TEST DRIVE 001

[phantasmods]

Hello, and welcome to the first 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.

(In the future, characters who are in-game can also earn themselves an extra item of loot for tagging in to top levels on the test drive, to be distributed with the rest of their loot upon dungeon completion.)

This first test drive is based in the Fissure nearest to the Station, and comes with three potential options, all with a distinctly watery bent -

OPTION 1: MAROONED

Hey, uh... What's that maroon film distorting your vision? And how did you get on this beach, anyway?
So long as the sun is shining, there doesn't seem to be a problem out here on the beach, aside from the strange maroon tint to everything. But when clouds pass over, the tint grows darker, and darker, and the water grows redder, and redder...

That... can't be blood, can it?

Characters who remain beneath the patchy cloud cover will find themselves filled with increasing anxiety that the ocean is made of blood, until either the cloud passes or they check the water for themselves. The bad news is, that while it isn't actually an ocean of blood, contact with the red water will drain characters of energy very rapidly, causing sudden fits of exhaustion as though they were suffering from anemia. By itself, this isn't particularly dangerous...

...Except that the return of the sun doesn't mean the return of that lost energy, and if you've waded out too far, the shifting sand and pull of the waves underfoot can easily pull you down and under.

OPTION 2: LANDSHARK

You really hope that isn't a shark fin moving through the sand. That's just not possible, right?

(Yes, yes it is.)

Landsharks are amphibious, predatory creatures just as at home in the sand as below the waves, and always hungry. They track their prey via disturbances in the sand or water, but fortunately, you can track them the same way - they're large enough to be easily visible in the relatively clear waters near the beach, and their bulk causes a patch of shifting sand above them as they roam for more terrestrial prey.

As a result, they're most dangerous near the waterline, where the shifting sand is hard to see due to the motion of the waves (though they can, of course, pop up further up the beach). Fortunately, they're not large enough to swallow a person whole. Unfortunately, they're still between nine and twelve feet long depending on the individual and easily large enough to take a good chunk out of you.

Like any other shark, they're vulnerable to being sliced open with something sharp, kicked in the gills, or punched in the snout to establish dominance. On the magical end, they have a particular weakness to electricity.

On the bright side, if you're hungry enough, the landsharks are very edible once cooked (or, you know, if you like sushi). For some reason, the meat tastes faintly of chocolate...?

Drops: Meat, shark teeth, candygrams.

OPTION 3: JUST IN TIDE

A bit further down from the beach, the water comes up to the base of the rocky cliffs, leaving numerous nooks and crannies to climb over and explore. In fact, they're practically begging for it.

What might you find? Well, there's the usual beach refuse, for a start - sand, seaweed, shells and fragments of shells, and big barnacles and mussels tucked into the cracks. However, other debris finds its way into the cracks, ocean-going refuse from a thousand worlds... There's also a number of pointy blue-green crystals that tingle to the touch and remain wet no matter how characters attempt to dry them.

And finally, there's a bunch of bottle crabs - overlarge hermit crabs that look more at home in half-broken beer bottles or soda cans at their size than they do in shells (though they'll live in anything that seems protective enough - the largest seem prone to making their homes in rusty helmets). The crabs are not aggressive unless you harass them first, but they can give a nasty pinch if provoked.

...Did you lose track of time out there among the rocks, or did time lose track of you?

Either way, you're now stuck out as the tide comes in. If you can swim, good for you! You probably won't have too much of a problem, at least once you're far enough from the rocks that you aren't at risk of getting thrown against them and having some important swimming limb broken...

On second thought, maybe it's better to stay here and wait it out, whether you can swim or not. Hope you're ready for a couple hours stuck on a rock with some weird-looking, too-big hermit crabs and...

Who is this other person, anyway?

Comments

[photoshooter]

I mean... only the kings and the Kingsglaive can do that?

[Wait. Prompto covers his eyes with the hand that isn't holding his gun.]

You're gonna tell me something, and I'm not gonna like it, and it's gonna be a thing, but you should tell me anyway because if the universe is gonna crap on me this much in one day, it might as well be all at once so I can get it over with.

[founderinglight]

I am certainly one of those things.

[Beat.]

How much do you remember of your Founding-era history?

[photoshooter]

Eehhhhnnnnn.

[Don't ask your comedy relief to be smart, Izunia.]

[founderinglight]

...Ah.

[Well he's not terribly surprised. Really, though, Prompto, you're bffs with the Prince that's relevant to your life.]

To make short of it, the Founder King ruled under the name of his brother, because that brother was the one he believed that history should remember with due respect. It is, really, only fair that he take mine in turn.

[photoshooter]

[Wait for it.







Yup, there it is. Prompto releases an upset, despairing kind of whine and flops behind his rock again, wrapping his arms around his head and kicking a little.]

I was ri-hi-higgghht, thanks, I hate it! I really do!

