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...
hairpincurves: (but only for the fools)

[personal profile] hairpincurves 2018-07-22 08:24 am (UTC)(link)
Mm.

[And lead the way she does! She's mostly silent during the walk, but eventually she slows to a stop.]

... Did you hear something?

[Something sounds faintly like growling...]
fifthreplacement: (Watching)

[personal profile] fifthreplacement 2018-07-22 08:30 am (UTC)(link)
[And he follows, keeping a little distance between them since personal space is a good but not too far either. When she stops, Sync glances around, hearing that]

...yeah, I hear it.

[Sync shifts to balance himself better, his hands curling into fists] You said there were dogs down here that'd been affected by the instability, right?
hairpincurves: (and tell me what you see)

[personal profile] hairpincurves 2018-07-22 08:43 am (UTC)(link)
That's right. They shouldn't be too much trouble if it's only a few, but if it's a bigger pack it could get a little messy.

[Those blue flames from earlier appear again, some settling into the shape of her mask and the rest transforming her clothes.]

But I think the two of us can handle some mutts juuuuuust fine, don't you?

[She shifts a bit herself, grinning. It's just as she's pulling out a knife that the first of the dogs come into view.]
thecompletionofthings: Head-and-shoulders shot of actress Q'orianka Kilcher from 2005 (Default)

Harriet Miller | Masks | Tabletop OC

[personal profile] thecompletionofthings 2018-07-22 08:45 am (UTC)(link)

(1) Day

A teenage girl of obvious South American heritage, 5'3", dressed in a black cap-sleeve T-shirt and blue jeans, appears suddenly on a broad boulevard at the edge of the city park. She staggers for a moment, then catches her balance and her breath. Turning slowly in a full circle, she takes note of the obvious lack of people, and the apparently magical fountain, with no more than a "Huh."

"Am I Beyond the Gate?" she wonders aloud, in California-accented English. "Can't be. But where is everyone?"

Concentrating for a moment, gathering power to herself and measuring it out again, she picks a direction and begins to walk as if she knows where she's going. Anyone who can sense the balance of cosmic forces is aware that she is now a loaded weapon.

(2) Dusk

"Shit." The girl scans the area looking for anyone who might be trapped by the rising flames, then gestures, calling a blurry wall of force to protect them long enough for her to reach them. "Get it in gear, we need to find shelter! Maybe the subways will be safer!" As she drags them toward the nearest downward stairs, a sheath and cowl of non-light flicker into being around her—tangible darkness stained with flickers of deepest red, crackling quietly with the sound of radio static and emitting a whiff of ozone.

(3) Night

Flame-hounds. Giant slime molds. The girl in the sheath of non-light methodically demolishes anything that looks threatening, detonating it with psychic force or slamming it out of the way. She prowls the tunnels, unable to stand still for more than a minute at a time, desperately searching for anyone who might know what's going on. "Nirvikalpa, guide me," she growls. It's not a prayer—it's an order.

fifthreplacement: (Smirk)

[personal profile] fifthreplacement 2018-07-22 08:49 am (UTC)(link)
[Sync has to smirk a little, eyes snapping onto the dogs as they appear]

I'd be a pretty poor God-General if I couldn't handle a couple of simple monsters. This'll be easy.

[He doesn't draw a weapon, instead focusing on their foes. Those dogs still have some distance to cross to reach them. Which means pretty much one thing, with Akira seemingly ready to melee. Sync starts casting, a purple glyph appearing under his feet as he starts channelling the wind around him, changing it into lightning that gathers in the air above him.

Also rather idly, a little bit of the green fonons he directs over to Akira, where they collide with her arm and disappear. Friend-or-Foe markers are important kids]
thecompletionofthings: Head-and-shoulders shot of actress Q'orianka Kilcher from 2005 (Default)

#2: Day

[personal profile] thecompletionofthings 2018-07-22 08:59 am (UTC)(link)
Harriet can sense the other girl before she hears her, hear her before she sees her, and she takes no particular care to remain silent. Rounding the corner of the line of food stands, she hails the stranger whose cooking efforts are already starting to smell delicious. Harriet's uncomfortably reminded that she fought an alien menace in low Earth orbit after lunch and hasn't had so much as a sip of water since.

"Hi," she hails the brown girl. "Arcade Fire? You from my part of reality?"
class_struggle: (Default)

2

[personal profile] class_struggle 2018-07-22 09:03 am (UTC)(link)
"They will be - I can assure you of that!"

This 15-year-old boy in the blacksmith-inspired body armor - goggles on - is grabbing and pulling fire away, seemingly telekinetically, before this stranger to him deploys the Vantablack Cloak.

