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.
burninglight: (ever on and on i continue)

[personal profile] burninglight 2018-04-14 04:57 pm (UTC)(link)
Yuuri-? Don't, it's--

You know they won't protect you. You'll fall to darkness again and be left behind. Locked away and forgotten about. [The mist around them flickered, for a brief few seconds the dream showing the interior of a dark enclosed room of stone.] Oh, maybe they'll just replace you with your brother--how convenient to have a twin bereft of the touch of darkness. Why don't we ask your darling Yuuri, what do you-

[Ardyn moved in a flash of light, at Yuuri's side before the sentence even left a scourge-stained mouth; with a burst of crystals and the arm glow of magic, thirteen Royal Arms spun around the pair of them like the chamber in a revolver. Voice turned to a cold growl in his throat, Ardyn Tenmyouji answered:]

You take one step near my daughter and I rip this entire forest apart.
serrata: (That’s why I’d wait until we got married)

[personal profile] serrata 2018-04-14 05:31 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Though she should be frightened (and make no mistake, in the back of her mind, she still is) it's not really fear that takes hold of her mind when the thing in the mist wearing Ardyn's face turns its attention to her. Just a dazed passing thought of wondering if these are the nightmares that plague Ardyn now. Not an external threat or of the Network returned to power. Just himself and the things he'd done.

How terribly sad.

Then in a flash of light, Ardyn's by her side and more importantly, away from the thing hissing accusations at him. Yuuri swallows hard and takes hold of his hand, squeezing tight to assure him that yes, she was here – she was real and the walking nightmare with its corpse-pallor face was just a dream. ]


It's okay. [ her voice is low and soft, like she's afraid if it carries then the other Ardyn, with the Scourge in his eyes, might refute her somehow. ] Whatever it's been telling you is a lie and you know that, don't you? You don't have to listen to it.

It's a dream. It's just a bad dream and all we have to do is walk away from it.
burninglight: (in a carousel of agony)

[personal profile] burninglight 2018-04-14 05:47 pm (UTC)(link)
...I know. [An armory still revolving around them like a spell to ward away danger, Ardyn knelt down and pulled Yuuri into a hug. He spared his past self a cold glare, as if daring it to make a move.]

It's alright. We're alright.
serrata: (r042)

[personal profile] serrata 2018-04-14 06:59 pm (UTC)(link)
[ There we go. A hug, that's how we do things around here. ]

I know. It'll be fine, I promise.

[ Even if she can't promise him a thing, the word slips out anyway and she instantly regrets it. But what else can she do when Ardyn is this afraid? ]

Junpei's here. We've both been looking for you and whatever this is, we're going to get through it together. Okay?
burninglight: (must i die to make things right)

[personal profile] burninglight 2018-04-14 07:02 pm (UTC)(link)
[He answered with a slight nod, pulling her a little closer.]

...hold on, and don't let go.

[One of the blades split from its formation, a massive greatsword with the teeth of a chainsaw. It went flying off in another direction, and in a rush like a gust of wind and the warm light of magic, they were instantly in another part of the forest.]
serrata: (2 - 3YnJv9c)

[personal profile] serrata 2018-04-14 07:44 pm (UTC)(link)
[ She has just enough warning to get a decent grip on his arm before they're away and Yuuri is privately grumbling to herself that she's positive she'll never get used to all this warping around. But the important thing is that they're safe and she can give Ardyn a shaky little smile. ]

... There. Are you going to be alright? We can take a second, if you need one.
burninglight: (ever on and on i continue)

[personal profile] burninglight 2018-04-14 07:48 pm (UTC)(link)
I--I don't know. I-...you shouldn't have had to see that, I'm sorry.
serrata: (That our love is deeper)

[personal profile] serrata 2018-04-14 07:54 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Taking a moment it is, then. She puffs out a soft, concerned little breath of mist and gives his hand a gentle squeeze. ]

You don't have to apologize. Not to me.

[ There's a pause and then, almost guiltily, she asks; ]

... is that really what you dream about? Things like that?
burninglight: (then i'll carry on too)

[personal profile] burninglight 2018-04-14 07:58 pm (UTC)(link)
...occasionally.

[His other arm around her shoulders, Ardyn ran his free hand through Yuuri's hair.]

I've...tried not to burden the rest of you with it. Leonard's the only one that really knows, but I don't always sleep particularly well.
serrata: (6 - oGkdfvz)

[personal profile] serrata 2018-04-15 02:05 pm (UTC)(link)
You idiot.

[ But she doesn't sound mad – just fondly exasperated. It's hard work, having a family full of self-sacrificing dumbasses. ]

How many times do I have to tell you? Asking for our help doesn't put any kind of burden on us. It's worse to know you were hurting and that we didn't do anything about it because we didn't know.
Edited (rp life hacks: pick an icon before you send the frickin tag) 2018-04-15 14:06 (UTC)
burninglight: (in a carousel of agony)

[personal profile] burninglight 2018-04-20 11:58 pm (UTC)(link)
There's nothing you could have done, Yuuri. It isn't as though nightmares just decide to manifest themselves on an average day.
serrata: (kirara014)

[personal profile] serrata 2018-04-22 03:30 pm (UTC)(link)
We can at least help with the regular kind though, can't we? Or at least we can talk it over with you, if you need us to.

[ She thwaps him on the arm but with like, love and concern, and all that business. ]

I'm going to go grey before I'm even twenty-five, worrying about a bunch of troublemakers like all of you.
burninglight: (with no hope of release)

[personal profile] burninglight 2018-04-22 06:31 pm (UTC)(link)
...You shouldn't have to look after me so much. None of you should.
serrata: (06 - kEebaQh)

[personal profile] serrata 2018-04-23 08:34 pm (UTC)(link)
I'll hit you again if you're going to start with that nonsense. Don't think I won't.

[ Does she gotta shake you!! She'll do it!! ]

It's not looking after you. It's looking out for each other. That's what we're supposed to do, isn't it? And even if it was about looking after you, what's wrong with that? We do it because we care, not because we have to do it.