prismaticrap | ▶ TDM .012

Entry tags:

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.

▶ I am the Terror That Flaps in the Night
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 Your new flat is covered in a sprinkling of feathers here, there, and everywhere! They appear to be coming through the air vents. This seems to be a city-wide problem in all buildings, as many news outlets are informing people to stay alert. They believe the feathers are from the masked seraphim, King Majestas, who attacked the Elaran Amphitheater a few weeks back.

You are advised to destroy the feathers on sight. Prolonged contact with these feathers cause hallucinations and paranoia. You will feel as if winged creatures are always after you, be it one-winged angels or dark-winged ducks. Other side effects include hearing the chanting of voices in an indecipherable language out of this galaxy. These hallucinations may cause headaches, dizziness, or nausea. Thankfully, a bit of moonlacing will heal these symptoms away.

▶ Got Milk?
Level 2, Crystal Beach | top

With the Coiled Hearts Festival fast approaching, local fishermen have already begun procuring food across Crystal Beach’s clear waters to meet next month’s demands. Around this time of year, the popularity of octopus dishes dramatically rises. The Lunatians have an annual tradition to prepare flavorful octopus dishes for the romantic season, such as the much-lauded dark chocolate-coated octopus or the mouth-watering octopus braised with red wine.

Everyone is welcome to join this heart-throbbing affair. During the Second and Third months, everyone is encouraged to give your loved ones something special for a long, successful relationship. Friends, family, and new acquaintances are traditionally given a small amount of Demichroma in tiny cute cases, while lovers are given something that reminds the gifter of their homeland.

A Interested in catching your own octopus? Horned taurus octopi very frequently migrate to the shorelines to perform their elaborate mating rituals. It’s easy to find clumps of taurus octopi participating in a vigorous dance, filled with undulations and strange moaning noises that octopi should not be making. You can lure the octopi by either using a special flute which mimics their moans to gather them in heavy droves. It’s ideal to have a partner with you to scoop the octopi quickly into water containers once they’ve become entranced enough.

Play the flute carefully! If the taurus octopi grow too excited by your music, they will squirt white ink. If you are spritzed with the thick substance, you will start either randomly puking or uncontrollably secreting a milky sweet substance from any body part that secretes liquids. Luckily, the high-end boutique Prissy Polyp is nearby in case you need a change of clothes due to any sizable stains. Effects will naturally wear off after an hour.

B Come with a friend and enjoy learning some octopus recipes together. The Crystal Beach Resort has opened a seminar where several professional chefs will be demonstrating and teaching how to cook various dishes of different flavors and ingredients guaranteed to impress your date, and taste-testing is free!

One dish makes use of horned taurus octopi skin as the star ingredient, renowned for its irresistibly delectable scent. The chefs explain the palatable skin is a potent ingredient in various love potions and aphrodisiacs, so add or mix them to your dishes in moderation! The effects have a significant delay, so you may feel fine for a while, but when it hits, it hits hard. You will become enamored with every little thing — hey, you just met them and this is crazy — but that person’s smile, the sound of their voice, or the way they say your name will make you unable to resist the urge to shower them with your affection.

▶ Going Viral
Level 2, Moonlight Medical Center | top

“Help Wanted” posters can be found on virtual forums and announcement boards across Level 1 to 3. The Moonlight Medical Center has put out a call for volunteers due to a recent shortage of medical staff. The work involves filling in for overworked nurses, performing tasks such as feeding patients their meals, wiping away their sweat, changing their clothes, encouraging their spirits, and so on. Any volunteers may directly walk-in at the hospital. You will be provided a nurse uniform and any necessary equipment while on the job.

The shortage has resulted from the hospital recently taking in a severe number of patients from a nearby small village to the west of Lunatia, Port Sylvel, a known shipping and freight destination. The number of patients worryingly keeps on rising by the day and will soon fill all available rooms.

A Some of the patients are experiencing varying degrees of paralysis. The worst cases have crystallizing parts of their body. The hospital staff will stress that you should be careful around patients with crystallized limbs. Patients like these have a history of aggressively biting anyone who comes close hard enough to draw blood. Those bitten will exhibit similar symptoms as the victims, including crystallization on their bodies, and experience a steady drop in Chroma. An uncomfortable heaviness will cause you unable to move without the aid of others as well as an uncontrollable urge to aggressively bite someone.

