etrayamemes | TDM 006

TDM 006

⏵ arrival ⏴
Arrival is absolutely not normal this month. Instead of a hospital bed, you wake in a tunnel with a large group of other people. These are the residents. A woman’s voice in an earpiece hurriedly clues you in with an apology.

I apologize; I had not planned to introduce you this way, but we are low on time. Please proceed down the hallway.

An image of a shattered pearl pops up on your personal HUD and rotates.

I am Aurora. You are joining many others on Etraya in order to save your world from destruction by completing missions. Your current mission is to find the pieces of this object that have become scattered in the library ahead of you.

For everyone else, coming in is much the same. The instruction goes out to head to designated areas immediately, where companion bots will escort the residents of Etraya down into the depths, the area beneath where much the same is explained.

⏵ disrobing ⏴

The tunnel eventually opens directly into the foreroom of an expansive library, painted in marvelous hues and patterns with skylights far above. There are wizards milling about, bearded and holding tomes, quietly chatting amongst themselves.

The reception area of the library has tall ceilings with equally tall doors Before you get too caught up in the scenery, a voice directs you forward. A gentleman, hunched and bespeckled craws out.

"Make a line! Make a line, everyone! You cannot enter the library dressed as you are... Come forward and give me your name."

The receptionist asks your given name and then hands over a box from underneath his counter. You can give him any name you want, he doesn’t seem to mind. It is tied with a tagged ribbon- labeling it accordingly. “The _____ robe of _______.”

	(First Letter of Given Name)				(Last Letter of Given Name)
A	Controlling	N	Helpful	A	Melodies	N	Light
B	Glimmering	O	Floating	B	Discretion	O	Mind-Reading
C	Wet	P	Handsome	C	Growth	P	Climbing
D	Gruesome	Q	Gullible	D	Grasping	Q	Jumping
E	Observant	R	Ratty	E	Flying	R	Hurting
F	Powerful	S	Adhesive	F	Reading	S	Guiding
G	Psychedelic	T	Sweltering	G	Dancing	T	Bug-Speaking
H	Swift	U	Cheerful	H	Shouting	U	Exploding
I	Voracious	V	Anxious	I	Extracting	V	Complaining
J	Soft	W	Likeable	J	Punishing	W	Dividing
K	Keen	X	Ruthless	K	Creeping	X	Slapping
L	Fabulous	Y	Dramatic	L	Walking	Y	Charming
M	Fair	Z	Demonic	M	Listening	Z	Combustion

As you read what the contents of the box may be, they form inside- Looking and behaving as your character expects them to. After all, magic is all in the wielder’s mind.

Don your robes and enter the library.

⏵ unfamiliar familiars ⏴

For those without a familiar (like one hatched from an egg not too long ago) you may borrow one from the library counter. They all have strengths and weaknesses, but they will all assist in the very important mission. As you roam the library, they will make little indications that you are closer or further from finding a piece of the pearl.


Pro	• Hardworking • Gives correct directions 75% of time • Won’t run away from you	• Very affectionate • Gives correct directions only when paired with another rat, toad, or personal pet.	• Gives correct directions 90% of the time
Con	• Must feed bookworms	• Will run away if too close to a cat	• Does not care for you • Sleepy • Will run ahead • Gets distracted by rats

⏵ the task at hand ⏴

With robes donned and creature in hand, you must now complete your mission. Find the pieces of the shattered pearl. As you enter the library, you may notice that it’s all very dim. There’s oil lamps around the place that may be moved with you to assist in your journey if your robes do not already emit light.

Break off and search the library. There is a directory at the front to point guests to all the different sections.

	Wings of the Library
A	General Works	B	Music
C	Philosophy, Religion	D	Fine Arts
E	History, Auxiliary Sciences	F	Language and Literature
G	Magic, General	H	Science
J	Geography, Anthopology	K	Medicine
M	Agriculture	N	Hobbies, Recreation
P	Social Science	Q	Military
R	Political Science	S	Practical Arts
T	Law	W	People
X	Education	Y	Spiders

Each section looks enough like the last, though the books within have immense power. Pick up the wrong book, and you might conjure a dragon or a historical figure! You must persist and avoid making too much noise or breaking too many things.

