Chapter Text
November 6th, 1983
Hawkins, Indiana
Steve Harrington was predictable. He was popular, rich, and people liked him, but that made him boring. He knew, just like everyone else knew, exactly what the rest of his life would look like. He’d graduate, go to some business school, get a job at his Dad’s company (where he would some day take over), settle down with a nice girl, get married, have two point five kids and a dog, and he’d never amount to anything. This is a tale that has been told over and over again. This is a very old tale.
This is not the correct tale.
That morning, just like every morning, Steve had a set of expectations of what would come of the day. It was Sunday, which meant cleaning. He’d scrub the house top to bottom while listening to whatever played on the radio. He’d take a passing glance at any homework assignments that were due, give a minimal effort, then he’d go to sleep unsatisfied.
The world disagreed with these plans.
Steve Harrington woke up with a sense of difference; a sense that something was just off. It didn’t feel bad or wrong, just different. Something in the universe shifted ever so slightly to the left and he didn’t know what. Until he opened his eyes.
Upside Down Detected, Game Mode Unlocked!
Sitting in the center of his vision, with no further explanation, were those big, blocky letters. He looked to the left, then to the right, and the words stayed there. Smack dab in the center of his sight.
“The fuck…?” he muttered. The words fizzled out. For a second, Steve thought it was a weird, sleep induced hallucination baked up by his half-conscious mind, but then more showed up.
Welcome to The Game! Currently, you are in Pause Mode. In Pause Mode, the entire world has stopped. You cannot interact with the outside world, but the outside world cannot interact with you. You automatically go into Pause Mode when receiving a new Tutorial Block. To exit Pause Mode, simply think or say ‘Unpause’.
If Steve were to guess, just a day prior, what his limit for bullshit would be, he would have guessed much, much lower than what he had reached within the first minute and a half of waking up. He had already blown straight past freaking out, came back around, and settled once more at calm.
“Unpause?” he asked. The Universe? God? Some other deity or being of power? Someone.
The words fizzled out. The alarm clock by his head blared to life. He didn’t even realize it had gone silent. He slammed a hand down, shutting it off. Before he could take too long to appreciate the quiet, his Fancy New Hallucination kept on going!
New Quest! Tutorial
To view Quest Details say or think ‘Menu’ then say or think ‘Quests’.
He had a few possibilities. One: He had completely and entirely lost his mind. Most possible, the only real possibility. Two: This was real, in which case, what the fuck?
“Uhhh…. Menu?”
Stats<!>
Quests<!>
Inventory<!>
Relationships<!>
Skill Tree<!>
Map<!>
Dungeons<Locked>
Oh, Jesus Christ. That was… a lot, to understate things. Steve really couldn’t fathom the idea that his brain would come up with something so… much. It was just so much. For instance: dungeons? Skill tree? What?
“Quests?” he asked the world. The words vanished, quickly replaced with the promised information.
QUESTS:
Main Quests:
1) Tutorial
Complete the tutorial
- Look at Stats
Reward(s):
100 XP
Side Quests:
No Side Quests are Currently Available
Jobs:
No Jobs are Currently Available
Main quests, side quests, and jobs… sure. Okay.
“Okay. Okay, sure, cool. Look at stats, why not? Stats.” Nothing. “Stats?” Nada. “Stats, god damn it!”
You gotta say Menu first, dumbass.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I don’t understand the way my hallucination works right away. I’m so sorry!” Steve groused. The words stayed in the center of his vision. “Menu.” The quests and ‘Tutorial Block’ vanished. “Bitch.”
Stats<!>
Quests
Inventory<!>
Relationships<!>
Skill Tree<!>
Map<!>
Dungeons<Locked>
“Stats.”
STATS
Name: Steve Harrington
Age: 16
Job(s): Lifeguard
Title(s)/Alias(es): King Steve, The Hair
Level 1
0/100 XP
HP: 95/95
MP: 10/10
Strength: 16
Dexterity: 17
Constitution: 19
Intelligence: 8
Wisdom: 13
Charisma: 25 (+)
Having the Stats Page in front of him, words taking up the side of his vision without completely overtaking it felt odd. Not wrong, just different. Mostly, he just didn’t like how unaffected he was by it. Like it was just how the world was supposed to be. It made him uncomfortable that it didn’t really make him uncomfortable.
Quest Updated! Tutorial
Look at Stats
Examine Title(s)/Alias(es)
The box appeared for a few seconds, then faded away slowly, completely vanishing after a few more seconds. “Okay… Titles?” The Stats Page evaporated.
