phantasmemes | TEST DRIVE 006

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!test drive

TEST DRIVE 006

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.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

"At this point, I think anyone stuck in a situation like that doesn't come out of it the same way physically or otherwise."

3D printed bodies with nanites, not-quite-dead whatever Akechi was, there really was a range of nonsense at this point.

Despite having asked him to remove it Talcott flinches when the sword falls, metal and stone clattering together and making his skin crawl. He'd expected more respect for the blade, to set it gently to the side or something. Not just-

But then he's being asked to move and he does so without thinking about it, another tell that he doesn't realize he's given away until it's too late. Damn. He turns once he's under the crystals, glances over his shoulder, considers the height difference between them and sinks down to one knee, fingers tightening on the knife at his side. He does not like putting himself in such a vulnerable position but what else is he supposed to do.

"Thank you." For offer assistance and hopefully not murdering him.

There's no sudden movements, especially after the sword clatter. Asch just gently steps behind him and pauses. "I'm going to brush through your hair to make sure it isn't bleeding, if that's okay, but it doesn't look like you broke the skin."

Just. Let's take our time and not be threatening at each other here.

["Outside is fix"? By a select handful of gods. This poor guy needs some language courses, doesn't he.]

Since you can hear cave-ins and tools better than I can, probably best if I follow your lead. Not exactly equipped to take a hit.

[She'll do her best to try and navigate, but considering the mutual disability, communication between them will be tough. So she has to swallow her pride and let Church lead because otherwise there's no way they're not getting lost.]

I know what space is. [No you don't, Izzy.] I know what a ship is. So that makes sense.

It's the other concepts that need more explaining. Especially that last one?

Talcott listens intently, sipping slowly on his coffee, savoring it and letting his gaze get drawn in by the play of those crystals more than he'd like to admit. It surprising to him in a way, that the Founder King should be so willing to do something which obviously gives him away. The kinds of tells that even Ignis would never allow.

He'd expected more posturing, more politicking. It's... actually very humanizing and reassuring, seeing the legend as nothing more than a man burdened with memories like the rest of them. He can see where the tale is going even before Izunia hesitates and he frowns, stares down into his coffee for a long moment, seeing only the shattered pieces of Chloe's face again.

"You were frightened, thought yourself in danger. You reacted and if the training you went through then was anything like what it was for Noctis then-" He shakes his head, sighs softly to convey that same feeling audibly. "Can you really blame yourself?"

Of course he can. Of course he does that much is clear. And if someone like the king can be held responsible for such actions then-

No. No no no no Chloe shot him it wasn't his fault.

"D-don't... don't answer that."

"...I don't think it's a matter of blame. But forgiving myself..."

It's another matter entirely, and it sounds like one that Talcott, unfortunately, knows well enough. He lets the silence hang, in sparkling crystals and the sound of the rain, for just a moment.

"The true nature of Ardyn's power, that he kept hidden from even me and Gilgamesh, was that... He didn't heal the Scourge, in the way that the line of the Oracle later would. He simply took the infection into himself, more than any human should have been able to contain. I think that what happened would have happened eventually, when it grew too much for his body, a point that I think was very near. But I cannot be sure, and I cannot ask - Ardyn remembers little to nothing before the events that immediately followed his transformation.

"Distraught, I sought the Crystal for guidance. There, the Draconian told me that Ardyn had become a daemon - something worse than a daemon, even, the avatar of all that was dark and twisted by the Scourge. I didn't want to believe it. But two nights later... I was asleep, in that same room, and I woke to hands around my throat. Ardyn, black-weeping and berserk. If Gilgamesh hadn't come... I believed, then.

"I had the daemon Ardyn captured, contained, but I - the Draconian laid the role of king at my feet, and I picked it up, because the people still needed someone. And I let 'Izunia' be the brother who had died, replaced by a daemon, and 'Ardyn' be the beloved king wracked by grief. I told myself that it was for the sake of everyone else - 'Izunia' had few people who would miss him in comparison, after all. I was sparing the world grief."

A shaky inhale, exhale, Izunia running a hand through his hair and closing his eyes, even if he can't see through them right now anyway. The circle of crystals continues to spin; the orb of light hanging over their little campsite wobbles.

