phantasmods: (Default)
Phantasmal Rift Mods ([personal profile] phantasmods) wrote in [community profile] 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...
fifthreplacement: (Focused)

[personal profile] fifthreplacement 2018-07-22 02:04 pm (UTC)(link)
[He sees it coming, but that doesn't mean he can avoid it. It at least doesn't knock him down, though it does knock him backwards.

Asch does kind of remind him that artes exist though, which means hey, you know what? MORE ICE. Because he can ice while he runs back in and attempts to punch Asch again.

Listen, it's easy and possibly on the verge of cheating, but he doesn't care okay]
bloodyashes: ([F] You saw NOTHIN)

[personal profile] bloodyashes 2018-07-22 02:11 pm (UTC)(link)
[Yeah that sure is some ice. Asch mostly sidesteps it, though it leaves him with a bit of frost on his leg that would probably be more of a problem if he was chasing Sync around instead of just letting the little punk wear himself out.

He's not actually looking to hurt, for once. So that makes it easier to not get caught up in it - to keep himself from going down the temper road that has Sync in its grip.

Too bad it looks like he's not likely to get another opening any time soon, unless he makes one for himself. Sync's familiar with the tickle-pop-burst of someone breaking into Overlimit by now, surely?]
Edited 2018-07-22 14:14 (UTC)
fifthreplacement: (Caught off guard)

[personal profile] fifthreplacement 2018-07-22 02:17 pm (UTC)(link)
[He's familiar with it, but he was mid-attack when it popped, so there's nothing Sync can do but snarl as he gets knocked backwards and entirely off balance. There's literally nothing he can do while he tries to recover, Asch has all the opening he wants]
bloodyashes: ([D] Detonation)

[personal profile] bloodyashes 2018-07-22 02:24 pm (UTC)(link)
[That he does. And it's going to hurt.

The burst of stones from Slag Assault under Sync's feet, putting him even more off balance, is just the prelude. Because the fonons in the air build as Asch swings his sword around to plunge into the ground - ]


Rending Saber - !

[He's just going to finish this.]
fifthreplacement: (Fall into the abyss)

[personal profile] fifthreplacement 2018-07-22 02:31 pm (UTC)(link)
[There's literally nothing he can do when the Mystic Arte goes off, but even as angered as he is about this fact, Sync doesn't make a sound aside from a slight grunt as the arte hits him. His back hits the ground hard, gritting his teeth as he stops himself from passing out.

Sheer determination makes him push himself onto one side, then one knee, and back up. He will not be defeated like this...he will not...!

Sound and light swarms to him as the glyph on his chest burns, activating as he lifts a hand. Asch shouldn't be able to move straight after a mystic arte, if he can fire this off it'll hit...he slams a hand into the ground and the glyph spawns.

Then it feels like the glyph on his back suddenly fails. Sync's own exhaustion causes it to stop, and with that he loses control of the sound fonons, and they flee. Light alone can't fire a Daathic arte like Akashic Torment, and the glyph fades. And Sync slumps, before falling and hitting the ground hard, unconscious]
Edited 2018-07-22 14:32 (UTC)
bloodyashes: ([F] Sorry about him)

[personal profile] bloodyashes 2018-07-22 02:41 pm (UTC)(link)
[He can't move that fast, no, and he's already gritting his teeth in preparation -

But Sync's glyph falters and fails, and the other boy goes over.

And for a moment, all Asch can do is blink. Because even given that Sync was acting without rationality -

He hadn't expected to win.

He's never won against Sync before, not that solidly and cleanly and indisputably. They've had draws a few times, but...

... After a moment, he sighs. No good is going to come from resting on his laurels.]


Even when you lose, you're a pain in the ass.

[And with that he sheathes the sword on his hip and adjusts the weight of his pack, leaning down to pull Sync's unconscious weight onto his shoulders.

Brat the other God-General might be, Asch can't very well just leave him there.]


And you're not going to thank me for this, but you're welcome, anyway.

[And with a last bit of adjustment of the body over his shoulders, he starts the march off through the next section of tunnels to the camp.]