TITLE(S)/ALIAS(ES):
King Steve
- King of Hawkins High, people look to you for your rulings. +2 Charisma
- Not everyone has good memories of the social elite. Anyone considered of a lower social status than “King Steve” will begin with a Hostile Relationship Status (-25/100).
The Hair
- People like The Hair. It adds to the charm. +2 Charisma
- When The Hair is showing, all charm has a +50% chance of taking effect on those attracted to men.
Disgust curled at Steve’s lip. He had never been a big fan of the nicknames the others gave him. King Steve was bad. The Hair was worse. He was always somewhat aware of what people referred to him as, but he made an effort to keep it as far back in his mind as possible.
Quest Updated! Tutorial
Examine Title(s)/Alias(es)
Look at the Relationships Tab
To go back to the Stats Page, thank or say ‘Back’.
“Back.” The Stats Page returned. He scanned over it again, and his eyes landed on Charisma, with the little plus sign beside it. +4 Charisma because of those stupid High School nicknames. The question was if having a Hostile Relationship Status (whatever that meant) with everyone who was considered below him was worth it… if any of it was real.
What stung was the Intelligence stat. Eight when everything else was in the -teens (and Charisma sitting comfortably in the twenties). It rankled him. He stared at it for a bit longer, shame burning in his chest. Eight. Fucking eight. Because of course it was. The family disappointment. He could practically hear his father’s voice in the back of his mind, venom-laced words spitting at that stupid eight.
“Menu. Relationships?” He felt ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous just talking to himself in a room with a seemingly broken clock, hallucinating some game that seemed more rules than game, still.
The Menu vanished, replaced with the Relationships Page.
RELATIONSHIPS:
Victoria Harrington (Mother)
0/100 – Indifferent
Richard “Dick” Harrington (Father)
-10/100 – Disappointed
Tommy Hagan (Friend/Duke)
50/100 – Loyal
Carol Perkins (Friend/Duke)
50/100 – Loyal
Nancy Wheeler (Acquaintance)
10/100 – Cautiously Interested
Barbara “Barb” Holland (Acquaintance)
-25/100 (Hostile)
Steve’s eye caught on his parents. Indifferent and Disappointed. Zero and Negative Ten. That… hurt, more than he was willing to admit, even to himself. If it was real, and all of this was some representation of his real life, then that meant they either never loved him or they stopped loving him later in life. The (possible) confirmation of what he feared all along sat in front of him in the form of the stupid Relationships Page.
Quest Updated! Tutorial
Look at Relationships Page
Fully Examine Stats Page
Game Note: You deserve better than them, anyways.
He shoved it all down, ignoring the way the Game Note stabbed at his chest, poking and prodding at all the soft bits inside. He swallowed past the tightness in his throat, and kept on going.
“Menu,” he said. “Stats.”
The Stats Page came fully into view. He took in the details,
ignoring, ignoring, ignoring
.
“XP?” he muttered. “What is XP?”
XP stands for Experience Points. They track how far you’ve come. When you reach certain amounts of XP, you will level up! When you level up, you receive Skill Points, Attribute Points and other bonuses that will improve your Gameplay.
Other bonuses, whatever that meant, sounded nice. It was easy to come up with some possibilities of ways his life could improve, in small ways that would stack up.
“HP?”
HP stands for Health Points. It’s the amount of damage you can take before you die. To increase HP, increase Constitution. To restore HP, receive medical treatment, drink potions, eat food, or take a long or short rest.
“Constitution?”
Constitution is your life force and ability to take a hit or undergo rough treatment.
Part of Steve, a very small part that was getting bigger by the second, thought maybe this whole “Game” might be more real than previously believed. It was too much to just be a simple hallucination, too detailed. It was also too much for Steve to come up with on his own. And if it was real, having Constitution as his second largest Stat was kind of insane.
Still, no way to figure it out other than to ask more questions.
“What’s MP?”
MP stands for Mana Points. It’s your Magical Energy. To restore Mana, drink potions, eat special food, or take a long rest.
“Sure. Okay. Magic. Why not?” Because it wasn’t batshit insane enough before. “Hit me with Dexterity.”
Dexterity is the control you have over your body. Stealth, flexibility, and agility all fit under Dexterity.
Intelligence is what you know. It is also how well you retain information.
Wisdom is how you use what you know.
Charisma is your ability to charm and persuade the people around you.
Okay. The Game was starting to make sense, and it filled Steve with an equal amount of accomplishment and dread.
Quest Updated! Tutorial
Fully Examine Stats Page
Place something in your inventory
To place something in your inventory, simply have something in hand, then will it to go there.
