phantasmods: (Default)
Phantasmal Rift Mods ([personal profile] phantasmods) wrote in [community profile] phantasmemes2018-04-12 11:09 pm
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TEST DRIVE 003

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.
caduceusoncall: (Angel)

[personal profile] caduceusoncall 2018-04-13 10:05 am (UTC)(link)
[That small laugh breaks the tension and Angela feels her shoulders relax. Yes, this is the Genji she hoped to see one day. A healed - or at least healing Genji. One who could laugh - perhaps he was even smiling beneath the visor and all that tech.]

I simply meant that in doing what I did, I failed to save the man that you were. I felt that although I'd saved your life, I had taken something from you. In some ways that took something from me, as well.

[What was the danger of confessions in a dream? She was talking to her subconscious, wasn't she? She lets out a breath of laughter herself, amused by how forthcoming she is when she's just trying to make sense of things.]

I was a coward to do what I did to you, but I always hoped you would heal mentally and emotionally one day. It's no wonder I dream of you in this condition.
assoverelbow: (pic#12225084)

[personal profile] assoverelbow 2018-04-13 09:07 pm (UTC)(link)
[Those words - they're words he used to want to here so long ago. When he was angry, bitter, turned into a weapon to be turned against his family.

He wanted them to suffer, the people who rebuilt him almost from scratch. He wanted them to have their humanity stripped just as his had been.

But things have changed. He's learned, now, with the help of Zenyatta's stubborn sort of patience, that nothing had been taken from him. Things were just replaced in new ways.]


Angela. [Not Dr. Ziegler. Not now. This is too personal.] You saved my life. You should not be sorry for doing such a thing, even though I could not be grateful for it then.
caduceusoncall: (Angel)

[personal profile] caduceusoncall 2018-04-13 09:36 pm (UTC)(link)
[It's a miracle that she manages to keep her composure, hearing those words. But she does, because she is not alone, and she cannot cry even in good company. She fixes her eyes on the pool of water at her feet. Staring back at her is a tired face with a bitter smile.]

I should have never agreed to make the modifications I did. I was so afraid they wouldn't let me help you at all if I didn't...

[Her voice trails off. If I didn't turn you into a weapon. If I didn't tear out all shreds of choice and make your body a machine for killing. If I didn't agree to irreparably warp the life I was being allowed to save.]

I am not sorry that you are alive, or that I had a part in keeping you that way, but I am sorry that I allowed fear to cloud my judgement. I put you through hell for selfish reasons, Genji. I sometimes wonder if I have done more harm than good to your life.
assoverelbow: (pic#12225145)

[personal profile] assoverelbow 2018-04-13 10:18 pm (UTC)(link)
You cannot dwell on things that cannot be changed.

[Which is, perhaps, the hardest thing one can do. The past cannot and should not be forgotten, but you cannot let yourself be burdened by it.

You must accept it, accept what it made you, and find peace with that.]


You had no choice, but you did your duty to me. [And to everyone else. The world was all the better for the work of Dr. Angela Ziegler, one of the brightest doctors of her time-]

And I do not hate you for that. [Not anymore.] I couldn't. Without your work I would be dead and the Shimada...

[How strong would they have grown if they hadn't been torn down? He shudders to think of it.

They were merciless.]


Things worked out in the end. I forgive you, if you'll forgive me for how I treated you.
caduceusoncall: (Nothing Personal?)

[personal profile] caduceusoncall 2018-04-15 12:04 am (UTC)(link)
[There's a lot of truth to his words. What was the use in dwelling on it? The memories of every failure drive her to reach new heights, but they could just as easily chain her down if she let herself fixate on them. And usually she thought she did a good job of doing so. But dreams were a different thing. The only place she could let herself feel that pain.]

Forgive you?

[At that, she can't help but laugh. The motions of smiling and moving release some of the tension in her body and she settles into a sigh.]

I never blamed you for anything, there's nothing to be forgiven.

[Angela reaches out, places her hand on Genji's shoulder.]

[...it's too solid for a dream. She's familiar with sensations in dreams, her mind is an active one, and this is too solid. Recoiling, she stares at Genji, mortified. Ignoring the impossibility of the situation, if this wasn't a dream, than she definitely just confessed some serious things to this man.]
assoverelbow: (pic#12225082)

[personal profile] assoverelbow 2018-04-15 12:21 am (UTC)(link)
[He shakes his head, letting out a sigh that's close to a laugh.

Ever selfless, she is, unable to see the wrongs done to her through the wrongs she's believed she's done to others.

Perhaps what they've done to each other is different, but that doesn't mean Genji's never done anything terrible in response.]


If you can seek forgiveness for saving your life, I can apologize for treating you terribly.

[He gives that hand a squeeze, smiling bright even though Angela can't see.]

Even if you can't blame me for being cruel, for being unkind, I still was, and I apologize for that.
caduceusoncall: (Default)

[personal profile] caduceusoncall 2018-04-15 11:21 am (UTC)(link)
[She opens her mouth to respond, but the words don't come. She wants to tell him that it's okay, he was hurting, and she had been the one to hurt him. That she deserved the reaction she got because she had been selfish in her motives. That she hadn't liked it any more than he had at the time.]

[Perhaps it's the weight of realization, slowly sinking in, that this can't be a dream. That this is the real Genji, and he is really here, forgiving her for her failure. Perhaps that is what takes her words away from her.]

[Angela bows her head, wipes the excess emotion from her face, and meets his visor's gaze anew with a healthier, more professional smile.]


If I may be honest, it will be some time before I forgive myself, but I assure you, I have long since forgiven you.

[There's a brief pause before she adds, quite distinctly not as a question:]

This is not a dream, is it.