▶ TDM .011

[prismods]

plays hard to get

navigation ⬤ faq ⬤ reserves ⬤ world ⬤ moonblessings

Watch on YouTube

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

[sterilize]

( she takes a few moments that feel like minutes, flickering her gaze from one eye to the other, watching jiang cheng like all her medical knowledge has given her the ability to look into a person and see their soul, down to the very marrow of their bones, the fibers of their being. she can look in jiang cheng's eyes and catch a vision of all the starstuff of the universe, all the weights he has pulling him down, all the strings of fate he has pulling him in a hundred different directions at once.

but more than that, she sees an honest heart. someone true to a fault, someone who tries, who just doesn't give up.

beneath them, the two koi fish fall back in love, singing songs no one else can hear, whispering words meant for the ripples of the pond and for them alone. wen qing cracks a smile, and echoes out two words — )

Kiss me.

[consignation]

[ Two simple words and Jiang Cheng's whole being is aflame. His face feels so hot he's dizzy with it, blinking dumbly as he's certain he's misheard. After all they've been through, all that's happened, all the unkind and foolish things he's said and done, the proof she wants for his sincerity is— It's—

The shy, fragile shell of his heart cracks. It splits open, his love, his hope, his dreams pouring out, out into her slender, careful, healer's hands. Propriety dies in passion's flames, and he throws both arms around her delicate frame, pulling her in to kiss as though the act of it alone will save them. ]

[sterilize]

( she's had her share of gentle kisses — like a-yuan's knees when he fell over in dirt patches, or prescribed kisses on her brother's eyes when he still remembered how to cry. she's never had it like this. a warm mouth beside her own, quivering not in fear but from a core of passion that radiates through his whole body, like he has to physically stop himself from exploding on the spot. wen qing isn't a careless person, but she can't help but wonder just what it'd be like, to see that restraint dissolved.

her hands are soft on either side of his face, knees aching as she presses herself into him, not a rough kiss but a present one, not flower petals in the wind, or drifted leafs down on a water surface. it's just there, like a slap of wind or a whip of fire, demanding to be seen and heard and understood. a kiss can join houses, can change the courses of their future, can save them all.

and a supernova knows so little of all the shades of love wen qing has. )

... I accept the gift of yourself.

( she says after the kiss breaks, forehead pressed against his. wen qing, who is impossible to fluster ... blushes, as she ducks her head, before turning a smile up towards him. standing, she offers him her hand, helping him get up. )

I'll walk you home.

[consignation]

[ The kiss shifts the world around him, the very fabric of reality changing into something softer, brighter, more kind. By the time they break apart, everything is different for Jiang Cheng, outside and within. He gazes after her in quiet reverence as they part, breath stalling anew at the fair flush across her cheeks.

Her smile is every star in the sky, is the first lotus blossom of summer.

She speaks of walking him home, his home, a place he could not invite her within alone where they are sure to part, and he responds with an immediate shake of his head.

...still, he takes her hand and rises, his own face pink and warm as he gazes down at their clasped fingers. ]

—dinner? [ he blurts out, breath catching as though rejection is still possible after what they've just sworn. ] And you.. And you still require a place to stay. Let me help you get settled, and then— ...then we—

[sterilize]

( predictably, jiang cheng's own fluster makes some fissure of nervous energy soothe out of her, like a flowing river, recently unclogged. her lips turn up almost playfully in response, intertwining their fingers. )

You won't be shy now, will you?

( she steps in closer, tucking her free hand around his elbow to keep him all the more comfortable against her. )

I did so enjoy your passion a moment ago.

( clearly a small tease, she guides them forward, back towards the festival. )

Dinner would be nice, though.

[consignation]

[ The mention of his 'passion' causes him to choke on his own breath, eyes going wide as he breaks off into a brief series of coughs. Cheeks pink, he follows in step beside her, resting his hand over where hers is grasping his arm.

He can never seem to catch his breath when she's near. ]

What, ah... What would you like to eat, my lady? Some of the food here is quite strange, but I know where to get more familiar things.

[sterilize]

( there's a thoughtful hum on her lips as she thinks it over, more or less just tugging jiang cheng along although she has no real idea where they're going. to be honest, she's got a bit of a happy bounce in her step, a usually sharp brain made into fluff and flowers, thanks to him. )

Dumplings?