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

[The laughter is actually warming up just a little now, just a teensy bit. Nowhere near the area of boisterous or anything, but it no longer sounds quite as dry.]

About a decade. I'm twenty five, sorry to disappoint you there. I'm just as mortal as any other man.

Be careful with your grip, by the way. If the weight shifts too much in your hands, you'll only end up injuring yourself.

Oh, shit.

[ he takes his advice, lowering the blade a little again and trying to handle it more carefully. no more random slashes, got it. ]

What, twenty five? I was hoping you'd say like, two hundred. But I guess that makes it even more impressive that you've had this for ten years.

You'd be hard pressed to find anyone past their sixties in Eorzea. Anyone who makes it that far has the money to live a very uninteresting life.

Two hundred years is a number I imagine only gods and dragons can reach, and I can assure you: I'm neither.

And you? I can't imagine you're too much older or younger than I am.

[ "eorzea"... even the place sounds magical, he thinks. except it sounds like people live normal lifespans and that's not very isekai, unfortunately. but if people get to dress like this there and not be judged? he's into it. ]

Me? I'm seventeen. But don't be fooled, I'm amazing.

[Oh Banri, this armor isn't even the weirdest thing your typical Eorzean sees on a daily basis. This is 'soberly dressed'.]

Younger than I thought then. I'll admit, you seem to pick things up fairly quickly. Try not to get too big a head about it, the leading cause of death for most adventurers is over-confidence.

[ oh god, he’s not ready to discuss fursuits with someone he just met, so it’s a good thing it does not come up. ]

Yeah? You meet lots of adventurers where you’re from? Sounds like a pretty exciting place.

[Adventurers are... interesting people.]

There's been quite an influx of them, since the Calamity. Some might say they'd prefer things be a little less exciting, and I can't say that I blame them.

... I don't particularly agree, but I can't blame them. Ishgard was at least moderately more tolerable before that eternal winter settled upon it, if nothing else.

[ ishgard... now that sounds like a videogame location. banri drinks this information in with gusto, every word more engaging that the rest. fray's previous life seems to have taken place somewhere very different than where banri's from— boring old normal earth, but it doesn't sound completely alien to a master gamer like him. ]

I see. So then, you, and this weapon... I assume there's much to fight out where you are?

[ aka please tell him everything you've ever killed ever. ]

Plenty, and sometimes more than I can handle.

[Oh, that tone. Oh that tone just slipped for a moment, an edge creeping in quickly, before just as swiftly reverting back.]

Though my battles usually pit me against men, rather than beasts. I'm not an adventurer myself, after all. You don't often see monsters scaling the walls of Ishgard.

Oh man...

[ he heard the slight shift in tone, and wonders if maybe he should stop asking. then again, if not now, when? better get it all out in the open. more importantly, there's another thing he's been meaning to ask since he saw the claymore. ]

Have you actually cut people with this? Wait, are you a good guy?

I've killed people with that.

[And he said it so casually too. As if it were the easiest thing in the world, really.]

Good is a subjective term. I align myself with justice, whether or not those who would claim to uphold the law agree with me or not. I find myself and my goals righteous.

[ i mean, it's not like he was innocently expecting the answer to be "no", but hearing it is something else, and of course he believes him. he looks at the weapon in his hands again, thinking of just how many times it's been used for that... well, maybe it's better he doesn't think about it. instead he just nods. ]

That's true. I think I'm a good guy, but I bet the guys I pummel don't really see me that way. Besides, where you're from I bet it's a necessity to be brutal.

[ or so he's learned from dragon quest and other stuff. ]

The defeated rarely see a superior opponent as a good person, I endeavor not to take it that personally or pay it much thought. Best not to worry yourself about the opinion of people who really don't matter, in the long run. You'll only cause yourself grief.

[The blade is certainly well cared for, sure enough, but a closer inspection would reveal nicks in the steel, little dents and small wedges taken out where the blade had struck something unyielding. If nothing else, it had certainly been well used before now]

If you're not on the side of the church, then you are a heretic, whether this be true or not. And if you are a heretic, then it's kill, or be killed. Nothing short of a necessity, really, I'm rarely ever left with a choice in the matter, and I'd sooner see the ground spattered with the blood of a Temple Knight than my own. I'm sure you'd agree.

Well, yeah. Better them than you.

[ he doesn’t say anything to the rest because he thinks he... gets it, in a way. church bad. sounds just like what he knows about the church from a long time ago he’s heard about in class and seen in games. maybe banri doesn’t know the whole story, but who’s he to judge?

after looking at the weapon a few more seconds, he looks at him again. ]

Hey, you know... I think we should try it. The lantern thing.

Do you now?

[He looked to his still darkened lantern, thoughtful. Well... Nothing ventured nothing gained, right?]

I don't see why we shouldn't attempt it, it isn't as if anything will happen should it not work.

[Other than it just continuing to be dark, so they literally had nothing to lose. He unclipped the lantern, holding it out towards Banri.]

One less thing to concern ourselves with if it does.

[ he smiles at him wide, happy his suggestion wasn't immediately discredited. even so, he feels like he has to explain himself just in case, so he shrugs, stepping closer. ]

I mean, you could obviously kill me if you wanted, but I don't get that vibe from you. And you also let me handle your valuable weapon so I guess you don't totally hate me, so, why not?

[ he's not sure what exactly it takes for the lanterns to react, but this might make the walk to level two less of a pain, he figures. with that, he extends his hand to touch the lantern, and... for a second, there's nothing. but a second after that a faint light starts slowly growing in intensity through the lens. it's nothing too potent, just about as much as a cheap battery lamp would generate, but it's there, and already some stars above them are starting to shine, marking a clearer path ahead.

banri's eyes open wide, surprised that it worked, and also that the view above is actually not terrible. ]

Haha! Hey! Look at that! Look! Can't believe it worked!

You seem the amicable sort, I have no reason to even entertain the idea of hurting you.

[As good as a promise of safety, coming from Fray. He doesn't make those assessments lightly here. Not sure what to expect from the lantern, he settled on having no expectations at all. And at first... his expectations seemed well founded. Nothing at all? Well that wasn't surprising- Oh.

There it was. A soft 'huh' from Fray, his head cocking in what might damn well be the first indication of actual, genuine curiosity he's had here.]

Neither can I, consider me pleasantly surprised.

[A pause]

... I wouldn't have minded setting it alight, regardless. ... But I can see now why they want their stars back so damned bad.

[Was that a note of appreciation in that tone? It seemed so, as he tilted his head up to get a good look at them.]

I suppose it would be irresponsible now to not light a few more of them up, since we have the lamp working.

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▶ TDM .013

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