▶ TDM .001

[prismods]

Cybernetic dream, something like you've never seen

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"Michael Sembello - Automatic Man (original music video)" (Watch on YouTube)

▶ Lisa Frank's LSD Fun House
anytime, anywhere on the moon Iris | top

Everything is darkness except for dim lights sparkling in the distance, a faint gleam that greets you as you start to unfurl from your dormant state. 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. Throat parched and skin dry and aching, you grope your body in alarm to make sure your possessions are still in place. This is far from home— perhaps a dream? You pinch your skin and slap your cheeks, yet nothing seems to do the trick. Searching for answers only rewards you with an endless expanse of purple dust as far as the eye can see. You have four options: one, panic; two, soil yourself; three, admire it all then soil yourself; or four, go into survival mode. Eventually, you’ll realize that you’re not alone.

A ⬤ As you traverse the near-barren landscape, you feel something sting your skin. It's small and subtle at first, then you finally catch sight of it: an elegant, crystalline mosquito buzzing around from the corner of your eye. However, a pest is still a pest. After a while, marks near your welts begin to form strange patterns on your skin, mimicking ancient runes. Each rune has with it a particular side-effect that may hinder you on your journey:

✾ The Mark of the Enchanter: Hallucinations, hallucinations galore. Your character will see everything and anything their imagination can conjure and will have difficulty separating reality from fiction.
₪ The Mark of the Destroyer: Limbs start to cease their function, causing you to stumble or try and get around one-handed. Other certain body parts may be affected as well. Look at the bright side: you can stop worrying about jiggle physics and hiding your fear boner.
⍢ The Mark of the Sinner: Your hunger, your thirst, your fatigue and your desire are at an all-time high. Your impulses are rabid and uncontrollable. Maybe you experience only one of those symptoms. Maybe you experience them all. All you know is that you want relief now.

These effects will eventually clear up with a bit of accidental or purposeful physical contact with another person, making you wonder if there was anything wrong with you at all.

B ⬤ Hunger starts to gnaw at you vigorously. Perhaps you consider hunting the moon's creatures to sate your hunger. That's when you see it: a thick, meaty, juicy meal on legs. No, we're not talking about Alex Louis Armstrong. A wild silver-white pegasus runs across the purple landscape, its hair billowing in the wind as its hooves smack loudly against the ground. Try and shoot it, and you may find your efforts curtailed by its legendary rage. Eyes aglow and wings beating up a storm, this pegasus is no dainty horse. Two thousand pounds of pure muscle swoop down and charge at you, all blades and ammunition deflecting off its impenetrable skin. Taming appears impossible; it will buck anyone away and leave a sizable horn- or hoof-shaped hole in them for their efforts. Hunting it, however, should be easier. Relatively.

C ⬤ Or you may decide that you'd like to take a drink in the prismatic waters. A small pond can be found just a few miles away from where you first awoke, but gazing into it reflects what appears to be a window into your own world. You see the faces of loved ones or at least someone very close and familiar to you gathered around your prone body, shaking it frantically as though to try and rouse you, yet your image lies frozen and unresponsive, not even a whisper of life running through you. Did you die in your world? Is this your afterlife? The questions start to pile up along with the gnawing dread that you may never return home again.

▶ Camp Nowhere
anytime, anywhere on the moon iris | top

Time moves strangely when you're trapped on a moon with no sun to guide you. Hours feel like days, and days feel like weeks. Travelling has rendered you weak and tired. Luckily, a few crystal formations in the shape of a cavern may offer you a small place refuge as you decide to nap. You notice a few artifacts left over from previous explorers.

D ⬤ A comm unit abandoned within the cavern will display the former owner's idol obsession. As you tap the buttons indiscriminately, a holographic screen will appear, and you will see a fabulous recorded concert featuring three bubbly young ladies in animal print, singing to you about something called Cordis, a cat, and a bag of gems. Does this make any sense to you? Probably not, but the beat is catchy. You may even find yourself tapping a foot along to it. Don’t worry. We know it’s plastic love.

E ⬤ There's a small cooler-like container of preserved powdered food bags labeled with only the word “Edible” that can be safely consumed. Although the powder tastes as bland as you’d expect, it’s oddly filling, sating either hunger or thirst. But who will be the first — and the bravest — to try eating them?

F ⬤ A strange, pointed instrument is among the effects found in the cavern. It's silver, long, and thin with a curved end and a light. When you grip it with warm hands, it seems to vibrate enthusiastically and comes in three settings indicated by a frowny face, a neutral face, and a happy face. What could it mean exactly? No one knows, but you can fiddle with it to your heart's desire. Just don't ask yourself where it's been before. You don't want to know.

