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...
nojohnyouare: Pointing a sword at the viewer. (no light no light)

dusk

[personal profile] nojohnyouare 2018-07-14 02:43 am (UTC)(link)
!?

[Mai spots him and bolts after.]

Lost?
theserpentsmiles: (This one goes to the castaways)

[personal profile] theserpentsmiles 2018-07-14 08:00 pm (UTC)(link)
[It's worth noting that he moves easily around obstacles, quickly weaving through the flames and vaulting over things to find the quickest route.]

No- well, yes, but- I need to get something.
nojohnyouare: Looking out a window. ('cause it's so easy)

[personal profile] nojohnyouare 2018-07-14 11:15 pm (UTC)(link)
[Mai is impressed, giving a small nod, but keeps running.]

Something dropped here?
theserpentsmiles: (Set this pain up in flames)

[personal profile] theserpentsmiles 2018-07-16 05:02 pm (UTC)(link)
Hidden. It's hard to carry around... [And because time is fake Church hasn't put it in the Armiger yet.] I can't let it burn.
nojohnyouare: Dismissive. (you're my head)

[personal profile] nojohnyouare 2018-07-16 05:54 pm (UTC)(link)
Mm.

[She continues to follow. A tall beam cracks in the flames and starts to collapse over them; she draws out what was a plastic sword, but which slices through the beam as she jumps like it was the sharpest knife going into soft bread.]

...Understandable.
theserpentsmiles: (Get back or just get out)

[personal profile] theserpentsmiles 2018-07-27 12:20 am (UTC)(link)
[He hears the beam the moment it starts to break, and instantly begins adjusting course to avoid it. His clothes may be heat-resistant and impact-resistant, but that doesn't mean he doesn't care about getting hit, he's not reckless. But then he doesn't need to.]

You're good. [Almost there...his hiding spot is just around a corner, and what's there? A book as big as his head is.]
nojohnyouare: Feeling self-conscious. (you are the nighttime fear)

[personal profile] nojohnyouare 2018-07-27 12:27 am (UTC)(link)
[Mai hesitates and shakes her head. She looks down at the book he hid.]

Not that good. ...The book. That's it?
theserpentsmiles: (Default)

[personal profile] theserpentsmiles 2018-07-27 12:37 am (UTC)(link)
No, you're good. [He nods.] Sensei wrote it.

[He...won't explain all the reasons this book is so important to him, but...it is, at least, obvious why he hid it instead of carrying it around. Some people don't have hammerspace inventories.]
nojohnyouare: Dismissive. (you're my head)

[personal profile] nojohnyouare 2018-07-27 01:26 am (UTC)(link)
[Mai pauses, but she won't contest the compliment again besides shaking her head once more. She turns back to where they came from.]

It's good. That it's safe. Let's go. Underground is safe.