citylogs | TDM: AUGUST 2023

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TDM: AUGUST 2023

TEST DRIVE MEME

You wake up on a train.

Your phone is buzzing. It's in your pocket, in your hand, on the seat next to you. It's a normal phone, and you're on a normal train car. One of the lights flickers, a little further down. The world is very quiet. It feels like you're right where you're meant to be. On the phone's surface is a white screen and the words—

WELCOME TO THE CITY. BEGIN ORIENTATION?

▶ YES
▶ NO

Please take a moment to complete your orientation.

Once you're finished, the subway doors slide open to let you out onto the train platform. To your right, the platform continues on and eventually ends; to the left is a set of stairs that will lead you up into the station itself. The platform is quiet, clean, empty—there's no one else around, and the only sounds you can hear are your own footsteps, your own breaths, and the occasional faraway sound of a creaking pipe or rush of air. The train you disembarked will stay there as long as you do, its doors still open, until you finally decide to venture up into this new locale.

As you make your way up the stairs to your left, you find yourself in the belly of City Hall station. The station is large, a sprawling underground mini-metropolis of corridors and storefronts. Here, you may find others like you, freshly-arrived city residents from other realms (or even your own). There is also a subway map, which will give you an idea of the layout of the neighborhood, and ticketing machines, which can currently only be used to buy tickets to a handful of stations located on lines 1, 2, and 9.

If you're hungry or in need of any kind of supplies, there are plenty of storefronts inside the subway station as well—snack stands, convenience stores, restaurants, clothing stores, a pharmacy, and a variety of empty shops that may or may not have ever been in use. Everything is unlocked, and you can take whatever you need.

Characters may stay on the train platform indefinitely, and may re-board and re-disembark from the subway as many times as they like, but the train will not depart nor will the doors close. Once they go up the stairs into the train station, they may hear the train doors closing and the train departing. Another train will not arrive, no matter how long the character waits. Only once they come up the stairs into the station itself may characters encounter their fellow newly-arrived residents and take advantage of what the city has to offer.

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WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD.

The station is located in the city center. It has three major exits that lead to areas of interest in the district, but there are several other smaller exits that lead in other directions around the neighborhood. You are welcome to use any of them, but may find the north, southwest, and east exits to be the most welcoming.

TO THE NORTH

The northern entrance to the station leads up into the sunlight and puts you out in a brickwork plaza. There's a modest building in front of you, three or four stories of stone with a welcoming facade. There's a sign above the entryway—it says City Hall. You may be tempted to explore, if you're interested in learning more about the city and how it functions, but prepare to find yourself disappointed—the folders in the records rooms are full of empty, blank sheets of paper, and the logbooks and balance sheets are similarly devoid of information.

Immediately to the southwest of City Hall, you will find a small building that houses the tourist information kiosk. It looks welcoming, with an inviting glass facade and a sign above the entryway announcing it as the "TOURIST CENTER." It's a humble building with a receptionist's desk on the back wall opposite the entrance, empty magazine shelves lining the side walls, and a few spinning brochure racks full of blank pamphlets. Anyone is welcome to peruse the tourist literature, though they won't offer much information, being primarily filled with pictures of the surrounding area—City Hall, the park, a statue garden, and the surprisingly heavily-featured cemetery. There are a few sentences sprinkled throughout about basic offerings of the city, such as apartment complexes and office buildings, as well as a few maps with the same limited scope as the larger version on the wall behind the receptionist's desk.

The main feature of the tourist center is the interactive kiosk installed dead in the center, right in the middle of a few rows of uncomfortable chairs that fill the small room. It's noticeably in the way of any would-be foot traffic through the tourist center, and something about the technology seems a little more modern than the computer behind the desk or the landline phone on the wall. The kiosk is a tall silver rectangle, about average adult height, and the upper half is a screen welcoming visitors to touch it to activate the kiosk. If you were to touch it, the screen would come to life with simple dialogue inviting visitors to ask it their questions.