While affected Moonblessed can cure it by moonlacing, the Prismals can only be cured by a gluteal inoculation the Lunar Scientia has recently managed to develop. The sick and beleaguered will probably hate you less if you aren’t the one trying to stabbing them with injections in the hindquarters.

B Aside from nursing duties, other available tasks to be completed include making coffee for fellow nurses and doctors, delivering flowers to patients, and general housekeeping. Specifically, disinfecting medical equipment, tidying up rooms, and cleaning the spaces around the hospital. As a result of the current situation, many crystal shards can be found decorating multiple surfaces, such as floors, walls, toilet seats, and so on. These will have to be swept away!

However, as your work day progresses, some of the shards can be seen suddenly moving on their own. These crawling shards will start clustering together to turn into elaborate, floating monolithic formations that will then begin attacking anyone nearby. Their main ability includes shooting diamond spears to impale any unfortunate victims in their line of sight. In the midst of the chaos, nurses and doctors will beg the Moonblessed to please protect the sick and wounded. The crystal formations can be destroyed by any method, though because of their incredibly sturdy composition, they require multiple hits before they shatter into dust.

▶ 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

night terrors - b

This realm is unlike any Runyu has seen in all his long years of life, brighter than the Heavens and livelier than the mortal world. Though he worries for his duties and all he's left behind, it is not an unwelcome break from the politics and strife that comes with being counted among the higher courts. Were he to compare it to anything, it would be mingling in the mortal or demon realms. He's dressed himself down to the best of his ability, noticing how varied the dress is from person to person, some garbed in garments he does not even have words for. He's settled for a sheer top robe over a fairly plain but pearlescent inner robe, simple enough not to draw a great deal of attention but not so plain that anyone mistakes his dress for mourning clothes.

Adapting to the particulars of this realm has been a challenge, but not an unwelcome one. Reserved and studious by nature, he spends the first few hours after his arrival in Prismatica simply finding somewhere quiet to sit and reading, familiarizing himself with his communication device and the world contained therein. Once he feels he has an adequate grasp of it, as well as the particulars of this realm at large, he moves on to see about accommodations, falling into the familiar rhythm of visiting a world away from his.

That basic accommodations (of which he picks one closest to his Xuanji Palace) are free comes as some relief, and he finds himself having a bit of fun with changing the furnishings, finding it not unlike the transfiguration he is used to at home. He fiddles with that for a while, quite pleased, then goes to inspect the dusting of feathers that keep appearing from his air vents.

If only Xufeng was with him, he thinks to himself as he picks up one such feather, having missed the memo about their dangers amid all the other information he's been trying to absorb. If Xufeng were here, it would be easy to tease him that he was molting, and how unbecoming it was for a young prince of his standing to do such a thing, especially in an unfamiliar place.

The thought makes him smile, if nothing else, and he twirls the feather a bit in his hand, gazing upon it fondly.

Stepping back out to familiarize himself with the city now that he'd settled on somewhere to live, he's hit with a wave of nausea right there on the front stoop. Unused to being this kind of frail, his thousands of years of spiritual energy replaced by this world's 'Chroma' and an inadequate level of it at that, he stumbles, crumples right there on the steps, feather still clutched in one hand.

got milk - b

This world is proving more hazardous than Runyu would have guessed, but still he tries to persevere. There is so much of interest, so much to explore, that he does his best to set caution aside and continue taking in this wild and unexpected world, finding it inexplicable and charming in its own way. Even with the trouble it's caused him so far, every new experience is still a delight and he finds his heart freer than it has been in recent memory. There's a lightness to his steps and an ease to his smile which will strike those who know him well as unlike him.

And all this is before he strolls down through the resort, sampling local delicacies. It's not food he's accustomed to, but eating as the locals do is an intrinsic part of any foray into a neighboring world. Octopus is a familiar item, but the preparation is new and varied so he tries to partake in a little bit of everything, tucking away a few choice pieces in case he runs into anyone he knows. He has Jinmi in mind in particular, as he knows all too well the pout he'll get if she finds out he's been eating and didn't save her any, but he should like to share the experience with his brother too.

Feeling a bit full, he takes a stroll along the beach after, just enjoying the sights and paying no mind to how the world seems to soften, brighten, grow all the more stunning with each step he takes, his heart infinitely fond.

