cursedrp | IC INTRO #1

IC INTRO #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

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

1. A Blood Offering
Wren wakes up from the nightmare gasping, sitting up and looking around the unfamiliar room as confusion sets in. It does look dated to Wren - but not by a whole lot. The same way a dentist's office looks dated, that only has a chance to update its decor every decade or so. Looking like the 80s from the perspective of the late 90s just means 'oh, it's cheap'. Shifting on the bed, they get their legs under them a moment later and are relieved to find they're not unsteady when they stand.

That's when they notice the note.

Reading it over, they of course have to try the handle first, see it locked. Alright. Situation assessed, they rather awkwardly finally give some attention to the other person in the room with them.

"... I'll do it," they say, giving a nod to the note. "Just help me find something sharp enough."

2. Roller-rink
Their powers don't work. It's a weird feeling.

Wren's used the time between leaving the room and the skate party to find someplace secret to try just about everything, but they're weaker, they can't fly, and they almost got hit by a car when crossing the street so that means the danger sense is shot too.

No need to hide some secret identity then. They're just a normal teenager. Somehow it doesn't feel like what they really wanted, though.

Also, tying shoelaces with one hand bandaged from getting out of the room earlier is more difficult than it should be. Not that Wren would actually ask for help, just continue to bullheadedly push forward with one bandaged hand at half speed in the booths near the rink, swearing under their breath.

3. Mallrats
The walkman came with a cassette for Coal Miner's Daughter: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack in it. Sissy Spacek singing some of the best country western available. At least, not being a country fan in the least, Wren assumes that's the case.

It's not painful to listen to or anything, but it sure as hell isn't Wren's style either. So while they'd been intending to save all of that $100 gift certificate, well… Not dying of boredom and bad music is worth breaking into it a little bit.

So as they stand in La Pointe Music Shop, they ask the occasional other customer that comes by-

"Day at the Races or Night at the Opera? If you could get only one."

Sure they could afford both, but they're trying really hard to not get rid of the only potential money they have available at the moment.

4.Mapping
It wasn't like Wren had come from a crisis back home, they didn't need time to rest and recover… but even if they had, honestly? They'd probably be doing this kinda thing anyway.

This kind of thing being, of course, trying to figure out exactly what the limits of their makeshift prison is. There have to be limits. You don't just drop someone in a whole world and say go wild, right? Somewhere, there's going to be a wall of some kind. Like that movie with David Bowie and the puppets, when the heroine was in the ballroom that only seemed infinite until she found the edge of it.

Wren just has to find the edge of this seemingly infinite ballroom.

They're thankfully no stranger to blending in, smiling at any passers by who stop to wonder what some youth with a map and a rapidly marked up composition notebook could be doing as they walk about town. A cheerful offer of 'I'm writing a paper on local history, would you be free to answer a few questions-?' usually shoos people off, but Wren still has a stock of typical 'how long have you lived here, did your family live here?' type questions from when they were in school and actually had to write such papers ready to go on the off chance they do in fact find someone feeling helpful.

Anyone else who's an outsider though absolutely gets a wave and a quietly asked question of if they've noticed anything strange so far…aside from the obvious.

((Happy to match format if you'd prefer action, feel free to hmu at kels#8496 on discord or

oncemorewithfeeling for plotting, too!))

((Continued from TDM thread))

"Some are," Wren said, even they had to admit that. Some people were hot messes, and inevitably some of them ended up superpowered and... the expected happened. That's where you got supervillains, or just people who refused to take a side other than their own even if they weren't openly malicious. In some ways they were more difficult to deal with than villains.

"Cyberpsychosis sounds like a hot mess too though, so I guess it depends on where you're standing. People who live in tornado alley can't fathom why anyone would want to live near an active volcano and vice versa," they hoped both of those places were not something they'd have to explain next. Hearing locals talk, it seemed like the majority of the continental US was the same in this world in broad strokes, so Wren knew that at least would surely exist here and not be unique for their world. "... You can get used to anything."

"Mental illness does tend to be messy," he agreed. "Just think the collateral damage's on a lot smaller scale."

