TEST DRIVE 003

[phantasmods]

Hello, and welcome to the third 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 takes place in the Fissure known as Amesta Forest - a forest filled with silver mist and shrouded in eternal twilight, where your dreams become real! For a certain limited definition of real. This is significantly less awesome than it sounds. On the bright side, anyone within the mists will find themselves with no need to sleep, as though trapped in the same spring evening as the rest of the forest.

OPTION ONE: DREAM A LITTLE DREAM

This first option might happen to you just about anywhere. From the swirls of silver mist comes a shape - or perhaps more than one shape? Who knows, it's your dream -

Well, probably. It could also be someone else's.

Those who stay too long in any one part of the mist will find their subconscious minds influencing it into shapes - the exact sort of things that appear in their dreams. As with their real dreams, the details are sometimes strange - too much detail, or not enough, depending on where your focus is. The character who 'created' the dream specter will instantly understand what it's supposed to be, but other viewers might have some difficulty with it.

Fortunately for those of you prone to violent nightmares, these dream figures are incapable of doing harm - any blows struck by them simply leave behind the dampness of walking through thick mist. A hard enough blow will similarly disperse them - or, in most cases, you can simply move quickly and leave them behind.

OPTION TWO: THE MOVEMENTS OF THE TREES

A forest filled with mist is honestly a kind of spooky place, isn't it?

Well, it's about to get spookier, when you notice that there's a tree... somewhere there wasn't a tree, before. Or maybe it's that you were looking around and realized that a tree wasn't there here there was one before, instead leaving behind only a round, torn-up patch of earth from where the roots were buried.

Either way, there's only one conclusion to be drawn - the trees are moving.

Those who pay close attention will soon realize that it's only one kind of tree that moves - an absolutely unfamiliar kind, with mist-silver bark and thin, almost translucent leaves in large handlike shapes. They aren't very tall, and their branches split low to the ground, the structure something like a less crooked Japanese maple. The Wanderwoods seem prone to following specific people, usually only moving when out of sight, though you might catch them shuffling along if you have quick reflexes for looking over your shoulder.

What do they want? Well, nothing, really. They're just attracted to sapient beings and, especially, the way the mist forms into their dreams. So while they won't do anything in particular to the characters themselves, anyone with a dream-form hanging around them might find that manifestation suddenly papered in thin, grabbing leaves... and swallowed up.

OPTION THREE: WHAT NOW IS FOUND?

Not all of the forest is trapped in eternal spring. One part of it is held in exactly the opposite - a brilliantly colored autumn morning, just before dawn, with the trees overhead colored in brilliant reds and oranges. Leaves drift down in a slow breeze, and pile up in random places among the trees (which never seem to run out of leaves to drop), and silver pools of water gather at the bases of the trees and in any other depressions, their surfaces perfectly still mirrors.

The mist is quite a bit thinner here, too, which allows you to see... What is that familiar shape in the distance, between the trees?

While dream manifestations are uncommon in the region of Fall's Heart, it's not only dreams that manifest here. Instead, characters will see the figures of those they've lost - instantly recognizable, but unreachable and nearly impossible to catch, running through the trees heedless of how you call after them. It's impossible to catch up to them by mundane means, and those who use supernatural means to do so -

- will find that, at their touch, the vision crumbles into silvery mist-water, forming another of those perfect, reflective pools at their feet.

Comments

[founderinglight]

That's also pretty much what Ardyn said.

[He shakes his head with a sigh.]

Birds of a feather...

[misanthropicprinciple]

Hey, don't say that like it was inevitable. I was dragged into this family kicking and screaming, you know. ...At first, anyway.

[founderinglight]

Well, it certainly seems to suit you.

[misanthropicprinciple]

It's not the worst thing that's ever happened to me, no.

...And I get magic.

[founderinglight]

People do seem to consider that one of the highlights, yes. You're quite handy with a warp - I only managed to avoid you because you gave me warning.

[What self-respecting Lucis Caelum ducks, honestly, Junpei.]

[misanthropicprinciple]

It was the first thing he taught me. [Half a beat passes, and then he adds:] I had kind of a head start on everyone else, too.