Working on little conscious thought, Steve glanced around his room to find something. He finally decided on The Lord of the Flies, which was sitting on his desk.
“Unpause,” Steve said. He stood, grabbed the book off his desk, and just took a second to feel it. He flipped it over in his hands, pressing it against his palms. Then he imagined it going away, to his Inventory, or whatever.
It disappeared. One second, he was holding a book in his hands, the next, it was just gone.
So either that book was never there in the first place, and he simply imagined it; imagined the weight of it, the paper of the cover, the feel of the pages, all of it, or; he really was now in some Game and he really did just stick that book… somewhere.
Quest Updated! Tutorial
Place something in your Inventory
Check Inventory
Inventory (0/60 Lbs):
Weapons
Apparel
Aid
Misc (NEW ITEM(S))
Junk
Ammo
A weight limit. Steve tried to wrap his head around it, but it was too much. There was a weight limit for how many items he could vanish from the world to stick into his “Inventory”. So that meant it went somewhere. Somewhere with real, physical consequences, but he had no idea where that was, and apparently the book didn’t weigh anything. He put that thought onto the pile of other “What the Fuck”s, to be promptly ignored.
For now, at least.
“Miscellaneous?” he asked.
MISC:
(NEW) The Lord of the Flies
There it was. Part of Steve wanted to go around, putting random stuff into his Inventory, just to test the limits of it, but the other part told him that he would actually snap if he did that. Like what if he put his desk in his inventory. It had to be less than sixty pounds. Could he just carry a desk around in this magical “Inventory”?
He already felt himself spiraling so he stored that away, too.
Quest Updated! Tutorial
Check Inventory
Look at the Skill Tree
He followed the instructions, and the world went dark. All around him, for as far as he could see, there was a black void. The ground was covered in a low level of water, but it didn’t feel wet where it came into contact with him. A strangely dry liquid. There, in front of him, a cluster of orbs floated in the air, each with a corresponding symbol. One had a dumbbell, another had a picture of a hurdle, a heart, a book, a brain, and a bubble of some kind.
Quest Updated! Tutorial
Look at Skill Tree
Spend a Skill Point
This is the Skill Tree. The Skill Tree gives you access to Special Skills that get unlocked by Skill Points. You can earn Skill Points by leveling up and as a reward for special Quests! Here, have one on the house.
Skill Point Earned!
You now have [1] Skill Point!
Steve’s bullshit-meter filled the second the insanity began, and the full meter shattered not long after. Steve knew, in the way he knew a lot of things, that he was supposed to be freaked out. At least a little. He was supposed to be but he just wasn’t.
The orbs stayed put, each the same distance away from the other. With a careful hand, Steve reached out and touched the one with the dumbbell. A box appeared above it, and Steve jumped back. The box vanished before he could read it. Once more, with more caution, he reached out and placed a hand on the orb and the box reappeared.
Increase carrying capacity by 10 lbs
Cost: 1 Point
He pulled back and checked the next orb.
Noise made while Sneaking is halved
Cost: 1 Point
The next.
Increase HP by 10 Points
Cost: 1 Point
Reading becomes 50% easier, and you retain 2x information
Cost: 1 Point
Puzzles become 25% easier
Cost: 1 Point
Everyone starts with +5 affinity
Cost: 1 Point
So, if Steve understood correctly, then each bubble connected to each of his…Stats? Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, blah, blah, blah. So, he had to put a point into one of the orb-things and he would unlock that skill? Yeah, that made sense.
Steve frowned at the orbs. Most helpful to him, seeing as he wasn’t some action hero, would be the reading one. In school, he could focus, but it was near impossible to pick up on what the board said, or what the assigned reading said, and he lagged behind. If reading was made easier, he could greatly improve his grades which would probably make his parents happier.
Or, well, not. If his mom was indifferent, and his father went as far as to dislike him.
He frowned at the options in front of him. Almost without thinking, his hand gravitated toward the Sneak Skill. He pressed on it, and just sort of willed the Skill Point to go to it. Something shifted in his chest, and the orb lit up. In a blink, a few more orbs appeared above the skill, each with variations of the same symbol: the hurtle.
The new orbs had branches connecting them to the original one. Skill Tree suddenly made a little bit more sense.
Quest Updated! Tutorial
Spend a Skill Point
Look at the Map
Steve lingered, staring at the new Skills. It couldn’t hurt to check them out. Famous last words.
When Sneaking, those in your Party become less noticeable
Cost: 1 Point
You run 5% faster
Cost: 1 Point
Noise made while running is halved
Cost: 2 Points
Okay, so the cost increases as they get stronger. There was absolutely some economics principle that could be connected to that, which Steve didn’t care enough to pay attention to. Steve nodded to himself, filing the information away in his mind.
