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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
[She goes stiff, and still. She doesn't seem to understand what's happening. But this is the most honest emotion she's heard from Jail in... ever, is it?]
Wha- What are you talking about? It's not- You didn't do anything wrong.
no subject
[She gives an unsteady little laugh, but doesn't quite let go yet.]
But apparently, one of my closest friends was planning to get herself killed and I didn't notice- so yeah, I think I fucked up.
[Friend, and also the woman she's been falling in love with for a while now- but she's uncomfortable enough being even this vulnerable, admitting that is going to have to wait a while.]
no subject
[Guilt and despair are overwhelming, and she can't see any way out but dying.]
no subject
[She pulls back just enough to look Lily in the eye while she talks, still not letting go.]
You think there weren't already other girls pulling the same propaganda duty you got stuck with back before either of us showed up? You think they didn't start looking for a replacement the second you learned the truth and told them where they could shove it?
This shitshow of a system didn't start with you, that ain't on you. But 'cause you decided to stand up and fight back, it might end with us, and that's enough to wipe out any fucking debt you think you got ten times over and then some.
They hurt you, lied to you, used you... and you did the right thing anyway, soon as you got the chance. What you deserve is a hell of a lot better than what you got.
no subject
[... Or so she believes.]
And what else am I going to do, anyway?! There's no place for me left in the world! All I can do is kill, and once the Hand is gone, what else am I going to do?!
no subject
[Jail isn't backing down on this one.]
If you don't know where to go, I'll help you look. If there isn't a place for you, I'll fucking make one. If you don't know what to do, then we'll learn something new together- but you don't fucking leave us all behind!
[She's never once loved anyone who didn't leave her soon enough. Maybe that's why she didn't realize how bad the idea of Lily being gone hurt until Faith told her what happened.]
no subject
[Tears are starting to form at the edges of her eyes.]
I don't deserve to be with any of you! I don't deserve to keep going after this! No one's going to accept what we did, anyway, but if I make everyone think I'm the leader of the Hand, and then die, at least then no one will think the deaths of their loved ones were meaningless!
[She's blending ideas and justifications into an incoherent mess now. She doesn't even seem to realize this herself, running entirely on emotion instead of thought.]
no subject
[Jail answers her point for point, refusing to give in.]
Bullshit, that's all bullshit! Why would you being part of the Hand and dying make them feel any better than the actual Hand leaders dying? That's total crap! The only meaningless death in all that would be yours, because it doesn't need to happen.
And if you think no one will accept what we did, then I got news for you: we won.
[Finally, here, she musters up a smile. It's a tiny, tired thing, but it's there.]
Like I said, Faith's from a year later. A year after Darkest Night. She told us everything- the Hand is dead, you're alive, and we won.
no subject
[The tears start flowing now.]
I just... I want it all to end, Jail! I'm tired! I can't... I can't keep going, okay?! I just... I can't keep this up... I can't keep being some hero, I can't keep being some hated villain, I just... I need it to be over! I've been fighting since I was six! I don't remember what it was like before I was risking my life to fight!
no subject
It can be over. It doesn't have to end that way, there's other ways for this to all be done. You don't have to be the hero, you don't have to be the villain, you don't have to fight. You can just rest now, and let us help instead.
You've done enough, you can rest now. It's over.
Just let us help. Please?
no subject
[Her voice sounds broken. Defeated. The undefeatable, the strongest, the prodigy mage, Lily... She just sounds so hopeless.]
no subject
[Jail's voice is still gentle, now. She's not used to be the hopeful one, she gave up on the world and herself so long ago... but someone has to, right now.]
Don't have to make it all right just this second, we'll start small.
no subject
What if we can't?
no subject
[She smiles, tired but real.]
Not like you haven't taken gambles before- we all have. What's there to lose?
[Lily has nothing to lose, from her own perspective, so why not bet it all, just in case?]
Anyway, I'm betting you we can. And you know I play dirty. I'll figure out a way to cheat, if we can't get a fair-and-square win.
no subject
But there's nothing I can do for you like this...
no subject
[She looks at Lily ruefully, and shrugs.]
I ain't exactly great at charity, but I'm pretty sure that's how friendship works- I'm helping you 'cause I wanna help, not to get something out of it. For once.
[A wink, and:]
Just do me a favor and don't tell anyone I'm going soft, okay?
no subject
she just... starts crying. not even cute crying, this is full ghibli ugly crying.]
no subject
[Maybe that's all she can do right now- hold on and be there. So be it. There's worse ways to start than being a shoulder to cry on.]
no subject
... I'm sorry...
no subject
We're cool, princess.
[She's pretty sure that Lily doesn't need to apologize for anything, but doubts she'd believe that, so letting her know that there aren't any hard feelings about this seems like the next best thing.]
no subject
... Even so... I'm sorry.
We can probably wrap this soon unless you want to do more with it.
[She smiles at Lily, weary but good-humored.]
So... wanna finish eating lunch?