phantasmemes | TEST DRIVE 001

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!test drive

TEST DRIVE 001

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?

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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.

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.

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.]

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.]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

[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.

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.

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.

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.]

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.

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

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

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.

It was definitely made from one. That should suffice as explanation for now.

What strikes me as strange is that there's been no welcome so far. Like I said, different worlds don't naturally interact. Powerful enough beings can shift between worlds if they know how, but for us to have simply stumbled into this one without deliberate action on someone's part...something is very wrong here. Most likely related to the way everything feels compressed...

[Offhand she definitely knows at least to beings powerful enough to do just that.]

So you're saying this just happened on its own?

[Technically he's one of them, but it would weaken him considerably even under ideal circumstances...]

Either that, or whoever gathered us here isn't interested in making themselves known. If that's the case, I seriously wonder at their motives...if their intentions were benign, then it would make sense for them to introduce themselves. But given the condition of just the planes inside this universe, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if it's so badly degraded that even a normal person could cross into it.

There's still a few other things I think it could be, like a side effect or social anxiety or something like that.

Anyway, so what appears to be happening in so many words is that the world is so badly damaged that just about anyone could take a step and end up somewhere completely different, yes?

Theoretically, yes. Everyone has a personal energy signature, a vibe, that determines what layers of reality they can see and interact with. Each layer has its own frequency, and certain beings can adjust their own vibe to whatever frequency they wish, as long as it's not above their maximum. Traveling between worlds is accomplished by raising your vibe high enough that you go past the highest frequency within an individual world, sort of like jumping over a wall.

What's happening here is that all of the varied frequencies have been compressed, so that they're all occupying one layer. Imagine if every radio station were playing on one frequency and you have a fairly apt metaphor. Under those circumstances, it might not be impossible to accidentally cross worlds, simply because there is no wall to clear.

I'm familiar with the concept of radio, but I don't completely understand how it's supposed to work. The first attempt at a broadcast... didn't go well.

[She should know, she wrote about it.]

Ah, well...each station is ordinarily on a separate wavelength. It's sort of like...

[He crouches down and draws a sin wave in the sand.]

This is one frequency. [He draws several more next to it, of varying wavelengths and amplitudes.] And these are others.

[Then he draws another one, and another, and another, all in the same spot. By the time he finishes, it's impossible to make out any individual waves.]

And this is what's happening right now.

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bulletnews - 2018-01-29 17:19 (UTC) - Expand

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foolishjustice - 2018-01-29 17:26 (UTC) - Expand

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