It was true that with great supervillains there were equally powerful heroes to stop them but there was certainly a difference in one person with cyberware having a loose wire sparking the wrong bits than someone who could pick up and throw an eighteen-wheeler like it were a kid's toy. While that may not be too large an issue for the richer parts of wherever the hell Wren came from, he imagined the poor parts - the parts that V would have been from in their world - were never really cared for or repaired.

"Guess you're right, though. People survive their circumstance." Usually, anyway. V had survived his for 28 years, then (apparently) was here to survive some more.

He hesitated a moment as he waffled over asking his next question. He decided to just go for it. "...Were you one?"

While there were certainly some corporations with farther reach than they reasonably should have, they were nowhere near the megacorps that V was used to that had a strangle hold on everything. The odd hero or villain might be 'sponsored', but it wasn't common and those that were were rather looked down upon by other masks on both sides.

This also meant of course that for some masks, their 'superpower' could be best summed up as 'access to money'. That was as good as a superpower anywhere, though, Wren figured.

Only that they had to spend several years hiding their secret identity made it so they just looked blandly at V for asking rather than looking squirrely or evasive.

"Oh, yeah, I'm actually the secret identity of Justice, the leader of Supergroup, don't tell anyone," they said with enough sarcasm that it was practically dripping off every word. Of course, right after saying that they realized the whole comment was utterly lost on V who had no context for that. "... Justice is probably around my dad's age, black, and taller than you are."

They were met, once again, with a blank and emotionless expression that meant he had no fucking clue what the fuck they were talking about. He was glad for the explanation but a joke wasn't funny if it had to be explained.

"You're boring as fuck, got it," he returned with a little bit of snark, though he intended it as a joke. If there was anything he'd learned from this conversation it was that they were not boring. At least, as far as he could tell. He's been wrong before.

V couldn't doubt them for dodging the question: he hardly wished to share anything personal about himself. He imagined that being a superhero would require a certain level of secrecy - when V grew renowned in Night City and his rep heavily preceded him it became more and more important for him to keep his real name and personal details secret.

"Good thing that's not you 'cause otherwise I'd have to give you shit for pickin' such a gonk name."

Wren did take it as a joke - same as their comment about V's taste in music being shit. Even biting at the inside of their lip didn't do much to hide the quick flash of smile as they pretended to study the music tapes.

"Hey, I am given to understand that Justice is a real stand up kind of guy and a truly decent person," Wren said, having only met the man once, briefly, in not the best circumstances. Still, he had a reputation for being super of morals as well as powers. "...the name seriously makes him sound like a tool though, huh?"

The last part was added quietly, under their breath, like a secret shared.

"No, I have a totally normal not weirdo superhero identity name. I'm Wren."

That he'd made them smile seemingly against their better judgment was a little victory to him. Even through another death, he was still funny so at least he had that going for him. He'd lost everything else waking up in this godforsaken place.

"Yeah, it does. Good marketing, though. Easy to remember. Strong word." Maybe marketing wasn't as important there but being easy to remember and having a good public image was the sort of thing that would always be important.

"Thank god," he said quietly back. "Was afraid I'd have to try to call you Liberty with a straight face," he teased. "Got a real easy name, definitely tool-proofed. Name's V."

The comment about being called 'Liberty' got another stifled snort of a laugh out of Wren that they quickly had to cough down. It was a little easier after V gave his name. Wren didn't pale exactly, but... it was very clear that much of their good humor drained.

They were silent for a moment, trying to figure out how to phrase what they wanted to say. If they should.

They should. They should try. It'd just get weird sooner rather than later if they didn't.

"... Do you ... uh ... have ... anything else I can call you?" Wren asked, slowly at first, before quickly continuing. "I'm not trying to pull some bullshit 'ok but what's your real name' kind of deal and if it's just V I'll - I'll make it work it's just that's also kind of what we all called my ex and it ... didn't end so good? We're still friends but she cheated on me at like the worst time and- okay now I'm getting into too much information territory."

The way Wren's laugh died and the way the air between them changed was something V caught on to immediately but he was ready to just ignore it and break up the conversation and move on in an attempt to avoid any particular confrontation. The longer the uncomfortable silence lingered the closer he was to this but they started to talk.

V's response was, at first, silence. The first question - if there was any other name he went by - he registered easily thanks to how slowly they initially asked it. The rest of it he needed a moment to work through - adjusting to not having subtitles in his vision for everything everyone said was tougher than he'd expected. He never realized how much he'd relied on it until he didn't have them.

