prismaticrap | ▶ TDM .012

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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.

▶ 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.

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"O-oh," HuaiSang says, immediately feeling a little woozy at the sudden rush of--wow, what was that? He was only half paying attention to the information he'd been given in orientation, and even though he remembers something about contact with other Moonblessed, he forgot the rest.

He's used to being moved around by Xichen, so it's easy to get him settled on the stairs. He snuggles close without any shame whatsoever about being a grown man clinging in public. "Er Ge, it was horrible, it was like a dream but it was real. My birds--I don't have any of my birds here but there were feathers and then my birds were here but they were, it was like they were fierce corpses but birds and they attacked me."

He bursts into tears.

"Feathers... Huaisang, do you still have any feathers on you?"

Xichen's voice is calm, but there is distinctly less discomfort about the clinging than usual, or attempt to dislodge him.

"These feathers which appear just now are dangerous, and they make nightmares seem real. But it was not real. Your birds are fine, and they still like you."

He hums softly.

"I hear there is someone here who can talk to animals, if you find any birds here, he can tell you what they think about you and how to spoil them properly, if you wish."

Distraction? Distraction, but also giving him enough information for the panic to start fading. And with how this place is, right now he doesn't question that it's real panic and upset.

"I don't think so, they're all upstairs in my apartment." HuaiSang checks his sleeves and lapels just to make sure. No feathers. Then he checks his hair, although Xichen probably would have noticed and told him if there were feathers in his hair. It's also important to make sure that his hair is still pretty.

Featherless, he returns to cuddling up against Xichen's side. It's kind of weird that Xichen is allowing this, but it feels good, and it's calming down HuaiSang at an amazing rate. "You feel so warm, Er Ge. I don't feel scared now that you're here."

Xichen hums, but decides to not to poke too much at the statement. For now. There will be time.

Instead, he asks with just a touch of exasperation, "just how much of the explanation did you not listen to, Huaisang?"

"What explanation?" HuaiSang demands indignantly, head lifting a little. "What are you talking--oh coming here." His head drops back onto Xichen's shoulder with a sigh. "I don't know, Er Ge. There was so much. Moons and blessings and planets and I thought I was dead, Er Ge!"

Wait wait was Xichen making a point? HuaiSang's head pops back up and he peers at Xichen. "Why? ... What?"

Xichen shakes his head. "Most of the people who come here are not dead. I know I am not. If you tell me what you last remember, I can possibly tell you with certainty that you are not.

"But I meant that this additional warmth is from the moonlacing, which is something rather necessary, here."

Xichen is... not nearly as horribly looking as he used to when he first came, but he still looks tired, and while his gentleness is unshaken, there are no soft smiles to brighten it.

"What I last remember?" HuaiSang repeats, brow furrowing in thought. Fortunately for HuaiSang, remembering things like what he had for breakfast or what he did yesterday is a legitimate struggle, who knows, which gives him an extra second to remember what Yuri told him. People are from different times.

"I don't know, Er Ge." He sighs deeply and nuzzles his cheek against Xichen's shoulder. Remembering things, what an ordeal. "What I last remember? I was at home."

He nods again, hoping that the topic of what he last remembers can be completely dismissed. He definitely wasn't staying in Mo Village paying the innkeeper to tell stories about the Yiling Patriarch for three days. Nope.

"Something about contact with the other moon... moon-blessing, creates an energy that can be exchanged locally like money." He looks up hopefully, like he's seeking praise from a teacher. "Is that right? I didn't remember they said it would feel so nice."

Xichen outright flinches at the I don't know, Er Ge. But he doesn't push the younger man away, just turns his eyes away. Down.

After a moment, he sighs.

"You need the chroma it generates. Its influx acts a little like being transfered spiritual energy, healing and strengthening, but when we use any special powers, or when one of the moons is in effect, the chroma burns away, and its depletion can leave you exhausted, or worse."

Another pause, and he adds, "this world is very different. It also takes people from different times, sometimes years and years apart. Da ge is here from the beginning of the Sunshot Campaign, he... there is so much that he doesn't know."

Edited 2020-02-24 16:27 (UTC)

HuaiSang feels the flinch, but he doesn't understand what it means. His mind flips immediately into overdrive, causing him to miss the entire explanation. Why would Zewu-Jun flinch like that? He knows that HuaiSang isn't always a know-nothing. Somehow along the way, HuaiSang slipped up. Something went wrong, and Zewu-Jun knows that he influenced it.

