phantasmods: (Default)
Phantasmal Rift Mods ([personal profile] phantasmods) wrote in [community profile] phantasmemes2018-05-24 10:10 pm
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TEST DRIVE 004

Hello and welcome to the fourth 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 Keystone Reef, a water-influenced Fissure to the northeast of the station. It is home to numerous fish and coral species, as well as a very interesting magical effect...

OPTION ONE: FINNY FUN

Under the water is where you woke up, and under the water is where you might be stuck for a while. The magic is lodged in you and has changed your form -- maybe a little, maybe a lot. Perhaps you only have gills, but you may also have a full set of changes, fins and no feet to speak of. Don't panic, you'll surely be fine if you just keep swimming...

Aside from the strange changes, it's a pretty cool place to be. If you've ever dreamed about scuba diving on a coral reef, the place that you've found yourself is perfect for that (minus the needing to scuba part). Curious fish swim up and then dart away into rock crevices, coral growths, and even down to bury themselves in the layer of sand at the bottom. The water is also fairly shallow, allowing you to surface if you so desire.

Even the sharks are friendly and just want to have as much a look at you as you want to look at them. Don't harass the glowing eels tucked into cracks between the rocks, though, they bite and don't particularly let go.

OPTION TWO: WORLD'S SMALLEST JUNGLE

This must certainly be an oceanside jungle - in spite of the humidity, the smell of salt on the air is strong. Brilliant greens and the occasional bright flowers, accompanied by island birdsong... It could be a nice place to spend an afternoon. There's not even that many bugs that want to drink your blood (though bugs in general are, well, quite plentiful).

Eventually, though, however far you go, you'll reach the beach and be met with the expanse of the ocean - blue, uncaring, and real big. While one side of the little island thankfully has land visible in the distance, the outer side just overlooks a near-endless expanse of blue. If you're a very good swimmer, you could probably make your way to land past the rocks of the reef itself... Otherwise, though, you might be just a bit stuck on your jungle island paradise.

At least until someone brings a boat.

OPTION THREE: SHIPWRECK

Both above and below the waterline are the remains of ships crashed upon the rocks, just waiting to be explored. Even though it has clearly been an incredibly long time, the chunks of wood and metal are still in fairly good condition, and the chance of finding something nice tucked in with them among the rocks is surely tempting to anyone with an adventurous spirit.

The wrecks beneath the waves also grow coral and seaweed, and provide havens for larger fish, dragon eels, and sharks. Those along the rocks above the waterline, on the other hand, provide a home for seabirds of all varieties. Most notable is the hulking shell of a shipping craft in the distance, looking very much modern if ruined by some centuries of exposure...

For right now, though, you'd best contend with the flotsam a bit closer to you, and the wildlife that might not take too kindly to your exploring. Below the waterline, the dragon eels found in a few places don't take kindly to being disturbed; above, you might run afoul of some overprotective seabirds protecting their nests. Maybe even an invisible seagull (normal sized) - how ridiculous would that be?
freedomofmovement: (Default)

[personal profile] freedomofmovement 2018-05-29 06:50 am (UTC)(link)
[Freyja sits back up, and pulls out a small, very battered looking book. Perhaps palm-sized, bound in very scaly leather. She distractedly leafs through it.]

Whatever you are doesn't bother me. [She scowls, and snaps the book closed.] I'm good on food and I can purify seawater - it's just...

[She huffs.] It's dumb.

dubiouslychthonic: (Skeptical)

[personal profile] dubiouslychthonic 2018-05-30 06:31 am (UTC)(link)
[A brief tilt of the head; not quite a shrug, but something like it.] I'm certainly not going to argue with that. If I had an easy way home to offer, I would.

I'm Sawbones Jetshard, by the way. I'm on the station medical team, such as it is.
freedomofmovement: (researching)

[personal profile] freedomofmovement 2018-05-30 11:23 am (UTC)(link)
Freyja Stormlight. [The book gets tucked away again.] If you're part of the station, where exactly are we? This place feels... off, somehow.
dubiouslychthonic: (The Office camera stare)

[personal profile] dubiouslychthonic 2018-05-30 10:56 pm (UTC)(link)
Like I said, reality's unstable. Something to do with the ambient magic going haywire. Usually it's fairly consistent within a particular fissure, but if you're at all sensitive to magic I'm not surprised it's bothering you. I can only sense the overt effects, the world I came from has very little if any magic.

[She sighs, looks briefly off to the west.] This one we've been calling Keystone Reef - we're... probably a couple of miles offshore here? Distance can be a little hard to determine inside fissures. The shoreline and cliffs were the first area we stabilized.
freedomofmovement: (doing me concern)

[personal profile] freedomofmovement 2018-05-30 11:11 pm (UTC)(link)
My... connection to magic comes from nature. [quietly thinking through this]

The way you're describing it - it sounds like the Elemental Chaos, or maybe the Astral Sea. [Those are definitely capital letters.] If you can stabilise things by being there... Where's Tarquin when you need them, they know more about this than me.
dubiouslychthonic: (Smile)

[personal profile] dubiouslychthonic 2018-05-31 12:36 am (UTC)(link)
We've got... devices that stabilize the area around them, once we place them. The trick is mostly getting them spread out enough to cover the whole area.

[She makes a small gesture with one hand, and an array of semiphysical blue-bordered cards manifests in the air at her fingers. It fades as she makes a grasping motion though one of the cards, and one of the stabilizers falls into her hand - a couple of feet long, and shaped more or less like one of those bacteriophage viruses, with the cluster of feet on one end and the diamond-shaped core at the other.]

I don't really understand how they work - magitech isn't my field at all - but they cancel out the worst of the uncontrolled magic and keep things from coming through the fissure.
freedomofmovement: (how could you???)

[personal profile] freedomofmovement 2018-06-01 06:59 am (UTC)(link)
[what are those cards. you said you didn't magic. what is this,,,,]

That looks... unfriendly. But if it works as you say, then I'm glad they work.

[She stares with suspicion at the object, before her eyes widen, and she sits up a little straighter. Concerned druid-mode activate!]

Wait - if these stabilise the fissures, then they're not closed - correct? Are there guards set to watch them?
dubiouslychthonic: (you did not just say that)

[personal profile] dubiouslychthonic 2018-06-06 05:24 am (UTC)(link)
[She stashes the device back in her implausibly magical looking technology-based extraspacial inventory system.]

As far as we've been able to tell, once a fissure is stabilized, it doesn't function to pull things or people into this world anymore. There's usually some long-term effects in terms of changes to the wildlife or landscape, but the most dramatic effects dissipate and it doesn't function as a wormhole anymore.