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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Perhaps not, but the face of royalty relaxes towards a smile in response to the stifled laugh. Please don't ask him to formality right now, he's barely got a hold on the usual amicable grandpa act.

"Ah - damn, I'm sorry, I still can't place you." He seems genuinely displeased about this, frowning apologetically. "You seem to have a good head on your shoulders, at least, if you've figured out the trick to this Fissure already."

The rapier vanishes in a sparkle of blue, though the lights do not - understandably so. Perhaps only someone else from Eos would understand why. "You're correct. This world - I'm not sure that it has a name, actually, but something about the very nature of it is unstable. As a result, it pulls in things from any number of other realities - including people, for the last few months."

"I wouldn't expect you to know who I am." He hardly expects anyone to remember him, he's nowhere near as important as so many others. Just the kid of a servant.

"From other realities..." It pulls people in from other universes. Just like 6350.

"And the muting of our senses? Is that a temporary effect?" Shiva save him if it's not. He can't... do this. It was bad enough when he was dead but this is terrifying all over again. At least he has plenty of mysteries to figure out to keep him from focusing too much on phantom sensations. "It's not the first time I've seen such a tactic used."

"That doesn't give me any less expectation of myself." Kings, even retired ones, are held to a different standard. "If I may ask - and forgive me if this seems an incredibly odd question - can you give me an era?"

Some people try not to be weird the first time they meet someone. Izunia prefers to give an accurate account from the beginning.

"It'll be localized to the unstable parts of this Fissure - I know the general direction of the exit from here, we're not very far in at all." He gestures and one of the orbs of light bobs further down the tunnel. "That way, unless I've lost my sense entirely."

Talcott looks down the indicated passage and nods, humming softly in acknowledgment because Izunia cannot see the nod any more than Ignis would be able to. Then he's moving closer, hesitating for a moment. "If you'll give me your hand, sir, I can assist you."

A hand on his shoulder is pretty commonplace for him. It might even be a little reassuring, considering how long it's been since he's seen any of the people he considers family. But they should get moving before they start discussing eras and relations that might help Izunia place him.

"...That would be appreciated," he says after just a little hesitation, offering a hand in the general direction of the voice. Someone who recognized him for who he was was probably not an enemy - or even going to try to stab him for mistaking him for Ardyn.

(Take that, skeptics, the shirt does work once in a while.)

"My partner has managed to get lost again, I'm afraid, so I'll be counting on you."

After a moment to gently guide Izunia's hand to his shoulder Talcott begins walking in the indicated direction, taking a moment to pace himself to determine what speed works best for Izunia. A bit faster than he could usually move with Ignis, it seemed. Taller meant longer legs, after all.

"My grandfather was Jared Hester. He worked for the Amicitia family." His grandfather was definitely worth remembering more than he was. "He started working for them when -incline- Clarus was young."

Dropping that simple indicator of the shift in terrain into the middle of the sentence was so natural and habitual that it was a pretty clear indicator he was very familiar with working with someone blind.

Taller, and also a little more aggressive in his pace; though there is a bit of shuffle to his step, testing the ground before putting weight on his feet. Izunia doesn't move like the blind, but he does move like someone who is used to observing them.

"That would be - oh! The young man with the truck - now I truly do feel like a fool, that was really such a short time ago..." The deep voice is surprisingly sheepish about it.

The orbs of light, at least, follow the pair as they go, careful to not bump into Talcott and tingling with magic when they get close. They're not exactly anti-daemon strength, but they're strong enough for a starting place.

"Yeah I-"

Wait. He actually almost stumbles with the next step, silently cursing himself for getting distracted. Not even three months and he's out of practice?

"Sorry. Sorry. How do you know who I am?" No offense meant. "Sir."

And since Izunia can't see it and therefore can't take it as a sign of Tal distrusting his magical lights he's going to go ahead and flick on the flashlight clipped to his armored vest too. Just to be safe.