Or else the Librarian, a tall mass of knotted fabric will confiscate your robe and usher you back outside. Your name will be struck from the list, and you must pick a new one to re-enter the library to continue the search.

You can try to fight back against him- he may be set alight with the lamp. But should you be starting fires in here?

⏵ NOTES ⏴

Any thread with 15 comments between you and another may be submitted to find a piece of the pearl. There are 20 pieces altogether, and we will determine if the mission was successful by March 28th. A post will go live on the OOC comm for this!

This mission occurs out of time, similar to how the spaceship had. Meaning, those currently in game can experience these events any time between now, and March 14th.

Please direct all questions to our mod queries comment!

⏵FULL NAVIGATION⏴

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[If she's being entirely honest, Chrissy would probably rate this little outing a bit higher than the fake family field trip. The Wet Robe of Growth might be the most ridiculously-named thing she's ever encountered, but that's what she's been saddled with because it hadn't really occurred to her to come up with a fake name. She'd had a cat with her at one point, but it appears to have wandered off.

When he approaches, she's in the process of staring at the section of bookcase at eye level in front of her. There's always some kind of catch to these things, and she's trying to come at this logically. She's also trying to stay on the librarian's good side. But she's been at it for a little while, and she's no closer to figuring out how to proceed, so the interruption isn't an unwelcome one.

She's smiling as she turns to face him, and she gives a little shrug.]

Hi. I'm not entirely sure what's going on with the wizards and the pearl, because all of this is new. Has anyone explained why we're all here?

[She can't tell if he's new or if he's just someone she hasn't met yet, but it feels like a sensible question to ask either way.]

[ While Peter was hardly sociable enough to get to know many people at the last freaky world he was brought into, he doesn't recognise a single face here. There's no one he knows, and it's terrifying. Being alone is.... terrifying.

But bumping into someone who could be around his age is certainly less daunting, especially someone with such a kind-looking face. The smile she sends him is another sweep of relief, even if he continues to look extremely nervous, body language tense.

So she must not be new-new, like him, but hearing that the wizard shit is a new one makes him think of the City again. This has to be some kind of branch of that place, right...? It was always changing things up and around, throwing new weird stuff at everyone. ]

No, I have no idea. [ He'd kind of... freaked out on arrival and failed to really hear the message about saving worlds and completing missions. ]

This is part of that city, right? Part of the... the experiment?

[If nothing else, it hasn't been that long since she woke up here, and Chrissy can remember how overwhelming and confusing that had been. She hadn't wanted to assume because she knows how foolish that can be sometimes. People have been arriving and leaving at random the entire time she's been here, and it's hard to tell if he seems nervous because he's new or just because he's nervous in general.

Either way, it's unacceptable that nobody has even tried to explain.]

It's a lot to process all at once, especially if you're from a place that isn't like this.

[The big mission notwithstanding, the level of tech- and everything else- had seemed fairly outlandish to Chrissy.]

I'm not sure which city you're asking about. There is a city, but I'm not aware of any experiment? [That doesn't mean there isn't an experiment happening- just that she's not aware of it. Though, now that he mentions it, wouldn't gathering a number of unconnected people and telling them that they're the only hope of saving the dying multiverse make for an interesting experiment?]

We've been brought here because the multiverse is dying, and I guess we're the only ones capable of saving our worlds. [It sounds... not quite rehearsed, though she's definitely trying to remember everything that Dick had told her when she'd first arrived.] I've been here for a while, and I'm not entirely sure I believe it. But this place is better than the last one so far... so I'm not inclined to question it too much.

[Maybe that's too much too soon.]

Did you get dragged here from your home, or from someplace else?