Surely that's just his mood, just having a chance to breathe on his own away from the inner court politics which have long dictated his day to day life.

When he comes across someone, anyone who makes eye contact, who lingers too long, who gives him the time to realize he's never seen someone so interesting, he strolls right up to them with a similarly unusual boldness, clasping his hands together before him in a brief bow.

"Well met," he greets, voice as gentle and smooth as a forest brook. "Do you often come to the beach…?"

wildcard

(ooc: pm me for anything different your heart desires)

Xufeng can't help the small half-grin that graces his lips at the sound of Runyu's voice. His back is to him right now, one arm bent along his back and his posture straight and almost stiff. The stiffness, however, he's used to and that can be ascertained by anyone with a discerning eye. He's sure Runyu would have caught on too, but he seems to be at ease right now. More at ease than back in the Heavenly Realm. After all, all immortals back there have to be on edge and alert due to how gossip can spread and how the powers of politics can shift from one place to another. It's often quite exasperating to deal with, which is why he finds his own duties with warfare far easier to deal with.

He does not envy his father, nor his mother on this. Always having to keep on guard, always having to secondguess the relationships that they make or the relationships that they lose.

But right now that doesn't matter. Right now Xufeng almost can't resist the urge to surprise Runyu this way- especially when he knows that his presence probably isn't expected. It's a shame Jinmi isn't around either, then the three of them could explore together without the eyes of the Heavenly Realm on them.

. . . especially his own mother. As much as he loves her, he knows what she wants of him and it isn't something he can accede to or want or conform to. So being here is just as much of an escape as it is a way to follow after his elder brother.

So now, since several seconds have passed, he turns around with a welcoming smile on his face and an arched brow.

"I was wondering how long it'd take you to find me."

The water gently rushes along the sand and over his bare feet. The touch of it is almost as gentle as a lover and just as wanting as it recedes back as if urging him to follow after. But he doesn't because here in front of him is Runyu and right now all he wants is to spend time with his brother as much as he can.

Edited 2020-02-09 09:50 (UTC)

As always, Runyu melts like morning frost to the coming dawn in the face of his brother, joy welling in his heart like spring thaw's floodwaters. He sees Runyu's game at once, intentionally concealing his presence, his imperial personage until the last possible moment. It's been a few thousand years since such a trick last worked on him, and that alone makes him laugh, concealing his mirth behind his sleeve.

"Congratulations are in order, Xufeng. It has been an age since you last startled me. Shall we do this by our old arrangement…?"

Their standing arrangement from when they were younger, freer souls, less burdened by duties and expectations to keep them apart, was the loser of the game would host the victor in their palace with food and drink. Back then, they spent a great deal of time in Xufeng's palace, though Runyu recalls several times their uncle somehow got mixed up in it all and they all went to his rowdy place instead.

Most likely Danzhu was simply lonely and meddled on purpose to have his nephews over. It was mostly an excuse to spend time together anyway, and the present is no exception.

The laughter and smile on Runyu's face soothes something inside of Xufeng. It's hard to be upset or sad when sees that comforting smile. A smile that's both gentle and kind, two words that he thinks describes Runyu perfectly. He knows that it's hard for him to maintain that when the Heavenly Empress constantly tries to control him, but that's why it matters so much more to him. Because despite his mother's machinations, Runyu is still able to be his elder brother and family to him. He's still able to smile and laugh and live his life with him at his side. It's something he's depended on for so long because both their father and his mother have been so busy running the Heavenly Realm for thousands and thousands of years.

Too busy to bother much with rearing them. Yet they had still managed together. Always together. He had always shared what he had with Runyu no matter what.

"Perhaps we could make a new arrangement. After all, this isn't exactly the Heavenly Realm now."

He says that with a smooth and crisp half-smile on his face, tilting his head slightly in a small bow. It shows clearly that he wants to do something new as well as make new memories with Runyu in this odd but wondrous place.

runyu / ashes of love

xufeng | ashes of love | got milk

no subject

no subject

Re: runyu / ashes of love

no subject

Night terrors

no subject

no subject

night terrors

no subject

he is so pretty omg

got milk

no subject

no subject

night terrors

no subject

no subject

So much voicetesting. Also night terrors.

drapes arm around

Re: drapes arm around

Got milk