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

[foolishjustice]

[He frowns, glancing around. Even trying not to focus on it, his head still aches from the frequency static screeching across his sixth sense.]

There's certainly something very wrong here. I'm not sure how to describe it, but this world itself is somehow distorted.

[bulletnews]

A world distortion incident... Anything that would be able to cause something like that is no doubt immensely powerful. Who would be prepared to deal with something like that, do you think?

[The only people she knows of that even could do something like that are... well, not likely to have for various reasons.]

[foolishjustice]

I'm not sure. This is beyond anything I've seen before, and I doubt it's the same cause as the distorted areas I'm used to.

[bulletnews]

I can't say I wasn't expecting that. Of course, someone is bound to try anyway.

["Blast it until it goes away" is something of a usual MO.]

Someone that's not me.

[foolishjustice]

I'm sure someone will, and the results will help us figure out solutions that might work better than shots in the dark.

[Pause.]

We should just hope that whoever makes the first attempts don't end up dead for their efforts.

[bulletnews]

It would probably be better to avoid that, yes. Do you think there's any chance whatever it is will just time out?

[Also she's just been. Writing all this down. Just because.]

[foolishjustice]

Unlikely.

[He pinches the bridge of his nose, almost looking like he's in pain.]

It feels as though reality itself has been...compressed, in a sense. I'm not sure how to translate it to physical senses, but imagine if multiple, separate layers of reality were flattened haphazardly into one.

[bulletnews]

I see...

[So like if the Dream World and the Netherworld and the like were all in the same place... or something like that. They all have pretty distinct feels to them, from a magical standpoint. Or at least, the dream world would if she were ever there consciously.]

Well for better or worse I'm going to be covering this story to whatever conclusion it gets.

[foolishjustice]

A written record, hm? Not a bad idea. I'm not certain what audience might be interested in this as a news story, but I could certainly make use of it in a report.

[bulletnews]

There's an audience for everything, though. I once printed an interview with a shikigami who came up with a formula for calculating the width of the Sanzu River, for example.

[It's supposed to be longer or shorter based on the characteristics of the life of the person being carried over, which is what makes that hard.]

It was so complicated that the achievement was largely pointless, but the shinigami that runs the ferry was interested anyway.

[foolishjustice]

Ah, so that river is real in your world? I wonder how something like that would impact the Reaper's Game...perhaps simply a concern for those who don't qualify or don't wish to play? A proper afterlife for Souls outside of the Reaper's Game would be a better alternative to leaving them to try to scrape by on the UG...

[Sorry, he's sort of...talking to himself now.]

[bulletnews]

It doesn't exist in Gensokyo itself, it's just easy to reach from there, but why wouldn't it exist?

[Outside or no, there are certain constants - and even souls from outside get there.]

[foolishjustice]

It's just a human theory where I come from. Well, I haven't been to the place it's supposed to exist personally to check, but I'm in a position where I would be aware of something like an afterlife outside of the Reaper's Game. I might be new to it, but tracking the souls of the dead is part of my job.

[bulletnews]

That would make you some kind of shinigami, correct? I'm largely unaware of how they operate in the Outside World.

...although if we go just by the way you're dressed, somehow even less professionally than the one I'm familiar with.

[foolishjustice]

I am. Actually, I'm something like local management for them, although I still need to recruit some regular Reapers. I'm supposed to be opening up a new branch, as it were.

[He fidgets a little with the sleeve of his jacket, a bit self-conscious.]

And as strange as it might sound, clothing actually affects my powers. I have a healing ability that has greater effect when I'm dressed in the right theme.

[bulletnews]

That does sound more arbitrary than the day of the week affecting the strength of elemental magic.

[Maybe there's a reason she just doesn't understand yet.]

I wouldn't have... actually, no, with all the rumors about her constantly slacking off I can believe there's a shortage of shinigami somewhere.

[foolishjustice]

It's mostly because my world hasn't needed this sort of afterlife management until recently. Someone from another universe introduced spiritual monsters that aren't supposed to exist in my world, and part of my job is to give the souls of people who died early the means to fight them in exchange for a chance at winning a second chance at life.

Since this system wasn't necessary until recently, I'm actually the only shinigami that exists in my world so far. Well, if you don't count the one visiting before he goes to do the same job in his own world. I'm supposed to recruit subordinates from the ranks of the recently dead, who would rather take on the risks and responsibilities of being a Reaper than spend a week fighting soul devouring monsters.

[bulletnews]

It's that bad, then? I can't begin to imagine how death works without them involved.

[Still, bits of that worry her.]

When you say "spiritual monsters", though, you don't mean something like vengeful spirits?

[foolishjustice]

[Bits of that are very worrying.]

No, Noise aren't even really spirits. They're manifestations of negativity that feed on people's creative energy. They'll also attack souls if given a chance, and seem to have no reasoning past base instinct.

If they're left unchecked for too long, they'll bury society in negative emotion and, eventually, encroach on the physical world.

[bulletnews]

That sounds even worse. Youkai may be strong physically and magically, but we're weak against possession and other kinds of spiritual attack.

[The core of a youkai's being is their mind, not their body. If one gets possessed, they pretty much die and leave their body to the possessor.]

Though the name just makes me even more glad Choujuu Gigaku was forced to break up.

[foolishjustice]

Hmm, that might be different between alternate worlds. At the very least, the kitsune I'm familiar with didn't show that concern.

[Just concern over one of them taking the shape of a kitsune.]

Ah, and they have nothing to do with actual sound. We just have a bit of a theme to our naming convention.

[bulletnews]

You keep talking about "alternate worlds", but I'm not sure I understand...

[And if she doesn't get it, her readers definitely won't.]

[foolishjustice]

Ah, my apologies. Most people can't pass between them, but there are a number of different universes out there. They can be as similar as just a slight change in events, or so different that even the basic laws of nature and magic are inconsistent between them.

For example, as far as I know, the world I'm from has no true yokai, but does have at least one divine being that existed before I Ascended. On the other hand, someone I know from another world is a very powerful kitsune.

[bulletnews]

So they're kind of... outside the outside world?

[This sounds extremely silly but honestly what isn't.]

[foolishjustice]

If your plane is accessed through a location in the mortal world, then yes. Think of them as parallel dimensions. They exist alongside the world you can see, but they don't naturally interact with each other.