[ The more Peter listens, the more this seems like something else. It's maybe possible she never learned about the experimental stuff going on back in the City, but it was becoming pretty wide-spread knowledge, impossible to miss unless one were sleeping under a rock. ....Even Peter, who was very out of it and did spend most of his time metaphorically sleeping under a rock, learned about it.

And there was nothing about a multiverse dying, and saving worlds. That's very new, and he just stands there wide-eyed for a few long moments of silence, struggling to process. Maybe he got... transported somewhere else? If it was possible to bring him into that City, whether as a simulation or whatever else it actually was, then it's possible to bring him anywhere else, right? It's all pretty mind-boggling.

But he pauses as the girl says this place is better than the last one she'd known, eyes finding focus again. ]

Um— someplace else. There was this... this place. [ Helpful, Peter. But even now, he's not sure how to describe the City. ]

It was like... everything was fake. An imitation. The city was completely empty, except for those of us who'd been brought there. It was some kind of... experiment, apparently.

[ He's still tense, but he's at least relaxing from Default Danger mode, able to actually hold conversation now. ]

What're we supposed to be saving our worlds from?

[Most of the time, Chrissy feels like she's fairly decent at explaining things. The problem with this, at least, is that she's still not entirely sure if she believes the things they've been told, despite having been here for roughly half a year. It's entirely possible that there are things about this place that she's unaware of. She'd only found out the truth about the Serena Eterna shortly before things went completely off the rails, and she'd only found out the truth about what had happened to her the night she'd gone home with Eddie Munson after the fact- at roughly the same time she'd discovered that everyone had collectively decided that Eddie himself was to blame for her fate.]

This is the second place I've been that isn't home. [Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe mentioning it will help somehow. Maybe hearing that he isn't the only one who's been displaced a couple of times might be comforting, or might make it feel a little less jarring.

She's quiet as she listens to what he has to say. It doesn't sound like any place she's ever been.]

Do you remember the name of the city? [Did it have a name? Does it matter? Either way, she's curious. She'd never even been anywhere outside of Indiana until after Vecna had found her.]

I'm sorry you had to go through that. Coming here probably feels like some kind of strange dream or something.

[Sometimes it still feels like an odd fever dream to her, at least. At his question, she shrugs again and smiles apologetically.]

You know, I'm not entirely sure. Whatever's killing the multiverse, I guess? [Chrissy's sure that someone had explained it to her at some point or another, but she can't seem to recall now.]

When was the last time you had something to eat?

[ Any sense of familiarity feels like some tether, something to hold onto among all that's so strange and unfamiliar. When the girl says this is the second place for her, too, it's something that's the same. It makes him feel even a little bit less lost, Peter's mouth tightening into a frown, but it comes with a nod, grim understanding. ]

As crazy as this sounds to say... I don't think it had one. It was just... this place we all couldn't escape from. Like some imitation of real life.

[ It was strange and he was always so lost there, but... He had friends. There were people who cared about him, and he cared about them, too. Something caves inwards in his chest, an unpleasant sinking feeling. Where are they now...?

'Coming here probably feels like some kind of strange dream or something.'

Peter looks back up to the other, surprised by just how accurate that sounds. Really, his life has felt that way for.... a long time, now. Even before The City. And just before his arrival there, it was like everything went so wrong, so fast — ensnaring him in horrors he's still not sure how to contend with. How much of it all is even real? It does feel like some fever-dream, like he's running and not getting anywhere. Like he's constantly being pursued by something, stalked and hunted and the hairs on the back of his neck are always prickling. ]

Yeah, that's— that's exactly it. [ He offers, with a soft exhale. ] Like some nightmare I can't wake up from.

[ Whatever the fuck's going on with this place, he's in no hurry to keep asking too many questions, shirking away from whatever new horrors this is. Instead— ]

I can't even remember the last time I ate. [ He admits with the first trace of a faint smile in a long time. The City had food, but... it wasn't always real. Real food was hard to find, and one severely depressed teenage boy hadn't exactly put for the effort to do it. Mostly he'd been sustaining himself on bags of chips and sour gummy candies. ....And weed. There was weed, at least. ]

There's food here? Like— actual restaurants and stuff?

