prismaticrap | ▶ TDM .011

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You awaken amidst the darkness with only a faint light to greet you. 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. After an hour or two of wandering through the crystal wilderness, a group of people find you worse for wear. They are the gallant Moon Knights from the planet of Prismatica. Because of the strange phenomena during the past months when scientists observed the sudden appearance of rainbow crystals in the sky, the government has been feverishly combing through the moon for more Moonblessed to be rescued. You’ll eventually be brought into Iris’s moon government center.

You all may have your usual inquiries — Where are we? Who are you? What's going on? — and the Prismals are almost too eager to answer. They tell you about their world and about the first appearance of the Moonblessed as the medical staff give you an examination to make sure you’re not carrying any viruses or biological hazards. If you react violently, you may be restrained and nerfed with a specialized neurotransmitting gun that releases a numbing agent through the top of your spine. Once the examinations are over, you’re informed that you will be provided accommodations on their planet during your stay. You will then be escorted to the docks, and led onto a large transport vessel that makes frequent trips back and forth between the Iris moon and the planet. Faces onboard vary from both old and new Moonblessed as well as the local Prismals.

The next destination: Prismatica.

▶ There and Back Again
Iris Moon, Government Center (Arrival) and Planet Prismatica, City of Lunatia | top

Welcome to Prismatica’s hub, Lunatia, the city of your dreams! A bustling metropolis lush with bright lights, vibrant colors, luxuriant plant life, and all the conveniences of technology absent from your own world… It seems like paradise to all the uninitiated. After a quick tour of the city, new arrivals can find themselves getting cozy in their new homes.

A Settle in your new home at Level 2 to find new roommates and say hello to your neighbors! City officials will give you directions to the designated districts across Level 2 and instruct you to pick out a unit. Each apartment complex has a different aesthetic, some may look cozy, some stylish, and some bizarre. The free accommodations have a basic living space that can only fit two or three people at most in one unit.

Starter Chromaspace furnishings are provided which can be controlled with the touch of a built-in panel. Examples are color-changing curtains, transforming sofa beds, cabinets turning into tables, etc. Customizing your apartment or moving out will have to wait until you earn more chroma. Until then, why don’t you check out your new neighborhood or explore the city levels? Maybe your new roommates or neighbors can give you a “hand” with allowance for dinner.

B As a Remooning gift from the Lunar Scientia Headquarters, the dedicated team from the Amphoria Room has released their latest perfected technology: Amphoria Pods. These VR Pods, which can fit up to four people at a time, have been set up in the gaming hub within Level 1’s PrismaPlace. They allow users to upload sceneries of their world in order to create a realistic holographic landscape of their homes that others can access and play around with, granting everyone the means to relive past memories with their loved ones as well as interact with the bestiary of other worlds. The pods also use the same technology that enhanced the popular virtual game, League Match Action Online (LmaO), which means you’re liable to feel the chill of cold environments, the burning heat from boiling water, the hard slap of your ex-lover, or the biting sting of a stray wasp. All who use the Amphoria Pods for the first time this year will also receive a small amount of Chroma in case things get too real.

▶ God Save Us from the Queen
Level 1, PrismaPlace and Level 2, Greatmoon Groves | top

The first month of the year is packed with two of the most important winter events this season: Queen Elara’s birthday and the League Match Action Online (LmaO) PVP semi-finals. It just so happens that the Queen of Lunatia is also a huge LmaO fan. Coincidence? Definitely not! LmaO players and royal family fans alike can meet her at PrismaPlace, where she will be appearing in cosplay of her favorite hero, Ah-Kari, while holding a body pillow of Commander GareBear. You, too, can get an autograph or selfie with the birthday girl if you’re willing to fall in line! Her bodyguards will also be in LmaO cosplay, keeping the crowd under control during the long wait.

Queen Elara

Good day to you all! This may come as a surprise to our guests the Moonblessed, but I am a normal person despite my exalted position. Please do not think of me today as Queen Elara. Instead... my name is Ah-Kari, sorceress of the crystal! With my soul fan blades, through the darkness, I shall slice all who dare hurt my commander in twain!

But when she is not meeting and greeting...

Queen Elara

My comrades, we're going to make history today. We're going for a new record. Perhaps the highest kill counts or the fastest clear for this map — it matters not. We’ve practiced day and night for this tournament, so let us show everyone that we’re not to be taken lightly! Also, the livestream is going in the royal archive, so make your successors proud!!

... she will be furiously grinding her character and training her skills in LmaO in the hopes of qualifying for the finals. Spectators will see her bring her own team full of hapless palace attendants who are there to either serve as her practice match partners or provide support to the one-woman army that is Queen Elara.

