▶ TDM OVERFLOW .001

[prismods]

Cybernetic dream, something like you've never seen

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▶ Lisa Frank's LSD Fun House
anytime, anywhere on the moon Iris | top

Everything is darkness except for dim lights sparkling in the distance, a faint gleam that greets you as you start to unfurl from your dormant state. Your body is hemmed in by shards of crystals, gently sparkling and possibly pricking your skin. The surrounding landscape is dyed in the pinks and purples of the dusk filled with crystals protruding from the ground, some as large as a skyscraper. Throat parched and skin dry and aching, you grope your body in alarm to make sure your possessions are still in place. This is far from home— perhaps a dream? You pinch your skin and slap your cheeks, yet nothing seems to do the trick. Searching for answers only rewards you with an endless expanse of purple dust as far as the eye can see. You have four options: one, panic; two, soil yourself; three, admire it all then soil yourself; or four, go into survival mode. Eventually, you’ll realize that you’re not alone.

A ⬤ As you traverse the near-barren landscape, you feel something sting your skin. It's small and subtle at first, then you finally catch sight of it: an elegant, crystalline mosquito buzzing around from the corner of your eye. However, a pest is still a pest. After a while, marks near your welts begin to form strange patterns on your skin, mimicking ancient runes. Each rune has with it a particular side-effect that may hinder you on your journey:

✾ The Mark of the Enchanter: Hallucinations, hallucinations galore. Your character will see everything and anything their imagination can conjure and will have difficulty separating reality from fiction.
₪ The Mark of the Destroyer: Limbs start to cease their function, causing you to stumble or try and get around one-handed. Other certain body parts may be affected as well. Look at the bright side: you can stop worrying about jiggle physics and hiding your fear boner.
⍢ The Mark of the Sinner: Your hunger, your thirst, your fatigue and your desire are at an all-time high. Your impulses are rabid and uncontrollable. Maybe you experience only one of those symptoms. Maybe you experience them all. All you know is that you want relief now.

These effects will eventually clear up with a bit of accidental or purposeful physical contact with another person, making you wonder if there was anything wrong with you at all.

B ⬤ Hunger starts to gnaw at you vigorously. Perhaps you consider hunting the moon's creatures to sate your hunger. That's when you see it: a thick, meaty, juicy meal on legs. No, we're not talking about Alex Louis Armstrong. A wild silver-white pegasus runs across the purple landscape, its hair billowing in the wind as its hooves smack loudly against the ground. Try and shoot it, and you may find your efforts curtailed by its legendary rage. Eyes aglow and wings beating up a storm, this pegasus is no dainty horse. Two thousand pounds of pure muscle swoop down and charge at you, all blades and ammunition deflecting off its impenetrable skin. Taming appears impossible; it will buck anyone away and leave a sizable horn- or hoof-shaped hole in them for their efforts. Hunting it, however, should be easier. Relatively.

C ⬤ Or you may decide that you'd like to take a drink in the prismatic waters. A small pond can be found just a few miles away from where you first awoke, but gazing into it reflects what appears to be a window into your own world. You see the faces of loved ones or at least someone very close and familiar to you gathered around your prone body, shaking it frantically as though to try and rouse you, yet your image lies frozen and unresponsive, not even a whisper of life running through you. Did you die in your world? Is this your afterlife? The questions start to pile up along with the gnawing dread that you may never return home again.

▶ Camp Nowhere
anytime, anywhere on the moon iris | top

Time moves strangely when you're trapped on a moon with no sun to guide you. Hours feel like days, and days feel like weeks. Travelling has rendered you weak and tired. Luckily, a few crystal formations in the shape of a cavern may offer you a small place refuge as you decide to nap. You notice a few artifacts left over from previous explorers.

D ⬤ A comm unit abandoned within the cavern will display the former owner's idol obsession. As you tap the buttons indiscriminately, a holographic screen will appear, and you will see a fabulous recorded concert featuring three bubbly young ladies in animal print, singing to you about something called Cordis, a cat, and a bag of gems. Does this make any sense to you? Probably not, but the beat is catchy. You may even find yourself tapping a foot along to it. Don’t worry. We know it’s plastic love.