He stops to look for a moment, then nods. "Can you help me hold back the flames?"
hairpincurves: (is a desperate cry for war)

[personal profile] hairpincurves 2018-07-22 09:06 am (UTC)(link)
[She blinks as she spots the fonons, but decides she has more important priorities when one of the dogs leaps at her.

A glance over to Sync tells her clearly to buy some time while he's casting, so as she knocks the first dog away, more of those flames shimmer over her mask. The mask, however, isn't in place for long as it turns into fire and swirls above her, reforming as some sort of bird.]


Jatayu!

[The bird screeches as it casts a Marakunda, weakening the dogs for whatever Sync's got in store for them... as well as her own strikes, as she slashes at another one.]
hurt_comforting: (Default)

[personal profile] hurt_comforting 2018-07-22 09:10 am (UTC)(link)
"That's possible," she says, looking over the new girl's clothes - the new girl's very new, very Before clothes. "Mine was a far different kind of desolate than this, though."

At the unasked question, she hands over a skewer. "Take it," she insists. "There's too much for one person - or two dozen, really - to put a dent in before it goes off."
thecompletionofthings: Head-and-shoulders shot of actress Q'orianka Kilcher from 2005 (Default)

Re: 2

[personal profile] thecompletionofthings 2018-07-22 09:13 am (UTC)(link)
In answer, Harriet points, and a moat of disjoint space blocks the fire's progress toward them, clearing a temporary path.

"I can't hold this forever," she says, "not against this much fire. Let's go." Without waiting for a reply, she sprints for the nearest subway entrance.
class_struggle: (Default)

Re: 2

[personal profile] class_struggle 2018-07-22 09:17 am (UTC)(link)
No Word, and a mere gesture for Wand? That's one hell of a Will the stranger's packing.

Alex spends only half a second gawking before falling back, walking backwards with both palms up; where he retreats, the fire advances. The disjunction helps.

Once she and any others are in safely, he closes his palms and hauls ass into the tunnels, grinning.
fifthreplacement: (Focused)

[personal profile] fifthreplacement 2018-07-22 09:19 am (UTC)(link)
[Well that's something interesting all right. He appreciates the time bought, and it doesn't take him long to finishing casting, deciding to warn Akira that he was by using the incantation]

O storm cloud, those thy blade... [The lightning above him changes shape, forming itself into a sword] ...Thunder Blade!

[The lightning sword crashes down, aimed roughly at the centre of the pack so that the area of effect around the arte will catch as many of them as he can with searing lightning. No matter where Akira ends up however, the arte doesn't touch her, merely felt as static passing her by]
thecompletionofthings: Head-and-shoulders shot of actress Q'orianka Kilcher from 2005 (Default)

[personal profile] thecompletionofthings 2018-07-22 09:19 am (UTC)(link)
Harriet gratefully accepts the kebab, blows on it a bit to cool it, and carefully begins to eat. After she's put half of it away, she pauses and says, "Excuse me a moment."

Stepping between the food stands to get a view of the fountain, she interrogates shinma Dharma. Is that water pure enough to drink safely?

The answer is reassuring, and she returns to finish her kebab in the other girl's company. When she's done, she says, "If you're thirsty, I checked out the fountain. It's clean water—drinkable." She pauses. "I'm Harriet."
thecompletionofthings: Head-and-shoulders shot of actress Q'orianka Kilcher from 2005 (Default)

Re: 2

[personal profile] thecompletionofthings 2018-07-22 09:23 am (UTC)(link)
With everyone safely downstairs, Harriet releases the moat, and the fire roars forward. She glances around the filthy, half-ruined subway station.

"Eloi up top, Morlocks down here?" she mutters. Then, louder, "Hi. I'm Nir—I mean, I'm Harriet. You from around here?"
hurt_comforting: (:giggles:)

[personal profile] hurt_comforting 2018-07-22 09:24 am (UTC)(link)
...Oh no, that's cute. Smiling, and absolutely not giggling, Merry reaches into the cart and retrieves two cold bottles of water.

The brand is unfamiliar, but the logo is of water in alchemy.

"I'll keep that in mind once the bottles run out," she drawls. "I think whatever you just did rules out my world, though. Meredith. A pleasure."
class_struggle: (Default)

[personal profile] class_struggle 2018-07-22 09:29 am (UTC)(link)
"Hellhounds below, anyway," he responds. "And above? No Namers of any sort but us travellers, though some have walked this way a month or two longer than you or me."

He offers his hand. There's the remains of healed first degree burns on the fingertips. "Alexander. I arrived a few days ago."
Edited 2018-07-22 09:32 (UTC)
thecompletionofthings: Head-and-shoulders shot of actress Q'orianka Kilcher from 2005 (Default)

Dusk

[personal profile] thecompletionofthings 2018-07-22 09:29 am (UTC)(link)
Safety manifests itself as a form clad in tangible darkness holding up a hand. Space divides on either side of Ruto and her mount, isolating her temporarily from the advancing flames.

