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...
motherfucking_ghost: (ain't that something)

[personal profile] motherfucking_ghost 2018-07-13 06:49 pm (UTC)(link)
I count among the 'can fight and use magic' number, yeah. I might not be any good at the using magic part, but hey, I'm a noob.
shipoutofluck: (004)

[personal profile] shipoutofluck 2018-07-13 06:56 pm (UTC)(link)
Might want to stick to what you're already capable with for now.

But good. If we run into even more dogs than just now, I'd like to know you're prepared.
motherfucking_ghost: (yeah I know I'm great)

[personal profile] motherfucking_ghost 2018-07-13 07:29 pm (UTC)(link)
You seemed to have it all under control with your rock powers.
shipoutofluck: (008)

[personal profile] shipoutofluck 2018-07-13 07:44 pm (UTC)(link)
Aye, I can take care of myself. But having me there won't help your odds the way you think it will.
motherfucking_ghost: (ain't that something)

[personal profile] motherfucking_ghost 2018-07-13 07:45 pm (UTC)(link)
...That sounds ominous.
shipoutofluck: (001)

[personal profile] shipoutofluck 2018-07-13 07:53 pm (UTC)(link)
That's one word to describe bringing the Reaper with you, yes.
shipoutofluck: (013)

[personal profile] shipoutofluck 2018-07-13 08:13 pm (UTC)(link)
And that's another one.

[He doesn't even blink.]
motherfucking_ghost: (you're way too sure of yourself)

[personal profile] motherfucking_ghost 2018-07-13 08:16 pm (UTC)(link)
You've got a real bleak outlook on yourself, dude.
shipoutofluck: (009)

[personal profile] shipoutofluck 2018-07-13 08:24 pm (UTC)(link)
Maybe so. But it's not a case of simple pessimism, it's experience and caution. My presence brings ill fortune to everyone around me.

So having me along is a bad strategy. As I said, you won't improve your odds any.
motherfucking_ghost: (looking at you buddy)

[personal profile] motherfucking_ghost 2018-07-13 08:29 pm (UTC)(link)
I upgrade bullshit to super bullshit.
shipoutofluck: (008)

[personal profile] shipoutofluck 2018-07-13 08:36 pm (UTC)(link)
Believe it or don't believe it, that's up to you. I'm just giving you the facts.
motherfucking_ghost: (Default)

[personal profile] motherfucking_ghost 2018-07-13 08:45 pm (UTC)(link)
So you're gonna, what, be a hermit and live out by yourself when this is over?
shipoutofluck: (007)

[personal profile] shipoutofluck 2018-07-13 08:52 pm (UTC)(link)
Hardly. I'm going to do as I please. I don't intend to change my path for the sake of anyone else.

I'm just giving others the chance to change theirs if they want. I don't especially care what anyone decides, but it might as well be an informed decision.
motherfucking_ghost: (Default)

[personal profile] motherfucking_ghost 2018-07-13 09:01 pm (UTC)(link)
Bad luck is not a superpower.
shipoutofluck: (008)

[personal profile] shipoutofluck 2018-07-13 09:03 pm (UTC)(link)
No, it's a curse.

[Well, technically it's a blessing, it's just a really shitty blessing.]
motherfucking_ghost: (Default)

[personal profile] motherfucking_ghost 2018-07-13 09:24 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, yeah, okay, technically, but that still sounds like magical bullshit instead of just shitty coincidence.
shipoutofluck: (007)

[personal profile] shipoutofluck 2018-07-13 10:45 pm (UTC)(link)
I never said it wasn't.

[He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a coin, idly flipping it.]

It's part of my power, if you want to call it that. All I'm doing is giving you a warning about it, since it can be fatal.
motherfucking_ghost: (you're way too sure of yourself)

[personal profile] motherfucking_ghost 2018-07-13 11:05 pm (UTC)(link)
You literally have magical bad luck? Did you piss off a witch or what?
shipoutofluck: (005)

[personal profile] shipoutofluck 2018-07-13 11:11 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, I've done that plenty of times. [Sorry not sorry, Magilou.] But no, that's not why. It's more innate than that. I'm a malak and technically, it's a part of my "blessing".
motherfucking_ghost: (you're way too sure of yourself)

[personal profile] motherfucking_ghost 2018-07-14 12:25 am (UTC)(link)
Hysterical, I'll have you know. The fuck's a muluck?
shipoutofluck: (008)

[personal profile] shipoutofluck 2018-07-14 12:52 am (UTC)(link)
I wouldn't go into comedy.

Anyway, that's malak and you're looking at it. Malakhim are a type of spiritual being with close ties to nature and powers relating to it.
motherfucking_ghost: (really shouldn't add to my confusion)

[personal profile] motherfucking_ghost 2018-07-14 02:48 pm (UTC)(link)
I'll have you know that sliding around a dance floor coated in lube in nothing but swim trunks is the height of comedy. [wait what-]

So you're an angel with a stone shotgun and a streak of bad luck that's only bad luck to literally everyone else around you?

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