[It's not much of a connection, but it's something. And that's the important part. There are probably countless other people in similar positions, she just hasn't put in much of an effort to poll everyone about where they'd come from.]

In that case, it's not worth you remembering its name.

[If it had one. It probably had one, but there's no way for her to know for sure- and honestly, it doesn't matter all that much to her. If his experience there was as unpleasant as she's assuming based on what little he's admitted so far, it might even be better to just let it remain a mystery.]

I'm glad you're not there anymore. [She's not particularly glad that he's here instead of being at home, or someplace else entirely, but it is what it is. Outside of a couple of strange missions, this place has been like a dream she doesn't want to wake up from.]

Do you want to wake up? [Do you want to go home? is what she'd really like to ask, but that doesn't seem like the sort of question to ask someone within roughly five minutes of meeting them. There are more important things to think about, anyway.]

Maybe you should consider doing something about that instead of playing wizard scavenger hunt. [She's making light of the reason they've all been gathered here, because she's found that being able to laugh about how bizarre things can get from time to time is helpful.]

Mostly diners. There are a couple of coffee shops, and a burger place too. The diner does all day breakfast, which is why it's my favorite.

[ There's a soft exhale of some kind of relief at that, something Peter wasn't really expecting to ever hear. He's spent so much time trying to remember, trying to understand and make sense of things he can't possibly make sense of, and then falling into some.... overwhelmed sense of numb about it all.

It's a lot nicer to just let the thought of "understanding it" go. Even if the prospect of being somewhere else is freshly terrifying, and there's a weird hollow feeling in his chest that he can't think too much about right now. (What about his friends in The City? Are they... okay? Will he ever see them again?)

Don't think about it. Not right now. Instead, he looks back to the girl as she asks that question. 'Do you want to wake up?' It draws a slight widening of the eyes, thinking about it for a few moments in silence before he gives the softest shake of his head. ]

If this is some kind of dream... I don't wanna wake up from it. Not yet.

[ Maybe not ever. What if he does wake up, and this place and The City were all just a dream, and he's back home? Peter's terrified of that thought, of the loss, of the horror. There's nothing left for him there. Just an empty house, and the smell of so many dead things, and so much he doesn't understand. Strangers smiling at him from the shadows, candles flickering, a photograph of himself with his eyes burned out— ]

A diner?

[ The City had one of those. He worked there, sometimes, helped the owner out. ]

Is it near here? I could use some all-day breakfast. [ He finally smiles, a little, before he realises something. ] I don't have any money, though. There wasn't any, in that city place. People just took stuff.

[Is it selfish to suggest that he might be better off forgetting the place he was stranded before if it was such an unpleasant experience? Absolutely. But that's what Chrissy would like to do in the same situation. Sometimes, she wonders if she'd be better off if she didn't remember her time on the Serena Eterna, though there are some things she wouldn't ever want to forget.]

I don't know if I can wake up from it.

[It's probably random, when people come and go, but she imagines that most people actually have something to go home to. Given what Steve had told her all those months ago, Chrissy's reasonably sure that Hawkins is a place she'd never want to see again. And sure, she'd been planning to leave after graduation anyway, but it would have been nice to have the option to go back at some point in the future.]

It's called The Diner, which might be confusing if the other diners didn't all have names. [Who decided to call it that? She has no idea.] I'm not actually sure how close we are right now. We could go now if you want. [Not terribly useful, but it is what it is. She's not even entirely sure they can leave right now. Oops.] That's okay. This place doesn't really do money.

[ There's a soft, grim nod at that — 'I don't know if I can wake up from it.'

