TEST DRIVE 006

[phantasmods]

Hello and welcome to Phantasmal Rift's Test Drive Meme!

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 test drive takes place in the Telovia Mines, an extremely abandoned magical crystal mine and the town and infrastructure that one supported it. The tunnels are in reasonably good condition and would be reasonably navigable... Except for one thing.

ONE MINOR THING

The magical effects of the Fissure cause those within it to lose something when they arrive - for most people, it's a sense such as touch or hearing, but it's also possible to lose a more esoteric sense (such as your sense of balance or temperature, but NOT things like "sense of morals" or "sense of style"), the ability to speak, or the ability to recognize faces. As a general guideline, whatever characters lose should be non-supernatural in nature, and something they would have taken for granted as a part of their ability to function.

ODDS AND ENDS

Just because the mines are empty of people doesn't mean that they've gone still. While for the most part, the carts full of crystals remain in one place, the huge amount of magic has left more than a few of the miners' abandoned tools still going through their motions. Rusted pickaxes swing at the walls, and dead lanterns swing from the ceiling. Crystals occasionally free themselves from shards of rock to pile into bins, which then empty into already-overflowing mine carts.

As long as you leave them to their jobs, everything will be fine. If you try to stop the tools (and it is the tools themselves, for anyone who might be looking for ghosts) from doing their jobs, they'll chase you down until you leave their general vicinity.

Of course, the eternally working tools don't care much about the structural integrity of the mine tunnels...

THEY ALL PILE UP

...And so, inevitably, there are cave-ins.

Most of them are fairly minor, and you can see them (well, if you can see) enough to just work around them. Some of them are big enough that you're going to have to dig through them first, if you can.

And then there's the handful that block passages entirely. But don't panic! The tunnels are designed around the possibility of this happening - rather than coming to an end, the majority of them loop back around to the main arteries of the mine.

E... ventually...

But you and whoever is stuck with you on this side of the cave-in might be wandering for quite a while before you get there. Hopefully one of you still has a sense of direction, assuming either of you ever had one in the first place.

Comments

[tomatowizard]

"Drunk sorcerer cut it off at a party by accident." And that was probably number one on her top least favorite memories.

[shatteredeclipse]

Luna can tell that Arianna's gesturing, but the exact details remain blurry. Seriously, how does Shin do this?

She turns to face Arianna... yup, still can't see shit. "Are you waving or something? I'm blind at the moment, so I have no idea what you're doing over there."

[seekingsunrise]

For as awful and chaotic as everything has been over the last few months this moment, the knowledge that Noctis is okay and safe and happy with Lunafreya somewhere, in some world... that makes it all worthwhile.

Even knowing that it's all going to get some magical fix in the next year or two thanks to the developers underplanning.

"I'm glad... that they're doing well not that-" He gestures vaguely at Ardyn himself, smile fading. "Knowledge or not I think... being in that kind of situation makes everyone a little crazy."

Or a lot in his case.

[seekingsunrise]

If there are people here with their powers then I think I'll be fine. As long as someone has heightened reflexes they'll be able to make sure I don't hurt them.

[Ichigo, for example, could stop him dead in his tracks.]

[thedarkheir]

"I'm sure as weird as my life got that I'm not crazy." Soma immediately retorted, though the way she said surface world catches his attention. "Wait - you said something about a tower, aren't most towers suppose climb up high into the sky, and yet you never seen stars?" He gestures, trying to make sense what this strange moth-girl was saying.

But before he could say something else, there was a low, ominous rumble that went under their feet.

[burninglight]

"Oh, it's alright. I think we can agree I've been out of my damned mind since before the current calendar went into effect. But even after a year I still don't know how humans can stand living like this...all fragile and with such a limited ability for memory retention. I get headaches now, what the fuck is that?"

Your immortal Accursed, ladies and gentlemen.

[plentyfriendly]

"An old mine shaft not far from Incendia. There used to be a little town on the surface called Telovia, but it's been a few decades since anyone lived there."

That's about as much as she can tell, but she likes to go in informed.

"If you don't recognize the names, it's because you may not be in the same universe you just were."

[seekingsunrise]

Nonsensical dates aside it is still very interesting.

But Talcott settles in, watching Izunia a little more closely as the tension in him grows. He wants to focus on the other man entirely, see what he gives away without realizing it, especially since he can't see the intensity of his focus. But they're not somewhere safe enough for him to do that so he'll have to split his attention, as frustrating as it is.

"From the beginning sounds like the best. As I said, what information I have is... scattered at best."

[plentyfriendly]

"Sounds like someone needs to take 'don't drink and drive' to the next level."

[seekingsunrise]

That's good at least, and he doesn't draw the knife, just finds the right hold so he can if he needs to. It's so much more difficult when he can't actually feel.

Talcott hesitates, steels himself not to give up any space as Asch steps closer. He doesn't want to, especially since it would mean giving this man his back. "That-" a low, steady breath. "That might be wise... but only if you set your sword aside."

Yet, he's not about to remove any of his knives. Hypocrite much?

One miner thing

[redmeguca]

[The falling rocks are stopped by diamond shaped chains shooting out below them. Shortly afterwards, Hibiki "hears" a voice in her mind.]