▶ Interstellar Action Force Assemble
prisma, iris | top

Over a day has passed when a group of people find you worse for wear. Some are full of uncertainty and fear while some are full of curiosity and excitement. They claim that they are scientists from the planet Prismatica here to investigate the sudden appearances of rainbow crystals in the skies. That means you and the others they’ve located within the area. You are all a surprising find to them, and they are quick to load everyone in their transport vehicles for examination and questioning.

You all may have your usual inquiries — Where are we? Who are you? What's going on? Why are the pegasi so ill-tempered? — and the Prismals are almost too eager to answer. They do have questions on their own, so it’s only fair to trade. They tell you about their world as they poke and prod you, trying to understand what you are and how you came into their land. If they’re not trembling in fear, some of them may ask you odd and invasive questions in return, such as what the rate at which your body achieves thermoregulation is, how long your refractory period is, and if you would be willing to submit various kinds of body fluids to them. It's up to whether you wish to comply or protest.

G ⬤ If you react violently, you will be restrained and nerfed with a specialized neurotransmitting gun that releases a numbing agent through the top of your spine. They came prepared, so have fun with that! In any case, conscious or not, you’ll be brought into one of the transport vehicles. If you choose to peacefully cooperate, you’ll be provided any necessary first aid and a refreshing drink to help you recuperate after the rough time you had for the past few days. Each transport vehicle has a few small rooms to rest in, but due to the limited space, you’ll have to snuggle up with someone else on that bunk bed. Unfortunately, the moonshine fruit the ship is also carrying in its cargo has an extremely sweet smell that’s been permeating through certain areas of the ventilation system… Taking a whiff of it may inebriate you for the rest of the trip.

H ⬤ It’s a bumpy ride as terrain vehicles draw over various crystal formations until you see a large dome-like structure up ahead. Within its confines lies the seat of the Prismatica's government, Prisma. It’s a bureaucratic wet dream: skyscrapers practically touch the upper surface of the dome, windows glimmer with a prismatic sheen as daylight hits them, and small ships can be seen flying to and from its spaceport. The scientists, members of the Lunar Scientia, usher you into their facilities for tests. Arrivals are likely to twitch, tremble, and panic as Lunar Scientia fellows take and broadcast every embarrassing, unfiltered detail about you — height, weight, age, strange odors, estimated frequency of sexual activity —- to one another. These scientists will ask you politely to undress, too, but understand if you don't want to. They're especially fascinated by the readings of pure Chroma inside you, whispering among one another excitedly about the possibility of the new arrivals being a new moon species. What should they call them? Moonborne? Moonblessed?

I ⬤ At long last, the questions and physical examinations are done. They’ve decided to call the arrivals as the Moonblessed. They’ll take you under their care until they understand more about you. You're allowed a very refreshing hot shower and a warm meal for your efforts. Don’t worry, the meal was imported from their planet. “Planet?” you might ask, but you won’t need to wonder for too long. The ships are preparing for their next destination: the nearby planet Prismatica, where you will be dwelling for the time being. You're free to explore the government center until then.

▶ Wildcard
Lunatia, Prismatica | top

It only takes a couple hours for the ships to reach their home planet. The ships drop the characters off at the city of Lunatia, where they will be given their communication devices and a plastic card they can present to certain landlords at any residential district for their subsidized (read: absolutely free) lodging. Officials at Prisma instructed the newcomers to await further instructions from the government, but you have a lot of time to kill before then. Why not explore in the meantime? Learn the ins and outs of the world, get a job, transform under the full moon, and discover the many mysteries of planet Prismatica!

TDM OVERFLOW can be found here!

Comments

[princessascended]

I don't want to sleep, I want to sit on the beach and stare out at the sunset for like... way longer than a sunset actually lasts.

[Literal hours.]

With you guys next to me.

[oncebrokenway]

[ok well Riku might have had a little butterfly flutter at that thought.]

... Too bad we didn't get dragged to Twilight Town instead, then.

Scenery's not too bad here, though.

[keythatconnects]

[Sora feels the butterflies too.]

It's much better now.

[He means because Riku's here with them, of course.]

[princessascended]

Well of course it is. As long as we're together, everything's alright.

[Which of course is why they keep getting split up. But not this time.

Not this time.

Also just gonna add to the dokis there.]

[oncebrokenway]

[Not this time.]

Not letting you two out of my sight again.

[keythatconnects]

Well, that's a relief.

