prismaticrap | ▶ TDM .013

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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.

▶ Welcome to the Jungle
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.

▶ Let’s Do the Time Warp Now
Lunatia | top

Time is relative, but the days do seem shorter — or longer — than usual. A minute passes like an hour. An hour passes like a minute. Everything appears to be moving along as normal, but the numbers and hands on clocks flicker and spin with an unusual and worrying slowness or quickness. Eventually you notice that the darkness of the night barely lasts long enough for you to fall asleep while the sun seems to glare down upon you for an eternity. The temporal shifts disorient your body, which now grows lethargic from being overworked and underslept. Soon, the temporal abnormalities reach a critical point…

B Due to the temporal distortions, Prismals and Moonblessed new and old feel their bodies sporadically transform in the strangest of ways. Your joints ache like they’ve carried a lifetime’s weight of misfortune and regret. Your voice turns high-pitched like a certain pair has yet to drop. You turn into a confused infant in one moment and the seasoned fighter you always wanted to be in the next. Your memories also shuffle around along with your apparent age, leaving you confused and unsettled. The transformations can occur and last for as long as the 11th, when everything turns back to normal without incident. That time your baby self peed in your pants? Never happened. Until then, moonlacing seems to stabilize the weird abnormalities.

▶ Starlight, Star Bright, First Star I See Tonight
Lunatia | top

The city’s landscape is not spared by the erratic flow of time. Buildings and streets continuously flicker between the beautiful and vibrant paradise it has become to the ruins of glory days long past. Your eyes may struggle to adjust as you try and convince yourself of what is real and what is not. High rise towers one moment will become wreckage the next, filled with technological debris and the echoing cries of the terrified, and the mighty wingspan of an unknown creature continues to hovers in the distance. The illusion will only last but a minute before you’re back in the present, going about your daily business. However, your trip from the future and back is far from over.

Soon, breaking news reports will inform the city about the sudden vanishing of certain celestial bodies in the sky. Though the moons remain where they should, the nights grow longer and darker as the stars in the sky start disappearing one by one until only the sun remains, eclipsed by some mysterious force. Lunar Scientia has already sent capable teams to investigate the abnormalities, so they ask the public to be patient as they wait for the reports. Until then, they have issued safety guidelines and measures to effectively light the city. The Caelus Tower appears to burn brighter than ever.

C For these dark hours, Lunar Scientia releases their latest Chroma-powered technology for Moonblessed use: star lanterns. When a star lantern is held by two Moonblessed, it absorbs newly generated Chroma from them, enabling it to light up the missing stars in the sky as you travel from place to place. The light’s color and intensity will depend on you and your partner’s bond, the spectrum ranging from a violet of hatred to a red full of love. Indifference, however, will not light the lantern at all. It also comes with a float function so that it can be released into the atmosphere without needing to carry it everywhere. Since the technology is limited in stock, Moonblessed may only have one star lantern in their possession.

One of the issued guidelines is to never walk through dark alleys alone even with the lanterns, as the crime rate has increased lately due to those taking advantage of the chaos. This is especially rampant in Level 3, at the mouth of the Lightless.

▶ Oh, They Just Can’t Wait to be King
Outside Lunatia, Port Sylvel | top

On the ides of the third month, an emergency broadcast appears from Captain Natela:

Captain Natela

Greetings, Prismals and Moonblessed.

It is with a heavy heart that I announce that Port Sylvel has been completely crystallized. The Moon Knights are currently recruiting willing explorers and scientists to investigate the cause. Investigations are still pending, but the outlook is grim. The only survivors were among the few we carried out of the city last month. The rest perished from the crystallization.

Our heart goes out to those affected by this plight. There is no cause for panic. There is no sign that the crystallization is spreading beyond Port Sylvel. We Moon Knights stand with the people of Prismatica, as we have done for centuries. We are not mere defenders of a city but protectors of a planet. We endeavor to find the cause of this tragedy and bring peace and justice to the lives it claimed. Until then, we ask for your cooperation. Stay calm and press onward.