E ⬤ There's a small cooler-like container of preserved powdered food bags labeled with only the word “Edible” that can be safely consumed. Although the powder tastes as bland as you’d expect, it’s oddly filling, sating either hunger or thirst. But who will be the first — and the bravest — to try eating them?

F ⬤ A strange, pointed instrument is among the effects found in the cavern. It's silver, long, and thin with a curved end and a light. When you grip it with warm hands, it seems to vibrate enthusiastically and comes in three settings indicated by a frowny face, a neutral face, and a happy face. What could it mean exactly? No one knows, but you can fiddle with it to your heart's desire. Just don't ask yourself where it's been before. You don't want to know.

▶ Interstellar Action Force Assemble
prisma, iris | top

Over a day has passed when a group of people find you worse for wear. Some are full of uncertainty and fear while some are full of curiosity and excitement. They claim that they are scientists from the planet Prismatica here to investigate the sudden appearances of rainbow crystals in the skies. That means you and the others they’ve located within the area. You are all a surprising find to them, and they are quick to load everyone in their transport vehicles for examination and questioning.

You all may have your usual inquiries — Where are we? Who are you? What's going on? Why are the pegasi so ill-tempered? — and the Prismals are almost too eager to answer. They do have questions on their own, so it’s only fair to trade. They tell you about their world as they poke and prod you, trying to understand what you are and how you came into their land. If they’re not trembling in fear, some of them may ask you odd and invasive questions in return, such as what the rate at which your body achieves thermoregulation is, how long your refractory period is, and if you would be willing to submit various kinds of body fluids to them. It's up to whether you wish to comply or protest.

G ⬤ If you react violently, you will be restrained and nerfed with a specialized neurotransmitting gun that releases a numbing agent through the top of your spine. They came prepared, so have fun with that! In any case, conscious or not, you’ll be brought into one of the transport vehicles. If you choose to peacefully cooperate, you’ll be provided any necessary first aid and a refreshing drink to help you recuperate after the rough time you had for the past few days. Each transport vehicle has a few small rooms to rest in, but due to the limited space, you’ll have to snuggle up with someone else on that bunk bed. Unfortunately, the moonshine fruit the ship is also carrying in its cargo has an extremely sweet smell that’s been permeating through certain areas of the ventilation system… Taking a whiff of it may inebriate you for the rest of the trip.

H ⬤ It’s a bumpy ride as terrain vehicles draw over various crystal formations until you see a large dome-like structure up ahead. Within its confines lies the seat of the Prismatica's government, Prisma. It’s a bureaucratic wet dream: skyscrapers practically touch the upper surface of the dome, windows glimmer with a prismatic sheen as daylight hits them, and small ships can be seen flying to and from its spaceport. The scientists, members of the Lunar Scientia, usher you into their facilities for tests. Arrivals are likely to twitch, tremble, and panic as Lunar Scientia fellows take and broadcast every embarrassing, unfiltered detail about you — height, weight, age, strange odors, estimated frequency of sexual activity —- to one another. These scientists will ask you politely to undress, too, but understand if you don't want to. They're especially fascinated by the readings of pure Chroma inside you, whispering among one another excitedly about the possibility of the new arrivals being a new moon species. What should they call them? Moonborne? Moonblessed?

I ⬤ At long last, the questions and physical examinations are done. They’ve decided to call the arrivals as the Moonblessed. They’ll take you under their care until they understand more about you. You're allowed a very refreshing hot shower and a warm meal for your efforts. Don’t worry, the meal was imported from their planet. “Planet?” you might ask, but you won’t need to wonder for too long. The ships are preparing for their next destination: the nearby planet Prismatica, where you will be dwelling for the time being. You're free to explore the government center until then.

