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

Samata Mahto | OC

[tomatowizard]

-1-

A dark skinned woman with a primitive looking but apparently fully functional prosthetic arm dressed like she had raided Benjamin Franklin's closet squinted at the mine through a pair of elaborate looking spectacles that had at least three adjustable lenses per eye. The mine was pitch black as far as she was concerned. The glasses, at least, let her see the flow of magic over everything in it. It wasn't exactly vision, but it let her vaguely make out the outlines of everything around her. It also let her see people without trouble and through walls, as complicated vortexes that distorted the flow of magic around them in infinitely intricate and complex patterns. It was almost beautiful.

Regardless of how quiet you were being, Samata called out to you long before you were actually in view. "I say! I don't suppose you have a match? Or a lantern? Or a sedan chair carried by handsome servants?"

The last one is PROBABLY a joke.

-2-

"How do they work, do you think?"

Samata was standing out of the way of the working mining tools, peering at them curiously through the magic spectacles. As they didn't really have a consciousness, they were only vaguely visible to her. She thought the one she was looking at right now was most likely a shovel. "They have no odic field, obviously, so there must be something else controlling them. I just can't tell WHAT."

Her gaze shifted to just generally surveying the world around her. "It's almost like the whole mine is some kind of giant...not-quite-living creature."

1

[nojohnyouare]

[Mai turns around quickly, blue plastic sword in hand. She pauses.]

No. ...Where...?

[tomatowizard]

Right over here!

Wait...is there a wall? I can't see walls very well right now.

[nojohnyouare]

Yes. ...So it's not just me. Losing something.

[tomatowizard]

Well it IS very dark.

[It's not. She's just blinded save for when using the spectacles of detect magic.]

1

[ohwhenyouloveit]

Well, the duo here - a lady in fancy dress and the monster carrying her on its shoulders in a chair - probably give off quite a bit of magical energy. Although Hope really wishes she could speak now.

"I fear I have only the one chair," growls the monster, turning its head in her direction, "and it is most certainly reserved for my Lady Echidna."

[tomatowizard]

Samata couldn't see the monster directly. She could see the way magic flowed around it and interacted with it, which was MORE than enough to let her know it definitely was not human. She had no idea what, though. It was talking, though, and carrying a human who was interacting with the magical flow in a way very similar to the sorcerers she was familiar with, so Samata decided that the thing was probably some kind of familiar.

"On second thought, maybe I'll just walk." She said, with a noted edge to her voice.

[ohwhenyouloveit]

Hope flinches at the edge. But she supposes that's what happens when you try to make a joke in your monster voice to someone who's not familiar with you. She sends a feeling of worry and asking to tone things down. "We are seeking a way out. Will you at least follow us? I shall certainly keep my distance should that comfort you."

2

[charterbound]

Mogget has no real problem sauntering through the mines as if he owns them. It's the way of being a cat, really. Hearing the question, he sits near the woman and looks at the tools himself.

"Given nothing here is governed by a magic I know, I surely could not say. I imagine though that it would be a spell built into their making, that gets them to repeat their actions over and over again." His words are clear, for being a cat, watching the tools with curiosity. Tools with spells laid into them wasn't uncommon, but for them to act on their own without a sending was.

Samata also might not want to look at Mogget through the glasses. He was rather powerfully bright.

[tomatowizard]

She looked at Mogget. Then she very quickly looked away, flinching. Obviously it wasn't a normal cat if it could talk, but whatever it was was damn powerful. She blinked her eyes a lot until she stopped seeing spots, suddenly feeling nervous.

She did her best not to act scared, though. Just because it was powerful didn't mean she had to bow and scrape at it. "Is that normal mining practices? I've never been in a mine before but it seems like it could cause more trouble than good having walls getting randomly knocked down."

[charterbound]

If he notices her looking and flinching, Mogget doesn't seem to show it. The bell on his collar chimes though, the sound almost...reassuring? Saraneth knew that the cat was unable to do any harm.

"Not where I come from," he replies simply. "Perhaps it may have been here, when there were people around who knew it. I doubt anyone with some sense would leave such things going unless they absolutely must. But then, sense is uncommon these days..."

[tomatowizard]

"I'm thinking it's more likely to be a decayed form of another enchantment that was less single minded. This mine has clearly been abandoned for a long time"

What was up with that bell, though? She really wished she could SEE properly right now.

1

[multiclassing]

"All outta chairs, boss." 'sup. It's your FAVORITE apprentice in the entire world. "Don't you got a spell for fire though? It's not too dark for me, but you humans have such terrible eyesight."

[tomatowizard]

Oh good Val's here. That actually made her feel a bit better. Casual use of fireball didn't, though. "I want to be able to see, not to collapse the roof on our heads."

[multiclassing]

Snrt. "Then obviously you need to practice more. Since my fire spells don't collapse no roofs."

First off, that was a double negative. Second off, it's because Val sucks at fire spells.

"Do you want me to light up this place for you, boss? Do you?"

[tomatowizard]

"Fine, yes. Let's see your best fire spell, number one apprentice."

She folded her arms and looked in what she figured was Valrissa's direction. If an elf could see in THIS darkness, she was impressed.

1, murdergame CRAU

[caineraisingproject]

Keenan cocks his head at the voice.

"I got bad news about the ambient darkness," he says. "This place likes to mess with our senses. I'm pretty sure that you'll be blind as long as you're in the mines."

He walks towards the voice, hands up, neutral - just in case he's wrong. His magical field might be a little interesting, between the nanomachines from the Ranarium's twisted experiment and his regular Dreamdiving back home. "No sedan chair, but my girl Sara thinks I'm pretty handsome."

[tomatowizard]

The nanomachines didn't show up at all. The regular dream diving gave him a slightly odd look, though. But then, everything was odd here.

"There WAS something odd about the magic here. If it's making me go blind then I may have to take a moment to lose my mind, though."

She didn't comment on him being handsome. She couldn't see his face, obviously, but he sounded very young.

2

[plentyfriendly]

Phi had been taking a breather, watching for herself, though the discussion is far from unwelcome.

"I'm not sure what you mean by odic field, but it's more than likely they're pre-programmed, so to speak."

[tomatowizard]

"The odic field is the inherent energy present in all living things." she said, like she had explained this a hundred times and enjoyed doing it every time. It was her post graduate thesis, after all. "For centuries we thought it was just magic, but it's distinctly different force. Taking this into account explains numerous inconsistencies with the magic field theory that has been the norm for the last hundred years. It'll revolutionize magical research!"

[plentyfriendly]

"Well, science hasn't discovered anything like that where I'm from, but we also didn't have magic to do it with in the first place."

[tomatowizard]

"Sounds nice, honestly. Magic causes no end of trouble and I kind of wish it didn't exist."

She'd still have two arms if there was no magic, just for a start.

1

[nocawsforconcern]

Nope, nope, and nope. It's plenty bright in here, isn't it?

[She folds her arms.]

[tomatowizard]

Maybe this is some other usage of the word "bright" I am unfamiliar with. I can't see my hands in front of my face!

[nocawsforconcern]

I can see your hands and your face fine, though?

[Her facial recognition is completely gone, but she doesn't know this person anyway, so it's fine.]