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phantasmemes2018-07-12 11:56 pm
phantasmods) wrote in 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...
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...
Margulis | Xenosaga/The Velvet Key+Exsilium+My Little Jamjar CRAU
[Another day, another new world. By this point, Margulis just rolls his eyes at the abrupt change in scenery. On the other hand, he has...well, hands again. Being human shaped again is enough to distract him from the exasperation at finding himself somewhere new again...at least for a moment.
Once he gets past the initial off balancing effect of going from quadrupedal back to bipedal, he sets about to explore. These places never bring just one person, after all. (And, usually, they bring at least Nakagawa with him...) So then, his first priority is finding someone who's been here longer than him and finding out what the situation is.
...Hopefully people won't be too put off by the 6' tall man with a sword at each hip, two more crossed on his back, and a perpetual scowl on his scarred walking with a clear sense of purpose.]
[Dusk]
[Fire, in and of itself, doesn't bother Margulis. It's his primary element, after all, and he's perfectly at home amid the flames. The collapsing buildings, on the other hand, are more of an inconvenience. Even with his speed, dodging chunks of falling masonry in a city of this size takes effort.
More than that, though, it brings to mind images from eighteen years ago. Miltia, collapsing around him, partially because of his own actions...from more recently, when Elmer's world had fallen to the United Earth forces and he'd been unable to make a difference against them. Calling it stressful would be an understatement. In between bouts of dodging debris, he looks tense. It could easily be blamed on discomfort from the heat, but the way he moves without regard for the flames...no, it's probably something else.]
day
Akira's going to stand her ground, though--for a certain measure of 'standing'. She was actually just sitting down for a break in placing stabilizers, a soda and a small lunch set out in front of her on this table, her phone sitting nearby. She looks up as Margulis approaches, and...
... Well, she's certainly not going to admit to the way she just tensed up a little.]
Do you, uh... need help with something?
no subject
Information, for now. Whatever force brought me here wasn't kind enough to provide a method of communication this time, let alone an orientation packet.
no subject
Well, we know at this point is that there is something pulling people through unstable cracks of reality... An orientation packet, though, there's an idea. The short version is you got pulled in through one of these unstable reality cracks--a Fissure--while the people who were already here are trying to stabilize it.
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Dush
H-hold on! Are you okay?! It's less bad over here!
[The source of the voice is just out of earshot, but obviously on a nearby street that, so far at least, happens to be slightly less on fire. Pidonus must have spotted Margulis by coincidence.]
no subject
What's happening here?
no subject
[Pidonus' wings are out, and she's watching every which way for the next bit of debris.]
Damn it, need to find a safe location and quick...
no subject
[Oh thank the Zohar, the air is less full of smoke over here.]
no subject
Do you need healing or anything immediate?
[The woman glances towards him.]
Name's Pidonus, by the way.
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day
[Church stares at the guy. Then squints. Then...looks not super sure. You'd think maybe the swords would put him off, but no. No they do not.]
Hey, don't I know you...?
no subject
Not that I'm aware of, though I certainly haven't spoken directly to everyone in all of the worlds I've been through. If you've been to Prospero, Exsilium, or Equestria, it's possible.
no subject
Wait, you hung out with the My Little Ponies?
no subject
And yes, I spent some time as a unicorn. It was disorienting, to say the least.
no subject
You don't, uh, you don't remember like a space station kinda thing? And murders?
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day
Hello.
no subject
Relax, I'm not looking to cause a scene.
no subject
[She nods in greeting.]
Margulis. ...Or another one? Like the Akiras. And others.
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dusk
[Robin's standing in a direction where things are definitely less on fire and there's a straight shot to a station that will hopefully stay that way.]
There's an entrance to some underground tunnels not far from here!
no subject
Good. So long as there isn't anything igniting things down there as well, it should stay relatively safe.
no subject
The only things ignited down there are some of the magical wildlife and those are easily fended off.
[It's a little muffled, admittedly, because now Robin's pulling the collar of his sleeveless turtleneck up over his nose and mouth. He's going to keep talking as he moves towards the station...]
We've established a base camp as well, I'll lead you there.