He remains completely calm and relaxed against Zewu-Jun as he panics internally up until that last line.

"What... what did..." HuaiSang sits up and turns to stare at him even though he's reeling from that. "Da Ge...?" HuaiSang starts quivering, breath coming in hitching gulps with pending sobs that he's trying to fight back. He'd been told that some people who were dead had come back. Zixuan and Yanli were here. But HuaiSang hadn't allowed himself to hope for his brother. Hoping would have hurt too much. "He's here? Why wouldn't you lead with that?"

Pressing the back of his hand against his mouth as HuaiSang tries not to faint, sob or start screaming, HuaiSang stares at Zewu-Jun in devastated shock. His brother. His brother...

"Because you were panicking, Huaisang. If I had added that, you would have gotten more upset, rather than calming down. But, yes, he is here, and he is unharmed. And he remembers enough to know to mistrust Meng Yao, so, as long as I do not fail him and you again, he is safe."

He does know.

And, more than that, he knows who is the real danger, and he knows his own failing.

Isn't that enough?

"We can call him now, since I can't know where he is right this moment, but we can find out."

The tears start spilling down HuaiSang's cheeks, but he keeps his hand over his mouth to keep himself quiet so he won't starts creaming. Zewu-Jun just gave him a lot to process there.

Zewu-Jun knows about Meng Yao. He knows or suspects that HuaiSang knows.

When Zewu-Jun says that he failed the Nie brothers, HuaiSang wants so badly to trust him. Er Ge is here. Er Ge will get him to Da Ge. Everything will be fine. HuaiSang doesn't need to think.

Unless it's all a trap.

He nods, watching Zewu-Jun with beseeching eyes as he tries to keep his sobs under control or at least muted. Zewu-Jun earned that from him with what he said about failing the two of them. HuaiSang will try his genuine hardest not to make this any more difficult for Zewu-Jun, though he won't believe that this isn't all a trick until he sees his brother alive and well.

... Xichen breathes out and then shifts to hold Huaisang again. Yes, it is a lot. Yes, he knows, but he doesn't...

It's all right if Huaisang doesn't hide. He can deal with tears. For once, he can be there for them.

"Easy. Let it out. We'll call him in a moment, and you'll see. It's all right if you cry on me, and then cry on him again. It's all right."

At least while they are here. At least while da ge is here.

HuaiSang leans gladly back into Xichen's embrace, hugging his arms around Xichen's waist and weeping on his shoulder. He's still doing his best to stay quiet, though the occasional stifled keening wail gets through his teeth.

Part of HuaiSang had broken when he'd learned that Meng Yao, his most trusted protector and one of his dearest friends, had murdered his brother. The more he looked into that, the more he learned. The deeper the conspiracy went, compiling crimes upon crimes. It made him utterly paranoid, so he cannot help the part of his mind that quietly unpacks everything Zewu-Jun just said and analyzes it under the umbrella of but what if it's a trap, even while he genuinely sobs in Zewu-Jun's arms.

Da Ge isn't here. Or, Zewu-Jun is working with Meng Yao but knows of HuaiSang's suspicions and is trying to convince him that they're on the same side so he can lead HuaiSang into a trap, in which case it is the most terrifying thing in the world that Zewu-Jun has just implied that he knows about HuaiSang knowing, because that means that Zewu-Jun and Meng Yao will be getting rid of him as a liability as soon as possible.

"Call him," HuaiSang begs. He doesn't want to wait until he's stopped crying. He needs to know that this is real. He needs his brother. "Please. Please. I need him."

Xichen is already moving to activate his device at the first plea. He doesn't need to remember his own reaction, when he saw Da ge here. He doesn't need to remember the state in which Wangji was, when he finally found him at the resort villa.

Only Huaisang's need is enough.

He doesn't start with anything elaborate. But he does call. No conditions, no hesitation, no cleverness.

Only what needs to be done.

Edited 2020-02-24 17:54 (UTC)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

▶ TDM .012

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nice try zewu-jun!!! you can't get him to slip up so easily!!

he's not trying to get him to slip up he's just tired of being lied to

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