Phantasmal Rift Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
phantasmods) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
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...
I am objectively making this After Ardyn fight me
Asch starts visibly at the voice, though maybe not for the reasons Goro expects, and gives him an intent look-over for a minute before nodding.]
I can work with that.
no subject
You're in a Fissure, an area of distorted and damaged reality and uncontrolled magic. It's possible to pass from other worlds into this one through it, but so far we haven't found a way to go in the other direction. Right now, we're working on stabilizing them to make the world more livable and to study them more safely.
We've been living in a research station a few miles from here, along with a group of androids native to this world...though, depending on our success at stabilizing this Fissure, maybe we'll be able to claim some of these buildings to live in, instead. It is getting a bit crowded.
no subject
More of an explanation than we ever got at the last place I was in.
no subject
[Omnom, that first one goes away quickly and he reaches for another.]
You're also not the only one here who's already been in an unfamiliar world...though, I hope your previous adventures weren't as unpleasant as the sort most of that subset of our population has been through.
no subject
[That's not a lie but mostly because his home was extremely fucked up.]
It was pretty obvious when I wasn't on the tropical island anymore, at least.
no subject
[Like how you aren't dying in that outfit.]
By the way, what was that look about?
no subject
And, oops, busted.]
...There was different version of you there, that's all.
no subject
[There's...a definite flash of something like anger, maybe even hatred in his eyes there. And then it's gone, though his smile looks just a little bit less real.]
That sort of thing isn't too uncommon here. How well did you know my alternate?
no subject
Well enough to know a decent portion of your history, but I don't think either of us would have quite called the other a friend in normal circumstances.
[Normal circumstances, because Akechi actually did call him a friend on Monsun, and it was Somewhat Boggling.]
no subject
Well, depending on just how much you know, you might find that some of it doesn't apply to me. I left my world before a certain critical event.
no subject
The look Asch gives him is, maybe, a little guarded in turn, but - it's easy to get the feeling that Asch is just something of a guarded person, and it's not personal.]
Duly noted. I'd judge you on your own merits, anyway. There's... someone I owe that to.
[The shoe's indeed on the other foot, now, Aster. He looks back at the plate of skewers and takes one for himself after a moment.]
But... a lot of our circumstances are very similar. So I'm not in a position to judge you anyway.
no subject
no subject
no subject
[Discard stick, grab skewer.]
I'm working on the side of keeping people safe, here.
no subject
[Gonna just. Eat a skewer himself, here, at a more reasonable human pace.]
no subject
We haven't had any problems, so far. We've been lucky enough that everyone we've found in the Fissures agrees that the best thing for all of us is to cooperate.
no subject
Yeah. Even if they don't get along, we're all stuck together.
no subject
no subject
[It's said clearly, but in the tone of 'I don't have to like it.']
no subject
[Among other reasons, but 'some other version of me apperently trusts you' only goes so far...and it's definitely not far enough to talk about vulnerable emotional details.]
no subject
I wouldn't know. As far as I can tell, Van didn't think he was anything but right until the very end of his life.
no subject
no subject
[There's a small sense of discomfort, there. Probably not all that surprising, though, given the context.]