PrismaPlace is packed with giant crowds, many of them also in cosplay. While the semi-finals are taking place, new and old LmaO players alike can participate in the game’s current campaign: players who form teams get an improved chance of spawning unique monsters as well as winning rare items and skins in those prized lootboxes! Teams can also try to clear the event’s story together, featuring an aerial battle fought on griffin-back, which is heavily inspired by the popular Lunatian epic, The Battle of Abraxas, a colorful and complex story about the conflict between two families fighting over the fictional land of griffins, Abraxas.

A Progression in the event requires acquiring a griffin mount and getting it ready for battle. You can lure a wild one to yourself with a special veggie pie on a fishing pole. Should the griffin reject the lure, your character will be caught in a wind gaol and can only break out with the help of other players. Should you succeed, raising the griffin is a tedious task that involves players training alongside their respective griffins, running laps with them, taking them to hunt monsters, and feeding them properly. Depending on their diet, the food you give them will affect the color of its plumage and their battle stats.

Or you can skip the hard work and simply moonlace with your teammates through all the progression bars and required materials to save time. Once finished, you’ll be able to battle one another through the thunderous aerial domain of Abraxas. Clearing the event will net you an event-exclusive skin inspired by the royal family’s shining celestial robes and a weapon skin of a body pillow with your favorite character, so do your best!

B In celebration of Queen Elara’s birthday, the office of the royal household is hosting a modest tea party in the Greatmoon Groves. Swiffy bots that are normally programmed to remind visitors to keep the groves clean are now playing a birthday jingle on repeat. For people who prefer to be away from the blinding neon lights and the thumping techno music of PrismaPlace, this is the ideal escape. Unlimited tea and cookies are being served!

The tea is a soft-colored lilac concoction made from Ehrysian tea leaves that are known to cause a huge spike of alertness and is popular to Moon Knights and office workers with long night shifts as well as gamers for those all-night grinding sessions. The assorted cookies have either Ah-Kari or Commander GareBear printed on them. In case it isn't obvious yet, both are the birthday girl’s favorite LmaO characters.

Any Moonblessed looking for extra income is welcome to be royal attendants for the day; the hours are paid by Demichroma. They must be properly dressed up as maids or butlers (outfits provided by the royal household) as they serve tables.

▶ Say Cheese
Level 3, Caihong | top

Meanwhile, Caihong is in the midst of Remooning festivities in celebration of the new year, and merriment usually lasts a fortnight, filled with fireworks in the sky. Upon entering the district, beautiful Prismals with rat ears and tails greet you with a Happy Remooning and eagerly tug you along to join in.

Those welcomed will receive a pack of multi-colored sparklers, mooncakes topped with cheese, and a glowing drink called Champagne Supernova, poured in a thin glass in your hand. If you are over eighteen, the rat Prismals will ask if you prefer your drink with a kick. If you say yes, then they will add flavorful ice that causes extreme intoxication and might leave you to be susceptible to all levels of suggestion. Saying no (or if you’re under 18) will simply leave it as a sweet drink.

A One of the party games being played by the locals is called Lucky Tail, which is basically pinning the tail on the holographic rat stand-in — with a twist, it must be played with a partner! Another participant will blindfold you, spin you around, then push you forward. The stand-in is located at the end of unsteady elevated platforms forming a maze, filled to the brim with distracting objects underneath. They’re long, they’re thick, and they’re vibrating furiously in an attempt to knock you off the platforms.

Your partner must guide you by voice to successfully navigate through the maze! The game is rigged with various mechanisms, so stepping on specific platforms will activate a number of traps against you or your partner: machines that may tickle, drop colorful slime, or cause the platform to repetitively spin, and who knows what else?

Should you manage to get through the obstacle course and pin the tail successfully, you and your partner will win copious amounts of Demichroma, courtesy of Buwan from Buwan’s Stop.

B Another attraction is a fun magic glamour booth known for its face or body swap features. The booth staff, clad in their festive rat paraphernalia, will encourage you and your friends to take aesthetic shots using an illusion generator. The effects last an hour. Photographed images can be instantly uploaded and shared in Prismagram. New year, new you! Why not take the chance to celebrate this momentous occasion in a unique fashion? It’s all in good humor.

There are two buttons to press: (A) CUSTOM or (B) RANDOM. Pressing A will allow participants to customize their desired effects. Pressing B will cause the illusion magic to randomly rearrange participants in questionable positions, new outfits (or lack thereof), and you may even come out of the booth looking like your best friend or your worst rival. The possibilities are endless!

▶ Questions
If you have any questions regarding this test drive meme, please ask them in the Questions thread below.