▶ Wildcard
Lunatia, Prismatica | top

It only takes a couple hours for the ships to reach their home planet. The ships drop the characters off at the city of Lunatia, where they will be given their communication devices and a plastic card they can present to certain landlords at any residential district for their subsidized (read: absolutely free) lodging. Officials at Prisma instructed the newcomers to await further instructions from the government, but you have a lot of time to kill before then. Why not explore in the meantime? Learn the ins and outs of the world, get a job, transform under the full moon, and explore the many mysteries of planet Prismatica!

This is this TDM's overflow. Feel free to move your threads from there and continue tagging!

Comments

Ienzo | Kingdom Hearts | OTA

[printingpressismightiest]

[I'm open to spoilers for Kingdom Hearts 3 as long as you mark them in the header for anyone else who might be reading through! ]

I. Lisa Frank's LSD Funhouse

[ One of the unfortunate side effects of being an illusionist is that one's hallucinations have a tendency to migrate, so to speak. Ienzo's doing a fair job of keeping them in his own head on top of trying to keep track of what is and isn't real, but anyone approaching him may catch the occasional glimmer of something moving, a bright flash of color or a strange distant sound. ]

Hello? Is someone there? [ He calls out from some distance away, having caught someone's scent on the wind well before entering line of sight. It's not clear to him how much realer they are than the last thing he'd wasted his time trying to chase down (a strange, jiggling Heartless that smelled like custard), but he's hoping it's significantly so. ]

II. Camp Nowhere

[ Ienzo all but jumps out of his skin when the strange device starts vibrating, dropping it on the cavern's floor. He hadn't expected it to still have power after all this time, much less do... whatever it was it was trying to accomplish. Hesitantly, he picks it up again, only for it to start vibrating wildly once more. ]

What is this? [ he asks, turning it over in his hands cautiously. Some kind of communications beacon? If it is, he certainly can't find any indication of how it works or what it's doing, aside from the face icons along one of its ends. He holds the thing up to the light, puzzled, as he flips it back and forth through its settings. ]

III. Interstellar Action Force Assemble

[ There's... a shortage of beds aboard the transport they've all been taken aboard. That's. Hm. Ienzo contemplates the rows of bunk beds before him, then looks up at the person nearest him. ]

I'm happy to take the floor, if you'd prefer it. [ He offers, earnestly. Clinging to someone else through this voyage doesn't sound like his idea of a pleasant time, especially with this sickening sweetness hanging in the air, making him feel lightheaded. ]

I

[oncebrokenway]

[there's a fair amount of jagged crystal between him and the source of the voice, obscuring line of sight... but Riku knows that voice.

and, now that he's prompted to check for it, that scent.]

Ienzo? It's Riku! Hang on--

[he's handled worse terrain than some sharp and pointy crystals. starts making his way across]

[printingpressismightiest]

Riku? [ That's not the first person he'd pick to run into when suddenly teleported to a strange world and suffering from some kind of hallucinogenic effect, but at this point he'll take whatever he can get, uncomfortable shared history or not. He doesn't trust his own senses enough to navigate as it is, so he stays where he is and waits for Riku to come to him. ]

Do you know where we are? I don't think I've ever seen a world like this before.

[oncebrokenway]

[that shared history is uncomfortable, but if Riku can have a civil conversation with Ienzo while standing in the very lab where the Organization was born, he figures he can certainly offer Ienzo help when stranded on a mysterious new world.]

No idea - it reminds me a little of the barrens around Radiant Garden, but I know I've never been here.

[making it to the other side of the crystals, he hops down and comes to stand next to Ienzo.]

[printingpressismightiest]

[ Ienzo shakes his head. ] If this were anywhere in Radiant Garden, I'd recognize it. [ Even after years of being away, he knows the city and the surrounding wilds like the back of his hand. Just thinking about it in his addled state has him hearing the sound of running water, and thanks to his magic Riku may hear it too. ]

I don't even remember how I got here. Do you? Is something happening? [ If anyone would know whether something unusual was going on with the worlds again, it would be the Keyblade Master, right? ]

minor KH3 spoilers

[oncebrokenway]

Something might be happening, but I don't know what it is yet. The last thing I remember, I was at home. We were all on the beach...