However, residents should note that the kiosk is only programmed to assist with exploration within the available areas of the city. It may not be able to answer every question, and tampering with the kiosk may result in unreliable or inaccurate answers!

TO THE SOUTHWEST

The western exit of the station takes you up into a city park, lush and green with a very light fog still hanging about the trees. There are lampposts on the walkways and benches where you could rest, and plenty of flora, although you can neither see nor hear any signs of animal life. You walk the paths that meander idly through the verdant grass and you feel a sense of peace, some of your unease about this place easing into a pleasant calm. The air smells fresh, like it's recently rained, and you'll find the grass ever so slightly damp should you decide to take a seat.

As you make your way deeper into the park, the trees grow denser and the smell of soil and plant life grows stronger. This is the older part of the park, very nearly a forest, with ivy climbing the trunks of the trees and plants and shrubs growing riotously around their bases. As you turn a corner, you find yourself first in the statue garden, although the statues are harder to see now, choked as they are with ivy. There are many statues, some partially obscured, some fully—very few of them still stand free of the vines and clinging roots. (It doesn't feel quite as peaceful here.) If a statue's face looks a little bit familiar, you may not want to look at it too long.

Continue down the path and you will find yourself in a graveyard, one that seems centuries old. Most of the headstones are worn away by time and covered in moss, rendering them impossible to read. The few that are free of moss are blank, or bear only suggestions of names too faint to be understood. (Was that the name of—no, it couldn't have been. Could it?) Many of the headstones stand at an angle or are toppled over completely, having been subjected to either strong winds or the roots of the trees that grow up from some of the graves, spreading branches toward the sky.

TO THE EAST

The final exit of the station, to the east, puts you out on a quiet surface street. Are you hungry? Or are you paralyzed by choice? There are plenty of restaurants, offering options of almost any food you can imagine. You could try a convenience store—it's well stocked, and the items there seem free for the taking. How about a restaurant? There's no one to take your order, but when you look in the kitchen, there's something on the stove, and it's just what you've been craving. Imagine that.

A few blocks down, you come in through the lobby of a tall building and find yourself in a corporate office. The fluorescent lights are steady and unforgiving, and the cubicles and offices are empty. There are a few pieces of paper on desks, a few folders left in organizers, but everything is perfectly blank. Despite how empty and quiet the office is, it nonetheless gives you the feeling that just a few minutes ago, this place was bustling with workers going about their daily business.

You enter another building and find yourself in the lobby of an apartment complex—finally, a place to rest. The first door you try opens easily into a completely empty living room, freshly vacuumed but without a single piece of furniture. It's a nice apartment, quiet, but with a little too much echo for your taste, maybe. Still, and perhaps oddly, you have no trouble envisioning what life here would be like.

The second door you open leads to an apartment that feels lived-in. Why does it feel lived-in? It's fully furnished with items that seem to go together perfectly, true, but the feeling is more than that—the room feels like someone was just here, maybe standing right in the kitchen only moments before you swung the door open. The air is a perfectly comfortable temperature, and it somehow smells like home despite that you've never once set foot here before. The refrigerator is stocked, and the cabinets are full of spices and flatware and kitchen utensils.

As you look around the living room, you find that there are pictures in frames on the walls and some of the flat surfaces—a seascape, a field, a shot of a city park bench. In each of the photos there's something just slightly wrong with the angle, as though the photographer were aiming for a subject that can no longer be seen.

Characters are welcome to explore the district around the City Hall subway station to their heart's content. The City Hall building itself contains several floors of offices and file rooms, but none of them contain any particularly interesting information. Nonetheless, characters may wish to team up with other newcomers and try to find some hints about the nature of the city. They can also spend a while in the park, the statue garden, or the graveyard. In the blocks surrounding the station there are plenty of options for food and housing, as well as office buildings, storefronts, and alleyways to look around. There are no workers in any of the buildings, and there does not seem to be an honor system for payment, nor any consequences for taking food from the stores or setting up camp in an apartment or office building.

