Foxbury Freshers ~ An Introduction

Summer, Year 0
Daniel is 18, Josh is 18, Molly is 18, Laura is 18, Ben is 18, Jessica is 18

The sun shone brightly on the Foxbury campus as students began to arrive from the station for the first term of the new academic year. It was always an exciting time, full of promise and hope as students poured in from across SimNation. Who knew what would lie in store?

Not quite everyone was feeling as optimistic on their new start. Josh Clarke was feeling a little under the weather as he arrived at Curious Tower, the dorm he’d been assigned. His fortunes were looking up because, in spite of his sickness, he’d sold some paintings on Plopsy, where he was building a profile quite successfully.

Inside the building, Daniel Briggs was having a slightly better start. He’d received a visit from his school friend, Jessica Roberts and it was going well. He’d been providing comfort for Jess over the summer, since she was expecting a baby and due any day. She’d been flirting openly with him all summer and he felt he was in with a chance since she’d come over to see him.
Sadly for Dan, he didn’t quite have the courage to do anything more than cuddle; after all, she was heavily pregnant. So in spite of the clear signals Jess was sending, their visit was spent cuddling and talking.

In spite of a promising start, Daniel found his roommate to be less then pleasant after discovering a note beside his bed on his first night. University wasn’t quite shaping up to be what he was expecting so far.

The next morning dawned bright and early. Josh set about his ablutions before too many of the others were awake. The group were hoping to head to the Foxbury Student Centre that day for a meet and greet with classmates and tutors. He wanted to make a good impression.
Unfortunately, his razor blade had other ideas. He hoped it wouldn’t set the tone for the day.

The student centre was a fairly large, modern building, sitting snugly in the middle of the Foxbury campus. It was home to one of the largest computer rooms on the campus; handy for students who didn’t yet have their own laptops.

Daniel made a beeline for the table tennis tables upstairs and dragged one his dormmates, Laura Moore, along with him. She’d been a bit mopey all summer and he was determined to try and cheer her up.
Thankfully, she didn’t take the loss too hard.

Following their match, Daniel and Laura went downstairs to the cafeteria to join the others. Everyone else was sitting around the tables, making a start on the studies for their degrees. Ben Smith felt there had to be something fun to do at the centre, instead of just studying. Even Molly Faulkner didn’t seem thrilled and she was definitely the most likely to study early.
University looked set to be harder than Ben had imagined.

Molly agreed with Ben’s sentiment and went over to investigate the robotics lab at the centre. There was plenty of equipment for recycling items and making new things. It was a room after Molly’s own heart and she couldn’t wait to get stuck into the creative process.

Ben quickly found himself a distraction from his studies; an incredible redhead, definitely older than him but very captivating. There was no chance of him keeping his concentration on his course work when her ‘assets’ were demanding so much of his attention.
Suddenly, things were looking up.

Within the dorms, Molly quickly found herself in the role of agony aunt, listening to the gripes and complaints from the other students. She didn’t really mind; part of being a Simfluencer, in her eyes, was listening to her fellow Sims, in order to produce content that catered directly for them.

After beating her at table tennis, Daniel had bet Laura she couldn’t help him perform a keg stand on the balcony at the dorm.
Challenge accepted, they headed straight for the juice keg and Laura delicately balanced Daniel’s legs on her shoulders. So far, so good.

“Oh my Watcher!” Laura cried as she felt Daniel slip from her grasp.
She watched in horror as he fell, almost in slow motion, onto the hard floor beneath them. She could hardly watch as he hit the ground with a groan.
“I’m so sorry! Are you okay?” She asked. She glanced down at him. “Daniel? Are you hurt?”

Slowly standing up, Daniel rubbed his backside. “I’m okay. Just don’t ever do that again, okay?” He winced. “Ouch. Not sure I’ll be sitting down any time soon.” Straightening up, he gestured to the door. “Come on, let’s go inside. Hopefully, nobody saw that.”

Inside, Ben was trying to wrap his head around a phone call he’d received. It seemed he was due to come into some money – an inheritance from a distant relative he’d never met – but there was a catch. He’d have to be married in order to get the money.
He sighed. Getting married was a huge step and he was only 18. Going to University was enough of an adventure right now. Getting married in his first term was completely out of the question.
He wondered who the relative was. It wouldn’t be that shocking to have relative’s he’d never met since there was a whole side of his family he barely knew. His mother was from Sulani and while he’d been born there and was fluent in the language, he’d not met any of his relatives from her side of the family. So he supposed this relative must have been from there.

He glanced around the common room full of people. It was the day before classes began and there was a gathering of friends in the dorm but nobody who’d be willing to get married at such short notice.

He drifted into the kitchen to be by himself for a while. Every time something looked good for him, there’d be something to drag him down. He just didn’t seem to be allowed to enjoy himself for long.
“Sorry, I didn’t know there was anyone in here. I just came for pizza.”
Ben looked up to see one of the dormmates, Kaori, standing in the doorway.

