phantasmods: (Default)
Phantasmal Rift Mods ([personal profile] phantasmods) wrote in [community profile] phantasmemes2018-07-12 11:56 pm
Entry tags:

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...
fifthreplacement: (Glance away)

[personal profile] fifthreplacement 2018-07-22 12:28 pm (UTC)(link)
[He shrugs]

You're free to go and find out. It's not like I'm stopping you.

[Are these things he's going to want to eventually find out? Yes. Is that going to stop him from being a child while he's in a bad mood and refusing to move? N o p e]
bloodyashes: ([D] Transformation)

[personal profile] bloodyashes 2018-07-22 12:45 pm (UTC)(link)
[Mmmn.]

Gather information and compare notes later?
hairpincurves: (surrender the throne)

[personal profile] hairpincurves 2018-07-22 12:47 pm (UTC)(link)
Right? Like how Bless sounds like it should be healing and support for allies... not 'heaven's light of holy judgment' or whatever.

[Above and behind her, Arsene seems to snort slightly. Someone doesn't care much for Bless, apparently.]

The others I'm used to working with are fire, ice, electricity, wind, nuclear, and psychic. Not sure why those last two qualify as elements, to tell you the truth, but I guess they exist.

[A pause.]

Well, and then there's what's called Almighty. It's rare, but there's nothing out there that has a resistance to it. There's a couple that drain life force or spiritual power from an enemy... Stuff that weakens an enemy like making them dizzy or confused tend to be their own thing, but a couple Almighty skills can raise susceptibility to that sort of thing.
fifthreplacement: (Watching)

[personal profile] fifthreplacement 2018-07-22 12:50 pm (UTC)(link)
[Another shrug]

If you want. I don't really care.

[Granted, finding these things out from Asch is probably going to bother him later if he doesn't find out by himself now...but then, why does he care? It's not like anything here really matters to Sync]
fifthreplacement: (Lost in thought)

[personal profile] fifthreplacement 2018-07-22 12:54 pm (UTC)(link)
[He notices Arsene's response to that, and it makes him smirk a little. He can agree with that. It sounds too religious for Sync's liking]

That's the oddest set of elements I've ever heard of. Auldrant just has darkness, earth, wind, water, fire, light, and sound. Lightning is an advanced form of wind.

[He tilts his head a little, thinking on that last element Akira mentioned] Almighty sounds similar to the Seventh. Sound tends to have the strongest of artes, which almost nothing is resistant to. It can completely break down matter, when controlled correctly when two or more people who can use it are around one another.
bloodyashes: (The chibi has a map -)

[personal profile] bloodyashes 2018-07-22 12:56 pm (UTC)(link)
[Don't tell Asch that.]

Lots of practice.
bloodyashes: ([F] Sorry about him)

[personal profile] bloodyashes 2018-07-22 12:58 pm (UTC)(link)
...Try not to die. You're old enough that I shouldn't have to babysit you.

[That sounds more like the Asch Sync knows, and what Sync probably won't pick up on is that it's an intentional cultivation, in that moment.]
riderofcharlemagne: (sumanai)

[personal profile] riderofcharlemagne 2018-07-22 12:58 pm (UTC)(link)
If it's really your fault- getting caught up over it won't change anything!

[Astolfo's neither wise nor observant, so the change in Kyoko's gem completely misses him. Once more, he parries, aiming to just keep her away from him.]

Everyone leaves. At some point. Somehow. Eventually. It doesn't matter, because you'll always have that memory with you!
fifthreplacement: (Angry)

[personal profile] fifthreplacement 2018-07-22 01:00 pm (UTC)(link)
[That gets his head to snap up and now he's glaring at you Asch, so good job??]

I don't need you to watch over me. I don't need anyone.
hairpincurves: (surrender the throne)

[personal profile] hairpincurves 2018-07-22 01:04 pm (UTC)(link)
[It doesn't help that Bless is one of Arsene's weaknesses, honestly...]

The one you're used to definitely sounds like it makes more sense. I could give ice a pass as the logical extension to water, but I'm not sure where earth screwed off to in the systems Personas use.

[It fucked off when Philemon did, that's what happened

Her eyebrows shoot up a little at the description of the Seventh fonon though. Completely break down matter? Holy shit.]


That... sounds pretty terrifying. I'm assuming something that powerful has nasty drawbacks if you're not careful...
Edited (HTML o9) 2018-07-22 13:04 (UTC)
redmeguca: (The hell?)

[personal profile] redmeguca 2018-07-22 01:04 pm (UTC)(link)
Sayaka's different! If it weren't for this damn place, I would have gone with her!

[The tears that were merely threatening to fall before are now streaming down her face as her strikes grow more vicious, but less coordinated.]

I promised to stay with her, and I couldn't even do that!
bloodyashes: ([D] Transformation)

[personal profile] bloodyashes 2018-07-22 01:08 pm (UTC)(link)
Then prove it.

[Spite's a great motivator.

With that, Asch hops off his seat, before Sync gets any ideas, and starts making his way back toward the far tunnel entrance.]
fifthreplacement: (Watching)

[personal profile] fifthreplacement 2018-07-22 01:08 pm (UTC)(link)
Ice is part of water, yeah. You mix a little earth into it to make it stable.

[Personas do have an odd element system, Sync will agree with that. He nods at her words]

If not controlled, it'll just obliterate everything, including yourself. Or possibly just teleport you half-way across the planet and make you pass out for a few hours in a monster infested region. It's not something people use lightly, Seventh is mostly used for healing.

[Unless you're a certain pair of redheads anyway, then you give your teammate heart attacks by using them for arbitrary reasons or in your mystic artes]
fifthreplacement: (Focused)

[personal profile] fifthreplacement 2018-07-22 01:12 pm (UTC)(link)
[Asch did you really just walk away from a pissed off Sync that you just deliberately pissed off.

