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phantasmemes2018-04-12 11:09 pm
phantasmods) wrote in phantasmemes2018-04-12 11:09 pm
Entry tags:
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.
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.
no subject
[Prompto nods encouragingly.]
There's all kinds of different stuff people do around the station to keep busy.
no subject
[He gives a breath of laughter. What's funny about the question is that it's a desperate attempt to escape his current occupation, but Prompto doesn't need to know that - or the tragic backstory behind it. But it's worth a shot. Maybe they'll take him in if they think he's useful. Beats staying out in the forest for the rest of his life.]
[...although being "that creepy masked forest sniper/hermit" is a funny prospect to him.]
no subject
[He twirls his finger in the air to indicate the forest all around them. Hooray! Expedition!]
Last time, we had to fight a giant, invisible seagull. It was probably one of the weirder things I've done in my life.
no subject
A giant...invisible...seagull. Right, so no offense, but I think either you're insane or like. Man, I don't know, if you're telling the truth then this situation is just fucked, isn't it.
[There's a certain resignation to his voice. He still wants to believe this is just a dream, honestly, but that would be a waste of his time if it turns out it's not. And trust isn't his forte, but Prompto seems harmless enough (except for the part where he materialized a handgun out of nowhere - if this isn't a dream then what the actual fuck).]
So let me get this straight: Fissures are these unstable tears that dump people into this world, you go out and explore them willingly, and...what, just drag people back to the station to repeat the process with a bigger crew?
[Are they just exploring these Fissures to find displaced people and help them or is there some other motive at play? How dangerous are these woods? What do you mean giant invisible seagull???]
no subject
[There's that glow and the crystalline shattering noise again, and Prompto's suddenly holding... well, it's some kind of weird device. It looks like a virus, apparently, if viruses were, you know, not microscopic.]
These things are stabilizers, when we set them up out here it makes the Fissures--well. More stable. Which means it's safer for us, too.
no subject
See you did that thing again - what is that? With the whole...[He waves his hand vaguely.] Materializing things out of nothing, thing?
no subject
[He doesn't put the stabilizer away immediately, instead fiddling with its legs for no real reason than to have something to fiddle with.]
He's the king, and since I'm part of his, like, retinue, I get access to some of the perks. This one's super handy, I almost can't remember how I lived without it. A lot of people here have something like that--kind of like an inventory in video games, you know?
no subject
[Talon nods, impressed. He doesn't really know what a "retinue" is but he's hazarding a guess that it means "posse".]
And just being friends with him gives you a whole inventory system? Shit, I gotta meet this king and kiss some ass.
no subject
[Prompto love him bro.]
If you're gonna go the ass-kissing route, I recommend brushing up on video games and pretending you care about fish. Unless you actually like fishing? I've been friends with him for years, and I still don't see what's so... al-lure-ing.
no subject
I've never been fishing, to be honest. Not a lot of opportunities to try it back home. It sounds...peaceful.
[The way his lip curls on the word "peaceful" is totally not speaking volumes about his past and what qualifies as normal for him. Totally.]
Is he here, exploring the Fissure like you? Or back at the station?
no subject
[Prompto sighs.]
I wouldn't have suggested it if I'd known this place would throw fake MTs at us. It seemed more peaceful on the outskirts of the woods.
no subject
[Talon shrugs. He's dealt with weirder, really.]
The real danger is in finding out whether they have a mind of their own or if they're being controlled or enchanted by someone. If there's a center point, like a clearing or something, in these woods, that's where you'll find that information. Guarantee it.
no subject
[Another sigh, and then says with sing-song cheeriness as he rolls his eyes:]
Guess it's business as usual! Hope you're ready, dude. Once we get past the killer robots, we might be coming up against the hard stuff, like... parties where you don't know anybody. Or getting to school with no pants on. Dun dun dunnn!
no subject
[Talon's snort of laughter is kind of rare, Prompto. You should feel special!]
Is that what your nightmares are made of? [He asks, amused.] I'm jealous.
no subject
[It's not lying if that's what some of his nightmares are made of! Or were made of. Maybe years ago.]
Come on, you never had the pantsless school dream? You're a stronger man than I am.
no subject
[Training for Knight Errant had included some very basic starter courses to ensure everyone had a base level education, but he was a young adult by then, and he had much worse things to worry about than a lack of pants.]
[For a moment, his voice sobers.]
My nightmares usually involve fire and death, for reasons that definitely disqualify me as the stronger man.
no subject
...I mean...
[They've just met, and Prompto doesn't want to overstep at all or act like Talon's problems don't matter. But.]
Well... whose don't, in times like these, right? ...Maybe we'll be lucky and it'll just keep throwing MTs at us. Never thought that was a sentence I'd say.
no subject
My bad, I got a little personal there. [Clears his throat. Looks down at the ground.] Anyway, center of the forest. You in?
no subject
In it to win it, dude! I'd go even if you didn't.
no subject
[Finally he gives up and turns back to Prompto, unhooking his mask from his belt and fastening it in place.]
Lead the way, I guess.
[Besides, someone's gotta be on the lookout for more runaway robots.]
[...Talon hasn't actually seen any of his own nightmares or dreams appear in this strange forest. Just those of the people that pass by. He suspects, truthfully, that they're all around him and staying out of sight. Or perhaps it's just that he fears what might be there more than what is there, and for that reason the forest has chosen to deliberately spawn nothing in response.]
[What an incredibly rude forest.]