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I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM.

Have you ever visited the ice cream parlor located in District 2? It's a pretty quirky little joint!

When you walk in, what you'll likely notice first is the colors. Everything is bright, almost oversaturated—the pink of the leather seats, the teal of the walls, the red of the menu sign hanging over the counter. By all rights it seems like these colors shouldn't go together, but somehow they do, or maybe that's just because being in an ice cream parlor puts you in a good mood. It smells like waffle cones, and overhead, there's music pumping through the speakers at just the right volume, providing some nice background noise to your decision-making process.

Wait, music?

There's a jukebox at the far end of the shop, which seems to be where the music is being chosen. As you head over, the song comes to an end and the jukebox machinery shuffles through its options before landing on a new one. The song sounds sort of familiar, doesn't it? And the longer you listen, the more the lyrics really seem to speak to you. It costs money to pick your own song, so if you happen to have some coins on you—or if you're really, really determined—you can choose the next round of tunes.

When you're done at the jukebox, you can go check out the serving area of the shop. Behind the counter you can see milkshake mixers and waffle cone makers; there are ice cream cakes in the freezers that line the wall; and when you approach the main counter you can see the tubs of ice cream in almost any flavor you can imagine.

Pick a flavor, whichever one's your favorite! Do you want it in a cone or in a bowl? There are regular cones and waffle cones, and all kinds of toppings—sprinkles, syrups, gummy candy, mini marshmallows. Decorate your ice cream however you want, the sky's the limit when it comes to choices! You can even come back for seconds if you want, or thirds. Who's going to say anything about it, after all?

But the more of your ice cream you eat, the more you start to feel… strange. Maybe you're starting to get angry, or sad, or giddy—maybe you feel romantic, or feel like you want to tell a secret to a stranger, and you're not really sure why. You also can't quite seem to stop eating your ice cream, and the more you eat, the less worried you feel about whatever's happening to your emotions. After all, why be concerned about that when you have something so delicious in front of you?

Flavor Effect

Strawberry You find yourself compelled to seek out strangers and tell them a hidden truth about yourself

Rocky Road You find yourself compelled to seek out strangers and convince them of some egregious lie

Vanilla You are overwhelmed by a sense of total calm, and can only speak in aphorisms and platitudes

Rainbow Sherbert You are overwhelmed by amorous feelings towards whoever is near you and try to cuddle or kiss them

Chocolate You feel suddenly morose about something in your past and cannot stop crying until someone consoles you

Bubblegum You become uncontrollably giggly and giddy, and can only speak in rhyme

Caramel Ribbon You become angry and perhaps even violent, trying to attack anyone who comes near

Mint Chocolate Chip You suddenly have a common but exaggerated phobia (for example, a fear of heights where the step down off the curb is too much)

When characters first enter the ice cream parlor, they may notice that there's music playing overhead! That's from the jukebox, and the lyrics of the song may sound like they're particularly apt for a character's circumstances. Players are welcome to choose their own jukebox songs for their characters—it doesn't need to have appeared in canon, but characters from modern times are welcome to recognize the music being played. (Players can also feel free not to pick a real song at all, and instead just describe the overall sound of the song and content of the lyrics!)

This is an ice cream parlor, so of course there's also ice cream to be had. Characters can serve themselves whatever flavor combination they want, but shortly thereafter will find themselves suffering certain emotional effects depending on what flavors they chose. These emotional effects, shown above, will last for roughly an hour before slowly dissipating, and their intensity depends on how much ice cream the character ate and whether they were able to recognize what was happening and stop eating. Not every flavor has an emotional effect, so players can also choose to have their character eat a normal scoop and go about their day.

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WILDCARD.

The city is by no means small, and there are plenty of things for you to see. There's no rush in exploring, so feel free to take your time looking around and peering into various nooks and crannies and alleyways—and don't worry, you're not very likely to find anything peering back.

If none of the above prompts appeal, feel free to check out the Locations and Maps pages and write your own freestyle prompt using one or many of the available locations.