[well. most of us.]

I don't think there's any reason to panic yet. But we should try and see if we can find other people.

[tilts his head, looking around]

Do you... hear water somewhere?

III and marking for spoilers in case!

[synchroswim]

<sub>[It wasn't hard for him to start dozing off into a light sleep, but every time the door slid open it made Demyx perk up in the top bunk and listen to whatever and any idle chatter that he could pick up from people (locals or otherwise).

This voice however gets him to really sit up. It's a good thing the ceilings are fairly high in these rooms on the ship otherwise he might've gave himself a good bonk otherwise, but there's nothing stopping him from nearly falling out of the bunk at the same time.]</sub>

Zexi--Whoa! _{[He grabs for the railing to steady himself and succeeds in keeping himself on the bed, his upper body hanging out only slightly until he rights himself. Once the world is no longer spinning, he flops back and props himself up against the makeshift pillow he made out of his Organization coat.]} Believe me, dude. You do not want the floor.

_{[After a moment, he leans back over and offers a hand. Get your butt up here and take a load off, dude.]}

[printingpressismightiest]

Demyx? You're here too? [ That's a surprise. Ienzo had sort of expected to see him again eventually, after he made that sudden appearance in the lab then disappeared just as quickly, but not necessarily under these circumstances. He hesitates a little when Demyx offers his hand, but ultimately after running around the wilderness hallucinating for who knows how long he's too exhausted to protest. ]

And, well. Not quite. It's Ienzo now, remember? [ He says, climbing up to the top bunk. ]

[synchroswim]

_{[Once he's up and settled, Demyx rearranges his coat and flops back against it with a little wave of his hand.]}

It's gonna take me ages to remember it, man. I've known you as Zexion for... like, ever, right? I bet it'd take time for you to get used to calling me by my old name too! 'sides, I kinda dig it!

_{[Demyx, you've never even told anyone what your old name was, you dummy.]}

How'd you end up here anyway? Weren't you doing all that science stuff back in the labs?

[printingpressismightiest]

I suppose that's fair. [ As strange as it feels being called that. He knows he's only been Ienzo again for a short while, but it already feels like a lifetime ago. In a way, it sort of was. He settles himself on the opposite end of the bed, kneeling properly with his hands in his lap. ]

Last I recall I was still trying to decrypt Ansem the Wise's research, then suddenly I found myself on another world entirely. Why? Do you remember how you got here?

[synchroswim]

Nope!

_{[He seems so positive about it that it has to be the truth!]}

I mean, I made my little delivery and I went to open a corridor to go check out the rest of the place, then I ended up in this super weird place with all sorts of crystals. I figured it was some part of Hollow Bastion that I haven't been to yet at first, so I thought I just took a wrong turn or something until I kept opening 'em up into different spots with even more crystals. I even tried opening one up to Olympus and it still spat me out here!

II - Because I'm terrible. Also KH3-spoilers likely

[bubbleblaster]

[ When Aqua hears a vaugely familiar voice in the cavern, she can't help but walk towards it. She isn't sure exactly who it was, at least before she walks into the general area to see him with the strange vibrating device in his hand.

It also strikes her that she saw a similar one of those before in a different cavern, which was odd. ]

I'm not sure. All that thing seems to do is, well, that.

[ She pauses as she looks over at him, frowning a little as she tries to place his name.]

You're... Ienzo, right?

[printingpressismightiest]

Oh? Did you find another one? [ The one he's holding had seemed undisturbed when he'd found it, but his senses have been a little off since arriving here. He's not sure he's quite over whatever that mosquito bite did to him yet. ]

And yes, that's me. And you're Aqua, aren't you? One of the lost Keyblade wielders?

[bubbleblaster]

... I'm assuming so. It's either that, or I've somehow looped around while walking and ended up in the exact same cavern again. [ Which is technically possible, but also worrying.]

And yes, I am. It's nice to finally meet you. [ They hadn't really had a chance to do so before that final battle had needed to happen. ]

[printingpressismightiest]

It's nice to meet you too, even if these are unusual circumstances. This can't be anything to do with Xehanort or the Heartless, can it? I thought all of that was over with.

[bubbleblaster]

I can't rule out the Heartless, but Xehanort is gone. Whatever is happening here can't be because of him.

[ She pauses for a moment, before shaking her head. ]

I've tried to leave this world already, and wasn't able to, so the likelihood of the Heartless being responsible doesn't seem that high either.

III

[keythatconnects]

Are you kidding? We can share. We're friends after all. [Sora says it so simply, as if it is the only idea that makes any sense.]

[printingpressismightiest]

[ Ienzo hesitates, considering protesting, but in all honesty he is very tired, and he's not sure he's fully recovered from whatever had him hallucinating earlier. His head is still swimming, but that could be the movement of the ship or whatever's producing that sickly-sweet scent. He sits down at the end of the bed opposite Sora, nodding. ]

Thank you. Hopefully this voyage won't be too long.

[keythatconnects]

Besides, I'm short. I'll probably not take up that much space.

[He moves to get into the bed too.]

You know, I am glad we ended up here together. It would be a little weird to do this with someone I don't know.

[printingpressismightiest]

[ That does get a smile out of Ienzo, albeit a slightly weak one. ] It would be more awkward having to share with a stranger. You wouldn't happen to know what's happening here, would you? I asked Riku, but he seemed as confused as I am.

[keythatconnects]

I honestly have no idea.

[But what did you expect, Ienzo? If Riku doesn't know, how would Sora?]

I

[letxequalnull]

[It's the voice that catches Xemnas' attention first. True, there are differences from when last he heard that particular voice, but those are easy enough to chalk up as being a result of Ienzo's recompletion - given that he is yet some distance away, he hasn't the slightest idea that Ienzo is currently hallucinating.]

There is indeed.

[The voice matches the scent Ienzo's caught, at the very least. But neither are likely to be comforting, especially when Xemnas himself is currently blocked from Ienzo's view by one of the larger crystal formations.]

[printingpressismightiest]

[ Oh, no. That can't be right. This has to be another hallucination. Ienzo turns around and starts walking the other direction, trying to will that scent to go away or turn into something else, but it stubbornly stays the same, present no matter how much force of will he pours into it.

He stops, considering his options. Should he run away? Hide? Where would he go? No, there wouldn't be any point to any of that. Xemnas would find him eventually, in that uncanny way of his, and the eventual confrontation would only be all the worse for having tried to be a coward about it.

Turning back, he summons up all his courage and rounds the crystal formation, head held high and eyes alight with ten years of unfelt anger. ]

What are you doing here?

[letxequalnull]

[Xemnas might not have as much of an interest in Ienzo, now that the second iteration of the Organization has gone much the same way as the first, but given that there appears to be only so far they're capable of going, it is indeed a given that sooner or later their paths will cross again. Especially now that he has that suggestion of Ienzo's presence, small though it might be.

Still, once Ienzo does round the corner, Xemnas doesn't appear to be doing any more threatening than what Ienzo himself has been doing - exploring the landscape laid out before them.]

Are you suggesting that I have no right to be?

[The question is quiet, although there's a subtle undertone of danger to it. One that suggests that while he's not immediately inclined to violence, Ienzo would do well to choose his next words carefully.

[printingpressismightiest]

[ Ienzo balks at that, some of the bravado going out of him as he becomes acutely aware of how weak his magic is compared to the easy mastery over illusion he'd wielded as a Nobody. Not to say that he isn't still powerful in his own right, but compared to Xemnas...

He's not quite as confident when he next speaks, keeping a careful distance between the two of them. ]

You're supposed to be gone. All of you are. [ Twice over. Thirteen times over, depending on how you count it. ]