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...
riderofcharlemagne: (you know what it is bitch)

[personal profile] riderofcharlemagne 2018-07-14 09:59 pm (UTC)(link)
Well- a paladin is a kind of knight, and Charlemagne was the king I pledged myself to in life. [He ignores the fight for the explanation, though idly swatting at hounds that get too close.] The Founder King is my new Master, the one I pledged myself to in death, as a Heroic Spirit. Any other questions?
einherjarista: (distracted by nothing)

[personal profile] einherjarista 2018-07-14 10:01 pm (UTC)(link)
That's unideal. You sure there isn't anybody to beat up? A dead dude? A king? God?
founderinglight: ([late with spacebucks])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-14 10:05 pm (UTC)(link)
...Should I be concerned, being two of the three?

[Like that's some list there, you know.]

There's indications that there might be some kind of entity involved, but we don't know anything beyond there being a presence. To say that it's something to fight seems a bit preemptive.
redmeguca: (Anger eating)

[personal profile] redmeguca 2018-07-14 10:12 pm (UTC)(link)
[Kyoko immediately takes the offered food and starts eating it. Rather aggressively, too. The action seems to calm her down somewhat.]

Thanks. Name's Sakura Kyoko, you?
redmeguca: (Default)

[personal profile] redmeguca 2018-07-14 10:13 pm (UTC)(link)
...You're dead?
einherjarista: (walking disaster)

[personal profile] einherjarista 2018-07-14 10:13 pm (UTC)(link)
[ . . . . . ]

This is about right for the way my life goes. I've got important duties to take care of back home, so of course I get pulled to another world without a clear way back home.

[ Deep. Sigh. ]

I guess this kind of explains what the heck you are, too.
shipoutofluck: (004)

[personal profile] shipoutofluck 2018-07-14 10:21 pm (UTC)(link)
As they should. Art like this deserves a long life. [As they speak, Eizen starts shuffling the deck himself.] I guess most people would just see cards and nothing else. But with all that history behind them...

What sort of person was it? Your descendant who used these?
einherjarista: (why are you like this)

[personal profile] einherjarista 2018-07-14 10:21 pm (UTC)(link)
....Well, you're definitely not dead. I'd say you should probably be concerned if you were, if you haven't moved on to the afterlife.

Mysterious entity sounds like a good start though.
founderinglight: ([beep])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-14 10:23 pm (UTC)(link)
[... Sorry, he straight up laughs.]

Oh, I am definitely dead, just not at the moment. Again, the situation is complicated.
shipoutofluck: (009)

[personal profile] shipoutofluck 2018-07-14 10:24 pm (UTC)(link)
...What?

[Church, what.]

I'm also a pirate. So long as we're listing things. [It paints a ridiculous picture and he's well aware.] And the bad luck definitely affects me just as well as those around me. No surprise I ended up in a city that sets itself on fire each night.
shipoutofluck: (009)

[personal profile] shipoutofluck 2018-07-14 10:27 pm (UTC)(link)
Even then, you can't deny the architecture is impressive!

[He feels very strongly about this, alright. And also, what?]

What Rift?
riderofcharlemagne: (you know what it is bitch)

[personal profile] riderofcharlemagne 2018-07-14 10:28 pm (UTC)(link)
[A nod.]

For a long time. I'm here as a summoned spirit.
founderinglight: ([my place plz])

fuck I can't remember what I named her oops

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-14 10:30 pm (UTC)(link)
A very tenacious young woman. [A small smile.] Not that that's not true of most of the family, of course, but there are very few who were possessed of the determination to take on part of the magical burden of the throne in addition to the more mundane aspects for the sake of other members of the family.
redmeguca: (Default)

[personal profile] redmeguca 2018-07-14 10:33 pm (UTC)(link)
Huh. Your sword talks to you?

[She's seen weirder. In fact, since she can't hear what it's saying, she's going to try to connect with it and Erina telepathically.]

{What were you two talking about?}
shipoutofluck: (006)

[personal profile] shipoutofluck 2018-07-14 10:33 pm (UTC)(link)
It gets the job done.

