (UTC)(link)
Catria. What a great name. Aww, sorry, girl, I didn't mean to startle you.

[He offers his hands low, in case pegasi are like dogs and need a good sniff to decide whether or not a person's trustworthy.]

I'm Prompto! Prompto Argentum. Did you just get here through the Fissure? ...Can I pet her?
thoroff: (0011)

[personal profile] thoroff 2018-03-09 11:19 pm (UTC)(link)
My name is Robin... but please, call me Wren. [She tilts her head curiously.] I have no idea what you mean by "the Fissure", but yes, I just got here.

[Catria shows no interest whatsoever in Prompto's hands, but seeing how her rider has let him get this close, nor does she rebuff him.

He can go ahead and pet her, but it'll be more for his own benefit than hers.]

Edited 2018-03-09 23:25 (UTC)
photoshooter: (SELFIE 📷 Oh my god do I try)

[personal profile] photoshooter 2018-03-10 10:52 am (UTC)(link)
[Aw, well, he's not gonna pet her if she's not interested. Prompto knows enough animal body language for that. Instead, he rubs the back of his neck with one hand and gestures sheepishly at the cavern with the other.]

Um, a Fissure's... the way they explained it, it's like a big magic crack between worlds. People and stuff fall in, and then they're kind of. Stuck. Like us, haha.

[He tries to smile, at least.]
thoroff: (004)

[personal profile] thoroff 2018-03-10 11:15 am (UTC)(link)
...What?

[She... doesn't return the expression. At all. Her agitation causes the wind to intensify once more, prompting a distressed whinny from Catria.]

I don't remember "falling" into anything! And what do you mean, stuck?!
Edited 2018-03-10 11:16 (UTC)
photoshooter: (PATHETIC 📷 Or did I just Beta you?)

[personal profile] photoshooter 2018-03-10 11:21 am (UTC)(link)
[Oops. The rising wind startles Prompto, too, making it bluster even worse for a second, but he lifts his hands to try to calm Wren and Catria down, and he can't do that without finding some calm himself.]

H-hey, don't shoot the messenger! I'm not happy about it, either. But those of us that are here, we've been here for a few weeks already, and no luck so far...
thoroff: (002)

[personal profile] thoroff 2018-03-10 11:42 am (UTC)(link)
[Prompto's words aren't exactly doing much to pacify Wren. She could be cut off from the army for weeks, at minimum? Of all the times for something like this to happen, this is the worst! She's needed, she's—

...No. There's still her brother. Sure, this... isn't exactly ideal... but he's fully capable of seeing things through on his own. There's no need for her to worry. The wind begins to die back down as she regains her calm, and she moves to Catria's side, petting her softly in an attempt to ease her distress as well.]


Sorry, girl. Didn't mean to frighten you...

[She then turns back to Prompto.]

You're right. Forgive me. But "those of us that are here"? Just how many people would that be?