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...
shipoutofluck: (002)

[personal profile] shipoutofluck 2018-07-14 10:51 pm (UTC)(link)
Heh... Now there's a title.

[He doesn't immediately respond, just shuffling the deck again.]

Is it? Hm. [Drawing a card again, which he holds up without even looking at it. Same result, yet again.] Would you call it a bad omen?
founderinglight: ([beep])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-14 10:55 pm (UTC)(link)
I don't know of anyone else in history who took on daemons with fists alone, simply because someone once told her she couldn't.

[He loves her very much???

And yeah, but at this point even Izunia expects it.]


To most people, probably. Ifrit's quite reviled these days and the card is usually considered symbolic of approaching disaster.
shipoutofluck: (Default)

[personal profile] shipoutofluck 2018-07-14 11:07 pm (UTC)(link)
Ha! Daring is right. Foolhardy, maybe. Now she sounds like someone I'd get along with.

[Just punch a daemon is the kind of attitude he can get behind.]

Approaching disaster... That sounds about right. Or maybe the disaster's already here. [He puts the card back in the deck.] I'd draw again, but the result's never going to be any different.
founderinglight: ([late with spacebucks])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-14 11:10 pm (UTC)(link)
And let me guess, if we pulled the card you'd just get something similar in meaning from one of the other suits?
shipoutofluck: (Default)

[personal profile] shipoutofluck 2018-07-14 11:13 pm (UTC)(link)
You catch on quick.

[He hands the deck back over to Izunia, turning his attention back to his own coin and flipping it. With predictable results, as always.]

Just the same as this coin will always land on tails, no matter how many times I flip it.
founderinglight: ([sketchyplaceholder])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-14 11:15 pm (UTC)(link)
Seems you know something of curses yourself.

[He shuffles the deck a bout without drawing - gotta rub off all that Reaper luck, right?]
shipoutofluck: (010)

[personal profile] shipoutofluck 2018-07-14 11:25 pm (UTC)(link)
That I do.

It's called the Reaper's Curse. It brings ill fortune to all those around me. You might say I'm something of a walking disaster.
founderinglight: ([late with spacebucks])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-14 11:28 pm (UTC)(link)
Hm. Well, if you're still alive in spite of that, you must be damned capable, then.

[He's interested, tell him more.]
shipoutofluck: (010)

[personal profile] shipoutofluck 2018-07-14 11:35 pm (UTC)(link)
Enough to last a thousand years, at least. Guess I'm stubborn like that.

[Flip.]

I'm not about to let a curse decide my fate for me.
founderinglight: ([my place plz])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-15 03:46 am (UTC)(link)
Sounds like the kind of person I prefer to keep company with.

[Curses smurses.]
shipoutofluck: (006)

[personal profile] shipoutofluck 2018-07-15 12:58 pm (UTC)(link)
And you sound like someone with a death wish.
founderinglight: ([my place plz])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-15 03:29 pm (UTC)(link)
I've been accused of that a few times, but not for the reasons you probably think.

[He smiles, and takes a small drink from the bottle.]

I spent far too long accepting fate. I prefer to surround myself with people who remind me it can be otherwise.
shipoutofluck: (007)

[personal profile] shipoutofluck 2018-07-15 11:00 pm (UTC)(link)
[...That certainly gets his interest. Though in response he just takes a drink himself and shakes his head.]

Most people would say that's foolish and stubborn. And that you're just inviting disaster.
founderinglight: ([my place plz])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-15 11:18 pm (UTC)(link)
Dancing on the border of disaster keeps me from growing complacent. I would far rather live with such a risk than simply exist in a safer way.
shipoutofluck: (015)

[personal profile] shipoutofluck 2018-07-15 11:50 pm (UTC)(link)
[With declarations like that, he can't help but smile.]

Hah... You sound like another fool I know. [Or... knew. Past tense now, huh.] Taking control of your own life with no regard for what should be, huh?
founderinglight: ([hold])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-16 12:20 am (UTC)(link)
Something like that. Even if I don't succeed, it's a goal for how I try to live, now.
shipoutofluck: (001)

[personal profile] shipoutofluck 2018-07-16 12:39 am (UTC)(link)
It's the only way to live. The course of a person's life should be decided by no one but themselves. Not by another, not by fate, or anything else.
founderinglight: ([ppppp])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-16 01:25 am (UTC)(link)
...True enough, but sometimes fate is as inescapable was water in the ocean.
shipoutofluck: (009)

[personal profile] shipoutofluck 2018-07-16 08:25 pm (UTC)(link)
Aye.

That's when you look fate right in the eye and get yourself a ship.
founderinglight: ([my place plz])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-16 09:16 pm (UTC)(link)
[There's a pause... And then a deep chuckle, one that threatens to grow into a full laugh if left unchecked.]

Oh, I do like the way you think.
shipoutofluck: (014)

[personal profile] shipoutofluck 2018-07-16 11:45 pm (UTC)(link)
What can I say? I'm somewhat of a stubborn fool myself.
founderinglight: ([hold])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-18 08:19 pm (UTC)(link)
Probably for the best. If it weren't for that, you'd have even more trouble.
shipoutofluck: (009)

[personal profile] shipoutofluck 2018-07-18 09:56 pm (UTC)(link)
I'd say it's gotten me into a decent amount of it as well.
founderinglight: ([hold])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-07-18 10:03 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, certainly, but it's clearly trouble you were capable of getting back out of, otherwise you'd not be here, or at the very least not with whole body and sound enough mind to hold a conversation.
shipoutofluck: (Default)

[personal profile] shipoutofluck 2018-07-18 10:08 pm (UTC)(link)
...Aye, you're not wrong there. [He takes a drink again... and tries not to glance at his coin.] I usually find that punching the trouble is a good way to make it go away.

Eventually.

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