phantasmods: (Default)
Phantasmal Rift Mods ([personal profile] phantasmods) wrote in [community profile] phantasmemes2018-07-12 11:56 pm
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TEST DRIVE 005

Hello and welcome to the fifth 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 time, the Test Drive takes place in Incendia - a less-ruined-than-expected city that has been abandoned for over a century, due to the magical effects of the Fissure (unstable reality region) that have made it impossible to live in. What effects are these, you ask?

Well...

BY DAY

By day, the city is lovely, if oddly empty. The sun shines down, and magical lights along the sidewalk - the equivalent of power lines - flow energy throughout the city. It's possible to think that the little sparks you sometimes see at the corner of your vision are related. After all, there's a great deal of magic in the air...

But in spite of this, the city lies abandoned, for no immediately apparent reason. You might have found yourself in a wide-open shipping yard, where large metal containers levitate about, moving without any help or oversight from human hands. Be careful; these containers changing positions make it easy to get lost for quite a long time, since few of them have much in the way of identifying traits over than color. Didn't you already pass that arrangement of two red ones on top of a blue one before...?

Or perhaps you're in the massive park in the center of town, with its blatantly magical fountain (a half-dome of water just hanging in the air) and the tents of an abandoned festival. Two stages and a long line of street food booths stand empty - surely no one will mind if you use them for something, right?

Or perhaps you're just suddenly on the streets, among stalled-out taxis and cars that go nowhere and lack the familiar smell of gasoline. There's apartments and shops all around, with little gardens spilling out over balconies... Maybe if you go knock on some doors, you'll find people.

Wherever it is you are, surely there's got to be someone around who can tell you what's going on, right...?

BY DUSK

As night falls, rather than dropping the way you might expect, the temperature begins to rise. And then the sparks in the edges of your vision are very much more than simply at the edges of your vision. They catch first on the plants, the papers stuck to the now-lit magical streetlights, the trash cans... And then, increasingly so, on the buildings proper, the shops, the skyscrapers, the cars in the street.

Within half an hour, an inferno is starting to build, and it's clear that there's not going to be anywhere above ground safe from it. But fortunately, there's safety beneath the level of the streets - if you can make your way fast enough to an underground station.

BY NIGHT

In the remains of these subway tunnels, lit mostly by the dim glow of magical energy lines, you're at least safe from the inferno above. Unlike the aboveground parts of the city, however, the tunnels are in an obvious state of disrepair, with broken concrete, rot, and mildew. The stations might have once been clean, but they quite transparently are not now, and the tunnels themselves are as bad or worse.

Thankfully, no trains run anymore, so you're not at risk of being run down on the broken tracks. There's also not any full-on collapses blocking the way, and the tunnels seem well-enough made that there's probably not risk of a cave-in.

Less pleasantly, you aren't the only thing taking shelter in the tunnels from the firestorm above. And the magic of that flame has touched the feral dogs that rove the tunnels, turning them into barking, howling creatures of as much flame as flesh themselves. And then there's the occasional patch of mold, mildew, and slime in the darkest parts of the tunnels, where even the magical circuits have gone out, that moves to douse any light that comes near it...
dralchemist: (you WILL call me chef)

[personal profile] dralchemist 2018-08-07 03:05 am (UTC)(link)
[The blankest stare in the history of blank stares.]

One, just because it's true, doesn't mean that you get to dunk me about it. Only my family does, and even then that's a touchy subject.

Two, "mutation"? This-- [She waves her right hand around her face to indicate "all of her".] This is not a mutation.
dralchemist: (i'm only pretending to listen to you)

[personal profile] dralchemist 2018-08-07 03:08 am (UTC)(link)
I... fighting. Hm.

Only for a little bit. I did come here with a few of my more offensive draughts and I nicked a knife from the fairgrounds because... hell, nobody else was using it. But... uh... let's put it this way. Back home, I had other people taking hits for me.
dralchemist: (Default)

[personal profile] dralchemist 2018-08-07 03:17 am (UTC)(link)
Civic-mindedness, distraction technique... to-may-to, to-mah-to.

Looks like that didn't take too long to grill up-- here ya go. [One meat-free skewer, presented with a clawed hand and a fangly smile towards Angua.] Yeah, pretty much. Waking up in the middle of the, uh, street, then finding my way here while running into some interesting characters.

Is this normal around here?
dralchemist: (i promise i didn't poison your drink)

[personal profile] dralchemist 2018-08-07 03:18 am (UTC)(link)
Ok, Chihiro. Let's take this one step at a time.

Taking pictures: yes. Not hostile: hopefully not! At least, not yet. Pretty lost: you got me there.

I still have no idea what you're talking about in terms of "connections". Explain it or not, I don't care. Just don't keep telling me about it when I have zero reference to it.
class_struggle: (Default)

[personal profile] class_struggle 2018-08-07 04:32 am (UTC)(link)
[He sighs, running his hand over his face and into his hair, thinking.]

Does your device - the one you're contacting me with right now - have a mapper? I might be able to find you faster with a friend's help.

