cursedcontent | TEST DRIVE MEME #1

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TEST DRIVE MEME #1

A Blood Offering

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

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

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

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.

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Joyce was not the only person so completely mystified at the mall. Nancy was right there with her. If Joyce was a deer in headlights, Nancy was a fish out of water, dressed in the very same dress she had been murdered in. But corsetry and big skirts were clearly not in.

"It's all a bit overwhelming, innit?" She asks the woman, her Cockney accent betraying her country of origin. "I don't even know where to begin." She shakes her head in wonder. First things first, she supposes, she needs clothes. Something that makes her stick out a little less, ideally.

"Yes it is. I mean we have a mall... had a mall but this..." Joyce shook her head as she looked around before turning toward the other woman. Young woman, a face she wasn't prepared to recognize. Not like that.

"El? Oh my god, you are here." A rush of maternal concern pushed her to the girl and Joyce folded her arms around her. "Are you OK? You're not hurt or anything?" Half hugging, half checking her for injuries.

So what if she was some uber powerful anomaly of science, she was a girl who had lost too much and seen too much and Joyce was a mother.

It's been a long time since she's felt a woman hug her. She stands stock still as the woman does just that, speaking as though she knows her. It's a trick Nancy herself has used before.

"That's not my name. My wounds are superficial now. And I don't know what OK is." So many questions. So many answers Nancy has literally no control over.

She takes a step back from the woman. "I'm sorry, but I'm not the girl you're looking for."

"Oh, right, Jane.</> Sorry." Joyce's eyes were shining with what might have been tears of happiness. She'd found one of her family, and that was something to be thankful for. Assuming they were here anyway. She might be more thankful for them not being here as long as they were ok.

But the girl went on, and she had never heard Eleven put on any accent like that, nor was her hair that long. Ever.

"Are you really not her? You look just like her." Her brow furrowed, but Joyce released her and eased back, hands out flat to ease the girl.

Oh dear. This woman was terribly confused. And about to get emotional. Which, truly, if she was really missing this El or Jane person, made a lot of sense. Or she was a very good actress.

"Really, lady." She says it as an honorific, the way you might call someone Sir or Doctor. "My name is Nancy Sikes." She gives an uneasy smile toward the other woman. "I haven't seen anyone that looks like me about, I'm sorry to tell you. But if you give me your name, I can keep a look out for her, let her know who's looking for her?"

"You just look... I mean, so much like her. And she's, well, she's special. Unique." Eleven was unlike anyone else, and for all her incredible strength, she was still a girl growing into a young woman. Joyce knew how hard that could be under the best of conditions, and the poor girl's life had already been less than ideal.

"Ok, Nancy, I'm Joyce Byers. And I don't think we're from anything close to the same place." She had released her but now offered uo a hand in introduction.

"The girl I'm looking for is El, or Jane. She kind of goes by both." And the fact that she looked just like this girl but in modern clothing and shorter hair was conveyed just vaguely with a shrug.

She sounds like the exact opposite of Nancy, completely normal in every way. She wasn't special or unique. Still, she likes the way the other woman- Joyce Byers- talks about this girl. She clearly cares about her.

She reaches and takes Joyce's hand, "Lovely to meet you, Mrs. Byers." Always polite. She was Cockney street trash, but Fagin raised them to be polite.

"Jane or El. Alright, if I see a girl who looks like me, I'll let her know you're looking for her." She glances back at the map. "In the meanwhile... I thought malls were outside, a place for all the posh people to walk. This is... a market on top of a market, I wouldn't think."

"They are kind of new, at least the big ones like this. They just opened one near where I lived a year ago. It didn't end well." She half shrugged and looked up at the multi-floor expanse before the situation caught up with her.

"You shouldn't be wanderig around here all by yourself either, do you have any friends or family?" There was the Joyce Byers that had adopted so many and put herself in harm's way to protect them.

"I can walk with you to find things, probably the best way to find anyone I know anyway." See, it was so casually offered and offhanded, like it was no big deal at all.

"Are you hungry? Have you eaten?" Ok, maybe that was pushing it a bit.

"Really!" Curious. So many modern marvels.

"I do. But they're not here." What a strange way to answer that! "I'm on my lonesome, for the most part." She's ready to shrug everything off, but Joyce offers to walk with her, and help her. But not in so many words. She looks the woman up and down briefly, and decides she likes her.

Then she mentions food.

Yes, she likes her, quite a lot.

"Of course- I need someone to help me figure out the clothing here, anyway. Can't keep wearing this, after all." She gestures to her dress. "I haven't eaten, no, but, it's quite alright. I'll get something, eventually. No need to trouble yourself." She smiles encouragingly. "But thank you, Mrs. Beyers. You're quite kind."

Like a mother, she thinks.

"Teenagers need food like plants need sunlight. Come on, let's get you something, and then we can look for some clothes for you." Joyce gestured toward the food court as she tried to think about how to broach her questions.

"You seem to like this is all very new to you, can I ask where you're from?" Maybe she was Amish or Mennonite or something, they dressed old-fashioned and didn't go to the mall right? They always seemed stuck in the past.

