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...
dubiouslychthonic: (Skeptical)

[personal profile] dubiouslychthonic 2018-07-17 11:12 pm (UTC)(link)
Fair enough. I haven't any idea how it actually works, anyway. But it's reliable enough.
einherjarista: (Default)

[personal profile] einherjarista 2018-07-18 12:28 am (UTC)(link)
But the important thing is that I'm stuck here.

Like, in this world, I guess. Until we figure out a way back. But also in these subway tunnels. Until the fire goes out.
dubiouslychthonic: (Skeptical)

[personal profile] dubiouslychthonic 2018-07-18 12:42 am (UTC)(link)
Unfortunately, yes. If it's any consolation, you're not exactly the only one anxious to get home. I realize that might not help much, though.

At least the tunnels situation is only a few hours.
einherjarista: (distracted by nothing)

[personal profile] einherjarista 2018-07-18 12:50 am (UTC)(link)
I'm leaving my coffee shop in the hand of part-timers. Do you realize how badly this could turn out?

Also the Jarls might think I'm deserting my post again and try to kill me? But I'm more worried about the coffee shop.
dubiouslychthonic: (Smile)

[personal profile] dubiouslychthonic 2018-07-18 12:57 am (UTC)(link)
At least as badly as my having left my infirmary in the hands of amateurs, I'd assume.

[She smiles, crookedly.]

Also the Heritrix could decide I've defected to her ancestor's regime and order me culled for treachery, but I'm more concerned about the state of the medicine cabinet.
einherjarista: (done but in gold)

[personal profile] einherjarista 2018-07-18 01:13 am (UTC)(link)
Cafe Scande's already been destroyed twice. I'm not going for three, Sawbones.

...Sorry. Dr. Sawbones.
dubiouslychthonic: (Smile)

[personal profile] dubiouslychthonic 2018-07-18 08:08 am (UTC)(link)
[Jetshard chuckles.] "Sawbones" is the professional title in itself. There's no need for any additional honorifics.
einherjarista: (Default)

[personal profile] einherjarista 2018-07-19 01:54 am (UTC)(link)
Swb. Jetshard, then.

If I'm being honest, that's a better title than "doctor."
dubiouslychthonic: (Smile)

[personal profile] dubiouslychthonic 2018-07-20 06:42 am (UTC)(link)
Thank you. ["Doctor" isn't a title that a troll would use - it wouldn't fit the format required for an adult's chosen title and name - but there's certainly other medical titles that Jetshard could have claimed. On the other hand -] Sometimes it makes life simpler not to sound too clean-cut and official.