▶ TDM .011

[prismods]

plays hard to get

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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.

Comments

[klagen]

[ Well, unfortunately, like it or not, Nier is still quite the weird, possessive girl even with or without different situation at her disposal. Though in her defense, she's trying to be less weird. Trying. ]

...Can I really... trust you on this...? You won't do it on purpose?

[ Sorry, Jalter. She's gotta live up to her name as the Walking Trust Issue. ]

[howlmyrage]

I solemnly swear that if you fall off the platform and get a vibrator stuck up your ass, it'll be entirely an accident.

[ Jeanne swears, not actually very solemnly, mostly because she has nothing to swear on. ]

Even if you don't trust me, [ and you shouldn't, trusting strangers is for chumps ] you can trust that big pile of demichroma we'll get at the end, right? I have shit I need to buy, so get moving.

[ Very helpful. ]

[klagen]

[ Oh, she's totally sold. That's the most convincing words that anyone has ever said to her. Totally. Nier's like, going to mentally pity the other girl for being so bad at it that it's not even funny. ]

...Very well, I'll do it.

[ Because clearly even if she were to say something else, it'd end only as stupid, aimless discussion. Better to drop it right now. Grabbing the blindfold from the side, Nier dons the blindfold around her eyes as soon as she manages to jump onto the 'battlefield'.

Thankfully, she's already too used to darkness surrounding her vision and herself so Nier's not gonna panic now even if things went haywire. Or at least not too much. Any time now, Jeanne.]

[howlmyrage]

[ Jeanne Alter could probably try harder. She does have a version of Charisma, after all. But being reassuring and nice would go against her nature, and she doesn't particularly want to threaten Nier with fire and dragons. ]

Good. Let's get ourselves paid.

[ The Avenger stands at the edge of the game area, looking at the floating gameshow maze laid out before them. As far as mazes go it's not difficult, certainly not compared to the Labyrinth, and she can see the whole thing from where she's standing, so on a purely directional basis it shouldn't be too difficult. ]

You can walk forward now, go slowly, concentrate on keeping your balance. There's more than enough time.

[ Just watch out for the traps. ]

[klagen]

[ ...Dammit, now Nier's starting to regret ever agreeing to this. The platform isn't exactly the nicest to walk on and the occasional shaking of it makes it even harder to even notice that she's even walking straight. She does ganbarimasu hard though!

Though apparently doing her best isn't exactly the perfect solution to this because when the platform she's on is shaking itself like it's listening to Lobelia's ASMR mixtape and drop the bass so hard, Nier clumsily lose her balance before gracefully trips and falls, face first.

The good thing is that she's not out of the game yet cos she's still on the middle of the platform.
The bad thing is that that fucking hurts jesusmyfuckingface!!! She's a mage with zero defense when Death isn't around to help her. ]

[howlmyrage]

[ Jeanne Alter and her A-rank Agility can't imagine anyone just falling flat on their face from that kind of swaying, and so she stares dumbfounded at Nier for a good several seconds before remembering what she's supposed to be doing. ]

Don't worry, you can still continue! Get back to your feet, unless you want the platform to throw you over the edge and make everyone watch you deal with those wiggly things?!

[ The dildo pit, as it were. Like a snake pit, but plastic and covered in a weird slime that's definitely not poison. ]

Imagine all those perverts getting off to you getting thrown overboard! You don't want that right?!

[ I guess... that passes as a motivational speech? ]

[klagen]

[ Now this just makes it clear to Nier that the first, most urgent thing that she ought to do after she settles in her new world is that she needs to train herself physically. Because without a doubt, she just made a fool outta herself.

As much as she wants to just throw the towel immediately, with Jeanne's previous 'invitation' and this one, er, motivational speech, Nier understands that the other participant seems to crave for the prize, hard. The least she can do as a changed(???) girl is to attempt her best. ]

Ouch ouch ouch... [ Rubbing her poor, aching nose, Nier's ears perk up as she rise to her feet and she starts walking again. Wait, let's call that limping instead because her stride is rather sad to see right now. ] A-Am I walking the right way...?

[ Countdown til Nier found herself inside the pit: three steps.]

[howlmyrage]

[ Jeanne is fairly sure she's partnered with the wrong person. Someone who walks like their ankle is destroyed after tripping once is... probably the wrong person for navigating an obstacle course.

A Ninja Warrior winner she is not. ]

Stop! Turn right! Right!

[ She wants the prize, Nier wants to not be poked by a bunch of totally-not-tentacles of sexual assault, they're all in agreement. She waves wildly at her partner, shouting for her to right her path.

Not that Nier can see her pointing the right way, with her blindfold and all. ]