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...
burninglight: (then i'll carry on too)

[personal profile] burninglight 2018-07-16 01:34 am (UTC)(link)
I can't say I'd know what to ask, considering I only just met you.

...I'm not-...like that, anymore. So I'm not going to hurt anyone.
bloodyashes: ([F] Sorry about him)

[personal profile] bloodyashes 2018-07-16 01:51 am (UTC)(link)
Well, offer's open.

[He looks thoughtfully down at his food.]

I didn't think you were going to.
burninglight: (in a carousel of agony)

[personal profile] burninglight 2018-07-16 02:02 am (UTC)(link)
No, I guess this would be a very different conversation if you did.
bloodyashes: ([F] Sorry about him)

[personal profile] bloodyashes 2018-07-16 02:23 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah, it'd probably involve at least one sword.

[Gonna just. Take a bite of one of his skewers now. Chew, swallow.]

That Ardyn is someone I could have been if things were just a little different. So...
foolishjustice: (Can it wait?)

[personal profile] foolishjustice 2018-07-16 03:48 am (UTC)(link)
In that case, I hope you understand why certain details are only known by a handful of people here. Only three people outside of the Phantom Thieves knows the full extent of my history, an I'd prefer if that number grows slowly.
bloodyashes: ([F] Sorry about him)

[personal profile] bloodyashes 2018-07-16 03:55 am (UTC)(link)
Probably, if it's anything like the last place I was dragged into.
bloodyashes: ([F] You saw NOTHIN)

[personal profile] bloodyashes 2018-07-16 03:56 am (UTC)(link)
You don't have to worry. I'm not in the habit of telling other people's secrets unless there's something like the end of the world on the line.
theosophomoric: (were we erased like common thieves?)

[personal profile] theosophomoric 2018-07-16 05:04 am (UTC)(link)
[Sonja grins crookedly.] Well, if you're not in a great hurry to get back, it's not such a bad place to be. The climate's hospitable, supplies are plentiful if somewhat piecemeal. There's plenty of opportunity for exploration and study.
foolishjustice: (Shall I explain?)

[personal profile] foolishjustice 2018-07-16 05:39 am (UTC)(link)
Well, there's nothing like that to worry about here.

[Discard stick, grab skewer.]

I'm working on the side of keeping people safe, here.
misplacedxsheath: (Hmmm...I'll consider it.)

[personal profile] misplacedxsheath 2018-07-16 05:41 am (UTC)(link)
[He takes the stabilizer to look it over...though what he makes of it, it's hard to tell. Maybe his face is just stuck like that?]

It looks like something my former boyfriend might take interest in, but I was never a scientist, myself. My knowledge of this sort of thing comes only from asking questions of those who dedicate their lives to scientific study.
misplacedxsheath: (What a waste.)

[personal profile] misplacedxsheath 2018-07-16 05:51 am (UTC)(link)
If you take two people of identical base nature and expose them to identical circumstances, they'll end up behaving quite similarly. It doesn't make them less people in their own right, and they could still become distinct from even a slight divergence in the paths of their lives, it just means there's a logic to the way people develop that enables eerie similarities between people in eerily similar worlds.
misplacedxsheath: (You've begun wearing on my nerves.)

[personal profile] misplacedxsheath 2018-07-16 05:54 am (UTC)(link)
Likewise, so far. Even if the circumstances are rather tiresome.
misplacedxsheath: (I don't like it.)

[personal profile] misplacedxsheath 2018-07-16 06:19 am (UTC)(link)
[Being less on fire means less smoke. That's his biggest concern as he follows the voice, sidestepping a chunk of fallen masonry as he does so.]

Good. So long as there isn't anything igniting things down there as well, it should stay relatively safe.
bloodyashes: ([D] Transformation)

[personal profile] bloodyashes 2018-07-16 06:24 am (UTC)(link)
Hopefully everyone is.

[Gonna just. Eat a skewer himself, here, at a more reasonable human pace.]
hairpincurves: ('cuz for every broken promise)

[personal profile] hairpincurves 2018-07-16 06:33 am (UTC)(link)
[The thought of his face being stuck like that amuses her somewhat...

... but also... boyfriend, huh. That's not what she was expecting at all...

She nods in response to his words.]


Science isn't really my strong point, I'll admit. Outside of what I ask about specifically or research on my own on a whim, I only really remember the stuff I had to learn for tests in school...
dubiouslychthonic: (sorry were you still talking)

[personal profile] dubiouslychthonic 2018-07-16 07:15 am (UTC)(link)
I believe it functions wherever the communications network does. If you pay close attention, you'll be able to perceive the languages people are actually speaking or writing in. [And in fact, the language Jetshard is speaking is distinct from anything spoken on Earth.] Occasionally it picks up odd equivalencies, or breaks down around thins that don't translate at all.
moonlightglory: (nah)

Day 2

[personal profile] moonlightglory 2018-07-16 01:58 pm (UTC)(link)
[Meanwhile here comes one of our resident magical girls, floating up past Karma like she's in moon gravity. The normal level of acceleration reasserts itself once she reaches the roof, and she almost stops to offer him a hand getting up, but it looks like he's got the situation under control.]

You find anything around here yet? This place is a ghost town.
thinkingwithmahous: (On the run)

[personal profile] thinkingwithmahous 2018-07-16 02:19 pm (UTC)(link)
This has happened to you before?
have_hat_will_travel: (Huh)

[personal profile] have_hat_will_travel 2018-07-16 02:40 pm (UTC)(link)
... Fair enough, I guess.

It's still... Not something I want to think about too much.
redmeguca: (If you say so.)

[personal profile] redmeguca 2018-07-16 04:40 pm (UTC)(link)
Sounds like a good place for a new start.
theserpentsmiles: (I won't be pushed around)

[personal profile] theserpentsmiles 2018-07-16 04:56 pm (UTC)(link)
[Nod.] Thank you. Curry sounds great.

[He's not particularly hungry, so he won't be scarfing it down or anything, but he does pick up speed after the first bite or two.] This is really good.
theserpentsmiles: (Set this pain up in flames)

[personal profile] theserpentsmiles 2018-07-16 05:02 pm (UTC)(link)
Hidden. It's hard to carry around... [And because time is fake Church hasn't put it in the Armiger yet.] I can't let it burn.
theserpentsmiles: (Get back or just get out)

[personal profile] theserpentsmiles 2018-07-16 05:15 pm (UTC)(link)
[Their special gym clothes might be flame-resistant, but...there's nowhere large enough to store this thing.]

Well, he is the defense specialist. He might get by. [The entrance to the alley isn't far away now. It should burn a little slower than more open areas, if only for the lack of flammable substances, but this fire already seems to be unusual. Is everything here coated with some sort of incendiary? Takebayashi would probably be able to tell...

Shoot. The alley's got a high gate preventing entry. Locked. Not normally a problem, it's short enough that he should be able to scale it without too much trouble, but not while enburdened by this book. What are his options...?]
nojohnyouare: Contemplating. (some kind of resolution)

[personal profile] nojohnyouare 2018-07-16 05:52 pm (UTC)(link)
Safe so far. But at night... Dangerous. Though you seem prepared.

...Four swords?
nojohnyouare: Dismissive. (you're my head)

[personal profile] nojohnyouare 2018-07-16 05:54 pm (UTC)(link)
Mm.

[She continues to follow. A tall beam cracks in the flames and starts to collapse over them; she draws out what was a plastic sword, but which slices through the beam as she jumps like it was the sharpest knife going into soft bread.]

...Understandable.