Those who volunteer to participate in the expedition will be rewarded for their efforts. They will be assisted by experts from the Lunar Scientia as well as the bear Prismal and Moon Knight Fahrouk, who looks worse for wear after hearing the news.

Officer Fahrouk

Oh, Moonblessed. It's you. Yeah, Hala is doing good. Won the spelling bee! I think she might make the nationals. ... I… I don't think I ever told you. Port Sylvel was our hometown. My wife is buried there. We’d go there every spring. Hala loved picking the flowers there. Did you know that different flowers grow in Port Sylvel compared to Lunatia? Haaaah...

Moonblessed! I know you think I'm not cool enough to hang out with you, and all I do is ask for your help, but please let me go with you! Please… This is something I have to do as a soldier, a husband, and a father.

… What? You always thought I was cool?

Finding strength and resolve after the participants tell him he's supposed to assist them on their mission anyway, Fahrouk distributes LIFE suits to the participants as he briefs them on what they're about to do. He and the participating Moonblessed will then be transported via a large transport vessel.

Port Sylvel is hardly recognizable. What was once an idyllic coastal town is now a site of tragic beauty — crystal formations encase buildings and Prismals like jagged glass coffins, as if preserving life in its final moments. Readings from life detectors tell you that everyone in the crystal has passed on, but you and your fellow Moonblessed think you can still hear their cries of distress carried along by the wind, warning you about the Prideful King.

D Gigantic crystal lions flank the passage of the port city, their wings spread open and blue flames pouring forth from their mouths. You hear rumbling guttural noises, and if you approach them, their roars will escalate to warn you about proceeding any further. Beware: a single bite from these lions can easily tear through the LIFE suit and cause your body to crystallize quickly unless someone rushes in to moonlace with you to halt the effect. These lions are unlike the beasts you’ve fought before: their otherworldly strength is overwhelming, and nothing seems to wear them down. Destroying them seems pointless, as they quickly regenerate the minute they are obliterated.

Eventually, transmissions from the LIFE suits announce an order for escape. Buildings collapse and shatter in your wake, and the ground quakes violently as something awakens in the far distance...

▶ questions

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

WHO CAN POST? ▶ Test drive memes are for new characters only. Existing players may not post starter threads in the test drime meme. 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.!

IS THIS CANON? ▶ 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.

ANNIVERSARY ▶ Happy first anniversary, Prismatica! Thank you to all of you who have been with us since the beginning. We appreciate it immensely! Remember that we always welcome input and suggestions from players. This event is a little out of the ordinary because of our anniversary celebration.

OPT IN AND OUT ▶ For current players, please do not be alarmed! As always, you do not have to be affected as there are safe areas across Lunatia that remain as is.

AGING UP AND DOWN ▶ You have free reign over how long and how many times your character will be affected. If a character doesn’t have a canon appearance from the past or future, you are welcome to provide one of your own from imagination and use your own PB. You are allowed to speculate on how they’ll look, act, their potential future, and so on. All of these will be temporary to this event. The intensity of the effect is also up to you: whether it will only affect appearance alone and retain their current memories.

IMPORTANT ▶ As a reminder, writing sexual content with characters below 15 years old is a violation of the game's rules and potentially Dreamwidth’s ToS. Players caught doing this will be banned from the game.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A. WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE.

[ honestly, this place wasn't as bad as people made it out to be. sure the initial shock lingers for awhile, but eventually you just gotta let yourself live; enjoy the good that comes with the bad. and as someone blessed with an incredible ability to adapt and master anything, it takes banri no time to make himself at home in his stylish unit. still, there's one thing missing, and it's important (to him): new clothes.

as he walks through the neighborhood admiring the different locations, he turns to the first person that doesn't seem to have dressed themselves in the dark and stops them with a cheeky, overly familiar wave. ]

Hey, know any good places where I can get new clothes?

B. STARLIGHT, STAR BRIGHT, FIRST STAR I SEE TONIGHT.

Listen, we can't walk through the dark without turning on this thing. I'm not happy about it either, alright?

