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

[bloodyashes]

If nothing else, there's indoor plumbing.

[Priorities, he has them!]

And enough food for now, but who knows how long that's going to last.

[fifthreplacement]

[sync raises an eyebrow, before having to accept that point with a shrug. It might not have been something that came to mind for him, but eh. Asch has a point]

If reality is that unstable, I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't for long. It would figure.

[He glances away, cursing his luck yet again. Sync's fairly sure he'll be doing that a lot, if he's going to be stuck here for any length of time. Why is he here...]

[bloodyashes]

[Look, Sync, there's real buildings, he's a simple man at the moment.]

The people who've been here for a while didn't seem to be starving. So they probably have a decent food supply at their home base, if nothing else.

[fifthreplacement]

[He lifts a hand, resting his head on it as he thinks on that]

I guess. They'd have to have survived here somehow. Maybe some parts of the world are less unstable than others.

[Sync's mostly theorising out loud because it's the easiest way to distract himself from being annoyed at his life]

[bloodyashes]

Or they have some way to minimize the instability, or even just an area where the effects are something less dangerous.

[It doesn't get much more dangerous than FIRE.]

[fifthreplacement]

Minimising the instability makes more sense. If it was an area where the effect was seemingly less dangerous, the effect would still be there. Something unstable could probably change into something else, I would imagine...but that would also depend on how long they've been here.

[There's no way to know without more knowledge. He hates not having knowledge]

[bloodyashes]

If my experience at the other place is any indication, probably not too long. There had only been people there for a couple months before I arrived.

[fifthreplacement]

[He shakes his head at that]

Maybe. There's too much unknown though. If things are unstable, then it's possible that anything we know from other worlds won't apply here.

[There are no words for how much he despises this fact now that he's realised it]

[bloodyashes]

[Asch just hums agreement.]

There was hardly any usable fonic power on the islands, especially the Seventh... Everything seems to work fine here, though.

[Yes, he tested.]

[fifthreplacement]

I know they work here.

[The sudden narrowing of his eyes probably explains more than he says about how he knows this fact]

It'd be annoying if they didn't, so I'll be glad of that at least. I don't want to have to be relying only on my own skills.

[Formidable as Sync can be without his artes, without them he's stuck in unarmed melee combat. There's situations that could've gotten him killed]

[bloodyashes]

I could hardly use any artes at all on the islands. Trust me, you have no idea what a pain in the ass it is until you have to deal with it.

[Like he's got any room to talk, Sync, he immediately hyperresonated shit in an alley.]

[fifthreplacement]

I don't care to find out either. They work here, and that's good enough for me.

[Mostly because of how much he doesn't really care about anything right now. He still doesn't see a reason to care, so the thought of that other place Asch had been, now that his curiosity has vanished again, doesn't matter too much to him]

[bloodyashes]

[Asch just nods, and for a minute he's quiet.]

...Ran into someone who told me that there's a base camp a little further along in the tunnels. Probably where everyone is sleeping through the fire, but it might be a better source of information.

[fifthreplacement]

If there is, then probably.

[Sync doesn't make a move though. The last thing he wants right now is to be near people, considering his mood is starting to spiral back into the "why bother" frame of mind]

[bloodyashes]

And a better idea of their numbers. The islands had... maybe fifty? But a lot of people came and went.

[fifthreplacement]

[He shrugs]

You're free to go and find out. It's not like I'm stopping you.

[Are these things he's going to want to eventually find out? Yes. Is that going to stop him from being a child while he's in a bad mood and refusing to move? N o p e]

[bloodyashes]

[Mmmn.]

Gather information and compare notes later?

[fifthreplacement]

[Another shrug]

If you want. I don't really care.

[Granted, finding these things out from Asch is probably going to bother him later if he doesn't find out by himself now...but then, why does he care? It's not like anything here really matters to Sync]

[bloodyashes]

...Try not to die. You're old enough that I shouldn't have to babysit you.

[That sounds more like the Asch Sync knows, and what Sync probably won't pick up on is that it's an intentional cultivation, in that moment.]

[fifthreplacement]

[That gets his head to snap up and now he's glaring at you Asch, so good job??]

I don't need you to watch over me. I don't need anyone.

[bloodyashes]

Then prove it.

[Spite's a great motivator.

With that, Asch hops off his seat, before Sync gets any ideas, and starts making his way back toward the far tunnel entrance.]

[fifthreplacement]

[Asch did you really just walk away from a pissed off Sync that you just deliberately pissed off.

If you thought he wasn't going to fire an Absolute at you for that, you are utterly mistaken.

Enjoy your ice]

[bloodyashes]

[Truthfully, that's utterly what he expected -

Which is how he's quick enough to dodge it entirely, whirling on his heel to look back at Sync, wearing one of those smirks that only ever came out of him on the rarest of occasions on Auldrant. The kind that's confident without being quite cocky, the one that shows that he feels in control and like he knows exactly what he's doing.]

That's more like it.

[Later, he's out of here.]

[fifthreplacement]

[Okay.

He just went from pissed off to outrage rage.

Which is why he is on his feet in ridiculous amounts of time and is launching himself forwards, because punching Asch is priority number one right now and nothing else really matter anymore.

...if Asch didn't think this was going to happen, he's clearly forgotten how volatile Sync can be]

[bloodyashes]

[He might've, a little.

But where one attack comes, it's fair game to expect another, so by the time Sync is across the space, Asch's sword is drawn and up for a block.

His expression is less of a smirk, now, but it doesn't really falter. There's a sort of ease to the way he moves, even with the obviously heavy pack -

Wherever the hell Asch was, he clearly didn't get entirely out of shape there. And compared to Sync at the moment, for once, he's the one with a clear head.]