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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...
no subject
"Cool," Harriet says. "I mostly just...detonate things. I mean, I could go into technical detail but no one ever seems to understand what I'm talking about." She rubs the side of her nose, an odd gesture for the darkness-shrouded humanoid form. "Not even at home, unless you count brains like Tachyon."
no subject
You make things explode. That's all I really need.
no subject
"I mean, I can do other stuff," Harriet protests, feeling somehow on the defensive. "It's just...blowing stuff up is really easy. And kind of satisfying."
She decides to press her luck. "So, uh, what's your name?"
no subject
[That's... all you're getting out of her on that front.]
If you're here for me, then make it quick, I have things to do.
no subject
"Huh?" Harriet is beyond confused for a moment, but then it clicks into place. Lily's a villain. She thinks Harriet's on the clock, might want to throw down.
"Nah," Harriet says after a moment. "You don't get up in my grill, I'm inclined to let bygones be bygones."
no subject
Same to you. Leave my friends alone, and I won't be getting into your 'grill'.
no subject
"You have friends here?" Harriet asks, startled. "I showed up alone. My team probably thinks I no longer exist..." She shakes her head. "Trying not to think about that too much."
no subject
[That makes no sense to her.]
no subject
"The circumstances under which I left," Harriet answers. "Long story. Tee ell dee arr is, we were in a battle against...my arch-nemesis, there was every chance I'd be destroyed even if we won. We won and it kicked me out of the universe as a parting blow. I wound up here instead. They probably think I was just...deleted."
Harriet blinks away tears. Zoë...
no subject
[what else can she even say? She doesn't even know where to start with that story.]
no subject
"Yeah." Harriet coughs into her fist. "Yeah. So, ah…you—no, that's nosy." She pauses. "So do we pick a direction and walk that way, looking for people or at least some kind of variation in the scenery, or do we park our butts and wait for something to happen? I'm good either way."
no subject
What were you going to say?
[The look in her eyes makes it very clear she's not just asking.]
no subject
"You leave anyone behind you cared about?"
no subject
[that's not worrying!]
no subject
"I'm sorry," Harriet says softly, and waits to see whether Lily will open up or change the subject.
no subject
[... so, neither?]
no subject
Harriet frowns. "If you want to beat yourself up, use the hammer, it'll hurt less."
no subject
no subject
"Is it some kind of fucked-up soul-hammer? Because if it just hurts your body…nah."
no subject
[She almost seems to be about to share, but she clams up.]
Forget it. Never mind.
no subject
Harriet visibly thinks about pushing, but decides not to. "So, park or walk?"
no subject
no subject
Harriet looks around for the least filthy place to sit. There isn't one, so she just sits with her back to a wall in a spot with good sight-lines.
"How shall we pass the time?" she says. "Trade dad jokes? Mental chess? Don't say mental chess, I suck at chess even with a board."
no subject
[She's... seriously not making this easy, huh?]
Keeping watch is how I do it.
[Though she doesn't seem to care much about the dirty, flopping and sitting down anywhere that isn't wet.]
no subject
Harriet stands up again. "I'm starting to get the impression you would prefer to be left alone to seriously get your mope on. That's cool, I've been there, but you don't need me for that."
(no subject)
(no subject)