"Please, there's really no need for formality." A little insistent, and his hand is there to help steady Talcott as he stumbles. "And the short of it is that those within the Ring had some ability to see what its wearers were doing, if we broke the surface of what was otherwise a very long slumber. And I was very much awake at that point, though my attention was split and somewhat muddled."

He's not easily going to offer up why, though. Please don't make him go relive that thing.

He wouldn't dream of pushing for answers, not from Izunia. Getting him to stop calling him 'sir', however, might take a lot more doing.

"Oh! So you're aware of a lot of what happened with Prince Noctis?" He sounds so excited about that. And, in fact, if he had trouble placing the voice before hearing the way he says Noctis' name, that bright hopeful excitement, might be a bit more familiar.

"That really is fascinating. You must have learned so much over the centuries like that, then." The gaps in documentation you could fill, Izunia.

"And a few others, yes. There's quite a few gaps between the Fall of Insomnia and then, however - Noctis didn't put on the Ring until very late in his journey." There's a touch of unmistakable fondness in the way Izunia says the name.

(It is bold of Talcott to assume Izunia remembers enough to fill in even his own documentation.)

"Less than you might think, at any rate - there's only so much a human mind is meant to hold, and Ardyn and I are both near the upper limit." The casualness and affection is there, too - a very different thing from what Talcott might expect, given the context.

One of the downfalls of having a nearly eidetic memory is that he forgets that other people can't recall entire conversations verbatim years after the fact.

"I suppose that makes sense." It reminds him of Sol all over again, conveying the memories of others like Dan because they couldn't really process that many people's memories in one go. "You... are on good terms with your brother now?" Because that is... definitely not in line with what he knows from both Ignis and what limited records they could find from the early days.

"...It's complicated. The version of Ardyn that's here is human again and means no harm to anyone, but... You can't erase or forgive a history like ours overnight."

Two thousand years of grudges don't disappear easily, even when they were founded on a mountain of mistakes.

"How you feel about him and whether you interact with him or not is your choice, but I won't allow any harm to come to him."

"I've... had enough of harm happening to people, thanks." Soft and somber. But he is quick to latch onto the history part of things rather than letting Izunia follow that statement up with questions.

"Your history... that's a complicated topic, isn't it? None of the records seem to have a full account that isn't contradicted by at least half a dozen other pieces." Including wtf your name is, Izunia. But then he's spent an absurd amount of his nights of insomnia trying to figure out what the hell the truth was of what he and Ignis were looking for. And even from the outside it really kinda felt like the developers didn't know what they were doing so no wonder the two of them were a lost cause.

Time to find out what Izunia knew so he didn't contradict anything too much.

"Then it seems like you'll fit in here fine. Most of us have very little desire to harm each other, my brother-in-law's grudge and a few other circumstances excepted."

Yes, he did just drop the 'Ardyn is gay married' bomb in the most backhanded way possible. It's okay if that one takes a minute to process - Izunia has paused in a way that offers solid support in case Talcott trips again.

Or maybe that it's that he needs to pause, himself. "I'm surprised you found any records at all, after so long. I did do my best to disguise the trail. Come, that's a story better told in the light of day, even if I can't appreciate it at the moment. The mine entrance shouldn't be far; I feel as though I can almost hear the rain already."

Ardyn being married to a dude is not that weird in the grand scheme of things. Surprising but not enough to make him stagger. Which might be an interesting thing to note. He's more surprised by someone knowing or caring who he is than by the Accursed having found love.

He does take that moment to orient himself to the direction of the exit, breathing in deep, smiling faintly at the smell of wet earth. "Daylight would be appreciated, yeah."

Sorry, Izunia, he... doesn't take darkness well. Even now.

Does Izunia look even an inch like a man who handles the darkness well, given that he's got three large orbs of light floating around him still, even as they come into the muted light of the rainy day outside?

