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

We don't choose one, ourselves. I guess... the moons choose you? In any case, if you're not a local, or Prismal, you're a Moonblessed. That's what they call outsiders, people who don't live here, or just arrived mysteriously.

Hm. That fits with what I was told when those Knights picked me up. An odd name but hey, who am I to argue with what they want to call us.

[ He shrugged a bit, looking from the lantern over to Osomatsu shortly after. ]

Is there at least a lot to do here? I'd hate to get bored if I'm going to be stuck here.

Oh, yeah! There's a bunch of stuff. Like, for all ages. There are places to work, but also arcades... tons of restaurants. And a lot of people are from different places, so, if you make friends, you get to hear about their worlds... I actually really like that. Pretty sure there's a school, too.

Seems there's enough for this to be entertaining on some level, then.

[ Karma exhaled a sigh, running a hand through his hair a bit. If Osomatsu looked closely he'd be able to see the slight irritation on his face somewhat. ]

Would have preferred if they would have just decided to forego kidnapping me, but can't do anything about that now.

[ah, he understands that irritation]

I don't think the Moon Knights... or anyone here... knows why we're picked up, or how. Like, I've been here for months, but Moonblessed come and go all the time.

It's always comforting when the locals who were already here don't seem to have any idea on why this is happening.

[ There's a touch of bitter sarcasm in his voice, but at least he's still taking things relatively well for the most part. ]

Say. I've just been wandering around trying to get a feel for this place, but I don't suppose you'd mind giving me a bit of a tour around here once things aren't quite as chaotic, would you?

Huh?

[Osomatsu's head snaps up. he's been kind of staring at the ground this whole time as they were walking. he looks... eager at the prospect of making a new friend, causing the lantern to become a bit more pink on his side]

I wouldn't mind! The city is actually... pretty neat.

[ The slight color shift was kind of hard to miss, and so he couldn't help but laugh softly, the noise far from malicious or mocking in any way. ]

Great. From the little i've seen of it? I'd have to agree. It's... bright and not like anything i've really seen before arriving here.

[ He looked up to the sky now, for as dark as it still was at the moment. ]

Makes me feel like I ended up in some fantasy... sci-fi novel or movie.

It's definitely got that sci-fi feeling! I mean, one of the top games here was really into, uh. Virtual Reality? Or, like, the game was all about logging in and doin' stuff in the game, but you could sometimes feel things on the outside, too.

I kinda stopped playing at that point.

Yeah? Sounds like something I might have to check out and try for myself at least once.

[ Something new and exciting? Sign him the hell up. He's always been someone who enjoyed a bit of risk in the things he did. ]

Especially since the idea of all of that doesn't sound too off-putting.

[well, Karma was certainly interesting, Osomatsu would give him that much. he smirks softly as they get closer to a residential area]

So, where're we headed? Am I just taking you home?

I'd suggest going somewhere to get a coffee or something, but it isn't like I have anything I can really spend here yet.

[ The concept of how they paid for things was just something new he was trying to adjust to, after all. ]

Either way. Going home just seems like such a waste right now.

[it was evening. was it wise to get coffee now? besides, Osomatsu had wanted to get back to his apartment... though, by now, the show he'd wanted to watch was probably already well under way.

still, Osomatsu has to wonder if a television show is all that more important than making friends. he thinks about it, looking around, then his eyes fall on Karma again]

...Yeah. I don't really like going home, either.

[his apartment is so lonely]

[ For someone like him who tended to stay up a bit later and had a bit of energy to spare? Caffeine was never a bad idea.

He was used to doing a lot of things on his own, what with his parents never really being at home so he'd spent years fending for himself for the most part, and as such, wasn't a thing that bothered him when it came to being on his own. So hearing Osomatsu was in agreement about not going home?

It was enough to make him crack a grin, the light of the lantern shining just a tiny bit brighter in response. ]

Then why don't we walk around for a bit, then? See where our feet take us.

[ What better way to get to know your temporary new home? It sounded like a good idea in his eyes. ]

[taking a walk when the lights of the city were out sounded like a horrible idea. but... Osomatsu's not very afraid, considering who he's walking with. and they've got their lantern. so. why not?

he finally smirks lightly, his eyes flicking over to the other boy]

Guess we could do that... I could give you your tour now. In the, uh... dark.

[ To some it was probably alarming how calm and at ease he was regarding this whole 'being kidnapped' thing, but people took things differently and he had his unique ways of coping with matters. Either way, he was calm for the time being and brimming with a bit of adrenaline. ]

Why not?

[ His fingers holding onto the lantern tap against it slightly. ]

We do still have this so it's not like we have to walk in complete darkness.

[Osomatsu nods. he is usually pretty carefree, himself, as well. by now, he's almost forgotten that he's still in his work clothes. that means he is relaxing]

Okay, then. I'll start my tour now!

[he clears his throat]

The planet we're on is called Prismatica. And this city is Lunatia. It's the capital. Right now, we're on Level 1, which has the Moon Knights headquarters, the library, the academy. Also a lot of high-end businesses, like Marie's cafe, and PrismaPlace.

[ He's really not going to judge anyone for what they do for work so it's likely why he hasn't said much about that. In a little while, he may even start teasing Osomatsu about it but for now was refraining. ]

Hmm. So it's kind of like the upper-rich class district of a city, then.

[ Karma gestured to all around them with his free hand so Osomatsu would know what he was talking about. After all, if things could be simplified? He'd remember it just a bit better. ]

Oh, yeah! That's one way to look at it.

[he grins]

Below us, is Level 2. It's called Middle Lunatia. There, you've got that majority of the Moonblessed, er, visitors, like you an' me. That's where we stay. But it's more than just a residential area. There are malls, and hospitals, bath houses, even a beach.

[ At least he hadn't been off the mark with that assessment and he's kinda happy about that. ]

Oh really? I didn't know this place had a beach. Good to know there's a lot to do in the area we're living in.

[ It was better than being bored, he figured. Once things calmed down a bit, a trip to the mall was definitely in his plans at some point. ]

[a nod]

Below that is Level 3. It's known as the... [he quotes with his fingers] "Business zone that never sleeps." You get better deals down there, but it's also got, uh... well, it's a bit seedier? You know, there's more stuff goin' on down there that isn't legit. Like, a black market, or a red light district.

[a wink]

But Caihong's got some of the best food around, so what are ya gonna do?

[ There's a pause before Karma cracked a grin, head canted to the side ever so slightly as he looked back over to Osomatsu. ]

Sounds like something I'll have to check out. [ He shrugged. ] A little danger doesn't bother me. Especially if the payoff is worth the risk.

[ Essentially it just meant that if the food was good, then it was worth going to a 'seedier' place like that. ]

[judging by what he saw earlier, Karma doesn't have to worry about a thing]

You're pretty brave.

[Osomatsu's expression is... interesting. he's smirking, like he's amused]

Maybe we can go there together.

Am I? Just because i'm willing to go to such a place without worrying what I could run into?

[ To him it was a genuine question. He knew he was able to face against most thugs and idiots who would try to come after him, but it wasn't like he went around looking for fights. There was bound to be ones that couldn't be won, and Karma liked to pick his battles carefully. ]

Sure. Why not?

[ Having company wasn't something he'd say no to, after all. ]

[hehen! Osomatsu looks pleased, he's completely forgotten about his television show by now. eh, he'll download it, or something, later. he can do that here, right?]

Maybe another time, though. I gotta get outta these clothes. I'm not supposed t'get 'em dirty.

[there's an elevator around here that should take them to level 2]

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that icon is so cute--! :D

awww thank youuuu

you're welcome :3

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