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...
ax_iom: (My penance)

[personal profile] ax_iom 2018-07-18 04:11 am (UTC)(link)
... Unless you're fireproof, you should stay down here.
nojohnyouare: Angry glare. (would you leave me)

[personal profile] nojohnyouare 2018-07-18 04:14 am (UTC)(link)
I'll recover. They might not.
ax_iom: (My penance)

[personal profile] ax_iom 2018-07-18 04:15 am (UTC)(link)
I was literally trying to when I showed up here.

[Trying to quit it. By dying.]
ax_iom: (My penance)

[personal profile] ax_iom 2018-07-18 04:16 am (UTC)(link)
You should stay down here, because I am fireproof, and I can go.
redmeguca: (If you say so.)

[personal profile] redmeguca 2018-07-18 04:18 am (UTC)(link)
...How about we just agree to no suicide, attacks or otherwise, while we're here?
nojohnyouare: Feeling self-conscious. (you are the nighttime fear)

[personal profile] nojohnyouare 2018-07-18 04:19 am (UTC)(link)
You don't need to be the only one.
class_struggle: (Default)

[personal profile] class_struggle 2018-07-18 04:23 am (UTC)(link)
Useful enough. Some things must be broken.

[...for once, the single icon I've got is adequate.]

And some must break clean before they're reforged.
class_struggle: (Default)

CW doggo violence

[personal profile] class_struggle 2018-07-18 04:32 am (UTC)(link)
He can guess at the price.

"I don't think we have a choice, then - we save that for dire emergency. And you're no healer?" He quickly looks down his bandolier and counts - one, two, three -

And nods, and answers a firewolf lunge with an arm-shaking hammer thrust counterattack, wincing at the snapback. He feels it in his elbow. But it sends the wolf back, and he hears it's rib crack and it whimper in shock and pain.

" - I have a handful of healing potions, and can brew slow regeneratives," he says, flicking his hammer arm. "IF we can make camp."
ax_iom: (What do you want from me?)

[personal profile] ax_iom 2018-07-18 04:40 am (UTC)(link)
I don't expect we'll be doing a lot of reforging here. This entire place seems totally abandoned.
hurt_comforting: (:anger:)

[personal profile] hurt_comforting 2018-07-18 04:55 am (UTC)(link)
Normally they're looted. Used up. Damaged. But this place looks unused, pristine and unloved as a doll in an unopened box.

[...she managed to creep out herself. Geez.]

So, standard procedure. Take what you know you can eat before it rots, and then take as much imperishable food as you can carry. Save the seeds. I have no idea how long we'll be here.
hurt_comforting: (wahahah - wait wrong drillhair)

[personal profile] hurt_comforting 2018-07-18 04:57 am (UTC)(link)
It's... from home. I'm trained to recognize and navigate it. If we were dreaming I'd know.

I'll get back to you on 'dead.'
Edited 2018-07-18 04:57 (UTC)
ax_iom: (Default)

[personal profile] ax_iom 2018-07-18 04:59 am (UTC)(link)
To which I ask again: Are you fireproof?
hurt_comforting: (flat what)

[personal profile] hurt_comforting 2018-07-18 05:03 am (UTC)(link)
"My apocalypse caused more damage to the buildings," she says - before looking around. "Perhaps I spoke too soon. Here's the graffiti and disuse I missed up top."

Clearly she's using a more wry definition of missed.

"I'm at war at home," she clarifies. "Personally. I'm a soldier, albeit rear-echelon."

...she's also pretty clearly a highschooler, or of that age.
ax_iom: (But I'll believe in you)

[personal profile] ax_iom 2018-07-18 05:04 am (UTC)(link)
... Yeah, sounds fair.

[She laughs, and... Her dress just simply turns into light, dissolving and changing form. Where before, it was an elegant dress that looked like a ballgown, now it's a much more traditional magical girl-style dress- Heavy shades of gray and purple, though, asymmetric, with a long back, but still short enough in front to show her legs, and the long boots. The hammer, too, is replaced by an ornate staff, topped with a red jewel.]

Can you take care of yourself if I go off on my own for a bit?
redmeguca: (If you say so.)

[personal profile] redmeguca 2018-07-18 05:07 am (UTC)(link)
Sure thing, I've got a city to loot anyway. Take care.
ax_iom: (Default)

[personal profile] ax_iom 2018-07-18 05:08 am (UTC)(link)
Don't loot anything that someone might find sentimental. Necessities only.

[lily "the mom friend" nolastname]
hurt_comforting: (oh glee!)

[personal profile] hurt_comforting 2018-07-18 05:09 am (UTC)(link)
Ah. Well, you won't lack for more temperate food later. Bundled away two meals worth of asparagus, and some fresh meat and dry rice. Dinner's on me if you want it.

[Soon after, she gets to enjoying her lunch, pulling off each tidbit with a metal spork one by one, daintily but swiftly savoring each bite.

She pauses to breathe, kiss one lightly sauced fingertip, wipe up, and smile.]


I think that shameful display said it better than I could, but that's one of the best meals I've had in years.
ax_iom: (My penance)

[personal profile] ax_iom 2018-07-18 05:10 am (UTC)(link)
O... kay...?

[She just has to rub her temples.]

All right. Let's just... go. Can you defend yourself if anything is out here?
redmeguca: (Default)

[personal profile] redmeguca 2018-07-18 05:14 am (UTC)(link)
I was only planning to take food and stuff anyway. You don't need to tell me not to take family photos or something.
hurt_comforting: (wahahah - wait wrong drillhair)

[personal profile] hurt_comforting 2018-07-18 05:20 am (UTC)(link)
[She takes it in her hands, and feels the warmth for a moment. Then, takes a wooden stirrer, incorporates the sugar, and tastes the tip of the stick.

Satisfied, she sips, in silence. Her expression is grateful, and thoughtful.]
hurt_comforting: (please god let me be smiling)

[personal profile] hurt_comforting 2018-07-18 05:31 am (UTC)(link)
[...she hesitates. And answers as honestly as she can.]

I'm armed. But I'm in trouble if we're up against anything more vicious, armored, or large than raiders.

If we run into something truly monstrous, I'm not sure what good a policeman's pistol will do.
hotshot_momma: (dangerous)

[personal profile] hotshot_momma 2018-07-18 05:55 am (UTC)(link)
Sufficiently advanced technology?

[He's probably never heard of Arthur C. Clarke. Ah well.]

Like the rifts. The shit causing the phoenixfire up above. You get briefed on that yet?
hotshot_momma: (Default)

[personal profile] hotshot_momma 2018-07-18 06:09 am (UTC)(link)
You're thirty, you're awake, and you're not one particular old bastard who needs to die.

That means I'm definitely not home. Seventeen makes me an old hag there. So, if you want to say neither of us are in Kansas anymore? I want to believe you.

[She offers her hand, to shake.] Anna Lin.
hotshot_momma: (Default)

[personal profile] hotshot_momma 2018-07-18 06:12 am (UTC)(link)
Lost friends. Data. Tech. Hell, magic, if rips in space's asshole that shit phoenix fire are common enough that they've got countermeasures going.

Won't know till we ask them. Won't get to if we're dead. Good enough for me.
redmeguca: (Default)

[personal profile] redmeguca 2018-07-18 06:38 am (UTC)(link)
Hey, magic isn't that out there. I've already met a few people with their own. Hell, I'm magic.