"I can't hold the moat for long against this much fire," shouts the stranger shrouded in non-light. "Get to the subway station! It's safe underground!"

Once bird and rider are on their way, Harriet follows them at a run.
Edited 2018-07-22 11:19 (UTC)
hairpincurves: (and tell me what you see)

[personal profile] hairpincurves 2018-07-22 09:35 am (UTC)(link)
[She jumps back as she hears the incantation, so she's at least not right in the thick of it. The bird's vanished and reformed into her mask by now, so her surprise isn't immediately visible when she only feels static.

... Cool.

The arte does take care of most of the dogs, a couple near the rear of the pack turning tail and running off, but leaving some of the rest in the front. Akira just grins as she switches Personas again--then summons.]


Mothman!

[Might as well keep rolling with the electricity, Akira thinks. And so something shaped like a friend appears, blasting the rest of the stragglers with a Mazionga--the skill easily finishing off the ones that had already been damaged by Thunder Blade.]

Heh, no problem at all...
thecompletionofthings: Head-and-shoulders shot of actress Q'orianka Kilcher from 2005 (Default)

[personal profile] thecompletionofthings 2018-07-22 09:41 am (UTC)(link)
"Namers?" Harriet inquires. "Is that some sort of lodge? I don't know the secret handshake." She takes his hand and shakes it the plain old American way; the non-light is like a glove tingling with static electricity. "Harriet. I think it was after noon today when I arrived? Don't know which way the Sun travels here. What language are you speaking and how come I can understand it?"
Edited 2018-07-22 09:43 (UTC)
thecompletionofthings: Head-and-shoulders shot of actress Q'orianka Kilcher from 2005 (Default)

[personal profile] thecompletionofthings 2018-07-22 09:48 am (UTC)(link)
Harriet raises an eyebrow, but accepts the bottle without comment and slugs half of it down. "Thanks," she gasps as she recaps it. "Not from my world, not from this world…are we Beyond the Gate after all, then?" She pauses, seeming to listen for something. "No," she decides. "Definitely not, though there's something weird going on. Something, I mean, weirder than both of us being here."
class_struggle: (Default)

[personal profile] class_struggle 2018-07-22 09:50 am (UTC)(link)
"Uh... I mean people. Beings who can name - and name themselves. It's a more all-inclusive term than - " The word he says is Andrax, the meaning she perceives is - "...human."

He stops to think. "I'd call my own tongue Trader's, or Mid-Caelii. And if we were in our own world I'd call the translation effect a Mystic enchantment?"

Said Mystic enchantment is particular about the capitalization.

"...My spells and yours work well enough here so the physics can't be that different," he concludes, shrugging. "But that may be the Fissures at work."
fifthreplacement: (Standing)

[personal profile] fifthreplacement 2018-07-22 09:51 am (UTC)(link)
[He watches as the few surviving dogs turn tail as the unfortunate ones fall to the summon. He's reminded briefly of Arietta, but these are definitely different to her beasts. The magic in their summoning, for starters]

Not bad. You've got some nice skills.

[Sync's impressed despite himself. It's always nice to know when people you're fighting with are capable of holding their own]
hurt_comforting: (Default)

[personal profile] hurt_comforting 2018-07-22 09:58 am (UTC)(link)
"No, far from home, and deeply weird," she agrees. "There are a lot of empty stores with full stocks, working fridges, nothing rotten or broken or aged... it's eerie."

She hefts a camper's backpack behind her. "I stocked up on durable foods and tools while I had the chance, and you might want to too."

She puts the bag down again. "...so tell me about your Gate?" she asks, grabbing her own skewer and leaning over the counter.
thecompletionofthings: Head-and-shoulders shot of actress Q'orianka Kilcher from 2005 (Default)

[personal profile] thecompletionofthings 2018-07-22 09:59 am (UTC)(link)
"You obviously have a hell of a lot better idea than I do what's going on," Harriet says. "Do you think you can explain it in a useful order and level of detail for someone who doesn't cast spells? I mean, from my point of view, shinma Nirvikalpa is folded, spindled and mutilated around here, so maybe it's no wonder we can talk to each other. But how it happened, and how I got here, I have no clue."
Edited 2018-07-22 10:00 (UTC)
hairpincurves: (so look inside the mirror)

[personal profile] hairpincurves 2018-07-22 10:02 am (UTC)(link)
Ah, thanks...

[She pushes her mask up to rest on her head, then grins. Akira is definitely impressed. The power this guy's packing... wow.]

Gotta say, what you did was pretty badass.