[ offering the lantern to hold to the other person but like, not happy. ]

Put your hand on it. We gotta at least try.

[speaking of not happy...well, Hazel's not happy about having to touch people at all just to earn a little money. and now that she has to walk around practically hand in hand with somebody just to add a little light to the city - a city that really hasn't been doing much for her despite its superficial friendliness, thank you very much - she can't help but be a little pissy about the whole situation. it's not you, Banri, it's her.]

I can see in the dark just fine, actually.

[crossing her arms and tucking those helpful hands very firmly beneath her pits. it was kind of suspicious for a 'human' to have perfect night vision, yes, but she's too busy being a cranky brat to really think about that sticky little detail.]

[ perhaps not for a perfectly good human, but how is he supposed to know she's not yet another weirdo this place seems to be oozing with? so forgive him but his next question is completely sincere. ]

What? Are you a cat or something?

[well, she's been called a lot of things in the past (usually unkind) but cat's still a new one. it's enough to make Hazel snort, although she still manages to keep her expression deadpan as she shakes her head and spouts some bullshit.]

Nah, my parents sold me to the government.

[ um... banri just. looks at her with an incredulous look on his face for a few seconds, then shakes his head. ]

You know what? I'm not even gonna ask. If you want to get lost in the dark and eaten by some sparkly alien monster, be my guest.

[ he says this but he does look around to make sure no aliens or whatever are around. ]

[hey now, man. she's covered in stitches and scars, this could totally be a plausible explanation.]

Doubt it'll be sparkly but it sounds good to-

[it's no alien, but the sound coming from one of the nearby alleyways? definitely not friendly. maybe the government wasn't exactly being overly cautious when warning about heightened crime rates..?]

[ at the first sound of danger, banri steps closer to her, looking in the direction of the dark alley. he does it calmly— one hand inside his pocket and the other loosely holding onto the lamp. with a grimace he stares into the dark, worried about how there is no way to tell what the hell that was, but keeping it cool. when you're a punk that gets into fights often and is considered the king of your school, you get a bit of an ego for these things.

still, the thought of someone getting hurt right in front of his eyes doesn't sit well with him, so he looks at her from the corner of his eye. ]

Does it still sound good to you?

[ well... depending on whether banri thinks madonna looked like she dressed herself in the dark for the virgin tour... ]

I do indeed, sir! The Prissy Polyp is a favorite of mine that is not too far from here, but there are many other shops and boutiques as well. Is there anything in particular you're looking for?

[ he is not loving the name of that shop honestly but at this point he'll take what he can get from... this person. a person banri looks at from head to toe discreetly and decides is probably a little too adventurous with his outfits but you know what? he respects that. ]

Yeah? I'm just looking for anything casual. Comfortable, but that looks good.

[ okay so he is kinda prissy. so what. ]

Casual and comfortable, is it? Hmmm.
[ HMMMM ]

Ah! Let's go to the Speculate? store! They specialize in clothing made from a type of durable cotton twill, but they carry a wide variety of other things as well. For example, I bought this "crop top" there.

Um, do they sell more than crop tops?

[ because that's... ]

Of course! As I said, they have a wide variety. There are also tunics, big sweaters, jackets...
...Well, I feel it might be a bit unproductive to try to name every different type of garment they carry.

Right, I just stopped listening at one point there. I’ll check it out— unless I need like, prostitute levels of chroma to buy there.

[ . . . ]

I don’t, do I?

By no means! Otherwise I myself could hardly shop there, could I?

It's just over this way; I'll show you. By the way, I am Titus Alexius.

[ is he supposed to agree that titus doesn't look like a prostitute? because, no comment. ]

Cool, thanks.

I'm Banri. You sound like you really know your stuff around here.

[ good call, although tbh he might think that was intended as a compliment. ]

Well met, Banri! I suppose in some ways I do, at least for a Moonblessed, since I have lived in this city for nearly a year now. But I'm still discovering new things all the time; it's a really amazing place!

Banri Settsu | A3!

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