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      ɪ. ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴏᴏɴʟɪɢʜᴛ: ᴀʀʀɪᴠᴀʟ; sᴜʙᴡᴀʏ
[ Acrid.

The daemon inhales deeply as heavy eyelids raising to a haze of dull neon and screeching tracks. Rust, singed wires, overheated metal settle on his tongue in the next breath as he leans forward, flexing fingers gone stiff from sitting for who knows how long. Cracking his jaw on a yawn, Rokurou stretches and draws upright, a cascade of sunset shade kimono and scraped up armor. A mismatched gaze flicks here and there, body languid as though the situation has nothing to do with him—until a habitual hand reaches back to grasp the pommel of his sword.

The first ripple in a placid lake. ]

Oh, man…

[ Gone. As are the swords at his hip. Frustration mounts on that hollow pang, a slow ache building from the base of his skull in the upheaval of memory. Mildew, rocking seas, creaking planks—then blank. No matter how he scours he can't recall why he'd wake up here.

A solid hour is wasted scouring the train car for his weapons only to find a small vibrating brick. The questions on screen are swiftly answered before he tosses the thing into his pocket, leaving it immediately forgotten as he darts off the train and into the belly of subway system.

Hallways and turnstiles, doors and storefronts. It isn’t another prison—his initial instinct—but no less confounding despite colored maps plastered against the walls. Where the hell is he going? Where the hell is this?

But it isn’t an exit he’s looking for now. When Rokurou spies a face he skids forward on the heels of wanderworn sandals to snare whatever poor soul he’s found by slapping one gloved hand and one ungloved and palm-scarred hand down onto their shoulders so they can’t flee. ]

Hey! Hey, hey. Have you seen a sword around here? Not just any sword, it’s a longsword—about twice as long as a regular sword—you really can’t miss it! [ the eye unobscured by a thick cut of inky bang is as bright as a coin struck by sunlight, violent intensity melting into amber hues, ] I had it before but now it’s gone. Swords don’t get up and run away from home on their own, you know?

[ Assuming y’all haven’t slapped him off by now, he’ll go ahead and shake his poor victim by the shoulders. Sword!!! Where is it!!!!!! ]

      ɪɪ. ᴛʜᴇ ᴄᴏʟᴏʀ ᴀɴᴅ sᴄᴇɴᴛ ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡɪsᴛᴇʀɪᴀ: ᴄᴇᴍᴇᴛᴇʀʏ
[ Petrichor cuts away the scent of steel and smudges down the anxiety spike of missing Stormhowl. The daemon exhales, lungs expanding with fresh air. He's found his way to the earthy trails and leaning trees leading to the grove of the graveyard. Statuettes watch his path from alcoves of overgrown vine, their gazes heavy. Rokurou glances over his shoulder once, twice, fine hairs along his arms prickling before relaxing again. And again. Stone remains unchanging over and over; there are no shadows hiding amongst the marble silhouettes. ]

Finally found where the locals hang out, huh…

[ Naturally drawn to the cemetery like a wraith to remainders if its corpse, he palms over the face of one of the tombstones—but the name doesn’t become any clearer. Useless anyway, it’s not like he’d have known any of the dead here … Rokurou pushes back up from his squat with a narrowing gaze.

Another itch creeps up his arms, spidering along the nape of his neck. A different itch.

Time passes and the cemetery falls quiet. Leaves rustle and water trickles down along the grooves of carved stone. Maybe you’re wandering, maybe you’re lost, or maybe you’re visiting just your favorite haunt since you’ve settled in. Regardless, a raspy voice from up high will drift over when its owner spies someone else tread across the grass. ]

Do you think they’re all dead? The locals.

[ Don’t worry—it’s not a ghost. Just a young man lounging across a thick branch up in one of the trees closest to the plots. A languid creature, one foot is propped to keep stable while the other swings, the gesture rippling soft hues of purple and orange cloth that fall around his figure.