“Oh Kaori, hi. Don’t mind me.” Ben gestured towards the pizza. “You look good.”
Inwardly, he cringed. ‘What the plumbob was that?‘ he thought, irritably. ‘You’re not seriously trying to chat this girl up in the hopes she’ll marry you, are you?’
Outwardly, he gave Kaori a quick once over. “That outfit really suits you.”

Unfortunately for Ben, a few more people had drifted into the kitchen to hear him pathetically chatting Kaori up, including Josh.
They also got to hear her shoot him down, as politely as she could.

‘See, you scared her. Not only was your chat up completely pathetic but she’s not interested in men.’ Ben’s inner voice berated him as he cursed under his breath. “I really know how to pick them,” he murmured, praying for the crowd in the kitchen to disperse.
Bring on the classes. Anything to take his mind off the embarrassment of this moment.

The first few days of classes went by fairly quickly and were, thankfully, uneventful. So much so that Molly and Daniel took themselves off to the Geekcon in the city to celebrate the success of their studies so far.
Sadly, although they tried their best, neither ended up winning in the events they’d entered.

Ben’s week hadn’t improved. He’d had no luck getting a girlfriend, and he couldn’t even win a simple board game. He really, really, hated losing. Watching Josh cheering as he won Don’t Wake The Llama really infuriated Ben and he removed himself from the game in a huff.

Molly got herself involved in the robotics opportunities available on campus. She wanted to make the most of the facilities and joining the robotics organisation seemed a great way of doing so. She really loved building new things and building robots to make everyday life useful had long been a dream of hers.
So after her classes, she made a point of heading to the student centre to tinker the hours away.

She also enjoyed learning everything she could about the University. Every myth, every legend; she wanted to learn them all. There were even some fascinating urban legends about the campus that she couldn’t wait to share with her friends, especially Laura.
As interesting as they were, spooking her friends was even more fun.

Laura did feel spooked by the story but more than that, she was confused. She knew Molly was intelligent so if she believed in a kooky story about the statues having magic powers, then there was bound to be some truth to it. She wondered how that would work, it is was true.

She even went down to the statue on the Quad to see if anything looked odd. Aside from it being covered with wool, of course. Some little troll from UBrite had no doubt been at it.
Laura needed some air. After that story, she didn’t fancy going back to the dorm just yet and the statue, while looking perfectly innocent, was beginning to give her the creeps.

She settled at one of the picnic benches, outside the student centre. The sun was warm on her skin and the fresh air was very welcome. She soon felt her worries melting away.
“Is this seat taken?” A voice behind her asked.
Before she could reply, Laura found herself sitting next to another of the students, Lee. Irritated, she was soon chatting happily about studies, the campus and the other students.
Of course, Lee couldn’t resist pranking her and Laura felt humiliated. Lee laughed hysterically next to her and she began to wonder if University was really worth the stress.
Furious, she got up and stalked over to the student centre. She’d seen a handful of the students heading there earlier and she had a paper to write.

When she arrived, Ben had set up a mock presentation outside the computer room. She also had a presentation to do and suddenly, the stress-related headache was getting worse.

The computer room was packed; a sure sign that exams were fast approaching. Laura grabbed a computer and sat down. She could feel her stomach knotting as she looked around the room. Her fear of crowded places was beginning to take a hold of her and she was struggling.
Daniel walked in and spotted her looking panicked.
“Laura, are you okay?” He asked, concerned.

She gave a panicky glance around the room and Daniel understood in an instant. “Okay. Talk to me. Make jokes. Distract yourself.”
Unconvinced, Laura concentrated on the funniest jokes she knew.

She hadn’t really expected it to work – it seemed so obscure, after all – but she couldn’t argue with the results.
Smiling, she finally felt able to get going with her term paper. Blocking out the crowd in the computer room, she began to type.

Ben started practicing his presentation. There were several aspects he wasn’t sure about and the gathering crowd outside the computer room was ideal for gathering feedback, including from Laura, on a break from her paper and grabbing something to eat.

Some downtime was definitely needed after all the work the students were putting in. Molly, Ben and Daniel settled down at the gaming tables in the centre for a game of cards.
To Ben’s eternal fury, he still couldn’t win anything and this time, Daniel beat him fair and square.

Daniel smirked slightly as he laid down the winning hand. Something about Ben losing his temper was oddly fascinating to watch.
They needed to enjoy their light relief all they could. The next few days were going to be filled with preparations for their exams.

With the exams looming, the students spent as much time as possible at the student centre. Laura and Ben both settled with their presentations, polishing them as much as possible before they were due.
They both got stuck into practicing their speeches. Ben finally had a presentation he was proud of and ready to turn in.