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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.
dubiouslychthonic: (you did not just say that)

1

[personal profile] dubiouslychthonic 2018-03-04 04:33 am (UTC)(link)
[Jetshard's not unduly stirring up the winds of the cavern, either; which she's not typically subterranean by choice, being down here is more comfortable for her than being out in the sunlight, and she at least has the advantage of having been briefed to some degree before leaving the station. Still, she's a little concerned but not particularly concerned to see an unfamiliar person down here, and she doesn't hesitate to approach.

...well shit, of the many entirely reasonable questions for someone who has just fallen into a rift to ask, that's one of the more complicated to answer. Jetshard frowns thoughtfully.]


Out, yes. But I'm afraid it's more a through kind of out than a back kind of out.

[personal profile] part_time_person 2018-03-04 04:41 am (UTC)(link)
[Alright, he will admit to some initial confusion upon seeing someone so obviously not human. Given his own half-and-half status, he's sure he should be excited or something, but he's been raised entirely by and passes for human, incredible moments of awkward staring aside.

He tilts his head, fiddling with his earring. If he had one nervous habit, it was fiddling with things when he was confused.]


I think I need more context.

[He wonders if this is what students in his mother's classes at the university feel like when they arrive mid-lecture, this acute mix of bafflement and intrigue.]
dubiouslychthonic: (go on)

[personal profile] dubiouslychthonic 2018-03-04 05:08 am (UTC)(link)
[At this point, she's more or less resigned to confused stares from hornless aliens; humans in general seem easily startled by the visibly nonhuman, and to her knowledge no other trolls and very few nonhumans have arrived here. She suspects she'll be one of the resident curiosities for some time.]

We're in what the locals refer to as a "fissure" - an area of unstable reality that collects things from other worlds. Probably other universes. We have a safe haven in more stable terrain in this world, but we don't know how to go back to the places we came from.

[personal profile] part_time_person 2018-03-04 05:18 am (UTC)(link)
[To give him credit where it's due, his expression is less confused than it probably should be, given the circumstances. He's aware of the existence of non-humans, he just hadn't expected to ever encounter one in person in his lifetime.

In any case, while it took a lot to render him speechless, this definitely qualified. Sure, he'd always thought reality seemed broken and overwhelming, but that was supposed to be a personal issue, not an actual fact.]


...I have a lot of questions but I feel like, if there were answers to any of them, we'd know how to get back from here.

So what do I do now?
dubiouslychthonic: (Skeptical)

[personal profile] dubiouslychthonic 2018-03-04 07:30 am (UTC)(link)
[She shrugs.] Well, so far as the locals have been able to determine, the fissure's only started producing people in addition to animals and inanimate objects in the past several weeks. We might still be able to figure out how to reverse the trip.

[Or at least, the people who understand a good deal more about magic and different universes than she does may be able to. Goddamn it, Jim, she's a doctor, not a quantum physicist.]

If you can get out into the open, it'll be easier to find you and bring you back to the station with us when we head back? Be careful if you go out onto the beach, though. When I came through a few weeks ago, there were some pretty nasty ambush predators lurking under the sand near the water line.

[personal profile] part_time_person 2018-03-04 07:39 am (UTC)(link)
[He winces slightly at the emphasis she put on 'people'. That's interesting. Julian hadn't been entirely sure he qualified for that particular category.]

I don't know how to get out of here. Can you show me the way to the station? Please?

[His sense of direction isn't terrible once he's gotten the lay of the land, but here, he'd probably end up drowning in the caverns somehow, and then his mother would be furious. Forget physics and magic, she would bring him back through sheer parental disappointment and sad eyes.]
dubiouslychthonic: (sorry were you still talking)

[personal profile] dubiouslychthonic 2018-03-06 12:02 am (UTC)(link)
I - [She almost refuses, honestly; she doesn't want to backtrack when she's still got a sylladex full of stabilizers to plant. But the group's not so big that she can trust that someone else will find him in here, or that she's comfortable losing track of a newcomer. The winds pick up a little as she sighs.] I'm not heading back to the station immediately, but I can help you find your way out to open ground?

[personal profile] part_time_person 2018-03-06 01:29 am (UTC)(link)
Thank you. I would appreciate that. [He can tell she's not fond of him - or at least, that's how he perceives her reaction, so he adds,] I promise not to bother you again after that.
dubiouslychthonic: (you did not just say that)

[personal profile] dubiouslychthonic 2018-03-06 02:34 am (UTC)(link)
[Aaand she's come off all prickly, hasn't she? Damn it. She offers a tight smile that's probably not as reassuring as she intends it.] Honest, kid, it's not that. I'm probably not the best escort, is all, especially if there's anything nasty lurking in here. Too much of a noncombatant my own damn self.

[personal profile] part_time_person 2018-03-06 02:42 am (UTC)(link)
...are there nasty bits of wildlife around here I should know about? [He glances around, not exactly paranoid but clearly not exactly comforted by that thought.]
dubiouslychthonic: (go on)

[personal profile] dubiouslychthonic 2018-03-06 02:50 am (UTC)(link)
Nothing I've seen in here. Some things in the ocean I wouldn't want to tangle with, even if I could swim. [She shrugs. She's not exactly comforted by being down
a rift and separated from the person she'd intentionally teamed up with so as to have someone who knew how to use a weapon at her back, either, but fissures being what they are (and, probably, Prompto being who he is, too), here she is.]

[personal profile] part_time_person 2018-03-06 03:22 am (UTC)(link)
I can swim. Not well, but I could teach you enough not to drown. That way we'd be even for you helping me out of here.
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?

[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?
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.

[personal profile] part_time_person 2018-03-08 05:58 am (UTC)(link)
I see. I live fairly close to the ocean and my mother was always worried I'd end up drowning somehow, so I took six years of swim classes. [He shrugs slightly. His mother's a sweet woman, but not all of her fears or the ways she responded to them are exactly rational.]

It's nice to meet you. Do you prefer to be called Jetshard or Sawbones?
dubiouslychthonic: (Skeptical)

[personal profile] dubiouslychthonic 2018-03-08 06:08 am (UTC)(link)
Jetshard. We list professional title before personal name where I'm from. [Professional, or ceremonial, or treasonously ideological... but professional in her case, mostly.]

[personal profile] part_time_person 2018-03-08 06:11 am (UTC)(link)
Would it be impolite to ask where you're from? [Was that too forward? He's trying his best, here.]
dubiouslychthonic: (The Office camera stare)

[personal profile] dubiouslychthonic 2018-03-08 06:19 am (UTC)(link)
Not impolite, but I'm afraid it's not likely to mean much to you. I was hatched on the planet Alternia. Most recently I served as ship's doctor on the starclipper Fortuitous.

[personal profile] part_time_person 2018-03-08 06:24 am (UTC)(link)
You're right, that doesn't mean much to me. I'm sorry. Being ship's doctor sounds impressive, though.
dubiouslychthonic: (Smile)

[personal profile] dubiouslychthonic 2018-03-09 07:12 am (UTC)(link)
It's not the most prestigious corner of the medical field, but it's a living. [She shrugs, with a lopsided smile.] And there's something to be said for working with shipmates who see me every day, rather than anonymous patients who hope never to have a reason to speak to me again.

[personal profile] part_time_person 2018-03-09 07:35 am (UTC)(link)
I'm a botany major, and that's not the most prestigious corner of anything. [He's not bothered by that, though. It's a good fit for him, just like being a doctor seems to be a good fit for her.] It sounds like a good job.