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...
founderinglight: (Default)

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-20 03:19 am (UTC)(link)
[He's not going to laugh. He's not. Of all people, a Lucis Caelum understands the feeling of I Must Be Dramatic.

So he just. Puts a hand gently on her shoulder, unless she moves to avoid it.]


I'm terribly sorry.
founderinglight: ([sketchyplaceholder])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-20 03:20 am (UTC)(link)
It's a part of my family's magic, and the kind I'm frankly best at. Tiring, but very much second nature.
ax_iom: (I understand and we move forward)

[personal profile] ax_iom 2018-07-20 03:22 am (UTC)(link)
You can do more than one kind?

[She's. Filing that away for later in case she does have to fight him.]
founderinglight: ([my place plz])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-20 03:26 am (UTC)(link)
[And for the same reason, he's not telling her everything he can do.]

Most of our abilities have to do with the manipulation of matter by the medium of light in similar ways.

[Tucking his bottle of juice between his knees, he reaches into his Armiger and, in a sparkle of blue, pulls out...

An ear of roasted corn?]


The Armiger is the most handy to have on a day-to-day basis.
ax_iom: (What is it you want me to be for you?)

[personal profile] ax_iom 2018-07-20 03:33 am (UTC)(link)
The... Armiger? Is that... a kind of magic, then?

[Lily's smart. But she's also... Well, uneducated. She never went to school much. So she got lost at 'manipulation of matter by medium of light'.]
founderinglight: ([late with spacebucks])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-20 03:38 am (UTC)(link)
Yes, it's a magical storage space.

[He tosses the corn over in his hand, and then it just... vanishes back into nothing and sparkles.]

Effectively, anyway, the precise mechanism is more complicated.
ax_iom: (What do you want from me?)

[personal profile] ax_iom 2018-07-20 03:42 am (UTC)(link)
I wouldn't understand it anyway.

Is that how you warp? You... store yourself, or something?
nojohnyouare: Reaching for snowflakes. (but they don't know the feeling)

[personal profile] nojohnyouare 2018-07-20 03:44 am (UTC)(link)
Yes. Some came with us. To rescue their family.
founderinglight: ([sketchyplaceholder])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-20 03:46 am (UTC)(link)
Not really, no. Warping relies in a thrown object, and visualizing oneself at the endpoint of the throw.

[Which is something he doesn't really mind telling, but probably enough to be alarming in her considerations of his combat potential, since he was throwing things very far and very accurately to get between lamp posts.]
einherjarista: (why are you like this)

[personal profile] einherjarista 2018-07-20 03:51 am (UTC)(link)
...Thank you.

At least the cafe is safe for now. I just have to worry about fire and fire dogs here.

Actually, the cafe I visited earlier today probably isn't safe. That's a shame.
einherjarista: (walking disaster)

[personal profile] einherjarista 2018-07-20 03:53 am (UTC)(link)
...I have to meet these guys.
ax_iom: (My penance)

[personal profile] ax_iom 2018-07-20 04:03 am (UTC)(link)
Thanks.

I'll be back soon.
ax_iom: (What is it you want me to be for you?)

[personal profile] ax_iom 2018-07-20 04:09 am (UTC)(link)
... That sounds...

[No, that's not what she thinks. In fact, her mind is going other places- She thinks that ability could likely be made stronger.

But she's not going to tell him that.]


Inconvenient.
fistsofchange: (Talkin')

[personal profile] fistsofchange 2018-07-20 04:12 am (UTC)(link)
Apparently they're all in stasis or something. Maybe if we can fix this, they can all come back.
thinkingwithmahous: (This is stupid)

[personal profile] thinkingwithmahous 2018-07-20 04:14 am (UTC)(link)
We're like the same damn size. You wanna try to lift me up and see how good YOU do?
nojohnyouare: Talking. (what i've become)

[personal profile] nojohnyouare 2018-07-20 04:15 am (UTC)(link)
Interested? In magitek. If you are, Ardyn knows a lot, too.
moonlightglory: (Why is this necessary)

[personal profile] moonlightglory 2018-07-20 04:38 am (UTC)(link)
Kind of? It was like a month ago, but basically the same deal.
fistsofchange: (I don't know what that means)

[personal profile] fistsofchange 2018-07-20 04:41 am (UTC)(link)
"You'd have to ask an expert for the details, but the long and short of it was that the people who lived here did something that started creating this things called fissures, which would horribly distort reality. We're in a fissure right now, which is why it's so weird here." She spoke as they walked, wholly oblivious of how dashing she apparently was. All she was thinking about right now was solving Meredith's confusion.

"When the fissures got big enough, they started pulling people through too. Or...something like that. They assure me it's more complicated than that, but I don't really get the specifics."
promittere: (Default)

[personal profile] promittere 2018-07-20 06:33 am (UTC)(link)
Don't hesitate to ask for help.

[It's an offer that he would make regardless of whatever history Asch has with him, and it's not something he feels obligated to because of that history he's not privy to.

The admission gets him to pause, though, brows furrowing, if only for just a moment. Then, with a soft laugh and a quirk of his lips-]


That's quite the ringing endorsement for you, isn't it?
bloodyashes: ([F] Sorry about him)

[personal profile] bloodyashes 2018-07-20 06:33 am (UTC)(link)
[Oh, right. He glances down at his hand.]

Burned myself a little.
class_struggle: (Default)

[personal profile] class_struggle 2018-07-20 06:34 am (UTC)(link)
He... thinks he understands. There are subtleties that will bite him on the ass if he doesn't comprehend them, he's sure, but with that in mind...

"Tell me how I might assist the Work," he says, both hands on his hammer. "Please.
bloodyashes: ([F] You saw NOTHIN)

[personal profile] bloodyashes 2018-07-20 06:38 am (UTC)(link)
[...Oh, damnit.

At least Ignis won't see the particular way he glances off to the side.]


I'm trying to make a point to not just treat you the same. Quit making it hard.

[Local obvious tsundere is... obvious...]
dubiouslychthonic: (Smile)

[personal profile] dubiouslychthonic 2018-07-20 06:42 am (UTC)(link)
Thank you. ["Doctor" isn't a title that a troll would use - it wouldn't fit the format required for an adult's chosen title and name - but there's certainly other medical titles that Jetshard could have claimed. On the other hand -] Sometimes it makes life simpler not to sound too clean-cut and official.
class_struggle: (Default)

[personal profile] class_struggle 2018-07-20 06:48 am (UTC)(link)
...Which aspect was your, ah, deific tyrant?
promittere: (Default)

[personal profile] promittere 2018-07-20 06:49 am (UTC)(link)
[It's so obvious even Ignis can see it.]

Not my intention in the slightest.

[His tone is chipper - he does feel awful for the confusion and how it must feel, but, well. He's not not a little shit.]

But I don't mind, if it makes it easier for you. I'm sure we would get along swimmingly even as strangers.