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...
daughterofthemark: (04F. A soaring shadow above)

[personal profile] daughterofthemark 2018-07-13 06:59 pm (UTC)(link)
I would describe it as closer to an offer of support. If I gave you an Attack Order, and you then chose to attack an enemy, you would find that your spear struck with greater strength than normal.
redmeguca: (If you say so.)

[personal profile] redmeguca 2018-07-13 07:13 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, it's enhancement magic! What you were trying to do was enhance my willpower! That's fine, sorry about the death threat. Let's start over, my name's Sakura Kyoko.
daughterofthemark: (B5F. A throne untouched by man)

[personal profile] daughterofthemark 2018-07-13 07:20 pm (UTC)(link)
Yes, exactly!

[Well, and she still doesn't think of it as magic, but some battles aren't worth fighting.]

You need not worry about it, Dame Kyoko. My name is Arianna Wakasa.
redmeguca: (B-baka...)

[personal profile] redmeguca 2018-07-13 07:29 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, there's no need for "Dame," I'm not anything that fancy.

[Though, there is a slight blush on her face from the title. She used to love reading about knights and stuff.]

Kyoko-san is good enough.
daughterofthemark: (04F. A soaring shadow above)

[personal profile] daughterofthemark 2018-07-13 07:44 pm (UTC)(link)
[And princesses, perhaps? Lucky her.]

That is simply how I refer to people. Though I certainly can call you Kyoko-san, if you would prefer it that way.
redmeguca: (If you say so.)

[personal profile] redmeguca 2018-07-13 07:59 pm (UTC)(link)
That'd be great, thanks. I'm no Knight in shining armor or anything like that. Probably closer to the dragon, actually.
daughterofthemark: (B3F. Malice cloaked in lies)

[personal profile] daughterofthemark 2018-07-13 08:08 pm (UTC)(link)
Because of your condition?

[C o n c e r n]
redmeguca: (If you say so.)

[personal profile] redmeguca 2018-07-13 08:14 pm (UTC)(link)
Huh? Oh, nah. Because I'm a kind of dragon-like person, I guess. I've got a literal hoarde of Grief Seeds back home for God's sake.
daughterofthemark: (Stratum 2: Auburn Thicket)

[personal profile] daughterofthemark 2018-07-13 08:29 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh! But I've known knights to have such tendencies as well. There is a storage room in High Lagaard filled with dozens of Medicas.
redmeguca: (B-baka...)

[personal profile] redmeguca 2018-07-13 08:34 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, well, Knights've got codes of honor and stuff. I don't have anything like that anymore.

[She is not the Knight archetype, that's someone else.]
daughterofthemark: (Stratum 1: Ancient Forest)

[personal profile] daughterofthemark 2018-07-13 08:48 pm (UTC)(link)
["Anymore," huh? Let's just file that tidbit away for later...]

Perhaps not. But it's not often that I meet such a cute dragon.
redmeguca: (B-baka...)

[personal profile] redmeguca 2018-07-13 08:52 pm (UTC)(link)
[Wow, Kyoko's face just went as red as her hair.]

Wha- what was that? I-i'm not cute! Madoka's the cute one, all pink and frilly, I'm not!
daughterofthemark: (B1F. At the ends of limitless hope)

[personal profile] daughterofthemark 2018-07-13 09:02 pm (UTC)(link)
[Yeah, she's not really helping her case there.]

I'm sure she is, but you are quite cute as well, Kyoko-san.
redmeguca: (B-baka...)

[personal profile] redmeguca 2018-07-13 09:03 pm (UTC)(link)
[Her blush is just spreading as she sputters.]

I'm not!
daughterofthemark: (26F. Precarious footing in the mist)

[personal profile] daughterofthemark 2018-07-13 09:08 pm (UTC)(link)
[She's just too cute! Arianna's impulse control fails her, and she gives Kyoko a hug.]

If you say so.
redmeguca: (B-baka...)

[personal profile] redmeguca 2018-07-13 09:10 pm (UTC)(link)
[Kyoko_Sakura.exe has stopped functioning. Please make a sudden sound to reboot]
daughterofthemark: (Default)

[personal profile] daughterofthemark 2018-07-13 09:21 pm (UTC)(link)
[Well, she isn't indicating distress or anything, so Arianna will hold her like that a little longer.]

I suppose I should explain to you what we know of the situation.
redmeguca: (B-baka...)

[personal profile] redmeguca 2018-07-13 09:24 pm (UTC)(link)
[Kyoko returns from the Elemental Plane of Embarrassment with a start. She shakes her head a bit, willing her blush to go down. It doesn't work.]

Y-yeah, let's do that.
daughterofthemark: (22F. Denial on pain of death)

[personal profile] daughterofthemark 2018-07-13 09:31 pm (UTC)(link)
[so

freaking

CUTE]


This world is covered in "Fissures," which are tears in reality. Recently people from other worlds, such as the two of us, have been found in Fissures. We've been working with a native team of androids to stabilize the Fissures in hopes that this can eventually both revitalize this world and allow us to return to our homes.
redmeguca: (Default)

[personal profile] redmeguca 2018-07-13 09:34 pm (UTC)(link)
[She isn't cute!]

Huh. Well, it ain't like anyone back home's gonna miss me, so I might as well help out.
daughterofthemark: (12F. Daunting frozen path)

[personal profile] daughterofthemark 2018-07-13 09:44 pm (UTC)(link)
[She's ADORABLE and she's a friend.]

But surely your friends and family will miss you.
Edited 2018-07-13 21:44 (UTC)
redmeguca: (Default)

[personal profile] redmeguca 2018-07-13 09:48 pm (UTC)(link)
Haven't got any. They're all dead.

[Kyoko that is not the kind of thing you just casually drop on a person!]
daughterofthemark: (27F. Imprisoned by God's keys)

[personal profile] daughterofthemark 2018-07-13 09:58 pm (UTC)(link)
[...

Arianna wordlessly hugs her again.]
redmeguca: (I'm sorry...)

[personal profile] redmeguca 2018-07-13 10:06 pm (UTC)(link)
[Kyoko doesn't go unresponsive this time, but she doesn't fight it either. She'll just look back to the exit of the subway.]

My parents and little sister died in a fire. The girl I thought I could be friends with someday died in a subway station. I'm not going to lie, if you hadn't been so nice, I'd have thought this was Hell.
daughterofthemark: (12F. Daunting frozen path)

[personal profile] daughterofthemark 2018-07-13 10:22 pm (UTC)(link)
[Arianna just continues hugging, then. She... might understand the feeling better than one would expect.]

Kyoko-san...

[Light squeeze.]

You need not be alone anymore. I will be your friend, and I'm certain the others here will as well. Perhaps even family, as well.

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