TEST DRIVE MEME #1

[cursedmods]

TEST DRIVE MEME #1

A Blood Offering

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You wake up cozy in bed at the Saturn Motel. As you observe the room you may realize that it looks a little dated. Or, perhaps from your point of view the lamp and TV are wildly futuristic. Or, like Goldilocks, it may seem just right: close to the world you just left behind. Either way, you just had a very strange dream (see the arrival scenario) and now you're here. And you're not alone: there's a bed next to yours and someone else is waking up just like you are.

You can chat for a while if you like, but if you try to leave you'll find the door is firmly locked and no amount of kicking, punching, or hitting it with an object will do you any good. Instead, there's a letter on the nightstand which reads:

"Good morning and welcome to your new home!

You may be wondering why you're trapped in this room. Fear not, the door will open easily if you offer a bit of blood. More than a few drops but not enough to be a serious wound. A handprint's worth will do, let's say, and it only needs to come from one of you.

I'll let you sort that out yourselves. See you on the other side.

Sincerely,
The Mayor"

And indeed, a handprint's worth of blood pressed against the door will unlock it and let you out into the world. Do you volunteer your own blood? Do you take it from the other person by force? It's up to you! But there's no food in here, so you better figure it out eventually.

Roller Rink

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As a celebration of your new lives here (and an apology for the whole blood offering thing - they were just testing something out, really) the Mayor has invited everyone to the Crazy Eight Roller Rink for a private, after-hours party.

Attendance isn't mandatory, but it is heavily encouraged so that you can meet your fellow Cursed and know who's in on the whole secret. It'll help you down the line at some point if your Curse gets out of control and you need someone to wrangle you.

As a reward, everyone who shows up and completes at least one lap around the roller rink (you must be wearing skates, but you can crawl the lap if you can't get the hang of them) will receive a free walkman with a mystery tape inside. The color, style, and mystery tape your character gets are up to you.

Mallrats

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Everyone loves the mall! Right? Right! And this group of newcomers is lucky enough to be here for the White Pines Mall Grand Opening celebration! Feel free to walk around the mall and partake in sales galore, check out the attractions, or just get to know the layout of the place.

The Mayor has given everyone a gift card for $100 that can be used anywhere in the mall as long as they attend the Grand Opening.

They also strongly suggest that you familiarize yourself with the mall and its layout, just in case you ever get stuck there for a while and have to compete with others for food and resources. But that probably won't happen.

Extra Info

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The test drive meme and the IC intro log will have the same prompts, and threads between two accepted characters can count as game canon.

The first prompt is flexible: technically you're supposed to be with one other person, but if you want to do larger groups that's fine.

Rooms at the Saturn Motel initially contain two beds for the prompt, but upon leaving and returning characters will find that they all have their own rooms with one bed. If you want a roommate, someone better be ready to sleep on the floor or snuggle up! The room doesn't have to look exactly like the reference image as long as it's not too fancy and suitably dated.

Comments

[druggie]

( And Jesse stares right back at him, exactly like a cornered rabbit - or perhaps, more like a cornered animal that could very well turn suddenly vicious. Bracing for the guy to make some kind of threatening move. The bizarre dream he's just been ripped awake out of swims in loud vivid color through his confused panic, making it difficult for him to think. Heart jackhammering in his chest and breath shaky with adrenalin, Jesse zips a glance down at the knife clutched in the guy's hand, zips back up to the guy's face. "You're fine"? Fine?! )

Yeah? ( Snapped with a vehemence he's managed to summon from within the fear somersaulting in his gut, ) Then, how 'bout getting that knife outta my face?

[vestigial]

[ Ah, yep. There it is.

Daryl steps back, and then back some more. All the way to the door, keeping his attention on the other guy. Too far away to intervene if he does have a gun, but hopefully the space will prevent any jump reactions. ]

We got left a note, [ he says, and points with his (empty, non-knife-carrying) hand towards it where it's landed on the edge of one bed. ] Don't know if it'll work. But the door hasn't opening with anything else.

[ Hopefully this high strung rabbit guy can read! ]

[druggie]

( Shit, okay. That actually worked; the guy is actually backing the hell up. Sometimes -- a lot of the time -- Jesse's blowfish act of trying to seem a way tougher than he really is does absolute jack. After all, Jesse Bruce Pinkman is nothing more than a tweaker who puffs his skinny ass self up two, three, five times his figurative size, with nothing more than a whole lot of bullshit hot air and a fuck ton of fronting. But whatever works. Especially right now. Because that guy has a knife and Jesse has jack shit. No gun, nothing. Just a lighter. And maybe a meth pipe to glass the guy with. That's it.

Jesse watches the guy abstract himself right to the door. Still pressed back against the bed head, he stares watchful, mistrusting daggers at the guy, listens to what the guy says. Keeping very still, he follows the gesturing knife to the letter over on the other bed with his eyes, then whips them back onto the dude. A pause while he considers his next move carefully because it's going to be Hobo Guy = 1, Jesse = 0 if that guy comes at him with that knife.

Fuck it. With a sudden scramble, Jesse launches himself off the bed and he lunges an arm out to slap his hand onto the letter, ripping it off the bed so he can look. This high strung rabbit guy can read, thank you very much. And as he reads it, his forehead bunches into a bewildered frown. )

...The fuck...? ( He snaps a quick puzzled look up at the guy, then back to the letter. ) "The door will open easily if offered a bit of blood"...? "A handprint's worth will do...?" Uhhhhh, ( looking back up to the guy, ) this has gotta be some kinda joke, right? Some kinda, like, prank or somethin'. Right? Like Punk'd? Are we bein' filmed right now? Hidden cameras and shit?

( Snapping his head up to dart a look all around the corners of the room, the light fixture, the walls, for evidence of hidden cameras. )

[vestigial]

[ Daryl has not yet put together that this dude might not be from his own contemporary time - assuming he's just a survivor he hasn't met yet, who's probably living inside somewhere, a lucky community with good walls. The magic of a suburban junkie: paranoia indistinguishable from someone freaked out about zombies and bandits, with an aesthetic that blends right into the fringes. Fortunately (or not) Daryl is also just plain familiar with tweakers, so when he realizes, he'll still be calm and careful. He learned early how to avoid triggering freakouts.

He shrugs. ]

Probably. [ Cameras are his own expectation— stuck in somebody's fucked up Saw house, or whatever. But if so, he doesn't think whoever's running it is very practiced. The room's way too pristine. ] But nothing's opening, so I'd rather get a move on and play along until I know more.

[ Baby psychopaths using the end of the world as an opportunity to get their rocks off? Daryl has no problem easing into an opportunity to kill that sort of person, so. You know. Let's go. ]

I'll do it to myself, just stay there.

[ It's easy to just nick himself on the back of his hand, which he does, before holding the knife in that hand so he can press an empty palm over the cut to gather blood. ]