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...
redmeguca: (If you say so.)

[personal profile] redmeguca 2018-07-14 01:05 am (UTC)(link)
Not all of them. If you were my style of Mahou Shoujo, this would be a perfect opportunity to get rid of some competition.
madeinahole: (Whu?)

[personal profile] madeinahole 2018-07-14 01:07 am (UTC)(link)
Are you sometimes not a human?

[Even Amethyst noticed that odd wording.]
Edited 2018-07-14 01:07 (UTC)
founderinglight: ([my place plz])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-14 01:07 am (UTC)(link)
[Probably not.]

Well, not everyone, my brother is here and a handful of others -

[Izunia intentionally slides on the ice in order to perform a whirling spin, and the way shards of ice fling from that seems to be the last straw for the handful of dogs that remain. Three of them run yelping off into the tunnels.]

- but you and I, certainly.
redmeguca: (Default)

[personal profile] redmeguca 2018-07-14 01:07 am (UTC)(link)
Sakura Kyoko, you?

[When he beats the hound back, it falls on to a spear rising from the ground.]
dubiouslychthonic: (distracted)

[personal profile] dubiouslychthonic 2018-07-14 01:09 am (UTC)(link)
Let's go.

[Close enough. "This might as well happen" is practically a mantra around here.

Thankfully, the subway entrance that Jetshard had spotted isn't too far off, although the flames are definitely beginning to lick at the buildings on either side of the street by the time it opens in the sidewalk before the two of them. Jetshard gives an "after you" kind of gesture.]
theserpentsmiles: (Well you're not the only one)

[personal profile] theserpentsmiles 2018-07-14 01:09 am (UTC)(link)
[Now that? That is cool. Every guy in Class 3-E had been excited about space travel, and having tried it himself, Nagisa has to say it's warranted.]

So- people have gone beyond the solar system, in your world? We're not that advanced, no one's set foot on Mars or anything yet. So aliens are real...

[Super. Cool. But they're back to the business of getting out of here, he'll save space excitement for another time.]

Alright. I can probably scale one of these crates, if I need to...
founderinglight: ([sketchyplaceholder])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-14 01:09 am (UTC)(link)
Hm, maybe fifty? Discounting the android natives - artificially created mechanical people - and our handful of pets.

[More than Eizen is probably used to after so long aboard ship, anyway.]

Plus however many appear here that we bring back. There's not really elsewhere to go at the moment.
thinkingwithmahous: (It's too much)

[personal profile] thinkingwithmahous 2018-07-14 01:10 am (UTC)(link)
[Still lying on the ground.]

Oh good you're still alive. I wasn't sure.
redmeguca: (Default)

[personal profile] redmeguca 2018-07-14 01:10 am (UTC)(link)
[She takes the soda, gulping it down.]

Not too common for me, but yeah.
bloodyashes: ([F] Sorry about him)

[personal profile] bloodyashes 2018-07-14 01:11 am (UTC)(link)
Better than the options being 'a series of shacks' or 'camping wherever you can camp.' The most advanced thing we had on the islands was a very large tent.

[He misses the tent.]
redmeguca: (Food is more important than you.)

[personal profile] redmeguca 2018-07-14 01:11 am (UTC)(link)
[Siiiiiiip.]

Gonna want to stay awake for the night.
redmeguca: (Default)

[personal profile] redmeguca 2018-07-14 01:15 am (UTC)(link)
[Kyoko runs at beyond human speeds to the entrance.]

That's a pretty neat trick you've got there.
thinkingwithmahous: (Oh fuck)

[personal profile] thinkingwithmahous 2018-07-14 01:15 am (UTC)(link)
[Marco started, when he realized he wasn't alone. He stared at the other boy, for a moment, silently.]

...You know? If you're offering, I think I would.
einherjarista: (distracted by nothing)

[personal profile] einherjarista 2018-07-14 01:15 am (UTC)(link)
All right, all right. So if the magic fire follows us here, we'll be trapped with the smoke and also the fire.

Well, I've always been one for gambling with my life. [ In Signe goes. ]
bloodyashes: ([F] Sorry about him)

[personal profile] bloodyashes 2018-07-14 01:17 am (UTC)(link)
It's just water, but it's better than nothing.

[You know, before you get any ideas.

