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.
daughterofthemark: (B3F. Malice cloaked in lies)

[personal profile] daughterofthemark 2018-04-17 04:00 am (UTC)(link)
[Arianna does not punch him.

She does, however, stare at him for a while. Her friend tries to jump in front of her protectively, but she tightens her grip and he fails.]


...I see. You are his brother.
founderinglight: ([ppppp])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-04-17 04:04 am (UTC)(link)
[Well, that's super refreshing! He could get used to not getting punched, you're his new favorite.]

The one and only, yes.
daughterofthemark: (B4F. The ancestry of evil powers)

[personal profile] daughterofthemark 2018-04-17 04:21 am (UTC)(link)
[She has a talent for not punching people!

She isn't sure whether she's more concerned about this development or embarrassed by her mistake.]


Why are you here?
founderinglight: ([sketchyplaceholder])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-04-17 04:33 am (UTC)(link)
Here specifically because I volunteered to help the androids at the Research Station nearby with stabilizing their reality before it potentially tears itself to pieces. Here as in alive and in this world?

[He shrugs, easily, a little helplessly, in a way that is very like Ardyn.]

It was through not particular intent of mine, and so I don't believe that there is a reason.
daughterofthemark: (B2F. An inverse laughing demon)

[personal profile] daughterofthemark 2018-04-17 04:45 am (UTC)(link)
[Wow, that was... certainly a lot.]

A... research station? You found yourself there?
founderinglight: ([late with spacebucks])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-04-17 04:56 am (UTC)(link)
[Man he's not even spewing technical details yet.]

Well, near enough. There's a beach below the cliffs the Station is on, that's where most of us found ourselves.
daughterofthemark: (12F. Daunting frozen path)

[personal profile] daughterofthemark 2018-04-18 12:43 am (UTC)(link)
[She is a post-post-apocalyptic pseudo-medieval princess, please be gentle.]

I see. And these androids. Have they imposed rules upon you?
founderinglight: ([late with spacebucks])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-04-18 12:50 am (UTC)(link)
None beyond "please don't blow up the Station" and "don't light the gardens on fire for the hell of it."

[He... has a slight concern?]
daughterofthemark: (11F. Malice amidst a field of white)

[personal profile] daughterofthemark 2018-04-18 01:20 am (UTC)(link)
There are no restrictions on where you may sleep? No threat of punishment for damaging equipment?
founderinglight: ([ppppp])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-04-18 01:23 am (UTC)(link)
Well, I can't imagine Top would be happy with someone who went around intentionally breaking equipment, they had enough trouble with whatever someone did to that poor dishwasher, but... No.
Edited 2018-04-18 01:24 (UTC)
daughterofthemark: (22F. Denial on pain of death)

[personal profile] daughterofthemark 2018-04-18 01:39 am (UTC)(link)
And... no rule stating that those who murder and escape punishment will be granted their freedom, I suppose.
founderinglight: ([spooky placeholder])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-04-18 01:42 am (UTC)(link)
What?

[Instant distress and horror. Junpei didn't give him nearly that kind of detail.]
daughterofthemark: (11F. Malice amidst a field of white)

[personal profile] daughterofthemark 2018-04-18 01:46 am (UTC)(link)
It would have been rule number seven.

[good job junpei, leave the murdergame talk to arianna of all people]
founderinglight: ([spooky placeholder])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-04-18 01:49 am (UTC)(link)
Infernian's bones and marrow, what the actual, genuine fuck?

[I don't have an icon that's keysmash enough for this.]

No, there's nothing like that going on here!
daughterofthemark: (02F. Hazardous habitat)

[personal profile] daughterofthemark 2018-04-18 01:53 am (UTC)(link)
[DON'T YELL AT HER!]

I--my apologies! I merely wished to confirm it!
founderinglight: (Default)

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-04-18 01:56 am (UTC)(link)
Gods, you have nothing to apologize for, I -

[Holy shit. No wonder every last one of them was impressively on edge.]

I'm sorry. No one should have to be in such a situation. That's just...

[It's twisted and awful and it makes him want to throw something.]
daughterofthemark: (21F. An evil-eyed door)

[personal profile] daughterofthemark 2018-04-18 02:02 am (UTC)(link)
Indeed not! Certainly not again! Not when we'd finally truly escaped!

[ESPECIALLY THE ONES WHO ALREADY DIED]
founderinglight: <user name="owlteria" site="tumblr.com"> ([my fave actually])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-04-18 02:14 am (UTC)(link)
Agreed, I... I know that my word will be of little value to you or anyone else who has given Ardyn their loyalty, but you have it nonetheless.

[Back straight, shoulders set - a king walks tall, even a fallen and ashamed one.]

I will not allow such a thing to happen here, so long as I exist.
daughterofthemark: (20F. An eternal winged war)

[personal profile] daughterofthemark 2018-04-18 02:30 am (UTC)(link)
I... no, of course your word has value. Whomever you may be, you are a person nonetheless. On this matter, I believe you.
founderinglight: (Default)

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-04-18 02:39 am (UTC)(link)
[He's quiet for a long minute, eventually rubbing at the back of his head in a way that's somewhat more Noctis than Ardyn.]

I appreciate it.

[Gods, no wonder all of the rest of them have threatened his life, pulled weapons on him, and generally acted as though they expect him to flay their skin from their bones just for uttering Ardyn's name. They probably can't trust random strangers, nevermind someone like him.

It hurts. It makes sense, but it hurts.]


If there are any other answers I can give you, please, don't hesitate to ask.

[Because once more, he can't do anything to hurt the ones responsible, can't make them pay, but at least he can do this.]
daughterofthemark: (22F. Denial on pain of death)

[personal profile] daughterofthemark 2018-04-18 03:09 am (UTC)(link)
I will.

[She's heard bad things about him, but... Arianna only hates one person, and that's already too many. It doesn't mean liking him, necessarily, but... She wants to trust.]

...ah. I am Arianna Wakasa.
founderinglight: ([my place plz])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-04-18 03:35 am (UTC)(link)
It's a pleasure to meet you, Arianna. Especially since you're not trying to injure me in any way.

[You know like EVERYONE ELSE.]
daughterofthemark: (22F. Denial on pain of death)

[personal profile] daughterofthemark 2018-04-18 03:45 am (UTC)(link)
...you have met my sister.

[And got away unharmed. Amazing.]
founderinglight: ([hold])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-04-18 03:49 am (UTC)(link)
[Well, gotten away alive, at any rate.]

And Junpei, and Heart, and Ardyn himself.

[With the last, he indicates his jaw and the bruise still swelling there.]
daughterofthemark: (04F. A soaring shadow above)

[personal profile] daughterofthemark 2018-04-18 03:58 am (UTC)(link)
[...okay, she feels really bad about it, but she can't help smiling at that now that she knows where the bruise came from.]

He always meant to offer a free punch to those whom he had wronged. I suppose he felt entitled to the same.
Edited (whoops that's definitely not what I meant) 2018-04-18 03:58 (UTC)

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