He peers down from his perch with an easy smile. A tumble of dark hair falls over his shoulder with the incline. ]

Or did I finally find one of you? [ the tone tilts in teasing as he sizes up whoever’s come by below. the amber of that single visible eye is warm and good natured as he laughs gently, ] Hi there.

      ɪɪɪ. sᴇᴇᴍs sᴏ ғᴀʀ ᴀᴡᴀʏ: ɢʀᴏᴄᴇʀʏ sᴛᴏʀᴇ
[ A sad handful of gald, no weapons, zero materials—the daemon rubs his neck idly as he wanders around one of the small supermarkets eyeing unattended goods. It’s like they’re asking for people to steal.

He would steal anyway, but it’s the first time it’s felt so easy. Is it even stealing at this point…? After a glance toward the front counter where an open newspaper and half-finished bottle of water sit beside the register, he shrugs and reaches out a sinful hand…

A crack resounds in the quiet of the store as the top of a bottle is unceremoniously twisted open. Rokurou considers himself a daemon of taste, a self-proclaimed alcohol connoisseur, but after scanning the labels of the bottles and cans filling the refrigerators he quickly realizes that he knows only a few at best. Maybe even less than that.

The names are strange. Twisted Tea, Spiked Monster, Sourpatch Kid Vodka Lemonade, Whiteclaw … none of them are sake and there’s not even a bottle of whiskey to swig. He's never even heard of an alcohol distilled from the claws of a white beast.

Finally having selected one—something called a vodka bourbon Mountain Dew—he takes a taste…

… and hopefully you’re not too close by, because if you are? He’s spitting that mouthful all over you with tears glistening in his eyes. If not, enjoy the sight of a young man clearly not from the golden era of slamming down the Dew with a chalupa having an intense moment of suffering. Far more suffering than when he woke up in a strange city without warning or memory. ]

Ugh! Ugh? Ugh!! [ aggrieved, he locks eyes and forcefully holds out the bottle like it’s an explosive, ] Taste this!

[ No wonder they’re giving it away for free. It’s shit! ]

      ɪᴠ. 月に遠くおぼゆる藤の色香かな: ᴀᴘᴀʀᴛᴍᴇɴᴛs
[ Dusk’s purple begins to settle across the city, the sky a flood of melting color. Orange flickers, its fingers spreading out from the line of the horizon. Pink melts. Clouds curl, catching different shades in an overlaying silk drape.

A young daemon sits on the precarious edge of an apartment building’s roof. Dark hair flickers in the wind, a wild mane that sweeps out toward the dying dapples of light. The length of bang covering his face breaks, a ghost of crimson peeking from behind black before vanishing like nothing more than a trick of sunset. That dimming gold washes over his figure, warming wheat colored flesh in one last surge of day.

Deft hands move across folded paper. Press crisp seams. An art prokect that, when finished, results a flying paper crane soaring across the gap between apartment buildings. Maybe your window is open and the crane floats inside, or perhaps it drifts on a gust toward your balcony. Maybe even far below, along the street, it's flown unfettered until falling to the sidewalk in wait to be found.

It’s plain paper nicked from a convenience store. Unfolding the crane reveals a line of lettering in broad strokes. The inky scent of sharpie lingers on the page, fresh.

    ∆∏∆⊡∀∆ ∆∁∆∏ ∆∀∏∏?

If spied, the daemon cracks an inviting smile and raises a hand in greeting. If not, or maybe even if his prey finds him, a second crane joins the first. No lettering inside this time; instead, it's a nonsensical doodle of your likeness with a profound question mark beside it.

Even if he knew that the cellphone in his pocket is much more convenient it’s not like he knows how to use it. It’s been long forgotten, anyway. ]

▉▉▉
      ▶ feel free to wildcard or give any of these prompts a wildcard flavor; if you'd like to hash out some details send me a PM!