{Oy, don't shout like that. This place is pretty unstable. Also, it's not Goat-san's fault. You just lost your sense of taste because of this place's effects, you spoiled brat.}

[nocawsforconcern]

[no because your name starts with leo]

Got it! That's settled, then. Let's go, Leo Minor!

[nocawsforconcern]

[Well, that's. A thing. She lowers her raised hand, and the shield vanishes. But then she outstretches her flicking hand again, this time raised in a pose to do a chop.]

You. Calm down. Screaming is dangerous, and also suuuuuper annoying.

[bloodyashes]

"...Fair enough."

He's not going to point out, for the moment, that as a fonist he's nearly as well armed without it. He just slides the sword from its sheath and drops it about arm's length away from himself before stepping closer. But before he actually takes a look - "Can you slide a foot or so to your left? The light's better."

Which, indeed, there's a vein of crystals a bit above their heads there. Yay, shiny rocks.

[have_hat_will_travel]

[Pidonus pauses.]

... And uh how old are you?

[founderinglight]

"Very well."

Izunia settles back into his chair and visibly tries to relax. It won't be very long at all before Talcott sees him pull something else from the Armiger - a small velvet sack that contains a bracelet he slips on and a number of colorful, faceted crystals. They glitter in the dim light, and after a moment, start to hover by the means of some unknown magic.

"The circumstances of our birth are... Well, fairly obvious if you look at us. Ardyn is the elder, by some handful of minutes, but I tended to be the responsible one. He was playful, and took the lead on almost everything, while I smoothed out any ruffled feathers and kept him from doing anything too risky." His voice is warm and fond, but with a touch of grief. "Normal enough, even for children growing up at the end of the Astral War, when the Scourge and daemons lurked in all corners much as it does in your time. We were twenty or so when Ardyn was... Chosen."

And here the purpose of the little crystals becomes clear - even if Izunia can't see them, himself, the way he twitches his fingers to send them floating into a spinning circle is clearly a routine sort of fidget. "Led by a vision, he went off in search of the slumbering gods, and returned with four things - the Crystal, the Ring of the Lucii, the prophecy of the Chosen King, and a blessing - the power to heal the Scourge from the afflicted. The Armiger was already ours, a last kiss from the magical power thrown about by the Astral War, or so we thought - I think there were some other handful of children with such powers born in that era, though I can no longer recall any such details.

"And so for fifteen years he wandered the earth, healing all he came across, with Gilgamesh at his side - I went with them on occasion, but for the most part I was occupied in what would eventually become Insomnia, leading the repair of infrastructure and research into what the Scourge actually was. Even if we could not cure it, we could find out how it spread, slow the infection - the only help to my brother's mission I could truly give.

"I don't remember how exactly I became exposed, but I know that it must have been in the process of that work, because we lost many other researchers to the same. Ardyn heard, and of course rushed home for my sake, and even then he was only barely in time; I was already at the point of hallucinations and fever. By that time, I had the feeling there was something wrong, for Ardyn had already begun dressing in many layers and keeping his face shaded in a healer's hood."

The circle of bobbing crystals tightens in a snap. "But nothing could have prepared me for what I woke up to see - my brother's face the grey of a corpse, the Scourge leaking from his eyes. I thought it another fever nightmare and I - " A hitch. " - I struck with one of the blades I kept always in my Armiger. And I knew the wound to be mortal even before he hit the ground, but that impact never came. He dissolved instead, like a daemon, leaving nothing behind."

[hairpincurves]

I'm sure someone here fits the bill!

[So, at least there's that.

... Though, something finally occurs to her.]

... There's a stabilized area not too far from here. It should, uh, fix whatever effect the Fissure's having on you.

[tomatowizard]

"Barely even got a slap on the wrist for it, too. That's just how it is. If you're born with magic, you're born without consequences. Normal people don't matter."

[tomatowizard]

I hope I can talk you into rescuing me as well, as long as you're here.

[tomatowizard]

Well you're not good at all then.

[tomatowizard]

"Knowledge is gained through experimentation. Try these on."

Samata took her spectacles off and, carefully, handed them to Luna. They were able to detect magical energy in the atmosphere and transform it into some kind of visual medium that let Samata see them. Somehow, they were working even though she was blinded.

Even odds if they'll work for Luna as well, but if they did she would be able to see magic as a sort of ethereal mist blowing over the invisible outlines of everything around her. People looked almost like plants made out of branches of light that caused the magic to swirl and ripple around them.

[nocawsforconcern]

That's very rude. I'm plenty good.

[nojohnyouare]

You can join us. All of us came in through Fissures. We populate a research station. ...Two, now, almost. Since we reclaimed another one. And there are more of us now.

[seekingsunrise]

"I can't help you on the memory retention side of things, I've never had that problem." Nope, everything just lives in his brain in perfect clarity. It's a little unsettling to most people.

"Headaches are awful though and... I'm not entirely sure how fragile I am anymore? But it is definitely enough to make you paranoid." Ardyn was forthcoming about his murdery experiences Tal would do the same. Even if there's a good chance that consideration might get him killed.

[seekingsunrise]

"Incendia... Telovia... No I don't but-" But that doesn't necessarily mean anything.

"Is this world Earth or are we elsewhere?" The fact that he has to ask says a lot about where he's coming from here.