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...
founderinglight: ([late with spacebucks])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-14 10:05 pm (UTC)(link)
...Should I be concerned, being two of the three?

[Like that's some list there, you know.]

There's indications that there might be some kind of entity involved, but we don't know anything beyond there being a presence. To say that it's something to fight seems a bit preemptive.
einherjarista: (why are you like this)

[personal profile] einherjarista 2018-07-14 10:21 pm (UTC)(link)
....Well, you're definitely not dead. I'd say you should probably be concerned if you were, if you haven't moved on to the afterlife.

Mysterious entity sounds like a good start though.
founderinglight: ([beep])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-14 10:23 pm (UTC)(link)
[... Sorry, he straight up laughs.]

Oh, I am definitely dead, just not at the moment. Again, the situation is complicated.
einherjarista: (distracted by nothing)

[personal profile] einherjarista 2018-07-14 10:34 pm (UTC)(link)
[ SORRY SIGNE JUST. ROLLS HER EYES AT IZUNIA. ]

You're not currently dead. Technically, you're in the same boat I am. [ Technically. ]
founderinglight: ([sketchyplaceholder])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-14 10:38 pm (UTC)(link)
It very much counts, I have a tomb and everything.

[Beat.]

... Or I did, at any rate, I think it fell into a crater? I wasn't there at the time.
einherjarista: (done but in gold)

[personal profile] einherjarista 2018-07-14 10:40 pm (UTC)(link)
Look, if you're alive, you're not under my jurisdiction. I don't care how many tombs you have.

Actually I think technically none of this place is under my jurisdiction, but currently-alive people definitely aren't no matter where we are.
founderinglight: ([late with spacebucks])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-14 10:44 pm (UTC)(link)
Probably not. Even if it was, we already have a few people in that line of work around here, assuming I've understood the concept correctly.

[Technically there are several other dead people aside from him but if she touches his fam the gloves come off.]
einherjarista: (distracted by nothing)

[personal profile] einherjarista 2018-07-14 10:53 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, thank Odin. They can handle all of that then.
founderinglight: ([late with spacebucks])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-14 10:58 pm (UTC)(link)
Most of them are a bit green, but there's honestly not much of it to be done. Most everyone here is quite good at surviving, we've not had a casualty yet that I know of.
einherjarista: (walking disaster)

[personal profile] einherjarista 2018-07-14 11:04 pm (UTC)(link)
The job is pretty easy when there aren't Hollows involved. I'll let them handle it.

They can ask me for advise if they need it but. They should be fine, even if they're green.
founderinglight: ([my place plz])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-14 11:06 pm (UTC)(link)
Slightly different in their world, I think. But Goro's a resourceful young man and the other is my younger brother, so I have every confidence in them.
einherjarista: (Default)

[personal profile] einherjarista 2018-07-14 11:30 pm (UTC)(link)
And suddenly I feel like my experience isn't needed.

Good. They can handle it then. I can worry about.... I don't know. I have nothing to worry about then.
founderinglight: ([hold])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-16 12:43 am (UTC)(link)
You could always join the rest of us in worrying about how to to repair this world, since I assume you likely want to get home eventually.
einherjarista: (distracted by nothing)

[personal profile] einherjarista 2018-07-16 09:42 pm (UTC)(link)
I mean, I've got an apprentice back home. He can hold down the fort well enough.

....Shit. This means the coffee shop is going to be in Nora and Lisbeth's hands though.
founderinglight: ([sketchyplaceholder])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-19 12:30 am (UTC)(link)
So far as anyone can tell, time won't pass in your world while you're here. So you probably don't have to worry about that.
einherjarista: (walking disaster)

[personal profile] einherjarista 2018-07-19 01:32 am (UTC)(link)
[ Relieved sigh. ] So the cafe will be fine. Gunbrand might notice but. Eh, he's a big boy.

So I gotta ask. Is everybody here a weirdo? In the best possible sense - stronger than normal people, used to dealing with strangeness?
founderinglight: ([late with spacebucks])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-19 02:20 am (UTC)(link)
We have a few people who qualify as what passes for normal in their worlds, and one unfortunate man named Masayoshi Shido, who was a mundane politician, but now occasionally uncontrollably turns into a lion.

[He's also the token straight.]

Aside that, there don't tend to be very many among us who are wholly normal... Which might be something to bring up at the next meeting, come to think.
einherjarista: (distracted by nothing)

[personal profile] einherjarista 2018-07-19 02:38 am (UTC)(link)
That doesn't sound very normal to me. But I will accept that uncontrollably turning into a lion isn't necessarily the greatest tool in dealing with this sort of situation.
founderinglight: ([late with spacebucks])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-19 02:45 am (UTC)(link)
It's a very new thing. Exposure to Fissures tends to cause the development of magical abilities in those that have none, and the advancement of existing abilities for those who do is, I believe, somewhat easier. The latter is just based upon my personal experience, however.
einherjarista: (why are you like this)

[personal profile] einherjarista 2018-07-19 02:52 am (UTC)(link)
[ That leads to an. ACTUAL worried look from Signe. ] You... you don't say.

Huh. That's. Sure something.
founderinglight: ([late with spacebucks])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-19 02:57 am (UTC)(link)
[Boy is Izunia sure experienced at not tripping into people's anxieties by accident! ... Not. He knows that kind of look.]

Problem?
einherjarista: (Default)

[personal profile] einherjarista 2018-07-19 03:16 am (UTC)(link)
Nothing I haven't dealt with before. Literally.
founderinglight: ([sketchyplaceholder])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-19 03:30 am (UTC)(link)
Mmm. Just don't get any assumptions from what it is you've dealt with before, then.

[You're in a different world, keep an open mind, etc.]
einherjarista: (distracted by nothing)

[personal profile] einherjarista 2018-07-19 03:40 am (UTC)(link)
Trust me, I'd know if it was the same thing.

I'm just not a fan of the concept.
founderinglight: ([sketchyplaceholder])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-19 03:55 am (UTC)(link)
It is what it is, I suppose. As long as no one's gotten seriously hurt, which I don't believe anyone has so far...

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