He's slower and more careful as they come into the range of the entrance - understandably so, given the number of minecart tracks someone could trip on.

"I do believe there's a clearer area off to the side... I've got a few chairs, if you'll lead. Might as well get comfortable and have something to drink."

Talcott is definitely not going to argue the orbs staying with them, not when the day is so overcast and gloomy. Thankfully it's not nearly as hot and sticky as he's used to. He does try to give Izunia indications of where the tracks are, guiding him to the areas where the lip of the tracks are lowest.

"You have chairs?" That seems like an abuse of power but then Nine had raided the craft room at camp for him before they left and stored all the jewelry making supplies in his inventory.

"No, I take it back, that's more practical than half the shit Nine keeps on him." And a few steps to the left. "We should be okay here? Out of the way but still shielded from the rain."

It is relatively cool for the kind of summer day it is, really. The rain is coming down pretty soundly as Izunia steps away.

"Chairs, meals, weapons, the majority of several people's wardrobes, half a chocolate shop and a significant portion of a library..."

Izunia just starts listing things to himself as he sets out two reasonably comfortable looking folding chairs and a small matching table before sitting. Two of the lights do vanish at that point, but the last remains floating over his shoulder. "Nearly everything save my cat and large furniture, at this point. Is there anything I can get you?"

Izunia keeps his light and Talcott makes no move to click off his flashlight. He turns one of the chairs to put the back to the wall before he sits down, angling himself outward to keep an eye on their surroundings, fingers anxiously toying with one of his knives.

"Half a chocolate shop?" That almost makes him laugh.

"You wouldn't happen to have... a bottle of Glacier in there, would you?" Pepsi is close but it's not really the same as Glacier Cola. He misses it, okay.

"The last expedition was to an abandoned but magically preserved city, and I looted all the perishables I could find." Which amounted to about a grocery store in total, if he's being honest.

For himself, Izunia pulls out a mug of coffee, creamed a little to his taste and steaming in the rainy air. Then a plate with a couple triangular slices of grilled cheese sandwich and a bit of sliced pear, which he balances on one thin knee.

"I'm afraid I don't have much of anything from Eos, though."

Edited 2018-09-02 02:20 (UTC)

"Ah... it's okay." Sorry if he sounds a little disappointed. "Pepsi? Or just coffee works. As long as it's passable by Ignis' standards." Because he's a spoiled brat when it comes to coffee and it's entirely Ignis' fault. Ren has definitely not been helping, either.

He tilts his head at the steaming cup int Izunia's hands though.

"How is it still hot?" he's pretty sure Nine can't do that.

"I've got just the thing." How exactly does the Founder King get a hold of the LeBlanc special? It's hard to say (there are just too many Akira out there), but he pulls another steaming mug to set on the table, this one black, followed by milk (in a half gallon jug), cream (in a pint carton), and sugar (in a fancy little china dish, with a spoon).

"The Armiger keeps things in temporal stasis - everything stays exactly the same as when I put it in. It's a wonder for giving yourself breakfast in bed." Which someone here might do not at all infrequently. "Let me know if you'd like anything else."

"Temporal stasis..." He repeats it slowly, clearly fascinated. He's only ever seen Ignis access the armiger and that was sparingly at best. Which means he's actually poking at the milk jug to see what the date is on it, just for the hell of it.

And then promptly set it back down because he's not going to sully his coffee with that nonsense. He actually picks up the cup, takes a small curious sip and then sighs happily. Nope. This is the good shit no additives necessary.

"No, this... this is perfect." Look this boy has been forced to gag down the burnt as shit camp coffee Cor swears by, okay. This is heaven. Maybe even enough to let him let his guard down just a little.

Not like the date probably makes sense anyway, since it's from this world.

"Good." Conversely, Izunia seems to grow a little more tense, munching through a slice of pear before speaking again. "I don't know what you might know of the story, so if it's alright with you, I'll start from the beginning."

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