"...The truth I can admit to now is that... I just couldn't handle a world without him. So I sealed away my heart and committed the whole of my being to the substitution, to the mad attempt at recreating the brother I had lost with my own self. And the daemon that I blamed for taking him away from me - the daemon that was, still, always, my brother - even if prophecy said I couldn't kill it, I could hurt it, for taking him away from me."

He almost can't say it, not outright. The turn of the phrase he uses is not for politics, but for his own chances at holding himself together long enough to tell the rest of the tale - "And so there are thirty-seven fratricides to my name, and only the first an accident, even if they were all mistakes."

Thirty six - six times six, a ritual number from a ritual time in which faith in the gods was something he still had some belief in. A mad, frantic prayer of death for something, someone who couldn't die.

[Okay that has him perking up like a puppy dog who just heard a plastic bag open.]

Oh Sweet Shiva, please?

"Ah... new bodies for your dead as well then?" Clearly not for the living, right? Why would the living need new bodies.

Unless something like what happened to Ren happened to one of them.

"There... seems to be something dampening our senses. I... can't feel it if it is bleeding." It's clearly difficult for him to get that out, to admit that he's handicapped in yet another way when he's letting himself be so vulnerable with a complete stranger.

Gods things were so much easier when he was only afraid of the dark. When it was just monsters out to get him and not men.

"Go ahead."

"I'll check carefully, then." Especially with someone with dark hair. Talcott won't feel it, but if he listens, there's the sound of hair being adjusted as Asch looks, and if pain is still functional there might be some jolt when his fingers brush the tender spot. "Not bleeding. Probably going to swell some, but I think you'll be fine."

And, again, that careful I'm making noise so you're not startled when I appear in your peripheral set of noisy footsteps as he comes back into view.

[What?

Okay, that's. That's not a reaction he was expecting. He doesn't recognize this guy at all, but he recognizes him? It's not new for people to know who he is - but that was back home, where he had a reputation.

Not in a weird interdimensional world hopping place.]

Clothes? [He looks down at himself. There's a lot of midriff on display, but that's fine.]

...Do I know you?

Talcott is quiet for a long moment after that, processing what was said, giving Izunia a moment, comparing all of this information to the scraps that he and Ignis had managed to scrape together. Then contrasting that with what little information he had from the game developers. So much conflicting information and he had no idea what was true and what was the variation of another world. And if he and the others could go home if they died didn't that mean there was more truth to their worlds than the fiction they were fed, other people and characters that are deeper and more complex than the writers allowed for.

People like Izunia whose story was never written but is here and suffering all the same.

It takes Tal a moment to contemplate whether or not it's really proper but the redhead had said himself that he was retired, a king no longer. So he sets aside his coffee, the soft click of the cup against the table, a brief scrape as he stands from his chair. Two dragging, booted footsteps and then, Talcott just leans over and wraps his arms around Izunia's shoulders. Nothing he can say will even begin to help a hurt that deep but sometimes knowing you're not alone is enough.

He hates the fact that he can't feel it but that doesn't change the intent behind it.

"I'm sorry." What else could he possibly say to that.

The pain registers but distantly and because he can't feel the touch that causes it it's a little startling. He tenses, his breath hisses in between his teeth but he doesn't react otherwise.

It's only now, as Asch moves back around that he realizes how careful the redhead is being and he has to wonder if this is Asch being paranoid or if he's walking on eggshells for his benefit. Which is a strange thought to have when his friends weren't even this careful with him. (And how many times had that nearly got one of them injured?)

"I don't think I hit it hard enough to cause any damage other than a bump." He pushes back to his feet, considers replacing his hat and ends up just tucking it into his back pocket. "Thank you for checking... and... I'm sorry if I'm being weird."

He doesn't even know where he is but he knows he's being paranoid as all hell.

There's an obvious reflex reaction to look at the sound, even if Izunia can't see it, but -

He makes a small surprised sound at the hug, but in spite of that, returns it almost immediately. "Thank you."

It might not be much, it might not change anything, but - Izunia is a person who wants to be heard, and that much has not changed over these handful of months. He slides his hands again from Talcott's shoulders after a moment, reclaiming the mug of coffee from where it briefly vanished into his Armiger to avoid spilling. His voice is calmer, after, the worst of it over for now.