He doesn't know, either. Fuck, there's so much he doesn't know. At the very least, there are other people here going through it just as much — a depressing thought, but at least one that gives a little bit of solidarity. It helps a lot, just not feeling so alone. ]

I'm uh, glad I'm not the only one thinking all this. Sometimes I think I'm going fucking crazy. [ He admits, with something that's more a wince than a smile. It'd track, wouldn't it? Like his mom, and her brother, and their mom. Grandma. All of them were crazy. Maybe he's just ended up like that. But then he talks to someone else, like this girl here, and it helps him feel a little less so. Like he's not the only one, not the problem. ]

Oh, that's good to know. No money needed. [ A huge relief to one (1) stoner who has not a cent to his name. ]

I'd be down, yeah...! [ He nods, looking forward to sitting down somewhere more normal than this. (Can they leave right now?? Peter has no idea! But he remembers something that gives him pause as he blinks. He really doesn't know what the hell he's doing here.) ]

Or— do we have to find that pearl thing first? They said something about a mission... Do they really make you guys do missions, here?

[ It sounds like a lot of work... ]

[Generally speaking, Chrissy tends to assume that other people aren't in the same specific situation as she is. There'd been a handful of people aboard the Serena Eterna who'd died before waking up there, but she'd really only known the specifics about what happened to Vance- because he'd told her point blank that he was a ghost on the day they met.

Either way, it's easy to relate to feeling confused by waking up someplace completely unfamiliar and having no idea what to do, or where to go, or how to feel about it. The fact that it's been about six months hasn't really done much to diminish that feeling, unfortunately.]

I felt like that for a while at home. I'd like to be able to tell you that the feeling just went away, but...

[Well, it had gone away. It's just that it had taken being chased through a nightmare version of her house by the creep who'd been making it feel like she was losing her mind in the first place. Which is not something she wants to just drop on someone she's just met.]

It does make things a bit simpler. [Look at her, latching onto the convenient subject change like a pro!]

The place I was before had kind of the same setup. There were restaurants and stores and things on the ship, and we had to go through the motions of paying for things, but that was mostly for the benefit of the ghosts that were keeping everything running. [It was also partially for the benefit of the Captain, because rules were important. Or something.]

Oh. Right. We might actually have to find the pearl before we can leave. I'm not entirely sure. I just came here because we got an announcement saying to come here. [She might not be entirely convinced that anything they're doing here is going to have an effect on their homes, but there are definitely people in Hawkins that she'd want to save if it was possible. So she plays along with whatever nonsense the people in charge cook up for them, and she doesn't ask too many questions.]

I like to think of it as them just giving us things to do. You missed the field trip where they assigned us all fake families and cute little houses.

[She's smiling, but she's absolutely not joking.]

[ Peter looks back up to meet her eyes, at that. 'I felt like that for a while at home.' No matter how vague the details might be kept, once again it's some familiarity, and he finds himself exhaling again, like a sigh. Not exactly relieved, but just— a release of some kind of pent-up breath that comes from perpetually swallowing down every single fucking thing, walking around with the constant knowledge that something's very wrong with him, and something was very wrong with his family.

He doesn't voice the reply that's in his throat — "Me too" — and he goes right along with the very convenient subject change, but it's something he won't forget about. ]

Ghosts? [ So there's experimental worlds, and haunted ones. And now this place. Great! ] I guess I shouldn't be surprised to hear that. Pretty sure the people in charge back in "The City"— [ air quotes as he refers to the place ] —were probably aliens.

[ This is all fine. It's totally fine! He's casting another nervous look around though, taking in the dim lighting of the library, and the occasional wizard-looking person sweeping through it. How the hell are they going to find some pearl shards in a place like this?? ]

Maybe if we work together, we can find this shit faster? Hopefully these pearl shards glow or something....

[ He adjusts the toad in his palm, who has thus-far been very chill and quiet. ]

Fake families? Sounds like a nightmare. [ Peter smiles thinly; he can't think of a worse scenario than being forced into a familial unit! ] How'd that go?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

TDM 006

the task at hand

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cw: mention of drugs (pot)

he would appreciate Eddie so much lol

oh my gosh they would be such bros lmao

if we ever get one, Chrissy will introduce them!

thank you Chrissy, hooking up the potheads!

she does what she can! also- cw: casual mention of Vecna nonsense lmao

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