IC INTRO #1

[cursedmods]

IC INTRO #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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All the same guidelines from the TDM still apply. You can continue your TDM threads here or start new ones! And of course, you can start making your own prompts in the log or network communities at your leisure.

Our first event will be going up in about a week!

Please do not add character tags to any posts just yet, we'll add them to this post manually.

Comments

Steve Harrington || Stranger Things

[stevieboy]

i. sharp dressed man;

---

[ Back home, a hundred dollars wouldn't have gotten Steve very far. A fresh pair of wayfarers, a new jacket, boom - a hundred bucks, done and done. He never would have even thought about it. Not that he was a spender or bad with money, it just never came from his own pocket.

Here, though, he's quickly getting a crash course in the affordability of things. So as much as Paradiso would be his usual type of store, he's in Ruby's, putting together some semblance of an outfit so he's got options. In his hands is the pinnacle of mid-80s prep fashion, straight leg jeans, a polo shirt, a crew neck sweater in a vibrant yet pastel colour. He's loading them up to take to the dressing room where he'll try them on and then try to do the math to see what he can afford, when a sweater slips off the pile and lands at someone's feet. ]

Oh - Sorry -

[ And as he leans over to pick up the sweater, a bunch of other clothes spill out on to the floor. ]

ii. part of your world;

---

[ Ruby's wasn't exactly a shopping spree, but Steve at least feels a little bitter with a couple new things in a bag in his hand. As he walks through the mall, though, he feels like he doesn't really have to leave. Like, where does he need to be? Back at the motel? It's not even nice enough right now to enjoy the pool, so, sure, he may as well hang out here a bit longer.

Eventually he finds himself at Flick's, and then he's got a massive drink and bag of popcorn and he's wandering into one of the screenings without paying much attention to the poster outside. Turns out it's a Disney thing. Not Steve's thing, but he's had a couple girlfriends that were into that sort of thing so he's seen a couple movies here and there. Not really ever by choice, though. It's fine, he's here, he has snacks, he might as well settle in and watch this cartoon about some mermaid in love with a guy or whatever.

The theatre's mostly empty save for him, sitting in the back with his feet up on the seat in front of him. Feel free to join him. He's not that invested in the story. Promise. ]

iii. saturn's rings;

---

[ The motel isn't so bad. Now that they don't need to bleed to leave, it's as good a place as any to stay. It's free, it's clean, there's a TV and a bathroom and a bed. It's small, but it's not a plaid box with matching plaid curtains so Steve's probably traded up.

And, more importantly, the free food. Steve likes to load up on things to bring back to his hotel room to eat while he watches TV, and he'll definitely do it tonight, but for now he's going to sit at the cafe like a regular person. He doesn't really know anyone here (save for the other Hawkins residents) and figures people also like to eat, so it's as good a place as any to start meeting people. At least to get familiar with the people he might be seeing as he goes to and from his motel room.

Sitting at a table with a bowl of soup in front of him and a sandwich in hand, Steve's got his elbows on the table, taking a bite from the sandwich as he watches the cafe door. When someone walks in, he waves. ]

Hey.

[ Doesn't matter if he knows you or not. ]

iv. wildcard;

---

Choose your own adventure! Any prompt is good with me! If you want to continue any TDM threads, let me know, save for any Blood Offering threads as I'll be keeping Steve's thread with Eddie and Billy for that as game canon.

3

[maritorious]

[Nancy's not used to any of this. Not one bit. She's got a whole bunch of food stock-piled back in her room, a good amount of which will likely go bad, and still she comes by the cafe daily for more.

She won't tell you, but it's because she enjoys trying out all sorts of different foods. Already, she's thinking about what she'll try- something covered in cheese, she thinks- when a boy about her age calls for her.

She pauses, frowns. Then approaches him.] Hullo, then. Something wrong? Or you just making friends?

[She doesn't mind friends. Especially the handsome sorts.]

[stevieboy]

[ He shrugs a shoulder, quickly chewing and swallowing his sandwich so he isn't talking with his mouth full. ]

Just friends.

[ After all, Steve's always been pretty socially inclined. He's a guy who enjoys being surrounded by people and friends. That's not happening very much here. ]

You can come sit with me, if you want.

[maritorious]

[She gives him a careful look up and down, trying to decide if he's a threat or not. There's a beat.]

Alright. Let me get something t'eat, and I'll be over. [She, too, liked being around people and friends. So often it felt like she never got to get out, with Bill. Now, she could do whatever she wanted, whenever.

She returns to Steve a few minutes later with her food.]

Hullo, then. Thank you for the invitation, Sir. [Old habits died hard, and Victorian sensibilities were one of those. As were cockney accents.]

[stevieboy]

No sweat.

[ He shrugs and moves his plate and bowl a little closer to him, giving her some room. ]

I'm Steve. From the second floor.

[maritorious]

Lovely to meet you, Mr. Steve. [She settles with a smile.] 'm Nancy, third floor.

I guess I have to ask, where're you from originally? And when? [easiest way to get to know someone. Though she doubts he is from as far out of time as she is.]