Because I was the person taking hits back home.
dralchemist: (frantic scribbling)

[personal profile] dralchemist 2018-08-07 04:43 am (UTC)(link)
[Izzy blinks a few times, then disconnects as she checks the functions.

Notepad, camera, paint function, calculator, comms...]


Nnnno, doesn't seem like it. I was, uh... if it helps, if you know where the big fairgrounds up top were? I took shelter in the closest station to there.

... that might not actually help if you can't get topside what with the raging inferno. Hmm.
chichisbizzareadventure: (tall and ready to brawl)

[personal profile] chichisbizzareadventure 2018-08-07 04:46 am (UTC)(link)
Whew. Okay. Need to figure out... how much of this needs unpacking.

[How the hell do you describe Twilight to someone who's not consciously aware of it?

...especially since smol-drag here is way, way too self-aware to be an extra in a psychodrama, it occurs to her.]


...although I'm probably wrong. I associate getting sucked out of my own world and into a bizzaro one with rummaging through other people's - dreams, I guess. Their subconscious if you majored in psychology.
dralchemist: (what do you mean "unsalted")

[personal profile] dralchemist 2018-08-07 04:49 am (UTC)(link)
Son of a bitch. I'm in somebody's head again?! [... probably not the expected reaction to hearing that news.] I thought I was done with memory palace nonsense. Fuck!

Fucking hells. Ass. Damnit. Damnit! [She's literally stomping around and swearing at nothing.] Swear to the fucking gods! I'm going to murder! Augh!
chichisbizzareadventure: (thinking very fast)

[personal profile] chichisbizzareadventure 2018-08-07 05:19 am (UTC)(link)
[Yeah. That is the absolute LAST thing she expected to hear - it makes her snap her head back in surprise, unfold her arms, reconsider this conversation and where she is.]

...this place is too empty to be a palace - or one gone rotten, what my crew called a Tower. Even hermits have extras playing in their head. This place is just empty.

And, uh, no offense, but you look to me like something from out of a Tower. Except there's too much you there to be a Tower denizen, and not nearly enough strawman or personal hobgoblin or Shadow.
dralchemist: (can u not)

[personal profile] dralchemist 2018-08-07 05:22 am (UTC)(link)
Hey! I am not a figment of anybody's imagination! I have dealt with that shit already and it's no fun.

So... ok. Hold on. [Izzy turns away and takes a few deep breaths, stepping around to clear her head.] Ok. Ok, ok, ok.

So say you're right, and that this is either a memory palace or a Tower or whatever. In your case, what's the method you usually take to get out of one?
chichisbizzareadventure: (nothing will stand between me and her)

[personal profile] chichisbizzareadventure 2018-08-07 05:31 am (UTC)(link)
Kick, stab, and incinerate the hell out of whatever bug crawled up someone's ear and started eating their brain - uh, metaphorically speaking - generally enumerating the reasons they suck and can't be forgiven along the way.

Also, pulling out anyone stuck there and helping her stare down who she's afraid she is. With any luck she'll hug it out with their Shadow, get superpowers and a cool dress, and help us hold down the motherfucker sucking people into their personal nightmare.
dralchemist: (Default)

[personal profile] dralchemist 2018-08-07 05:34 am (UTC)(link)
[Blank stare.]




Nope, you lost me again. That's far more complex than the shit I had to deal with. Which was literally "go into this guy's literal memory palace, rescue a friend that got stuck in there, and go out the front door." Plus or minus a few details.

Considering that we're operating on two wildly different rulesets here, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that this... place is actually neither of them. So the chances that we're in somebody's memories or headspace or tower or whatever are slim to none.

... which doesn't help with figuring out what this place is. But knowing what it isn't is a good first step.
Edited 2018-08-07 05:35 (UTC)
chichisbizzareadventure: (awakening)

[personal profile] chichisbizzareadventure 2018-08-07 05:45 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah, fair.

...I was afraid of that. Showed up alone, too - usually we have Bossgirl - miss Knightley I mean - and two other mutual friends along for the ride, with the token boy mapping and scanning for us a safe ways away.

Like, this could be the place in between all the palaces, but we call it Twilight for a reason and, uh, you see any twinkling in the sky?

But that begs another question.

...uh, if what I try works, it's gonna look super gross and scary. Heads up.
dralchemist: (this is a bad excuse for a pate)

[personal profile] dralchemist 2018-08-07 05:50 am (UTC)(link)
Uh huh. Yeah, no, no twinkling in the sky. Just, um. Clouds. [She looks up.] Yeah, clouds and sky.

[A step back for safety... then another few for good measure.] Do whatever you gotta do! I've probably seen worse!
chichisbizzareadventure: (come forth - anima!)

1/3

[personal profile] chichisbizzareadventure 2018-08-07 05:54 am (UTC)(link)
Okay then.

[She takes a deep breath. Focuses.

