phantasmods: (Default)
Phantasmal Rift Mods ([personal profile] phantasmods) wrote in [community profile] phantasmemes2018-07-12 11:56 pm
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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...
moarlazersplz: (Pet the Carby)

[personal profile] moarlazersplz 2018-08-01 10:08 pm (UTC)(link)
It's just Party chat, right...?

[Hmm, that was a concern that she hadn't thought about. The paladin hadn't seemed to entirely now how a party worked, and so maybe the chat wasn't as common as she'd assumed.]

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to intrude if this was supposed to be private!
riderofcharlemagne: (i will smack your face into tiny little)

[personal profile] riderofcharlemagne 2018-08-02 10:51 pm (UTC)(link)
That's another thing this can do?

Well, it's not like we've said anything that needed to be kept private, so don't worry about it.

[Not like he has high standards of what should be.]
founderinglight: ([hold])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-08-03 06:52 pm (UTC)(link)
Might be a case of someone else's powers interacting with ours. I daresay it wouldn't be the first strange intersection of such.

In any case, hello! My name is Izunia, I hope Astolfo hasn't damaged your hearing irreparably with that horn of his.
moarlazersplz: (/spectacles)

[personal profile] moarlazersplz 2018-08-03 07:55 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm getting that feeling, yes. I'll try to remember that not everyone's used to this, though.

And hi! I'm Ruto, and while it was loud, being in-party helps prevent friendly damage. Or else I might have lasered him along with the dogs before he used that horn, and I didn't want to do that...


[There's a flash of fang in the grin that she gives Astolfo there.]
riderofcharlemagne: (i eat stickers all the time dude)

[personal profile] riderofcharlemagne 2018-08-03 11:35 pm (UTC)(link)
See? Now I can use it without worry!

[As if he ever worried about it in the first place.]
founderinglight: ([my place plz])

[personal profile] founderinglight 2018-08-04 12:56 pm (UTC)(link)
Only for the people in the group, my dear. I'm probably not the only one who heard it and was alarmed.

[He's not going to test this for elemancy.]

If you've driven off that pack, then I think it about time to return to camp. I'm falling asleep on my feet.
moarlazersplz: (Pet the Carby)

[personal profile] moarlazersplz 2018-08-09 09:37 pm (UTC)(link)
Good point. I can only set up parties of eight people at most - I'm not actually sure how to organize an Alliance, which would be twenty-four people. Everyone outside the party might still have problems.

[At the news of an actual camp, Ruto perks up. Yes, someplace to actually rest!]

I'd appreciate a chance to rest too - it's definitely been a day.