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

[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...

[founderinglight]

...No. I could not, and would not have.

[Sorry, Prompto.]

There is a prophecy that demands the life of the Chosen King in exchange for ridding the world of the Starscourge once and for all. For me, that prophecy is the only hope I have that my brother's suffering will end.

[He looks off into the distance, to the distant, sun-lit waves.]

... Were it possible, I would have taken Noctis' place myself, prophecy and gods be damned. But it was not.

[photoshooter]

[Prompto's high, thin voice frays and breaks.]

So he's--

[He's never coming back. or if he's coming back, he won't be allowed to stay.

There is a prophecy that demands the life of the Chosen King.]

Can't we do anything? He--can't they choose someone else?

[founderinglight]

There are no other living scions of the bloodline who can even access the Armiger.

[His voice is pained. Prompto is ten years younger than what he last remembers, that blur of a day when Noctis brought it all to an end, but he can't bring himself to tell the boy that it's already over.]

Even if there were, Noctis already bears the Covenants of all save the Infernian, and there are... no remaining scions of the Oracle line who could forge new ones, either.

[Damnit Ravus.]

[photoshooter]

[He breathes in raggedly, but there are no tears left. He's not hydrated enough for this, not with all the sand and salt and sea, even with those cool water crystals. Instead, Prompto can only clutch at anger and stubborn denial.]

Then I hope--I hope he never comes out of that Crystal.

[Turns out he's not very good at either of those things. He wraps his arms around himself and shudders.]

I hope he stays in there, where it's safe, and... and we'll take care of the rest of it ourselves. Somehow.

[founderinglight]

...Take it from one who knows. To exist beyond the reach of all you love, unable to influence the world - it's not living. In many ways, it's more painful than death.

[Sorry Prompto that's probably unexpectedly deep for you, but, but.]

[photoshooter]

[Oh.

Well, maybe he had a little water left for tears after all.]

Noct... damn it...

[founderinglight]

[It's okay on this rock over here we have a grown ass man looking like a kid in need of comfort and scared to ask for it, feet swinging above the surf.]

It's in you and your friends that Noctis entrusts his hopes for the future. The best you can do for him is to carry that light onward.

[Give despair no foothold and it shall not pull you under, right?]

[photoshooter]

We were supposed to do it together.

I told him... I promised I'd be with him. We're all supposed to be with him, so why...?

[Guhh, hic. Ugh, his head hurts, Prompto just wants--

He wants...

He wants Noctis back. He wants to go back and hug him, drag him away from the Crystal, tell him they ought to go home.]

Why doesn't that matter? Why--who said this prophecy is more important than that?

[founderinglight]

Because the gods are cruel and even if they understand human bonds, they don't much care.

[If using Izunia as a weapon against Ardyn is fair game, then splitting Noctis from his friends in such a final manner hardly compares.

There's a venom in the words, a rancor that is both new and unfathomably ancient, a breaking that is the glue holding Izunia together at the center. Where Prompto wants Noctis back, wants everything fixed, Izunia is more than old enough to understand that it's too late for that.

He'd like vengeance to go instead, please, served cold as you can make it.]

[photoshooter]

[Prompto rolls from his curled-up position onto his back, flinging his arms out onto the ground, upset.]

That is so not helping! What the hell, I can't do anything about any of this, I don't know where we are, I don't know where Noct is, or Gladio or Iggy or--Iggy, oh, no, I can't...

[He can't manage proper crying anymore, but he's still dancing along the borderline of hysterics with the best of them. What a pair they make, huh? The vengeful Usurper-Founder and the True King's battered friend.]

Who's--gonna look after them, I--this is so. Messed. UP!

[founderinglight]

...Everything will work out. I have little faith left in anything, but I have faith in that.

[Because, from his perspective, it's already happened, regardless of any temporarily vanished Promptos. He's trying to be comforting without coming straight out and saying that.]

They managed after you were separated from them once, did they not?

[photoshooter]

[Izunia. Why would you bring that up.]

Yeah, managed their way right--right into a trap, oh, no, is it my fault? Is it my fault he... oh...

[Is quieter good? At least he's quieter now. Surely that's. Better.]

[founderinglight]

Don't be foolish. Unless my guess is very far off indeed, Ardyn always planned to use one of you as bait to draw Noctis to the crystal. You just drew the unlucky straw.

[Or rather, you drew the unlucky straw after Ignis, because Ignis was having none of that and ordered a steaming cup of ring magic with a side of blindness instead.]

[photoshooter]

So it is my fault.

[Ah, here we go. Maybe he's finally bottomed out. There's nowhere deeper in the Lake of Despair for this little bird to sink.]

[founderinglight]

You're being foolish.

[Hey Prompto okay you're getting... flicked in the head by an extremely accurately thrown pen. Which promptly returns to Izunia's Armiger.]

Ardyn is a maniac who has had two thousand years to arrange the show to his satisfaction. You bear no more blame for his actions than does a mouse caught by a cat.