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: (What're you gonna do about it?)

[personal profile] redmeguca 2018-07-17 07:03 am (UTC)(link)
Hey, it's a classic. I suppose I shouldn't be picking low hanging fruit, though.
ax_iom: (My penance)

[personal profile] ax_iom 2018-07-17 07:06 am (UTC)(link)
"Classic" like cottage cheese, maybe.
redmeguca: (You sure 'bout that?)

[personal profile] redmeguca 2018-07-17 07:08 am (UTC)(link)
Huh? I don't think I get that one.
class_struggle: (Default)

[personal profile] class_struggle 2018-07-17 07:16 am (UTC)(link)
[Shock. She sees ghosts in the flames, real or imagined; her words make that clear.

...he'll save her now, so he can ask for apologies later. He grabs her hand, and pulls - just enough to snap her focus away...]


Tunnels. Or fire. Your choice.
ax_iom: (My penance)

[personal profile] ax_iom 2018-07-17 07:17 am (UTC)(link)
Something that gets worse the older it gets.
redmeguca: (I'm sorry...)

[personal profile] redmeguca 2018-07-17 07:20 am (UTC)(link)
Wha- oh. Tunnels, yeah. Good idea.

[She'll head towards the tunnels at a respectable speed.]
redmeguca: (Default)

[personal profile] redmeguca 2018-07-17 07:22 am (UTC)(link)
Oh, I never let food get to that point. It doesn't get a chance to go bad with me around.
class_struggle: (Default)

[personal profile] class_struggle 2018-07-17 07:24 am (UTC)(link)
He nods.

"You're from a living city, then... one like this dying one." Reasoning out loud, as much for his own benefit.

He snuffs his hand, as long as the stranger is glowing, and offers it to shake. "Alex," he says. "Alex Faris, I guess. If you've not guessed, I no more belong here than you do."
ax_iom: (My penance)

[personal profile] ax_iom 2018-07-17 07:24 am (UTC)(link)
That sounds unhealthy?
bloodyashes: ([D] Transformation)

[personal profile] bloodyashes 2018-07-17 07:26 am (UTC)(link)
[By now, at least, Asch is a little more on guard for interruptions, though he's still got an expression of suspicion on his face, and doesn't offer much more explanation than - ]

It's not a ritual.
redmeguca: (Default)

[personal profile] redmeguca 2018-07-17 07:27 am (UTC)(link)
If you're worried about me overeating, don't. I eat what an orphan living out of the wreckage of a church can get.
ax_iom: (I understand and we move forward)

[personal profile] ax_iom 2018-07-17 07:29 am (UTC)(link)
Now I'm worried for other reasons!
class_struggle: (Default)

[personal profile] class_struggle 2018-07-17 07:30 am (UTC)(link)
The mages I know would call it that or - an evocation, I think?

[...although this man seems older than him, and if he can do that without words he's definitely more experienced...]

...though I barely know the phrases. Beg pardon. What I don't know of magic could fill a library... one I've seen.

[He sighs, heavily, flexing his left hand.]
Edited 2018-07-17 07:55 (UTC)
founderinglight: ([hold])

day

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-17 07:31 am (UTC)(link)
[Lily is probably not expecting the deep voice of an older man in response to her words, but it's what she gets.]

That would likely be because it's no afterlife at all. Water?

[In his hand, offered to her, is a still-sealed water bottle. It's pretty... blatantly been looted from the ice-filled barrel of them that he's leaning against, but the thought is there?]
ax_iom: (I have my own reasons)

[personal profile] ax_iom 2018-07-17 07:32 am (UTC)(link)
[who the fuck are you

she just looks at him.]


If I'm not dead, then I still have work to do. I don't need it.
class_struggle: (Default)

[personal profile] class_struggle 2018-07-17 07:34 am (UTC)(link)
We'll be safe from the flames there... Though we should be on guard for any monsters or looters who had the same idea.

Can you handle yourself in a fight?
redmeguca: (Default)

[personal profile] redmeguca 2018-07-17 07:35 am (UTC)(link)
Don't be, I've gotten pretty good at getting food when nobody's looking.
class_struggle: (Default)

day

[personal profile] class_struggle 2018-07-17 07:37 am (UTC)(link)
[Oh, that's a fantastic sight - and an oddly familiar one. The little fireplug of a boy below laughs at the witch on her broom.]

A traditionalist, are you? Looks a fine way to travel.
ax_iom: (My penance)

[personal profile] ax_iom 2018-07-17 07:38 am (UTC)(link)
That isn't helping.
founderinglight: ([my place plz])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-17 07:40 am (UTC)(link)
If you've work to do, then you'll do yourself no good wearing yourself out with dehydration before you get there.

[He is a logical, cultured stranger in a fancy black coat, black leather gloves, and a white teeshirt with "NOT ARDYN, WE'RE TWINS" on it in blue metallic dye.

And he's still holding out the water bottle.]
redmeguca: (You wanna go?)

[personal profile] redmeguca 2018-07-17 07:44 am (UTC)(link)
[This seems to snap Kyoko out of her daze a bit more. She shoots him a smirk.]

Heh, "can I handle myself in a fight." Just watch.

[With a red glow, Kyoko's hoodie changes into a battle dress, her shorts become a skirt, and her boots turn red and lengthen into knee height. Lastly, a red glow on her chest gives way to a red gem.

She pulls a spear about as long as she is tall out of the gem, striking a pose similar to a combat stance.]
redmeguca: (Default)

[personal profile] redmeguca 2018-07-17 07:46 am (UTC)(link)
And besides, anything in this city is fair game with it catching on fire every night and resetting in the morning.
ax_iom: (My penance)

[personal profile] ax_iom 2018-07-17 07:46 am (UTC)(link)
I don't need it. And I'm not stupid enough to take drinks from weird older men I've never met before.

[What the fuck is this guy wearing? She's keeping a wary distance from him.]
ax_iom: (I am the villain of this story)

[personal profile] ax_iom 2018-07-17 07:47 am (UTC)(link)
With it- What?

[THAT'S A LITTLE ALARMING, KYOUKO.]
founderinglight: ([hold])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-17 07:49 am (UTC)(link)
It's sealed.

[He might know a few people with a poison phobia, okay, he isn't totally naive.]

And unless you're something deceptively human looking that is not, in fact, human, you'll run into dehydration eventually.