[founderinglight]

Everyone tends to have their specialties, with our magic, even those who get it secondhand. There's not any kind of trend to it that I've noticed, though.

[He's not asking. If they want him to know, they'll tell him.]

[misanthropicprinciple]

[Powerswap week is probably not a nice thing to drop on Izunia "Scourgephobia" Lucis Caelum amidst his one million nightmares, anyway.]

Well, I'm sure it's got something to do with what we're naturally good at on a mundane level, anyway. Visualizing myself in space and time--I've got way more practice with that than, say, formal combat.

[founderinglight]

[Yeah it is probably not unless you want him aggressively and anxiously checking your wrists for signs of infection and maybe demanding you get a blood draw.]

That would certainly help. Have you gotten to phasing yet, or just the warping? They're similar enough, but most people master warping well before they can phase on command.

[misanthropicprinciple]

Not yet. Again, I don't have the combat training.

[founderinglight]

It's only the timing that comes down to combat training, really. The basic ability is far more akin to warping without a thrown object. That's why it virtually always involves some sort of side- or back-step - the moving is important.

[misanthropicprinciple]

Okay, but you have to admit that the timing's kind of important when the test of success involves having something lobbed at your head.

[founderinglight]

True enough, but it's a two-stage skill, and there's no reason you can't at least attempt the first half. After all, it would be a pain to nail the timing only to fail the phasing itself, would it not?

[misanthropicprinciple]

So it can be practiced without having something to phase through?

[founderinglight]

Oh, yes, it's very much akin to warping in that regard. You don't need to warp-strike to a target every time, do you?

[Even if the game works that way fuck it this is more logical.]

[misanthropicprinciple]

Hmmm.

[Junpei chews thoughtfully on his food, then waves a finger of his robot hand.]

You said it virtually always involves a physical step of some kind. Is that because it's a mental thing, or because the movement's part of the phasing mechanism itself?

[founderinglight]

The movement is part of it, if only psychologically - all the other phasing I've done has at least involved a duck or lean-back. It's the same as warping, the magic works based upon seeing yourself elsewhere.

[misanthropicprinciple]

So the information the body sends is just as important as the mind's instructions in magic, too. Hey, does magic get more powerful under stress or would it be that desperate magic-users ignore their own safe limits in dangerous situations?

[He thinks about that for half a second.]

Uh, or am I just asking the same question twice? I guess the second part depends on the first being true. I haven't actually seen magic used to its full extent yet.

[founderinglight]

Well, then you get into technicalities of exactly which kind of magic you mean. Pulling things from the Armiger isn't something that's based in magical strength, and warping depends most entirely on the distance of your throw. It's definitely possible to push the amount you warp further than normal, but that's a pushing-yourself-through-exhaustion factor.

Elemancy tends to vary strongly based on inherent magical ability - Ardyn and I are good at it, Ignis is exceptional, some of my descendants were virtually useless at it, Noctis has a difficulty in holding the energy but channels it as well as anyone, and so on. It may be possible to push your limits a bit there, but most retainers are fairly capped by the amount they can pull from whoever they're bonded to; Ignis is the only exception I can name offhand.

[misanthropicprinciple]

Ah, Ignis, right. Noctis's advisor. The crazy one who made a mountain-sized turtle into sandwiches.

[He's seen Yuuri's cookbook.]

[founderinglight]

...You know, I'm fairly sure most people's association in your position would be "the one who put on the Ring and all but punched Ardyn into the ocean."

[He's not denying that what you just said about Ignis is true but also what the fuck, though.]

[misanthropicprinciple]

The turtle thing is way more insane. I'd've punted Dad into the sea in his position, too.

[founderinglight]

Honestly, after seeing him at Altissia first-hand - middle finger of left hand, specifically - I find it completely believable and utterly in line with my expectations.

[misanthropicprinciple]

Why are all of you like this.

[founderinglight]

Insanity is the only sane reaction to an insane world.

[He takes a drink of his soda, then pauses.]

...Shit, I should have said I had a ringside seat, that would have been better.