phantasmemes | 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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Okay, good. ...This place messes with you. I saw Akane, but she was twelve years old again.

[Let's just... ease Dad into the idea that this is not necessarily a dream...]

...

[He knew, on some level. Knew but refused to admit, refused to believe they were anything but all together.]

Met some interesting people so far, too. A kid from some magic fantasy world, a woman apparently from hell. Crazy, right?

Crazy...probably an understatement. But we’re used to crazy.

He’s not here, is he.

...I haven't seen him yet. Apart from whatever that was you were chasing back there.

[He squeezed Junpei’s shoulder lightly, enough to try and find some grounding in reality.]

It can’t be the network. That isn’t possible anymore. So what-...where the hell are we?

The kid I mentioned, he said people just fall through cracks in reality sometimes and end up here. He didn't seem to think anyone was orchestrating it. Or anything else.

[(x) Doubt.]

I’ll believe that when I damn well see it.

[(x) doubt]

Right? Anyway, at the very least, they're allowed to wander around and crap. The only goal I've heard mentioned is to "stabilize" these holes people are falling in through.

Hm...well, at least we’re outside.

[in a dream hellscape, but small victories.]

The Armiger’s all here as far as I can tell, but obviously I wouldn’t be able to tell if we’ve forgotten anything.

Right. At the very least, these are the clothes I remember wearing. But that doesn't mean anything.

Got all your powers? You know I can't tell with mine.

As far as I’ve been able to tell, yes-

[With a glow and metallic sound, the Royal Arms spun to life around them before vanishing.]

That’s all well in order. Can you still access the Armiger?

Yeah.

[He draws a dagger in an answering burst of magic, flips it in the air, and lets it vanish again.]

Yuuri hurt her foot a little, but it's because she turned up here in her pajamas. Stepped on something in the mist with no shoes on. I used some stuff out of the Armiger then, too.

So that’s all together, then...once we find out who’s responsible for this, dealing with them won’t be a problem.

Right.

...There is one other thing. Someone else I met here. You're not gonna like it.

I don’t like any of this, Junpei.

This is some next level dislike, Dad. I just want you to be prepared before I spring it on you.

What are you talking about-...

[Who could Ardyn possibly hate enough that he’d need forewarning and preparation? There were only two options: the Director, or—]

...Where is he.

Edited 2018-04-13 15:27 (UTC)

In this forest somewhere. I tried to stab him, but then he was phasing and shit and he started crying, and I was like 'Fuck this, I have more important shit to do.' Like find you.

[Junpei's hand is on Ardyn's arm again.]

I want to find Yuuri again before we go after him. Is that okay?

...he always was the sentimental sort.

[Ardyn pressed a shaking hand to his head.]

I don’t...want us to fight him. If it comes to that I can handle it, but I...I just need to talk to him.

You sure?

...You want us with you, when you do?

...I don’t know. I-...there’s a lot I haven’t told you, and likely more I can’t remember.

...We'll be right with you until you tell us otherwise. All right?

...I know, Junpei. I would never think otherwise.

[He smiles a little, and then:]

Oh. One last thing, tangentially related to Uncle Lesser Shitweasel because he's the one who warned me.

...Noctis is here. And he's twenty.

(no subject)

burninglight - 2018-04-13 16:01 (UTC) - Expand

misanthropicprinciple - 2018-04-13 16:03 (UTC) - Expand

burninglight - 2018-04-13 16:05 (UTC) - Expand