[The stone stalagmite crumbles and fades into nothing. If it weren't for the dogs, it'd be like it was never even here. He eyes the girl curiously a moment. The attire and mask might register as strange... if he wasn't used to much stranger already.]

And it will again, if there's more of those dogs on the way.
einherjarista: (distracted by nothing)

[personal profile] einherjarista 2018-07-14 10:34 pm (UTC)(link)
[ SORRY SIGNE JUST. ROLLS HER EYES AT IZUNIA. ]

You're not currently dead. Technically, you're in the same boat I am. [ Technically. ]
redmeguca: (Default)

[personal profile] redmeguca 2018-07-14 10:35 pm (UTC)(link)
I've seen a lot of weird things, but I've never actually seen someone return from the dead.
founderinglight: ([sketchyplaceholder])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-14 10:38 pm (UTC)(link)
It very much counts, I have a tomb and everything.

[Beat.]

... Or I did, at any rate, I think it fell into a crater? I wasn't there at the time.
einherjarista: (done but in gold)

[personal profile] einherjarista 2018-07-14 10:40 pm (UTC)(link)
Look, if you're alive, you're not under my jurisdiction. I don't care how many tombs you have.

Actually I think technically none of this place is under my jurisdiction, but currently-alive people definitely aren't no matter where we are.
shipoutofluck: (003)

[personal profile] shipoutofluck 2018-07-14 10:44 pm (UTC)(link)
Tenacity's a good trait to have. And tenacious women especially are not to be underestimated. I can see why you'd like her.

[Shuffle... shuffle... And he pulls a card. What else, but the same again? Not a shred of surprise on Eizen's face, of course.]
founderinglight: ([late with spacebucks])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-14 10:44 pm (UTC)(link)
Probably not. Even if it was, we already have a few people in that line of work around here, assuming I've understood the concept correctly.

[Technically there are several other dead people aside from him but if she touches his fam the gloves come off.]
founderinglight: ([hold])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-14 10:48 pm (UTC)(link)
I may admittedly be biased. My own daughter, Aurora, was historically known as 'the Daring.'

[and yeah he sees that and... you know what they say about once, twice, and three times.]

That's the strangest string of draws I've ever seen.
moarlazersplz: (I will destroy you with knowledge)

[personal profile] moarlazersplz 2018-07-14 10:49 pm (UTC)(link)
[Huh, weird. Normally you can't invite someone who's already in another party. She eyes the icons curiously thanks to their unfamiliarity, and then shrugs it off as something to deal with later.]

Well, it allows us to keep track of each other a bit better, and it provides a passive boost to certain abilities. But for our current purposes, it helps to designate you as an ally rather than a potential target where my magic is concerned...

[Ruto narrows her eyes again, draws her book with a snap, and flares her right hand toward the centermost firedog.]

Tri-Disaster! Bane! Painflare!

[A flare of tri-colored lights lashes out to strike the firedog, and then smoke and magic billow out further to spread the disease magics to the rest of the enemies, followed by a flare of light that strikes them all as well. She follows it up with a few quick snap of Ruin II spells as she waits for the cooldown to come back around, and then casts Bane one more time before her aethertrail attunement is complete, and she reaches inside herself for that deep well of Bahamut's influence on her own aether.]

Dreadwyrm Trance!

[For a moment an image of a fiercesome dragon's head blazes above her, and power surges through her veins. She can only hope that her erstwhile party member is managing to keep up and deal with his own collection of the enemies. A cycle of fast Ruin IIIs, and then it all comes to a peak.]

DEATHFLARE!

[And then a while-hot laser spears down from nowhere to blast the last several firedogs to nothingness.]
Edited (Icon change!) 2018-07-14 23:17 (UTC)
shipoutofluck: (002)

[personal profile] shipoutofluck 2018-07-14 10:51 pm (UTC)(link)
Heh... Now there's a title.

[He doesn't immediately respond, just shuffling the deck again.]

Is it? Hm. [Drawing a card again, which he holds up without even looking at it. Same result, yet again.] Would you call it a bad omen?
einherjarista: (distracted by nothing)

[personal profile] einherjarista 2018-07-14 10:53 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, thank Odin. They can handle all of that then.