“Back.”
The Skill Tree vanished and he was back standing in his room. It was less disorienting than he would have expected, like he just knew what was going to happen. He shook that off, too, and kept going. Even if time had supposedly stopped for his Tutorial, he still wanted to get it over with.
“Map.” He half expected the world to vanish again, but instead, a comprehensive map of the town showed up. A few locations were labelled, such as the Lab, his house, the school, and a few other peoples’ houses. Some buildings were there, but blank, and a few others had question marks hovering above them. A little dot sat at the Harrington house, which Steve guessed represented him.
Quest Completed! Tutorial
+100 XP
Level Up!
+2 Skill Points
+2 Attribute Points
Steve felt different, better, like Leveling Up improved something inside him. It was another one of those unnamable feelings.
You just earned Attribute Points! These points go directly to your base Attributes (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution…). Leveling Up will earn you Attribute Points, but you can also get them from certain Quests.
He went back to his Stats Page and gave it a long, hard look. His lowest, by far, was Intelligence. With effort and push of intention, he put the two attribute points into Intelligence, feeling rather satisfied in the others.
For a brief moment, pain flared in his head, like his brain was being squeezed. No, like his brain had swollen and was pressing against the sides of his skull. The pain faded, but his apprehension at whatever was going on only grew. This was a real life reaction to his supposed “hallucination”. He didn’t like what that meant.
He went to the Skill Tree. He eyed the options. He decided on more Hit Points and +Affinity Points with people when he first meets them. Seeing as a good portion of people would start with -25, that would bring it up to -20, right? That made sense. He closed out of the Skill Tree without looking at the six new orbs that had appeared.
New Quest! Clean the House
Ah, yes, literally anything else. A return to his schedule. He would take it. In fact, he’d grab on with both hands and refuse to let go, because he needed a second (or however long it took him to deep clean the house). He exited the menu and exited Pause Mode, and felt the change in the air. Before he wasn’t paying as much attention, but that time it was more obvious. Everything went from stagnant to fluid. He hadn’t noticed how stiff everything felt until it went away.
He showered, got dressed, and got to making himself breakfast.
Skill Unlocked! Cooking
Level 8/10
2x Cooking Speed
All food tastes 2x better
Huh. He stopped dead in his tracks. Only level eight? What was stopping him from level ten? He frowned, flipping a pancake precisely. He had been cooking for himself since he was twelve years old, which made four years of consistent cooking (breakfast, lunch, and dinner). Not to mention he’d been learning how to cook from his nannies for years before that. Was his level decided by the quality of cooking? Or maybe he just needed more years of cooking practice. Was he just ineligible for level ten without “Game Mode” or whatever, and now that he had unlocked it, he could continue his progress?
He put it out of his mind as he ate his breakfast and got to work cleaning.
Whenever he told his friends (so, just Tommy and Carol) that it was Cleaning Day, he was met with sympathy and general pity, but he never saw cleaning as some big chore. It was peaceful, to him. It was a good way to work out the frustrations of the week and get rid of excess energy. It was the only day he didn’t take his morning, or stick to his strict diet. It was his cheat day.
He was so focused that it took him a second to see the new pop-up.
Skill Unlocked! Cleaning
Level 8/10
2x Cleaning Speed
Level 8 out of 10 Cleaning, too. He pushed his questions again, on how the leveling system worked, but he got nothing. The Game had no answer for him, which he thought was rather rude. Still he kept up with his tasks. ‘Quest Updated!’ pop-ups appeared every so often and he let himself be dragged into the monotony of the tasks.
He made sure to stop for lunch and dinner, but the day drained away as he focused on just cleaning . Because it was Sunday, and the only thing he had to worry about on Sundays was cleaning.
Quest Completed! Clean the House
+100 XP
New Emergency Quest! Save Will Byers
You have received an Emergency Quest. Failure to complete the quest can have dire consequences. You have to be very careful with how you proceed. This quest is also timed, meaning if you do not complete your mission in a certain time frame, you will automatically fail. Good Luck.
“Pause,” Steve announced rather loudly to his empty house. “Menu. Quests.”
QUESTS:
Main Quests:
1) EMERGENCY: Save Will Byers
Stop Will Byers from going Upside Down
Time Limit: 2:22:26
Reward(s):
+500 XP
+25 Affinity Points with Will Byers
+10 Affinity Points with Joyce Byers
+10 Affinity Points with Jonathan Byers
+????
+????