No, they dressed in all black and something about not using buttons or zippers or something, she couldn't really remember. What she could catch in her mind didn't seem to match this girl at all. Maybe there was something else she didn't know about.

"You can call me Joyce, it's fine." She had already more or less assigned herself to look after the girl at least until she found her feet.

"Joyce, then. Thank you." She means it heartily. It's so wonderful to have another woman look over at her, smile at her and seemingly care for her. She'd never known her own mother. Or if she had, she didn't remember.

"Oh it is! I'm from 1838, London." She was learning that it was quite important to explain when she was from as well as where. She follows Joyce toward what is dubbed the food-court and briefly Nancy wonders if there is a Queen here, too. But there is no throne to be found. Just a lot of loud signs.

"What would you recommend?"

"My boys swear by the bourbon chicken, those big pretzels and pizza. So I think any of those are pretty safe bets."

Joyce offered but didn't force, a gentle arm around the young lady's shoulder to lead her toward the melange of scents that came from the food court. Filled with neon and chrome and large potted plants the place was like a small village marketplace more than most of the mall. With food stalls taking up at least 3 full walls.

"Do you like meat or vegetables more? Savory or sweet?"

Joyce had her at bourbon. And pretzels.

"I know two of those things," she says proudly, before stopping fully when they enter the court. She looks around, at all of the signs, the people, the color. She inhales deeply, before realizing Joyce has asked her another question.

"Oh- both! And certainly sweet! One year, I remember, for the holidays, we all split three oranges Fagin'd gotten his hands on. They were so sweet, such a pretty color." She smiles at the memory. Happier times, she thought, before everything had gone further to hell and she'd started to realize exactly what her life was. "I kept the rind, so I could smell the orange whenever I wanted."

That is to say, she needs all of the food you can give her. She was always small, but recent events had had her dropping more weight than she needed.

Joyce was going to learn to stop being surprised one day, but today was not that day. She blinked rapidly at Nancy's story and sort of nodded in understanding without adding a comment. What could she say to that really?

"Ok, well let's start with some chicken and then get pizza, we can take the pretzels with us if we want while we walk around." Joyce took the liberty to order them two plates from a vendor, large scoops of rice were topped with bite-sized pieces of chicken and thick sweet sauce.

She gathered them and two large cokes on a tray and guided Nancy to an open table. Joyce set out the food and plasticware, popping a straw in each drink and situating them across from each other. "There we go, after this we'll see how much room you have for pizza."

If she's said too much, she doesn't even realize.

Nancy waits patiently for their food, and happily takes her tray and follows Joyce's lead. The chicken smells delicious, and with rice, too! It was sure to be filling.

"Would I be bothering you if I asked you what pizza is?" Pizza in it's current state was not something she was bound to recognize. Maybe one or two Italian restaurants in London had them, but she wasn't going anywhere that wasn't a pub for food. She watches Joyce with the straw and copies her. She takes a sip with slight difficulty, then brown eyes fly wide open. "This is the best thing I think I've ever had to drink." The world is so much better 150 years in the future.

Joyce was getting used to stories that seemed outside of the norm, but it still took her a little bit of time.

Joyce had almost started to eat when Nancy opened up with her question, she sat her fork back down and tried to think how to phrase it so it would make sense but her knowledge of historical foods by era was pretty weak.

"Uh, sort of like a flat bread dough, baked with a savory tomato sauce with cheese on it topped with meat and vegetables." That was the basics of a pizza, without going into the many variations or regional specialties.

"It's something my kids could basically live on for every meal if I let them."

Her life was very well outside the norm, it was quite alright.

Nancy pauses her drinking of coke (what exact flavor even was it!) to listen to the idea of pizza. "Oh! That sounds wonderful! Like a whole meal in just one thing. I think they have something like that, up in Kensington or the like. Y'know, all posh and what not. And they have it here?"

And if her kids could enjoy it, she was sure she could, too.

"You have children? What ages?" There's a lightness in her voice, a genuine warmth and curiosity. She'd always wanted children of her own. She supposed, the gang, and, well, Oliver Twist in particular, would have to count.

"It's pretty wonderful, and it saves me from cooking probably more often than it should." Joyce remarked with a smile, she didn't mind so much as long as the kids were fed.

"Well Jonathan, my oldest, is turning nineteen this year, Will and Jane are 15." She paused, as though the full weight of that was just setting in. Her babies weren't babies anymore. And like all little birds they'd leave the nest one day.

"Jonathan is getting ready to go off to college, so pretty soon it'll just be the three of us."

"If it's anything like this chicken, I'm sure it's wonderful."

She's going to wind up eating herself sick at this point. And she's alright with that.

"College! He must be real smart, then. Not just everyone can go." College, University, they were all only for smart, rich people. Not at all like her. "Jane and Will- are they twins, then? They'd be about the same age as my brother, Dodger." It was easier to call the gang of pick pockets her brothers. They were all raised by the same man, after all. For better or certainly for worse.

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TEST DRIVE MEME #1

Mallrats

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