If you thought he wasn't going to fire an Absolute at you for that, you are utterly mistaken.

Enjoy your ice]
bloodyashes: ([F] Tag it and bag it)

[personal profile] bloodyashes 2018-07-22 01:18 pm (UTC)(link)
[Truthfully, that's utterly what he expected -

Which is how he's quick enough to dodge it entirely, whirling on his heel to look back at Sync, wearing one of those smirks that only ever came out of him on the rarest of occasions on Auldrant. The kind that's confident without being quite cocky, the one that shows that he feels in control and like he knows exactly what he's doing.]


That's more like it.

[Later, he's out of here.]
fifthreplacement: (Fighting)

[personal profile] fifthreplacement 2018-07-22 01:23 pm (UTC)(link)
[Okay.

He just went from pissed off to outrage rage.

Which is why he is on his feet in ridiculous amounts of time and is launching himself forwards, because punching Asch is priority number one right now and nothing else really matter anymore.

...if Asch didn't think this was going to happen, he's clearly forgotten how volatile Sync can be]
founderinglight: <user name="owlteria" site="tumblr.com"> ([my fave actually])

/cuts in

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-22 01:26 pm (UTC)(link)
[Kyoko, have you been paying enough attention to notice that there's someone else around now?

Probably not, until there's a scatter of blue magic and a greatsword that is, honestly, the full height of Kyoko's body appears at the end of her spear, breaking the path of her strike. The wielder is behind it, a tall man in a black coat and a blue scarf, and in a deep voice - ]


Enough.
bloodyashes: (Default)

[personal profile] bloodyashes 2018-07-22 01:31 pm (UTC)(link)
[He might've, a little.

But where one attack comes, it's fair game to expect another, so by the time Sync is across the space, Asch's sword is drawn and up for a block.

His expression is less of a smirk, now, but it doesn't really falter. There's a sort of ease to the way he moves, even with the obviously heavy pack -

Wherever the hell Asch was, he clearly didn't get entirely out of shape there. And compared to Sync at the moment, for once, he's the one with a clear head.]
fifthreplacement: (Fighting)

[personal profile] fifthreplacement 2018-07-22 01:34 pm (UTC)(link)
[Asch has the advantage in this fight, Sync would be the first to admit it if he was thinking clearly. But as he's not, he's not going to stop from spinning around into a kick follow up to his initial attack.

The good thing is that his initial rage will eventually bleed out. The bad thing is it's hard to tell when that'll actually be]
bloodyashes: ([D] Transformation)

[personal profile] bloodyashes 2018-07-22 01:42 pm (UTC)(link)
[He's as relentless as ever. Asch is perfectly content to just keep blocking unless Sync starts going for the artes again - and he's careful too to keep himself off the rails embedded in the ground, the thin glowing lines of Sixth Fonons. It's Sync; he could use either of those for a nasty surprise, somehow.

But aside from that, there's enough empty space, and he's well-rested enough to wait this out for at least a little while. Hopefully, long enough to get an opening.]
fifthreplacement: (Fighting)

[personal profile] fifthreplacement 2018-07-22 01:48 pm (UTC)(link)
[The constant blocking is getting on his nerves. But the rage isn't making him think of artes just yet. So it's blow after blow.

Is this stupid? Yes. But he doesn't care. If he can get even one hit in, he'll probably be happy. But getting that hit in is going to be hard bordering on impossible for him, and he's too angry to see that, even as his initial stamina burst starts to wear. Sync is not built for this constant barrage for how long Asch can keep up blocking him]
bloodyashes: ([D] Transformation)

[personal profile] bloodyashes 2018-07-22 01:57 pm (UTC)(link)
[Truthfully, the constant blocking is starting to make his arm sore - even like this, Sync hits hard and he keeps up those hard hits at a fast pace. Asch has backed up a few steps in the process of blocking, but he stays well away from the wall - his back is to the open hole of the tunnel, instead.

And there - an attempt at a high strike, which leaves just enough of an opening for - ]


Raging Blast!

[Hey Sync, enjoy that knockback?]
fifthreplacement: (Focused)

[personal profile] fifthreplacement 2018-07-22 02:04 pm (UTC)(link)
[He sees it coming, but that doesn't mean he can avoid it. It at least doesn't knock him down, though it does knock him backwards.

Asch does kind of remind him that artes exist though, which means hey, you know what? MORE ICE. Because he can ice while he runs back in and attempts to punch Asch again.

Listen, it's easy and possibly on the verge of cheating, but he doesn't care okay]
bloodyashes: ([F] You saw NOTHIN)

[personal profile] bloodyashes 2018-07-22 02:11 pm (UTC)(link)
[Yeah that sure is some ice. Asch mostly sidesteps it, though it leaves him with a bit of frost on his leg that would probably be more of a problem if he was chasing Sync around instead of just letting the little punk wear himself out.

He's not actually looking to hurt, for once. So that makes it easier to not get caught up in it - to keep himself from going down the temper road that has Sync in its grip.

Too bad it looks like he's not likely to get another opening any time soon, unless he makes one for himself. Sync's familiar with the tickle-pop-burst of someone breaking into Overlimit by now, surely?]
Edited 2018-07-22 14:14 (UTC)
fifthreplacement: (Caught off guard)

[personal profile] fifthreplacement 2018-07-22 02:17 pm (UTC)(link)
[He's familiar with it, but he was mid-attack when it popped, so there's nothing Sync can do but snarl as he gets knocked backwards and entirely off balance. There's literally nothing he can do while he tries to recover, Asch has all the opening he wants]