He was of a notion that he should tell them to fucking deal and call him V but his expression softened a little as the reasoning for their request settled in. He could understand. If their name had been Gabriel or Gabe he would have asked to call them literally anything else, even Liberty, to avoid dealing with that ghost of his past.

"Vincent," he finally gave. His inflection was carefully neutral, trying to avoid his discomfort with giving out his real name. "Don't got any other handles I go by."

Not without deadnaming himself, anyway, but even as a kid he used V with strangers he'd never worked with before.

"I get it, though. Don't worry about it. Just appreciate it if you don't shorten it at all."

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shrikesback - 2022-09-11 03:24 (UTC) - Expand

Eh?

[She's being addressed by a complete stranger. That's enough to get her hackles up, have her skittering back an inch as she surveys the situation, replays the inquiry.

Her brows cinch together. How is that even a question?]

The Opera, obviously. Wh-what kind of ear-splitting trash would they play at the races, anyhow?

[They might be strangers, but ever paranoid about who can be safely spoken to they did kinda make a point to memorize all the faces they saw around the motel, okay.]

No it's - uh, they're both albums by the same band. 'A Night at the Opera' from '75 and 'A Day at the Races' from '76.

What?

[Her nose wrinkles, then she looks closer. There — the same name on each, simply "Queen." Fukawa frowns. There's a tingle of familiarity but doesn't think she knows this band. The name is so vague, though. She could be confusing it with any number of things. After a second she scoffs, waving the inquiry off.]

Well, h-how the hell would I know? This is all ancient history, and it's not even my history. I know stuff like M-Michael Jackson, or Madonna, but I can't be expected to keep track of it all. They don't even have Matsutoya Yumi here.

[Not that she's a super fan, but even her generation could rattle off five of her songs without thinking. She folds her arms and scowls at the columns of cassettes, the rows of vinyl.]

Just flip a coin or something. If it's the same band you'll p-probably like either one just fine.

[Okay well of course Wren's eyebrows shoot up at the 'ancient history' thing. This girl looks about Wren's age, and even if their love of Queen mainly stems from it being a favorite of their dad they'd hardly call it 'ancient history'. It's enough to keep them from lashing out at a perceived insult.]

... Yeah probably - hey out of curiosity - I, uh, saw you. At the Saturn Motel. Me too. What year is it where you come from...?

[It may or may not be an insult. Depends on how lenient you are with hyperbole.

At the abrupt call out, Fukawa cycles through several states of shock at once. First a squawk, stiffening shoulders. Then a grimace — right, she shouldn't be spouting off suspicious crap at the first person who talks to her, this could have been a local for all she knew. The last is a begrudging acceptance, slumping, gaze shifting to the side.]

I s-suppose it's hard to miss the f-filthiest hag in the place. [Judging so far, at least. The only one who's got her beat on the dirty and desolate front is Daryl. She hasn't changed out of her ripped up uniform yet, and she could certainly use a shower. And detangling.]

It's 2014 for me. Why? Are you t-trying to find someone from home?

[ Wren had already seen Daryl, so thankfully for Fukawa even if her clothing is worse for the wear she doesn't get the worried 'do you need me to find a social worker' treatment there. ]

No, it's - I guess I'm paranoid about keeping secrets, alright? So we're told to keep one, I'm overly cautious about making sure I know who I can talk to it about.

[ Years of having a secret identity will prepare you for that kinda thing, as it turns out. ]

... 2014 though? Seriously??

[Such a blessing to finally place second in the Stinkiest Human contest. If only her classmates could see her now...]

Well, s-so am I! You just caught me off guard, that's all. [Nevermind that it was probably a response to her hag comment. She's still feeling foolish enough about nearly blowing her own cover, and taking things personally has been her specialty since day one. ] What did you have to be so paranoid about? Where you c-caught up in some scandal?

[They don't look the type, but then appearances were deceiving.

She squints at their incredulity. If they're that familiar with the situation, surely they've met people further along or farther back than she. There's a guy running around in buccaneer frills for god's sake.]

Yeah? What's your problem? D-don't tell me you're from this era.