...And suddenly where her heart should be in her body is a fiery red glow. She plunges her hand into her own chest, screaming an invocation:]


CRIMSON DEVIL PERSONA!
chichisbizzareadventure: (hold aloft the jewel called your heart)

2/3

[personal profile] chichisbizzareadventure 2018-08-07 05:58 am (UTC)(link)
[What comes out of her chest, mercifully, isn't a heart but a ruby in the stylized shape of one - a brooch inlaid with gold.

And fire. A lot of fire. It licks over her body, resolving into an outfit with a bustier, a miniskirt, boots, gloves, a bare midriff and a lot of red and attitude. Her hair, too, takes on a flame red color.

The entire process takes less than a second, but it feels like longer - each individual accessory and beltloop and clasp burning into existence one by one.]
Edited 2018-08-07 06:03 (UTC)
chichisbizzareadventure: (AME NO UZUME!)

and done.

[personal profile] chichisbizzareadventure 2018-08-07 06:02 am (UTC)(link)
...Ame-no-Uzume, I call on thee!

[From the jewel comes forth a spirit, a dancer that's similarly scantily clad, baring twin war fans in flame red and a grin to match Chihiro's own.

Silently, it slides around to embrace Chihiro, who hugs it back.

They detach, Ame-no-Uzume handing her a naginata, then drifting away, content to hover behind her and seek direction.]


...son of a bitch, that shouldn't have worked. The fuck.
dralchemist: (frantic scribbling)

Re: and done.

[personal profile] dralchemist 2018-08-07 06:05 am (UTC)(link)
[The whole time, Izzy has been watching Chihiro carefully, almost studying her through this ritual. Doesn't really seem to faze the dragonborn that much though, not even with the spirit or the fire or whatever.]

That wasn't so special. Either you're multitalented in evocation and conjuration, or you're a really extra-special illusionist caster. Though, uh, judging by... [Head point towards Ame-no-Uzume.] ... I'm gonna go with the former there.

Question is now, why shouldn't that have worked? Is that something you can only do when you're in somebody's head?
von_uberwolf: (At ease)

[personal profile] von_uberwolf 2018-08-07 06:11 am (UTC)(link)
[Excellent, lunch secured. Angua smiled back as she took the skewer, and while Izzy couldn't see any fangs she suddenly had a feeling that, for some reason she couldn't immediately identify, they should be there.]

Inquiries are on-going.

[Which is policeman for "I don't know." She'd woken up dressed, and without an embarrassingly full stomach. Plus the moon wasn't full right now. So...her normal excuse for waking up in a strange place clearly wasn't relevant right now.]

I've only been here for an hour or two myself. I've never seen a city like this before.
chichisbizzareadventure: (magical girl crimson devil)

[personal profile] chichisbizzareadventure 2018-08-07 06:12 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah. Normally we have to be in Twilight, or in a palace -which are also in Twilight but you know. Sort of the collective subconscious suburbs of them.

And uh, it's technically Ami-chan here who does the evocation, not me. My Persona. She throws fire and gets people's heat rising, I just spear people. Ignoring the whole... the whole deal with her being my Shadow post the hugging out.

...you never told me your name, did you.
dralchemist: (i promise i didn't poison your drink)

[personal profile] dralchemist 2018-08-07 06:14 am (UTC)(link)
"Inquiries". A'ight. Leave that to the professionals then, I guess.

[With a shrug, Izzy gets back to the kabob she was wolfing down chewing on, grabbing a slice of grilled onion between her teeth and going to town.]

You and me both. This place is exceedingly modern compared to where I came from, even by its magitech standards.
dralchemist: (i'm the best chef and you know it)

[personal profile] dralchemist 2018-08-07 06:17 am (UTC)(link)
"Collective subconscious". I really wish I didn't need to have paid more attention in psych courses.

And I sure didn't! Izzy D'Oro, head chef and alchemist of Atelier D'Oro, located in the picturesque bay-view Port District of Concord, in the Dragon Empire, which is fuck if I know where compared to here!

At your service. [She gives a sweeping bow with an arm tucked into her torso, but the grandeur and her inflections make it clear that she's being sarcastic.]
chichisbizzareadventure: (magical girl crimson devil)

[personal profile] chichisbizzareadventure 2018-08-07 06:22 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah I sure as fuck wasn't expecting to be a combat shrink either but here I fucking am.

[This said with a big grin on her face, and Ame shifting to hide her expression behind one of her tessen fans.]

Dragon Empire, hah. Well, we're nowhere near UC Berkeley, either, that's for damn sure.
dralchemist: (pog)

[personal profile] dralchemist 2018-08-07 06:25 am (UTC)(link)
Adventures just have a way of getting thrown upon the unsuspecting, huh. I know what that feels like, at the very least.

Ok. So we know where we're not. That only barely helps with figuring out where we are. Got any bright ideas?
bloodyashes: ([F] Sorry about him)

[personal profile] bloodyashes 2018-08-07 03:28 pm (UTC)(link)
No, it's.. It's fine. I'm just not used to talking to people your age.

[At least he didn't say 'kids.']

The only person I knew on Auldrant around your age never shut up.