"From there, the rest of the story is largely straightforward until the end. Ardyn was sealed in Angelgard, for some centuries, and during that time the Scourge all but disappeared from the world. I married, had a family, and established the kingdom as best I could. I still remember the first time I held Aurora, because it was like waking from a dream and realizing, at least a little, what a fool I had been. But by then, the switch was long since established, and I had little choice but to continue. I lived out the rest of my life and took my place, watching, waiting, as one of the spirits bound to the Ring."

"I'm not sure exactly when Ardyn escaped Angelgard, but by that point he was a broken, hateful thing, twisted as much by what I had unknowingly done as by the Scourge itself. Hence 'Ardyn Izunia' - a reminder of who had wronged him most. I'm not sure where he went after that; there's a few suspicious incidents that even I can recall, but he didn't return to Insomnia until it was as the Chancellor of Niflheim."

[There is a lot of midriff on display and that's definitely not fine. Not fine at all. And that waistband goes so low. Too low. He's about to stammer out some sort of insistence when Lance asks that question.

For one heart stopping moment Tal looks over his shoulder, his expression utterly betrayed, deeply wounded and then he looks sharply away again. His breath comes out ragged, his shoulders shake a little. No, they're somewhere else. Maybe Lance has forgotten, maybe they used that memory wipe stuff on him like they had on Red and Stan. There's plenty of explanations that make sense.

But there's still a voice in the back of his mind that whispers that he's ruined everything and pretending to have a clean slate is the only way Lance has to deal with this entire clusterfuck of feelings and mistakes that defines so much of what they mean to each other. Somewhere, part of him knows it's not true but the thought lingers, twisting and venomous.

He'd rather take on the Archean's task and bear the meteor for the rest of eternity than turn and face Lance right now, even if he knows he'll have to eventually. ]

I...I thought so...

"...From the way you're dressed, I'm pretty sure we're in the same line of work, or something close to it." Probably not a child soldier in a religious military, but, really, he can't find out without asking. There's a slight softening of the redhead's expression, not quite a smile but a release of tension all the same.

Rather than going to retrieve his sword, he offers a hand. "Asch. Formerly Oracle Knights Special Operations, not that that's likely to mean much." The Special Operations part might, at least, be easy enough to understand.

[He thought so. That's...

He doesn't know what that's supposed to mean? It's unsettling.

He wishes he knew more about what's going on, about what all of this meant, because there's a piece he's missing that he can't quite find.

(He thinks of Shiro and Hunk, not knowing what he knows, disappearing. Shiro coming back with white hair and one less arm, no longer a disparity of time between them. And Hunk...

Best not to think about that now.)]

I...

[He swallows, and he feels...so sorry? He must not be the right Lance. There must be some Lance from some different reality that this guy knows, but Lance isn't him.

He couldn't be.]

Sorry. Guess you know...a different me.

[And that feels so awkward to say. There's a moment, before Lance sighs, reaching for his Slate. If Tal looks, he'll see a shift from his dancer gear to simple - and less revealing - white robes.]

You should still let me look at your head, though. You might have a concussion.

Thank god. I don't think I could handle more running.

[Save Them From Reality.]

It's impressive that you can run in those things...

[Clearly looking at your heels there, buddy.]

I know one other person who can, but she's a lot smaller than you.

[Short people don't have as far to fall.]

I can do more than just run.

[Why yes, he does sound very boastful.]

I can fight, too. And dance. Obviously.

[Obviously.]

[You can sound boastful, Asch doesn't look terribly impressed. Probably because.]

So can she. Though I'm not sure why, even for a member of the Intelligence Division, heels are just a stupid decision...

You can't fight monsters if you're not cute.

[Unless you're like. A Dragoon, or something.]

...Tell that to Largo the Black Lion.

[The name won't mean jack shit to Lance, of course, but the thought seems to put Asch in a slightly better mood.]

[Shockingly, the name does mean something to Lance. He looks surprised, even! Hearing that.

But then his shoulders relax, because it...must be a different Black Lion. The Lions don't have names.

(If they did, it would probably be more alien than Largo.]

Well, not everyone can be cute. For those of us that are, though, why not go the extra mile?

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

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TEST DRIVE 006

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hehehehe :3c

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