▶ As a reminder, test drive memes are for new characters only. However, current players are more than welcome to use these prompts for their own posts in the IC communities, personal inboxes, catch-all posts, etc.!
▶ As our test drive memes are game canon, feel free to keep any threads that happen here as canon for your character should they be accepted.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

You— what?

[Six months? Teddy had just seen him two days earlier— but considering all they've seen and done over the years, he can hard say that the discrepancy is impossible. Now that he's had a moment to study Billy's face, he does look older— not much, and it's mostly in his eyes, but older all the same.]

I'm... fine. Just trying to get my head on straight. It's... a lot.

[He exhales.]

... seriously? Six months?

Yeah. It is... [ There was one point in his life when he didn’t think he’d ever not have anything to say to this boy. And now they had awkward silences. ]

We should probably not do this out in the street. Feel like a coffee?

[ Then at least they could talk. ]

[Everything about this meeting feels so unnatural and so unlike them that Teddy can't help but jump at the chance to relocate. Maybe that would make it easier, taking the time to sit down together somewhere... but even so, it won't change the fact that Teddy had walked away for a time. Even if Billy has been here six months already, he can only assume that's what this is about— unless there's something more he doesn't know about.

God, he hopes that's not the case. He's not sure he can handle that on top of everything else.

He gives a faint but clearly relieved smile as he nods in response.]

Coffee sounds good. I'm guessing there's a lot to tell— we might as well get comfortable.

[There's a hopeful note behind his words. Whatever has happened, here or elsewhere, they're still them, aren't they? Same as they've always been.]

Yeah, there’s a pretty good cafe around the corner. Not far.

[ He motioned for Teddy to follow him. It gave him time to try and unpack some of what he was feeling. He hadn’t seen Teddy in about three and a half years. And they weren’t speaking when he disappeared from Wonderland. He’d had a lot of time to think about what he wanted to say. But now that he was standing here...he had no idea what he wanted to say anymore. He didn’t even know when Teddy was from. Though based on his clothes and hair he had a good guess.

He’s not wrong, the cafe isn’t far and they get there quicker than he had time to think. Showing Teddy to a table he gets their coffees and then sits back down. ]

So, what’s the last thing you remember from home?

[From Teddy's perspective, they've still been apart— but only for a very short while, so brief that he was still deeply feeling the guilt of having to walk away in the first place. It was temporary, or so he truly wanted to believe, but here and now, going off to find himself is starting to sound pretty stupid in retrospect.

Unfortunately, there's no undoing the past.

He settles in once they reach their location, taking the offered cup of coffee between both hands as he furrows his brow.]

I just—

[Left the team? He doesn't want to phrase it that way.]

I was on my way to Texas.

[ Texas. It felt like lifetimes ago, watching Teddy walk away from him in the rain. It still tugs on his heart, but the hurt is dull, something that he rarely feels, or thinks about. ]

That was a long time ago...for me.

[ There's no easy way to say this so he's just going to come out with it. ]

I haven't seen you in five years.

Five... what?

[It doesn't register at first, but after a moment, his brow furrows deeper. He knows things don't necessarily line up for everyone here, and Billy had mentioned having been somewhere else for awhile, but... five whole years?

No wonder he looks older, even if it's mostly in his eyes.]

It's not... because I didn't come back, is it?

[There's a faint note of panic in his voice, one he tries to keep from being too noticeable. He'd always meant to come back.]

[ Yeah. He probably shouldn’t have just come out and said it. He sees the look on Teddy’s face and immediately reaches out, resting his hand on top of the other boy’s. ]

No, you come back, Teddy. It’s because some stupid dimension pulled me away for four and a half years and then this place got me.

Five years...

[He frowns as he echoes it, looking down at their hands as Billy reaches out to reassure him, and he feels both relief and guilt— how could he have walked away from someone who made him feel sure of himself without batting an eye, even if it had only been temporary?

He exhales, focusing on the situation at hand, and he studies Billy's face as a faint smile pulls at one corner of his mouth, if only for a moment.]

I thought you looked different. That's maturity for you.

[ Billy gives a short snort of laughter. ] I’m not sure I’d call
It maturity.

[ More like trauma and forced solitude? ]

I work out now.

You do, huh. It's working for you.

[His smile is just a tiny bit more genuine, despite all the worry that comes with having missed out on five whole years.]

I'm sorry... wherever you were before this, I should have been there for you.

[He reaches out to put his other hand atop Billy's, turning the one underneath so he can catch his hand in a warm clasp.]

[ His lips curl up into a small smile. He’s not really sure how much it’s working for him but the fact that Teddy noticed a difference in him was pretty validating.