[Things seem to go better for him when Riku is looking out for him.]

We really should figure out what we're going to do here, though. It's not like we can just stand around forever.

[princessascended]

We need to look for the others. I've already found Aqua, so really, there should be at least some of the others around. I guess it could just be us and her, but... that doesn't really make any sense to me.

[The three of them alone, sure. But the three of them and Aqua? Now that just seemed random.

Maybe if Ven and Terra showed up.]

[oncebrokenway]

Oh, yeah, I ran into Aqua too...

[there was an issue with a very bad lying pool of water. and a weird mark. but we're good now.]

How climbable do you figure these crystals are? If we can get up to a high point, we might be able to see if there's a place where people are gathering.

[keythatconnects]

I could probably climb them no problem...

[Sora answers thoughtfully. He has climbed up or jumped over more difficult things before. He sounds exactly the right amount of boastful about it too.]

[princessascended]

I don't see any obvious handholds. They're pretty smooth. I can't run straight up things the way you guys can.

[Seriously, what keyblade power just lets you say "screw gravity" and when does she get it?]

[oncebrokenway]

[Honestly, Riku would like to know that too. It's like one day you're beholden to gravity like a normal person, and the next day you can basically fly.]

Guess we're sending you up then, Sora.

[keythatconnects]

[Sora grins and balls up his fist in a sort of 'challenge accepted' kind of way.]

Don't you two run off while I'm up there!

[And then he just takes off to start climbing because once someone tells him what to do, he's not really one to linger around. Actions are always easier for him.]

[princessascended]

[Aaaand there he goes. Kairi just... stares up after him as he climbs, and leans towards Riku.]

Can you figure out how he's doing that?

[oncebrokenway]

[leans towards her in turn]

We could do stuff kind of like that in the dream worlds?

[keythatconnects]

[Sora is just happily hopping from crystal to crystal. He almost slips once or twice, but he manages not to fall. When he gets to a high level he's able to check out their surroundings. He's able to take in the rest of the landscape, and he sees something in the distance that might be a building, but he isn't sure.

When it's time to jump down he pretty much just flings himself off the crystals. He doesn't free fall, but he seems to be dropping easily between the safe crystals.

He slides up to them once he's on the ground again. He can't help but grin, happy to show off in front of them.]

[princessascended]

Maybe I do need to take a nap.

[Not that she seriously thinks that would work, but really, that just looks awesome.

Also a little nerve-wracking, but she's seen Sora pull off plenty of crazy stunts before. She watches him as closely as she can, waiting for him to come back down...

And actually yelps a bit when he jumps. And maybe grabs Riku's arm. She's just a little worried, alright? She actually breathes a sigh of relief when he lands unharmed.]

[oncebrokenway]

If you did, you could meet our Dream Eaters.

[Man, those things were the best. Riku misses his technicolor bat.

When Sora descends and Kairi yelps, Riku is unfazed, which probably makes him a nice solid reassuring presence. That stuff is fine, he remembers how they fought in the World that Never Was. Sora falling with style is nothing.]

So? What's it look like?

[keythatconnects]

Mostly just a lot more crystals and a ton of pink, but I think there might be a building or something way off in the distance. We can try to head that way but... [He scratches his cheek in thought] It's gonna be a bit of a walk.

[princessascended]

[And of course, Sora's fine and she just demonstrated herself to be a dramatic worrywart. Sighing, she releases Riku's arm.]

An actual building? Huh. Well, Xigbar did say we might run into actual people here.

[oncebrokenway]

[At Xigbar's name, Riku releases a heartfelt groan.]

That guy?

Well... that's got to be good news, anyway. We'd better start walking.

[keythatconnects]

Yeah, I saw him too. [Sora grimaced at admitting this, and rubbed the back of his neck.] He said a lot of weird stuff and then told me I had a week to figure it out.

This place is gonna have some trouble if he and others from the Organization are around.

[princessascended]

I saw him trying to use a dark corridor to get out and that got him nowhere, so that was kind of satisfying.

[She may have laughed.]

But yeah, he said there might be natives here, and with how many worlds the Organizations have been to, I figure they'd probably know the signs. That building's really just confirming it.

[oncebrokenway]

Really? Now that's interesting...

[he's imagining that. and it's great.]

A week to figure it out, though? What's that supposed to mean?

[keythatconnects]

I honestly have no clue. You know how confusing those guys can be when they talk!

[princessascended]

Uggggh, it's true. Maybe Lea can translate. He knows both Organization-speak and normal-person speak.

Xigbar told me to "follow my nose" at one point and I still don't know if he was being literal.