[ ... Yeah Wren is just going to, uh, not answer or even acknowledge the scandal question. Nope. Clearly they're just too preoccupied about the year. That's definitely why, and not that they have anything at all to hide. ]

No, but - it was 1999 where I was from. When I was from?

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janescayre - 2022-09-08 12:24 (UTC) - Expand

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shrikesback - 2022-09-11 03:17 (UTC) - Expand

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janescayre - 2022-09-11 22:36 (UTC) - Expand

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shrikesback - 2022-09-22 00:25 (UTC) - Expand

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shrikesback - 2022-09-24 17:28 (UTC) - Expand

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janescayre - 2022-09-25 14:16 (UTC) - Expand

Wren's a familiar face, but Daryl doesn't approach right away— lurking in a convenience store for a refill of water in an environmentally antagonistic Styrofoam cup (the wonder of the 80s, when you could still get free water), observing the easy way the younger person chats up a curious local before moving on. He can't decide of that seems unusually adept or if that's just how kids who grow up in modern, populated societies are.

Eventually he slips out of the store and makes his way down the street, water consumed, cup disposed of. Hopefully, when he falls in step beside Wren, he makes less of a worrying impression than he had at the mall. Daryl doesn't actually clean up all that well, maintaining a definite air of feral and unsocialized wild human about him no matter what, but he's technically clean, and his worst items of clothing have been replaced. Stylistically the same. Lucky him, jeans and leather are timeless. An adequate, if not totally seamless, act of blending in.

"How's the search going?"

Hi.

Wren glances at Daryl out of the corner of their eye when he falls into step beside them and while yes Daryl still looks like he'd be more in-place at a grunge concert it looks deliberate instead of like Wren needs to find a social worker as soon as possible.

"Alright. I figure there's gotta be like... a wall or something somewhere - either a literal physical one or like a magical force barrier - but so far it seems we're able to move about town freely. Well, as freely as any other person," Wren says, holding out their map to Daryl which has been meticulously marked into quadrants like professionals do to search for a missing person (or a body) and checkmarks showing what's already been checked, starting from the Saturn Motel marked as 0/A and moving outward from there. "So I'll have to look outside of town soon... I'll probably go West first - only about ten miles before you hit ocean that way."

Wren looked again at the map to orient themselves before pointing towards the direction of the ocean from where they were.

"Even if I take my time walking, I can do there and back again in one day easily."

No car or other form of transport, so walking it was at the moment.

"Magical force barrier, huh," he murmurs in an echo, and it doesn't quite sound like exasperated disbelief. Gears turning. Disliking a lot of this, and feeling out of his depth. (But what the fuck is his depth?)

Nobody seems to be listening in, but maybe they'd just think they were in a D&D club anyway. Hmph. As if he and Wren look like the types to be socializing voluntarily, but whatever.

Daryl pokes an index finger at the map, eastbound from the motel.

"Got up early and headed out here. Reckon I made it twenty-eight, maybe thirty miles before I got turned around. Last time I got confused walking anywhere, I was six."

The scenery around White Pines isn't nearly dense or highly trafficked enough to warrant any kind of confusion— Daryl can track a rat through heavy ground cover at midnight, there's no reason why he might have ended up walking the wrong way. His choice to avoid roads wasn't purely to duck attention; his familiarity with the outdoors allows him a freedom of movement and ability to gather intel that might be invisible to other people. And yet not only was everything painfully unremarkable, he'd gotten lost?

"Coulda been drugged. Coffee outta the vending machine in the motel."

"Coulda been," Wren echoes, in a tone that makes it clear that they do not think that is likely in the least bit. They take the pencil tucked behind their ear up and shuffle what they're holding around a bit so they can circle the part of the map Daryl indicated, making lighter marks in a larger circle around town in an approximate thirty mile radius. It might not be a circle, it could be a square or a parallelogram or a heptagon but in Wren's experience barriers are usually circles - half-spheres placed over an area like a bowl turned upside down.

Because they brought up magical force barriers because yes they've run into that kind of thing before. Their ex girlfriend was able to create magical constructs by feeding off people's fears.