The small smile was short lived. He brought up Wonderland and it all slammed back into him at once. He pulls his hand out from where he’s clasped between Teddy’s. ]

You were there.

I—

[The fact that he pulls his hand away is jarring in and of itself, and Teddy frowns slightly as he leans back in his chair, his hands still resting on the edge of the table, now empty.]

I feel like I would remember that. Is this another time-travel thing?

[ He knew Teddy didn’t remember, but to hear him admit that aloud squashed any thoughts that he might. Billy wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Good that Teddy didn’t remember, didn’t have to live through it- bad because well, how can he be mad at someone who had no memory of what happened?

He feels guilty for pulling his hand away, and then angry for feeling guilty. ]

No one remembers, at least no one but me and two other people. When you were sent home you didn’t remember. I wasn’t sent home I was sent here so I remember everything that happened over the last four and a half years.

[ Everything. ]

[It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that whatever “everything” encompasses, it’s not good.

He frowns, his brows knit together in concern.]

Something happened.

[That much is obvious.]

Billy...

I...

[ His voice broke off, cracking, and he couldn’t get the words out. How could he. How in the world was he supposed to tell the love of his life what happened? That he had...

He knew it wasn’t fair, he couldn’t hold Teddy responsible for something he didn’t even remember. But Billy remembered, Billy still felt the hurt when he had to leave him, still felt the shadows of hands around his neck when...

He still woke up in a cold sweat some nights, reliving that day, remembering what it felt like to die. To die by the hands of the person he loved. ]

Not here.

[He says so little, and yet that in itself says so much.

He looks down into his cup of cooling coffee, only to look back up and search Billy’s face for any kind of clue, anything that might hint at what it was that actually happened.]

It was that bad?

[He doesn’t have to ask, really. He can tell.]

Whatever happened, I hope— some part of you knows that I would never want to do anything to hurt you. You know that, right?

[Of course he’s hurt him in the past, made mistakes, but it was never intentional— it was just human, the kind of thing that happened to every couple because they cared enough to be hurt.]

[ Billy shakes his head. They really can’t do this here. ]

Really, not here. We can go back to my place.

[ He held out his hand, teleporting would be the easiest way. ]

[He hesitates, but only for a moment. Of course, no matter the situation, he trusts Billy.

He nods, getting to his feet and reaching out to take the offered hand.]

Alright. Let’s go.

[ Billy grips his hand tightly and then they are disappearing in a blink of blue light. He teleports then to the middle of his living room. Privacy, something they are gonna need for this. ]

This is where Tommy and I live- Tommy is here too, did I mention that?

[He's used to teleporting as Billy's tagalong by now, and it doesn't make his stomach lurch the way it used to, but the ominous way Billy had insisted on privacy has it turning for a whole new reason. Once they arrive, he cards his fingers through his hair, composing himself as he takes a look at their new surroundings.]

Nice digs. Wait— Tommy? He's here?

[Well, that's good news, even if it makes him feel even more out of the loop.]

I really am behind.

[ He really doesn’t mean to keep dropping bombs on him. ]

He’s only really a month or so ahead of you. Back home.

[ He’s not sure it helps. He gestures to the couch. ]

Make yourself comfortable, do you want anything? Water? Soda?

[ Billy to stall more? ]

Oh, well. In that case, not that far behind.

[Look. He'll take a win wherever he can get it, here.

He nods, moving to sink into a seat on the couch. The offer of something to drink is nice and hospitable, but also weirdly formal for the two of them, and he's not sure he wants to put off whatever comes next any longer.]

Why don't we just— do the talking thing? The longer this goes on, the more nervous I am.

[It's become obvious by now, at least, that he's really not going to like what Billy has to tell him.]

[ He knows he’s probably being awkward, too formal, but he hasn’t seen Teddy in almost four years and it’s almost like he’s forgotten how to act.

He nods, taking a seat on the other end of the couch but turning to face him, pulling one of his legs up to cross over his thigh. And takes a breath. ]

Like I said we were in another place sorta like this. Only smaller, it wasn’t a city or anything and everyone that lived there was basically taken from their own worlds. We had a few native residents but we didn’t see them much. We called it wonderland. It- it might be easier to show you.

[It feels wrong to be sitting so far apart, just like it had felt wrong when Billy had pulled his hand away earlier, but Teddy doesn’t comment on it— only listens. He frowns as he does so, trying to construct an idea of the situation from the bits and pieces he was being offered.]

So like... some kind of inter-dimensional commune, but Alice in Wonderland style?

[It’s a poor attempt at a joke, and it falls flat.]

... show me, then, if it’s easier.

▶ TDM .011

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