+????
+????
Penalty
-????
Side Quests:
No Side Quests are Currently Available
Jobs:
No Jobs are Currently Available
“Okay, what the fuck? What the actual fuck? What does that even mean? Excuse me? Can you explain yourself?” Go Upside Down? What? No matter how long he stared at it, it didn’t make any more sense. None of it looked good (well, besides the insane rewards for completing the quest). It looked especially bad because there was some mystery penalty if he didn’t save Will Byers’ life.
He would have done it even without the penalty, but it wasn’t encouraging that he could lose… something.
Two hours to find and save Will Byers. Fuck
Steve spent a while in that space without time freaking out in very ugly, embarrassing ways. That was just for him and the Game to know. Staring at the stationary clock before him, he waited for some idea to hit him. Seeing as there was no way to actually measure the time that passed in Pause Mode, he wasn’t sure how long he sat there for. It could have been hours or it could have been a few minutes, but he refused to leave Pause Mode for even a second unless he had a plan to save Jonathan Byers’ little(?) brother.
Eventually, he landed on searching all of the pages and tabs until he got some inspiration for some plan on how to find Will Byers.
Stats
Quests
Inventory
Relationships
Skill Tree
Map
Dungeons <Locked>
Top to bottom, he decided. He scanned the Stats Page, his Inventory (he still only had the book), his Quests (no sudden change), and his Skill Tree. It wasn’t until he opened his map that he got any further, because there, by the woods near Steve’s house, was a yellow exclamation mark. When prodded at, the mark lit up with the label of “Save Will Byers”.
Steve nodded to himself, decisive. With only one location available to him, he decided he’d stop at that spot and just… wait for Will to appear? The problem was that he didn’t know what he was getting into. The Game gave him nothing, so he decided to prepare for everything. He grabbed a first aid kit, food, water bottles, a bat, and anything else that he could think of, shoving it all into his trunk.
He’d have put the stuff into his inventory, but he couldn’t afford to make something appear out of seemingly thin air, so he’d have to rely on his ability to reach his trunk.
His plan hinged on two things. One: being there, and being the only person there (besides Will). Two: Being ready to stop whatever is putting Byers in danger. A person? An animal? He wasn’t sure. Anxiety pooled in his gut. He still couldn’t be sure that it wasn’t all just one big hallucination, but he would rather sit around waiting for Will Byers where he would never be than risk some kid(?) dying because he didn’t do anything.
Time: 1:02:13
With nothing left to do, he drove to where the map marked and parked on the side of the road. If anyone showed up from either direction, he’d see. It was late enough at night that no one would see him, except for, hopefully, Will. He spent the time preparing himself for literally anything. He couldn’t imagine anyone in Hawkins capable of hurting a kid, and he knew there weren’t many animals out in the woods (beyond, like, squirrels and stuff), so he couldn’t fathom what was out there.
Will Byers passed by him about ten minutes before the time ticked to zero, riding his bike. Or at least, a kid that looked a little bit like what Steve remembered of Jonathan. He kept going, but he must have seen something that startled him because he crashed his bike.
Quickly, Steve stepped out of his car and shouted to get the kid’s attention. “Hey kid, you alright?”
Will(?) jerked his head in Steve’s direction, and took off running toward him. Following behind, came something distinctly not-human. What was putting Will Byers in danger? Whatever the fuck that thing was!
“Kid, get in!” Steve climbed into the driver’s side and Will got into the passenger’s side. Steve stepped on it, driving like a bat outta hell. “Where am I taking you?”
“Home,” Will said.
“Where?”
Will helpfully directed Steve, barely batting an eye at his erratic driving. They pulled up to the house, and as far as Steve could see, they evaded the… thing. Wll quickly ushered Steve inside, citing safety in numbers. Steve grabbed his bat from his trunk just to be on the safe side, but otherwise had no other qualms. Two minutes left.
Will locked the front door behind them, then grabbed the phone off of the wall. Before he dialed, it was already obvious the phone wasn’t working. Steve opened his mouth to ask about it, but stopped short when the lights started to flash. Something chinked at the door and slowly the lock slid out of place.
“Back door,” Will said, and they both took off again. Will guided Steve toward the shed in the back. He grabbed the gun and loaded it. If Steve knew anything about guns, he’d have taken the thing from the kid, but he couldn’t promise that he would hit his target and the kid seemed knowledgeable.
The lights started to flicker. They both readied themselves, Will with the gun, Steve with the bat, and they waited.
Quest Failed! Save Will Byers
- 25 HP
New Emergency Quest! Survive
It didn’t do them much good, in the end.