"Gonna need to get some water and snacks to take with going that far, but I'll check it out too. Uh... I guess we don't exactly have anything better to do than explore right now. Still -" Wren tucked the pencil back behind their ear and folded the map back up to stuff inside the notebook. "I understand if you don't want to make that hike again but I'd appreciate it if you'd be willing to play guide to make sure I'm going the same way."

"You're right. Ain't got nothing better to do."

Sure, why not. He'd like another look, himself, and it's worth it to see if one instance was a fluke. Maybe there's something weird about that part of the land he didn't see, that had nothing to do with the sort of things he pays attention to— subatomic brain lasers, spores, whatever. If Wren really is from a world with superheroes, then they're definitely bringing a starkly different perspective, and may catch things that Daryl isn't used to noticing.

So: refuel pit-stop? Then hitting the proverbial road. Daryl had shoved a plastic-wrapped sandwich in his mouth a bit before joining Wren, so he just buys a power bar and a water bottle, both of which he can shove into various pockets. He'll automatically try to pay for whatever Wren wants, too, but won't protest if this is turned down; Daryl doesn't seem to care much about possession of funds. He's got enough extra cash still shaking down a couple nerds selling weed in the back of the arcade at the mall, anyway. (Nothing too mean. Just embarrassing them a little. What if I were an undercover cop, you morons.)

"It'll be dark by the time we get out there," he advises. He's already got a flashlight and a lighter, having shown up with them, but still. An all day trip, this idea. Daryl's used to walking a lot and not sleeping, so it doesn't bother him, but. "In case you got plans later."

Wren needed to swing by the motel - they used the gift card to get a reusable water bottle and had maybe horded every single bit of non-perishable food they'd been given access to since they arrived. They do get a small thing of pre-packaged trail-mix and only with great reluctance allow Daryl to get it. Wren only has the money they had on them when they arrived, which as a college student isn't much at all. Even so, they're absolutely mentally noting down exactly how much that trail mix is and will be finding a way to pay Daryl back for it once they secure some method of getting money here where it doesn't matter that their ID says they're supposed to be eight years old right now.

"Oh yeah I've totally got this huge social engagement to be to, actually," Wren says blandly as they walk, making their way to the edge of town and beyond, double-checking the map as they go. "No, I also got nothing. Was it dark when you came back before? Anything weird in the woods?"

Daryl offers a flat look for that. Who knows!! There could be an ice cream social, or whatever it is people do. He doesn't know Wren's life.

"Nah, it was late morning." When does this guy sleep. (Like, never.) "Woods seemed normal. Saw a couple possums. Deer tracks. It's a stable enough ecosystem and remote enough that there's likely to be big predators somewhere, but I didn't catch signs of nothing."

Which is almost weird, but despite his adept eye, he'd prefer not to run into anything he's not perfectly used to, given the circumstances. Black bears are just big furry bullfrogs, but cougars are trouble— and he's never actually seen one before. Rare enough in Georgia to be dismissed as non-native. It's fine if the woods decide not to throw anything terribly interesting at them.

Quiet for a while, which is fine, they don't need to make smalltalk for the entire trip. (which will be a long ass walk) (i did not google how long it talks to walk 30 miles until it was too late) (they'll just be very efficient speedwalkers it's fine). But then he remembers:

"Some other folks on the uh," he gestures, as if holding something in his hand, and for a moment it seems like he might actually be out of touch enough not to be able to remember the word phone, "little cohort reddit thing," oh thank god he was just fumbling on what to call the network, "said they're gonna look, too. Reckon we should all compare notes in a couple days."

Wren is an efficient speed walker. While they haven't done a lot of hiking specifically it's very clear very quickly that Wren is in shape enough to at the very least probably be an athlete of some kind? Yeah probably just that. There's also a lot of practicing how to use their IntelliPhone for pictures, which can also be inferred through observation - Wren has never used a smartphone before.

"Oh-? Oh! Yeah, this can take pictures, think I could just upload one of the map so far? If we could get a good solid idea of how far out we can go - well, multiple people trying different directions will be faster than just trying it all myself," Wren says as they think aloud, like the idea that they could get help with this hadn't really occurred to them before now in spite of having more or less asked Daryl for help. Then, after a moment, "... What's reddit?"

IC INTRO #1

Wren Fulton | OC

For @bodyoftheseus

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Mallrats!

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mapping.

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