[founderinglight]

In the wake of the Astral War, the gods gave unto the people a healer-king, chosen by the light of the crystal and beloved by all.

[Sorry your history lesson isn't over here Prompto.]

Ardyn faced the Starscourge and took it away - except it wasn't away so much as into himself. And so he became that which you know, a monster doomed to immortality in darkness, refused by death.

[Izunia stops, and then sighs. If he is going to tell the truth, then he will tell the whole truth - even if his voice becomes halting and pained at the admission.]

And I, fool that I was, believed him to be nothing more than a monster. And so I - even knowing that only the Chosen King could truly do so - I did everything in my power to destroy him.

[photoshooter]

Stop, enough! Enough, okay?!

[Oh, that's real distress, isn't it? He was crying just two seconds ago, and maybe using past tense there was premature.]

I don't want to hear it! Just--stop!

[founderinglight]

[And... He does stop, biting back the words, I love him still quelled on his tongue.

For a long moment, there is silence-that-isn't-silence, the sound of the crashing waves, the single cry of some distant seagull.]

...If you must blame some mortal for what became of Noctis, then you are not wrong to blame me. But I would never wish him harm.

[photoshooter]

I don't have to blame anyone mortal, I blame him!

[His crying's crescendoed to real wracking sobs, the kind he'll have a headache from later, as if he doesn't expel this poison in his heart somehow he'll die from it.]

He's the one who did it all! You weren't even there, you don't know what he--what he did to everyone, to Noct, to... Just leave me here, I'll die, I don't care. I don't care...

[founderinglight]

...You may not, but I rather do, and I am certainly not going to leave you out here to die of exposure on some supernatural stretch of coastline when the tide will presumably go back out in a perfectly normal manner come evening.

[photoshooter]

[There's another few seconds of sniffling and sobs as Prompto's outburst winds down again. The ocean's calming like that. It's so big, and nothing you do changes it. It doesn't care.]

...It isn't fair. I j-just got back to him...

[founderinglight]

...I'm sorry.

[The sympathy is - real, in a way that Ardyn probably can't pull off anymore.]

Fate has never been fair to the likes of us.

[photoshooter]

[Sniff. Snrrf.]

...I suck at swimming.

[So, there's that.]

[founderinglight]

...If you want, I can warp you across the rocks.

[No pressure tho. He understands why you. Might not. Want to.]

[photoshooter]

Sure. It's fine.

[He's tired.]

[founderinglight]

[Well, first he'll warp over and offer Prompto a hand up.]

...If it makes any difference for you in the future, Ardyn's warp effects are pink.

[Just in case he uh. wanted a foolproof way to tell.]

[photoshooter]

Haha. Pink.

[It's the hollowest haha ever. He accepts the hand up, puts his gun's safety back on, and jams it in his pocket. Maybe it'll shoot off his butt. He kind of still doesn't care.]

Noct's are blue, too.

[founderinglight]

I know. One of many things that seems to have come full circle in the end.

[Up you get, Prompto, and then Izunia's arm carefully around your shoulders - secure but not intimate.]

In three, two, one -

[NYOOM.]

[photoshooter]

[Prompto's used to it enough from warping to the beginnings of tombs or back to the Regalia that he doesn't lose his lunch--if lunch was even a thing that happened today, probably not--but he does stumble and sit down in the surf.]

Nngh.

[Now that he's away from the cover of the caves, it's clear the poor kid's been through the wars. And for all that, he didn't stop combing his surroundings, searching for his friends.]

...Thanks.

[founderinglight]

Don't concern yourself over it. It was nothing at all.

[Izunia, for his part, sits on a rock just above the waterline, feet dangling off just shy of the tips of his boots getting wet. It's a posture that makes him look far younger than he is, physically or literally.]

[photoshooter]

[He stays slumped where he landed, spent.]

...You don't know where we are either, do you? Think we've been all over Eos by now, and this doesn't look like any place I've ever seen.

[founderinglight]

...I've been a bit more concerned with suddenly finding myself possessed of a physical form for the first time in two millennia.

[hashtag priorities]

[photoshooter]

[In the wake of everything this entire day has been, Prompto doesn't actually have the energy to be alarmed about this, to flash back to an insane man's half-face and the daemon he became. He just glances back at Izunia.]

Mmn. Guess that'd be weird.

[Prompto's own physical form, which he's had for about twenty years, hurts all over. He slides down onto his side and curls up.]

Can't walk through walls and stuff anymore, or whatever ghosts do.

[founderinglight]

Oh, I wish I'd had that much autonomy. Being trapped in a ring isn't a particularly interesting way to spend the time.

[He mostly slept, honestly. As you might expect from Noctis' ancestor.]

[photoshooter]

Oh, you were in the ring. Okay.

[This is the life he lives, now. This is what passes for sense in this world.]

Then couldn't you... couldn't you have stopped him? From... He was wearing it. I remember that. He--he put it on. To find me, and then...