[The onset of darkness makes the city's empty spaces worse — wide, hollow, echoing distances with shadows like long fingers stretched at every sharp edge. Sasuke has spent the day searching for information; he's found nothing, and he feels he has less than he did even when he began, as if the hours of futile investigation took something away. A precarious sliver of determination. In its place, Sasuke is left restless and frustrated as sunlight slips and night descends, pulling a veil across the sky.

The height of the buildings is an advantageous location. He'd scaled one earlier when deciding what part of the city to explore next, and it is here he returns, the concrete rim of a residential tower his chosen surveillance point. And where normally he would have picked out the presence of another person across roofs with keen perception — distracted thoughts, as well as diminished power, make it possible for the first crane to descend on him unaware.

A hand lifts, deft fingers snatching it out of the air moments before it lands atop messy black hair. He doesn't open it. Mismatched eyes, one pale purple and one black, coolly assess the stranger on the other roof without a wave in response. Only when the second crane swoops down will he bother to unfold the paper, finding the doodle, complete with a frowny face on the caricature of himself and the bold ?, within.

Breath fans from his lips as Sasuke steps up onto the edge of the building's embankment and leaps that distance, buoyed by chakra, an ease to this preternatural movement. He lands gracefully a pointed distance from the other man.]

What do you want? [Both cranes, crinkled paper warm from his hand, are tossed back.] This is juvenile. There are other ways to get my attention.

[ An easy smile and sharp eyes, Rokurou's keen for the reaction his mark offers when he plucks the paper from the sky. That gaze narrows with hiked intensity, a new ripple of frustration with his own limits. Normally his eyesight is topnotch—especially at night. It isn't bad now but it isn't ... the same. What should be clear beads of sweat trickling down a flushed neck or the crinkle of a brow are too far to properly discern. Another lack, another wrong, something else taken from him without his knowledge or before he could even fight back. The daemon grinds his teeth for lack of anything to bite out of irritation.

At least the stranger is kind enough to close that distance. Rokurou's smile widens into a grin sharing teeth before he whistles in appreciation for that display of graceful skill, snapping out a hand to catch the balls of paper thrown back when the other man's feet find the roof like it isn't mere trash. ]

You don't like my messenger birds? I thought they were pretty clever.

[ Gaze softening, a golden eye lingers on that swoop of a pale neck before flicking back up. Even with the sudden dulling of his senses, his doodle? On point. The daemon gives himself a mental pat on the back for rendering such a good likeness.

Then he sends it flying over his shoulder. (Littering is bad, kids!) ]

I wanted to talk to you! You've been all over today, right?

[ He doesn't try to close the distance between them. Leaning to peer over the edge of the building, he eyes where the ball of paper may or may not have went flying with his careless toss. Not a soul passes by below. A perpetual state of almost and just missed that stirs the urge to chuck a few more things off the roof in annoyance. But like all things beneath his breastbone, it simmers and cools with another breath. ]

I noticed you a few times earlier. [ a trace of a scent here, a flicker of movement there, breadcrumbs triggering a scratch itch itch scratch itch demanding the taste of sᴛʀᴏɴɢ ᴘʀᴇʏ— ] You're pretty hardworking. What do you make of this place?

[ He straightens back up when returning his full attention to the other man. Smiling anew, the daemon finally takes a few steps closer while holding his hands up in deference. ]

—right. Rokurou Rangetsu, at your service. I just arrived here.

[It shouldn't bother him, but it does. It's something he ought to have noticed — being watched by someone else, enough to be remembered. Stealth was not today's ultimate goal; there seems little need for it in this place, as empty and vacuous as a bad afterlife, but still this makes him careless. The irritation flickers across his face, there and gone again. An unhelpful day has worn his composure enough that he can't entirely school it.]

It would be irresponsible not to try to figure out where we are. [Sasuke had encountered others with much less urgency, and less foresight, although they were still as mystified by the puzzle of this city as him.] ... Uchiha Sasuke.

[The introduction of his name won't earn any new revelations. He's already expecting this; no one here has recognized him by it. And, likewise, