▶ 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

g

[yarinaosu]

No one asked Shun if it was alright. It's actually fine, but he does give the man a cold stare as he's ushered into the room. Of course, he shouldn't have expected his own space with how they've handled everything so far.

("Don't mind him," one of the scientists might say. "He's already been numbed once so he won't act up again." They hope.)

There's a blanket draped around his shoulders as proof. They were kind enough to give him that and tell him to get some rest. He's not about to sleep anytime soon, of course, because who could? The man tugs the edges of the blanket tighter around his shoulders and sniffs audibly.

"All done being degraded?" he asks, referring to the physical. Might as well make conversation rather than sit in terse silence.

[handsomefoil]

It's true, Henry didn't even think about the current occupants opinion on all of this, but it's too late now. He probably won't even recall it in hindsight, taking all of their lack of accommodations and excuses in stride. Sorry, Shun. At least he seems open to conversation.

He shoves his hands into his pocket, looking at him over his shoulder.

"I'd hope so, but something tells me this isn't the last of it."

The little warning the scientists mumbled past him piques his interest about his less-than-chipper-about-the-situation room partner. He grins wryly, gesturing his head towards the door.

"Gave the moon men a little run for their money, did you?"

[yarinaosu]

Thank goodness for small favors, he supposes. While he wouldn't have minded sitting in silence, it's easier to pass the time if they talk. It helps him feel a little less alone, too, but he's not about to admit anything as vulnerable and soft-sounding as that.

"Probably not," he agrees, straightening up a little where his. At the mention of his, uh, disagreement with the staff, he gives a small shrug of his shoulders.

"Most people don't appreciate being treated like a living science experiment." He lost his temper, he recognizes that, but it's also been A Day. Leave him alone.

[handsomefoil]

Finding a small perch to lean against, he grins at the recollection. Perhaps it's just because he's so used to being a subject/character in a video game (and being entirely self-aware, at that), it doesn't bother him as much. He just thinks of it as, well, another extension of that.

A bit invasive, but still.

"Fair," he states, nodding once. "I'm Henry."

[yarinaosu]

"Shun," the man answers almost immediately. Now that introductions are out of the way, he has another question in mind.

"Is this place anything like where you're from?" One thing he's been realizing in conversing with people is that this isn't like anywhere people are familiar with. He can easily say earth didn't have this kind of color palette. He wasn't sure about Thea, admittedly, but from what he'd been able to see it didn't look that different from earth. Green and blue, teeming with new life on its surface.

[handsomefoil]

It could be, he thinks. If the developers and designers decide to on a whim. Maybe they already have? The color palette is certainly more akin to the newest installment (that Henry has no part of as of yet, he muses a little sorely) but all he recalls is the gritty sort of pseudo-realism found in most older generation Nintendo games.

"Not really. At least, the premise of this planet is much more unusual. Who knows what will happen when we get to Prismatica?"

Can't say he isn't looking forward to it, though. He's been feeling incredibly bored and stagnant as of late, no thanks to his player.

[yarinaosu]

Video games were a little lost on Shun; he didn't have much time for hobbies considering his... affiliations. He thinks his brother liked Mario. Maybe? It's hard to say. Sometimes, he wishes he'd gotten the time to really know his sibling better but-

Well, he can't dwell in what could have been.

"Yeah," he agrees. "Seems like it's a crapshoot." He agrees that it's just as unpredictable as anything. "Hopefully, it's as... convenient as they claim." He's tired of fighting for his life at every turn, alright.

[handsomefoil]

Henry nods. It almost seems too convenient. There's got to be a catch somewhere, perhaps something along the lines of coercion, exploitation and who knows what else? He doesn't voice this aloud, however, not wanting to plant any seeds of panic or doubt into anyone's mind. Though looking at this guy, he doesn't think the notion has passed over him.

"We can only hope. At least in the meantime, we better keep our wits about us, eh? You any good in a fight?"

[yarinaosu]

Not in the slightest. That question though is very pointed. Shun shouldn't be surprised with his reputation already and looking just as hard as they claim he is. Still, his body language says a lot in response before he actually answers. He tenses up but it isn't shutting down; actually, it seems more like confidence the way he crosses his arms and suddenly sizes Henry up.

"Depends on who's asking," is all he offers, at first.

[handsomefoil]

Now that's a telling response, which would get Henry's eyebrow rising with interest. He doesn't though, and simple raises his hands up in a show of innocence. Definitely a normal dude that maybe gets into fights, hah hah hah.

"How about a fellow troublemaker that may possibly need a hand should things get a little hairy around here?"

Not an assassin, though, of course. He makes it a point not to give anything away just like that.

&wrapped! we can just focus on the log!

[yarinaosu]

He doesn't buy that for a second. Like can recognize like. He doesn't call him out on it either though. For all he knows, Henry might have the same motivations as him. He can't jump to conclusions.

"Alright," he says after a brief pause. And that's all he needs to say, it seems, since he isn't inclined to continue with small talk the closer they draw to the facility. Still, Henry can consider himself having found a tentative ally for whatever is to come.