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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...
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[This is how Astolfo lives his life, and thinks others could afford to do the same, sometimes.]
Grief, doubt, despair...those things are all unavoidable. That's just how it is to be human. [He says it with more fondness than is appropriate for the situation.] I'm sorry that your friend suffered for them.
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[She drops an apple core to the ground as she processes Astolfo's second statement.]
You think I don't know that?! I'm fighting off those feelings every damn day of my life!
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[He struggles to follow what Kyoko's trying to get at.]
Maybe you need to let some things go. Everything up until now - that's just the past. You don't need to carry it with you anymore.
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[With a flash of red light, Kyoko is holding her spear.]
Why don't you just get out of here before you piss me off even more.
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[He stands his ground as Kyoko draws her weapon. She's hit a nerve of sorts, and he's not going anywhere.]
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[Have an irate Magical Girl attacking you, transforming as she goes.]
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They don't have to be!
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[She's really good with that spear, quickly recovering from Astolfo's party and striking again.]
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[Tears are threatening to fall from Kyoko's eyes as she attacks Astolfo again. Was the gem on her chest always that dark?]
How am I supposed to focus on when they were here when everyone always leaves me behind?!
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[Astolfo's neither wise nor observant, so the change in Kyoko's gem completely misses him. Once more, he parries, aiming to just keep her away from him.]
Everyone leaves. At some point. Somehow. Eventually. It doesn't matter, because you'll always have that memory with you!
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[The tears that were merely threatening to fall before are now streaming down her face as her strikes grow more vicious, but less coordinated.]
I promised to stay with her, and I couldn't even do that!
/cuts in
Probably not, until there's a scatter of blue magic and a greatsword that is, honestly, the full height of Kyoko's body appears at the end of her spear, breaking the path of her strike. The wielder is behind it, a tall man in a black coat and a blue scarf, and in a deep voice - ]
Enough.
DUAL INTERRUPTION POWER!
Oh, right. She hurries forward, thrusting her staff out in front of Kyoko to discourage any more aggression.]
Both of you, please...
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I didn't start it.
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[Kyoko stops in her tracks, her spear fading away. Arianna might notice that her Soul Gem is significantly darker. She quickly wipes the tears from her eyes and looks at Arianna, then Izunia, then Astolfo.]
Fine. I'll stop fighting as long as that guy stops saying things that piss me off.
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[Izunia still watches her for a minute before he lets the greatsword vanish.]
Astolfo, dear, don't upset the young lady.
We can talk about it later.
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My apologies. I know from experience what difficulties can arise from meeting people from so many different worlds. I should not have left you to deal with it on your own.
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[Yeah, it's going to take some work to get Astolfo off Kyoko's Actively Dislikes list.]
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That happens at times. We each have our own experiences, and sometimes...
[She backs up a little bit so she can look down at Kyoko's Soul Gem.]
Are you all right?
no subject
Yeah, I just need to use a Grief Seed and I'll be fine.
[She pulls out said Grief Seed and holds it up to her Soul Gem, where darkness flows out of it into the Seed, leaving her Soul Gem clear again.]
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Was it because you were fighting?
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[That's how he plans to leave it, because he has to leave it. He puts his weapon away, now everyone else has.]
I only tried to help, Master.
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I couldn't stand by and do nothing.