[stevieboy]

[ Right. That's weird, but he should probably get used to it, all things considered. ]

Uh, Indiana. In America. From 1986. And you?

[ She's definitely not American, that's for sure. ]

[maritorious]

So you probably feel a whole lot more at home than I do.

[She smiles.]

London, England, 1838, [she tells him plainly.] This is a great improvement.

[stevieboy]

[ He stares at her, sandwich almost in his mouth as he pauses the bite he was about to take. 1838 was like ... A long time ago. ]

The plumbing must be out of this world for you.

[maritorious]

[She giggles at his reaction. He's cute.]

You have no idea.

I love the rain pipe.

[stevieboy]

The ... Rain pipe?

[ He assumes she means the part of the gutter that drains the water out from the rooftop, which is a really weird thing to love, but, hey. To each their own, right? ]

iii

[westviews]

Hi.

[It's a reflexive sort of answer, though Wanda looks surprised to be addressed.]

How's the food?

[She's been here to grab a few things already, but he looks like a kid trying to make small talk. No harm in it for now.]

[stevieboy]

S'good.

[ Steve likes pretty much all food, but for free motel food, it's better than he expected. He's not complaining. ]

Better than anything I could make for myself.

[ Maybe not the sandwich. Steve can definitely make a good sandwich. ]

[westviews]

That doesn't tell me much.

[She's just teasing, giving the slightest scrunch of her nose before wandering over to the nearby table left out from brunch. After a moment of deliberation she picks up a muffin and holds it up for Steve to see. Her own live audience.]

Chocolate or blueberry?

[His guess to make. It has spots of something dark in it.]

[stevieboy]

[ Look at him, Wanda, he's a teenager, he clearly has no concept of how to cook.

He looks at the muffin and then squints, scrutinizing the little spots for shape. The colour from here is pretty hard to tell, but he feels like blueberries just look different than chocolate chips. ]

Blueberry. Definitely blueberry.

[westviews]

[Wanda peels off the wrapper and breaks off a piece of the muffin to pop into her mouth.]

Good eye.

[stevieboy]

I like to think I'm sort of a snack expert.

[ Which is to say, he's never met a snack he didn't like, and if someone puts food in front of Steve he will probably eat it. ]

Is it good?

1

[shrikesback]

[ Wren had been wondering about getting some more clothing themselves, seeing what was available for now and possibly coming back later, so on the bright side of this mess they haven't got their own pile to add to it. ]

No, it's - you've got a jumper-

[ Okay yeah Wren's kneeling down too to help Steve pick these up and try to stem this tide. Looking at his face now, Wren recognizes it from around the Motel when they first got out of it. ]

... You, uh, new around here too?

[stevieboy]

Thanks.

[ He offers a bit of a smile as he takes the clothes that Wren's helped pick up. Honestly, Steve knows he shouldn't have this much stuff picked out when he can really only get a couple things, but, well. He needs to try stuff on, right?

At the question, though, Steve huffs out an amused sort of laugh. ]

Yeah. With the whole blood and the door thing?

[shrikesback]

[ That is what people who Shop for Clothing as a regular enjoyable act usually do, yeah. Wren, who carries the banner of 'I'll wear my clothes until they fall apart just so I don't have to go shop for more' doesn't get it, but they don't get plenty of things they can respect as not to their tastes and move on from. Like country music, and whatever dark impulse insists people dip french fries in milkshakes. ]

Oh, yeah. Red cross is getting real aggressive with their blood drives these days.

[ ... It's an attempt at a joke. ]

[stevieboy]

[ It makes Steve snort. Not a great joke, no, but Steve can appreciate the effort. ]

Did you - [ He'd gesture, but his arms are full. ] My friend got punched in the face so that's how we got our blood to get out.

[shrikesback]

[ Wren gives Steve a mildly concerned look. ]

... Did you punch him?

[ Look, when Wren woke up there was only one other person in the room with them, and from what they've heard from others that seemed to be the status quo. Unless Steve's friend had gotten punched before he arrived and it was still bleeding from that... ]

[stevieboy]

What? No!

[ And honestly he looks offended that someone would even ask, but then he realizes that they obviously think it was just Steve and his friend in the room. ]

No, this asshole we went to school with was there, too.

[shrikesback]

Huh. That's interesting. I've only heard of people showing up with two in their room. I wonder if that's significant in some way or if there were just an odd number of people. It would be worth looking into, to see if there's anything... uh. Sorry.

[ They realize they're nerding out and put some breaks on that. Right. There was a question Steve had asked. ]

Yeah though, I just found something sharp and cut myself.

[ They hold out their hand to show a bandage on the back of it. The healing at least is coming along nicely. ]

[stevieboy]

[ Honestly, Steve hadn't really thought about it. He just figured it made sense that he'd show up with those two people as opposed to anyone else, and no part of him wanted to look into anything about it.

So he just nods, particularly when they show him the bandage. ]

Yeah, that's pretty much what I was gonna do before he decided to throw his fists around. Either way, not a great welcome to this place.