But water surely helps after through the fire and flames over there.

pparently unwilling to get up, Asch unhooked a large canteen from his pack and rolls it over.]
einherjarista: (walking disaster)

[personal profile] einherjarista 2018-07-14 01:18 am (UTC)(link)
[ Three sugars, then. She didn't specify how many, so Signe decides, that's how it works. She slides the coffee over. ]

I'm not planning to open up yet another coffee shop, but I guess it's better than letting these coffee beans go to waste. Let me know how it tastes.
thinkingwithmahous: (Thought)

[personal profile] thinkingwithmahous 2018-07-14 01:20 am (UTC)(link)
Oh.

[Secretly disappoint but honestly water is probably what he needs right now. Marco takes the canteen and takes a healthy swig. He feels revitalized.]

Thanks. I needed that.

So, uh...

I don't suppose I can convince you to pretend you didn't see that, can I?
shipoutofluck: (009)

[personal profile] shipoutofluck 2018-07-14 01:21 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah, that's right. Good eye.

[He looks Astolfo over some, before he does take the hand. A little more polite than he's used to, but that's fine.]

Eizen.
dubiouslychthonic: (the docterrorist is in)

Dusk

[personal profile] dubiouslychthonic 2018-07-14 01:22 am (UTC)(link)
[Jetshard's a good deal calmer, but she's still definitely alert and cautious as she makes her way through the city at dusk. It won't be much longer before the city is entirely unlivable at this point, after all. And the rescue mission aspect of these expeditions is something she takes seriously.

Still, she's a little cautious about approaching too quickly - with her grey skin and bright orange horns, she's always a little cautious about startling unfamiliar humans, and the beaky, plague-doctor-esque gasmask she's equipped as the smoke and heat builds cannot possibly help matters. So she calls out, waving, when she spots him.]


Hey! Over here. We ought to get underground.
shipoutofluck: (Default)

[personal profile] shipoutofluck 2018-07-14 01:23 am (UTC)(link)
[He opens his mouth, because you can't just casually drop the artifical mechanical people bomb like that, but decides against it because... You know what? He'll deal with that later.

He takes another drink from that bottle.]


That's crowded. Seems like a lot of people to fit into one place.

But I guess when it's the space you got, you make do.
wantstoexist: art by badasserywomen.tumblr.com (02. Twenty percent skill)

[personal profile] wantstoexist 2018-07-14 01:26 am (UTC)(link)
That reaction actually surprises Lucatiel - but it only takes a moment for her to regain her composure. Whoever (and whatever) Amethyst is, she must come from a truly far-off land if she has no knowledge of what such a marking means.

"It's the sign of a curse. An illness that I suffer from."

She'll elaborate if Amethyst asks her to, but for now she's content to just leave it at that.

"I've not heard of these Crystal Gems you speak of. Are they all as... colorful as you?"
dubiouslychthonic: (you did not just say that)

[personal profile] dubiouslychthonic 2018-07-14 01:27 am (UTC)(link)
I was down there a bit earlier - it doesn't have the same kind of uncanny preservation the surface does, but there's no widespread fire damage either.

[She follows Signe down the steps - and indeed, once they descend below street level, it's noticeably more decayed as well as much cooler and more humid.]

Our local contacts tell us the city's burned every night for the past hundred years. If the tunnels haven't burned out yet, I think it's a safe enough risk.
bloodyashes: ([D] Hybrid)

[personal profile] bloodyashes 2018-07-14 01:28 am (UTC)(link)
[Sorry dude Asch himself has some powers that make him not want to play around with alcohol.

He shrugs.]


It doesn't matter to me. I can keep someone else's secrets well enough.

[Plenty of his own, really. He leans back against the wall again.]
wantstoexist: art by Christian Blanco (06. Fifty percent pain)

[personal profile] wantstoexist 2018-07-14 01:30 am (UTC)(link)
[She sighs at that, and takes another couple of steps away from the stairwell to get a closer look at the tunnel that they've found themselves in.

They're not in the best shape - particularly in comparison to the city above them - but she'd been in worse. Definitely worth taking a closer look at.
]

We should look for other exits. Perhaps if we're lucky, one tunnel may lead out of this wretched city.

[Ideally back to where she came from, but honestly at the moment she'd go anywhere that isn't currently on fire.]

What say you, stranger?
hairpincurves: ('cuz for every broken promise)

[personal profile] hairpincurves 2018-07-14 01:31 am (UTC)(link)
[She takes a sip of the coffee and nods.]

It's perfect. [She beams.] It would be a shame to let all these go to waste... I'll probably take a bunch back to the station I've been staying at, it definitely won't go to waste there.

Akira Kurusu, by the way.