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

[labwork]

what's the cosmic cube
i haven't seen anyone with a time machine around yet, so i guess it's back to the drawing board

[astrologics]

A glowy cube that can turn a bad day into a good one, or a good day into a really bad day depending on who's holding it.

I think it's broken, but don't quote me on that.

That doesn't mean there isn't one here, unless we really did all arrive by the power of dream.

[labwork]

that sounds pretty amazing and pretty scary

and yeah, i don't think dreams normally do that
and if there's really some curse thing going on, quarantining us may not be the worst move

but i really want to know what the actual hell's going on

[ she's fine, it's fine. ]

[astrologics]

Scary's about right.

( the last time peter had anything, personally, to do with the cosmic cube, he'd wanted nothing to do with it. it had helped where he was under the impression it was totally broken instead of just a little broken, but getting rid of it had been a relief he hadn't been able to put into words.

that much power absolutely should never come into the hands of someone like him. )

Yeah, I get that. It's kind of weird that there are so many isolated cases, I've spent the better part of a decade in the company of the same people, so why they're not here as well is beyond me.

( quill to quill: maybe it's because he deserves it and they don't. )

[labwork]

[ christine's not really grasping the whole cosmic cube thing properly, and that's probably for the best. one brain-breaking event per day is really quite enough, and she's still trying to make sense of this place and how she's even here. ]

i was on a ship with several hundred people with comparable biology to mine
statistically, it doesn't really make sense it'd only affect me

[ so maybe there's something else goin on here. or maybe it's not a disease like she knows it at all ]

[astrologics]

( and for his part, peter's deliberately avoiding explaining it in any great detail. it's not a period of time he's especially enamored with, and they don't even have a cosmic cube, so he doesn't see any real point to it beyond 'shiny thing do stuff'. )

10? or so? ( peter's not sure — keeping everyone on board the ryder had been an impulsive decision made when he was decidedly not sober, and now he's not sure he could even name all of them. Moondragon, Phyla, Groot, Bill, some guy that was a skeleton and also on fire—...? )

Including a talking tree and a horse, so...

[labwork]

you have tree aliens?

[ yep, that's what she's taking from this. one out of ten is stastistically less weird than 1 out of 400+, though, so that gets filed away. she wishes spock was here —for that big brain of his, and also just in general. that thought gets pushed down. ]

[astrologics]

And talking Asgardian horses, yep.

The tree's technically royalty.

[labwork]

asgard, like in norse mythology? [ she has vague memories of reading about that. ]

good for the tree

[astrologics]

The one and the same. I have no idea how any of it works.

He's going through a rebellious phase at the moment.

[labwork]

wherever you're from sounds like an interesting place

[astrologics]

...Space?

( can space be anything else?? )

[labwork]

yeah, that'd do it

[ christine kind of loves space ]

[astrologics]

I'm glad we got to the bottom of that one, you had me worried about the future of the galaxy for a minute there.

[labwork]

there's plenty of space travel where i'm from
but from the sounds of it, you weren't just stuck on one planet with no outside contact, either before all this

[astrologics]

I have my own ship. The Ryder.

( as in winona, but it's not a reference he expects her to get, what with the being from several hundred years in the future. )

We try not to stick to one place, it'd kind of defeat the point.

[labwork]

so the ten people you mentioned, they're your crew?

i'm on a nurse on the uss enterprise. [ am, not was. she's not accepting being stuck here just yet. ]

[astrologics]

Temporarily.

( not all of them were very excited about being part of the guardians, but evidently it beat being taken in by the nova corps. )

It's complicated.

( anyway— )

That explains the concern about my caffeine consumption.

[labwork]

if your hands start shaking uncontrollably, you'll know where to find me

[ about that caffeine addiction. because she could push on that it's complicated, but &mdahs;she'd hate it if their positions were reversed. so, not touching that one. ]

[astrologics]

I don't, actually. Unless you want me to walk the length and breadth of the motel, knocking on each and every door and asking for a 'Chapel'.

But between you and me, I think there are easier ways.

[labwork]

[ now there's an amusing mental image ]

such as?

[astrologics]

You telling me where you are?

( "bruh." )

Or else I'm telling you right now that any hint of caffeine withdrawal, and I'm finding the closest d'ast thing I can in this place and drinking it.

( sike! he'll be doing that anyway. )

[labwork]

i see how it is
fine, i'll make it easy for you

[ and so she sends a room number, whatever it is ]

if your stomach lining get eaten away, i'm not sure how much i can do for you

[astrologics]

( that was easy, and despite the fact that peter's not currently suffering from anything remotely approaching caffeine withdrawal, there's a not unsizeable part of him that considers making the journey down the hall anyway.

(what? he likes company.) )

That's a very generous assumption of my living standards to date.

[labwork]

[ true story: she likes company, too. ]

i'd say don't tell me
but now i'm actually curious