TEST DRIVE 005

[phantasmods]

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...

Comments

[founderinglight]

I'm surprised they're still running.

[Well, one of them is running, the side going up appears to be jammed.]

According to the natives, the city's been abandoned for some hundred years.

[shipoutofluck]

Can't imagine why they left.

[That dry observation aside...]

A city built to last. Even with the fire all but consuming it above ground. It's an interesting place. [He eyes the escalator again.] With interesting contraptions.

[founderinglight]

The aboveground resets at dawn, but... Not so much down here, I suppose.

[Izunia for his art is going to step onto that auto stair without the slightest hesitation. Further down, presumably, it safer.]

It's called an escalator, by the way.

[shipoutofluck]

So it constantly burns and puts itself out again, stuck in a loop. I assume that's not the case for most cities here? This has "special case" written all over it.

[Just the one city he ended up in, because of course. Seeing Izunia go down without an issue, Eizen follows without hesitating either.]

You're familiar with it?

[founderinglight]

Well, I haven't been to any other cities in this world, but that particular effect is specific to this region, yes.

[Are you ready for newbie spiel, Eizen?]

The city seems to run almost entirely on magic, and not even magitech at that, but the functional technology level is similar to what there was on my world prior to the most recent apocalypse.

['Most recent.']

[shipoutofluck]

Of course it is.

[He doesn't seem the least bit surprised.]

I noticed some of that. Like the whole city has automated artes running the place. I guess that explains how it's in such good shape, even after it was abandoned. [But also...] You have apocalypses on the regular?

[founderinglight]

I've lived through two, and if the mythological record is any indication there was probably at least one more however many thousand years before I was born.

[Also don't mind as he just... pulls a water bottle out of his Armiger and cracks the lid. Fire is dehydrating.

Really, he's waiting for the inevitable 'how old are you' question and needs something to occupy his hands as much as anything.]

[shipoutofluck]

...Assuming they haven't suddenly happened one right after the other, that would make you not human, then.

[founderinglight]

...It's complicated.

[Oh, isn't it just complicated.

Also they're at the end of the escalator and Izunia gets back on solid ground without a hitch.]

I was born human and may, technically, be human now, but I spent most of the time in the middle as a usually-incorporeal spirit of sorts.

[shipoutofluck]

[He'd say that sounds like a malak. Being born human and turning into that, that much wouldn't be odd. But...]

You actually went back and forth?

[founderinglight]

I was flesh and blood again when I arrived here, and several decades younger than when I last had a human form besides. Not that I'm complaining, trying to do what we do here at that age would have been needlessly difficult.

[shipoutofluck]

Convenient. There must be a lot of power around, to change you like that. The same power that drags people here in the first place, I wager.

So how old are you, at this point?

[Many centuries, he's guessing.]

[founderinglight]

A couple decades over two thousand; definitely not the full century, but I can't give you a much more precise count.

[Who the fuck counts at that age?]

There's definitely a great deal of magical power in this world, especially in Fissures - regions of unstable reality with magical effects gone wild like the fire above.

[shipoutofluck]

Right. Hard to keep track of the exact number after a while.

[He knows that feel. And seems entirely unsurprised at that high number.]

Unstable reality and chaotic magic... Running wild like that would make it highly unpredictable. There wouldn't be any telling how it might affect everything or to what extent. [He's mostly talking to himself, trying to work this out as much as he can.] That'd explain a few things.

[founderinglight]

The last one we explored turned anyone submerged in the ocean into an aquatic form of some sort, and the one before that - the forest on the other side of lake here - caused people's dreams to manifest physically. At least with this one, we knew something of what to expect.

[What with the whole, fire, and everything.]

[shipoutofluck]

Not much of a step up when what to expect is constant burning. I think most would take the other two over that.

[founderinglight]

Oh, the ocean was fine enough, but I do think I prefer the fire to the things out of my nightmares.

[Boy that sure was a rough experience. He sips at the water bottle he's still holding.]

[shipoutofluck]

Fair enough. The ocean sounds like the best of the bunch. Though I would have steered clear of being submerged myself.

...I'm guessing you only have regular water with you?

[because boy howdy he needs a drink]

[founderinglight]

Oh - no, a little of everything. What would you like?

[Don't worry, Eizen, he's carrying.]

It was quite nice, really, though I think I'm one of the only people who was really comfortable with the change in forms.

[shipoutofluck]

I'd take just about anything with a kick to it.

[Though of course he's wondering just where the heck Izunia is apparently keeping this secret booze stash.

idk Eizen where did Velvet keep all those life bottles]

It doesn't sound too horrible. I just would've avoided it since I'm not much of a swimmer.

[founderinglight]

Luckily the change in forms came with gills for almost everyone - I had to teach a friend to swim afterwards, actually.

[After a moment's consideration he pulls a bottle of something with a faded label out from... nowhere, seemingly, just another little scattering of that blue light. Don't worry I won't make the booze leak.]

Here - I've stronger, but drinking the Everclear in an active Fissure is probably not the best idea.

[shipoutofluck]

At least there's that. I'm more at home above the water, but exploring underneath must be an experience as well.

[you're a kinder person than I am]

...Now that's handy. Much obliged.

[Oh hell yes, he's taking that and right away taking a big ol' swig. This'll help carry him through this.]

Much better. No better time for a drink than while everything's burning just above us.

[founderinglight]

[it's in a glass bottle it's harder to justify one of those leaking I AM A GLASS PERSON]

It really was - I've some pictures on my phone if you like.

[You know what he's going to cap and vanish his water bottle in exchange for a smaller bottle of something. No point in drinking without company.]

I also have food - if nothing else, I can always be counted on to be well supplied.

[shipoutofluck]

[...]

On your what?

[boy he's gonna learn about so much technology]

[founderinglight]

It's a sort of communication device that can also hold images.

[Are you ready for this, Eizen, because he's gonna pull out a small rectangular thing with his non-booze hand and turn on the screen.]

Just a moment...

[And then, triumphant, he holds it out with a picture of a coral full of fish on the screen.]