TEST DRIVE 005

[phantasmods]

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...

Comments

[ax_iom]

And whose fault is that?!

[She screams, and seems to coil into a ball for a moment... Before she bursts forward, lunging like a feral beast aiming to take down its prey.]

[founderinglight]

I have no idea because I'm not from the same fucking universe as you!

[It's impressive that he manages to rattle all of that off before having to warp again - she's able to get pretty close before he warps off, vanishing somewhere into one of the taller trees around the border of the park. They're pretty close to getting out onto the streets proper, now.]

[ax_iom]

That doesn't mean anything!

[One member of the Hand was a thaumivore. All of the monsters- and familiars, they were too. Another universe doesn't matter.

But... The fire seems to be weakening, the further she runs. The claws don't seem to cut quite as cleanly. She's gasping for breath as she lunges again, but it's much slower than it was before.]

[founderinglight]

[It's more the slowness that he notices, rather than the dying down of the fire. There's another flash of a warp light through the trees.

If he can hold out until she exhausts herself, then either she'll have to start listening to sense or he can make an actual getaway. It worked with Noctis, didn't it?

Another flash. He doesn't seem to be leading her anywhere in particular save for along the edge of the park.]

[ax_iom]

[One epic chase later!

After a couple more minutes of the chase, she finally slows down, her feet dragging, and... just like before, fire covers her. But this time, rather than her earlier elegant balldress, this one is something frillier, more... well, magical girl-style. Dark gray and violets, and much simpler.

She finally stops, and falls to her knees.]

[founderinglight]

[It's only once the fire fades away that Izunia - breathing a bit hard himself - warps back. Rather than standing on the lamp this time, he sits, feet dangling in a way that's almost childish, given that he's (apparently) in his mid thirties and near six and a half feet.]

Are you willing to listen to sense, now?

[ax_iom]

... Shut up.

[It's more tired, than angry. The exhaustion is intense. She doesn't know how to handle this.]

I don't... care. The Hand... is my enemy...

[founderinglight]

Well.

[That's... Surprisingly cheerful, given that she was just trying to murder him.]

All the better, then, as they're my enemies as well by path of alliance. You wouldn't happen to know a young woman called by Black Witch, would you?

[Like hell he's taking the risk of outing Maddie's actual identity if not.]

[ax_iom]

[She stares at him for a minute, the exhaustion clear in her face.]

...

How can you possibly know her? Zel should have been there to stop that...

[The gears in her tired brain are turning, at least.]

[founderinglight]

Because I am not of your world, and you are not of mine, and in this place it is much better to make allies than enemies.

[A slight pause.]

Also, she's a good friend and I enjoy her sense of humor. I wouldn't allow anything to harm her.

[ax_iom]

See, now I know you're lying.

No one could enjoy her sense of humor except for her.

[founderinglight]

[The response is a laugh, his torso leaning back on the cap of the streetlamp and his feet swinging forward to maintain his balance. Really, the fact that he hasn't fallen off is nearly evidence of magic in itself.]

I enjoy things that force me to stop and think, which is something she manages quite often. It keeps me better grounded in the here and now.

[ax_iom]

[The gears in her head are turning, but... After her day, she doesn't like where they're ending up.]

I'll accept that you know her. And that you aren't immediately a threat. But I still don't trust you.

[founderinglight]

[It's certainly been a day, hasn't it.]

I'll settle for an agreement to stop trying to slice me open, frankly.

[ax_iom]

No promises. What has she told you?

[founderinglight]

That in your world, a lot of absolute bastards - [If Lily listens closely enough to hear the words and not just the translation, that was definitely not English.] - have been preying upon the magic of the young in order to maintain immortal lives, primarily through a system where they send magically-altered thaumivores to serve as familiars and apparent mentors.

And that near anyone who so much as suspects the truth has a crimson target on their backs.

[ax_iom]

[She snorts. It's a laugh, but it is the most mirthless, joyless laugh you've ever heard.]

Yeah, she covered the basics. I've got the biggest target of all of us.

[founderinglight]

[Please. She's got stiff competition there.]

Explains the suspicion. For what it's worth, there are none among the Hand or their allies here, but it is not a secret that is out in the open. There are quite a few users of magic from other worlds, of all ages, a number of them not human.

[He pulls a bottle out of whatever space he sent the first one to - from the color, this is some kind of juice - and cracks the lid.]

Ultimately, you probably had a stroke of luck in throwing your aggression at someone at least somewhat aware of your situation.

[ax_iom]

It'd be the first time I've ever been lucky.

[Seriously, her life is a shitfest. Luck rank E-.]

... Has she told you about the rest of our group?

[founderinglight]

Not particularly. Zel, obviously, I've met, and Jailbreak and a young woman named Faith who I presume is also with you are here.

[ax_iom]

[She nods, winces a bit at Jailbreak- That's going to be a PR nightmare- and then Faith...]

... Is... Is Faith okay...?

[founderinglight]

A bit aggressive, perhaps, but she seems well enough.

[He likes Jail, tbh, she's a bit erratic but they sort of have a common alien girlfriend.]

[ax_iom]

... I'm glad.

[She lets out a deep sigh.]

... Faith knows you, too?

[founderinglight]

And she took to some of my history about as well as you might, but that's understandable enough.

[ax_iom]

[she just takes a minute to glare.]

Tell me more. What happened?