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: (What do you want from me?)

[personal profile] ax_iom 2018-07-19 04:32 pm (UTC)(link)
It'd be the first time I've ever been lucky.

[Seriously, her life is a shitfest. Luck rank E-.]

... Has she told you about the rest of our group?
ax_iom: (My penance)

[personal profile] ax_iom 2018-07-19 04:35 pm (UTC)(link)
... Mangled Latin? I'm missing something here, I think.

[who never read harry potter. this girl.]
redmeguca: (The hell?)

[personal profile] redmeguca 2018-07-19 04:38 pm (UTC)(link)
Well Sayaka didn't believe that! She wanted to be a "Hero of Justice," saving people and righting wrongs!

[She drops an apple core to the ground as she processes Astolfo's second statement.]

You think I don't know that?! I'm fighting off those feelings every damn day of my life!
fistsofchange: (Today is going to be a good day)

[personal profile] fistsofchange 2018-07-19 05:18 pm (UTC)(link)
A moment of silence for the poor doggo...

...okay. Lin walked beside her. "This might be an apocalypse, but we think it's a fixable one."

She flashed a brief smile at Meredith. "Even if it's not, I'm gonna take a shot at it anyways. Something good might come of it."
founderinglight: ([sketchyplaceholder])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-19 05:54 pm (UTC)(link)
Not particularly. Zel, obviously, I've met, and Jailbreak and a young woman named Faith who I presume is also with you are here.
joyinastrangeplace: Jude Law as John Watson, holding a cane over his shoulder (Default)

[personal profile] joyinastrangeplace 2018-07-19 05:57 pm (UTC)(link)
If I am truly out of the reach of the Great Machine...

[Sherlock would be delighted.]
fistsofchange: (Nothing about this makes sense)

[personal profile] fistsofchange 2018-07-19 05:58 pm (UTC)(link)
The what?
joyinastrangeplace: Jude Law as John Watson, holding a cane over his shoulder (Default)

[personal profile] joyinastrangeplace 2018-07-19 06:00 pm (UTC)(link)
He was a creation of the Great Machine.

[Speak openly, John Watson: there are no angels here to reclaim those you love for spare parts.]
joyinastrangeplace: Jude Law as John Watson, holding a cane over his shoulder (Default)

[personal profile] joyinastrangeplace 2018-07-19 06:08 pm (UTC)(link)
[He looks surprised, first, then pained. Holmes's absence aches more than he can say, even though he arrived wherever here is only recently.]

You mean A Study In Scarlet and the rest? I wonder, how much I have written?

[He sighs.]

They are for the most part true, you know, though I hide my nature and those of my friends.

[How many versions of him are there out there?]
bloodyashes: ([D] Hybrid)

but do we want to put this before ardyn because time is fake or

[personal profile] bloodyashes 2018-07-19 06:09 pm (UTC)(link)
[Normally I would question how she didn't know that immediately, but god there are so many redheads.

The boy - and when she gets close enough to see his face, he is surprisingly young, eighteen at best - looks up with something not quite a smile.]


Yeah. And I take it you're the welcoming party.
thinkingwithmahous: (I can still laugh)

[personal profile] thinkingwithmahous 2018-07-19 06:09 pm (UTC)(link)
Hah! Yeah, that sounds pretty shitty.

I guess there's some kind of base that the people wandering around here came from, though? Doesn't sound like we're stuck out here, at least.
joyinastrangeplace: Jude Law as John Watson, holding a cane over his shoulder (Default)

[personal profile] joyinastrangeplace 2018-07-19 06:11 pm (UTC)(link)
Yes.

[He has heard of California. The name, however, is unfamiliar.]

I must confess my stories never tell the whole truth, however.
Edited 2018-07-19 18:12 (UTC)
ax_iom: (I have nothing to give in return)

[personal profile] ax_iom 2018-07-19 06:14 pm (UTC)(link)
[She nods, winces a bit at Jailbreak- That's going to be a PR nightmare- and then Faith...]

... Is... Is Faith okay...?
ax_iom: (What else was I good for?)

[personal profile] ax_iom 2018-07-19 06:15 pm (UTC)(link)
[She lets out a sigh.]

I have had a very long, very bad day. My patience is gone. Any more cryptic riddles in the place of answers and I am going to become very, very angry.
thinkingwithmahous: (It's too much)

[personal profile] thinkingwithmahous 2018-07-19 06:15 pm (UTC)(link)
It's not your fault. It's just all fucked up and I don't know how to fix it. I don't know if anyone can fix it. I just-

[He flopped over on his back and stared at the sky. This wasn't the kind of thing he could change in one conversation.]

I don't know.
Edited 2018-07-19 18:16 (UTC)
ax_iom: (You know me I can't be redeemed)

[personal profile] ax_iom 2018-07-19 06:18 pm (UTC)(link)
I can fix it.

If everyone hates me... If everyone believes I'm the cause... If everything is my fault, and then I die, everyone will be happy.
thinkingwithmahous: (Analyzing)

[personal profile] thinkingwithmahous 2018-07-19 06:20 pm (UTC)(link)
I wouldn't be. Lighthouse wouldn't either.
ax_iom: (You know me I can't be redeemed)

[personal profile] ax_iom 2018-07-19 06:22 pm (UTC)(link)
You're stronger than I am! You can move on. But everyone else... Do you think the world will accept finding out that everything they did was for nothing?! There was no point to it?!
thinkingwithmahous: (This is stupid)

[personal profile] thinkingwithmahous 2018-07-19 06:24 pm (UTC)(link)
That's their problem!
ax_iom: (What do you want from me?)

[personal profile] ax_iom 2018-07-19 06:25 pm (UTC)(link)
It's our problem, too! What good is what we're doing if we're only making people suffer?!

[... this isn't her own feelings, so much as residual mindfuck.]
founderinglight: ([my place plz])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-19 06:26 pm (UTC)(link)
A bit aggressive, perhaps, but she seems well enough.

[He likes Jail, tbh, she's a bit erratic but they sort of have a common alien girlfriend.]
ax_iom: (What do you want from me?)

[personal profile] ax_iom 2018-07-19 06:29 pm (UTC)(link)
... I'm glad.

[She lets out a deep sigh.]

... Faith knows you, too?
joyinastrangeplace: Jude Law as John Watson, holding a cane over his shoulder (Default)

[personal profile] joyinastrangeplace 2018-07-19 06:30 pm (UTC)(link)
[He takes the hint.]

The God-machine creates angels for its bidding. These angels fall, and become demons, when they make any choice at all.

[He sighs.]

This is as precise as I can be.

The world I found myself in when I died was not a sane one.
joyinastrangeplace: Jude Law as John Watson, holding a cane over his shoulder (Default)

[personal profile] joyinastrangeplace 2018-07-19 06:32 pm (UTC)(link)
God.

Well, one of them, anyway.

[Damn, Watson, your universe is kins of a shitshow isn't it.]
founderinglight: ([late with spacebucks])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-19 06:32 pm (UTC)(link)
And she took to some of my history about as well as you might, but that's understandable enough.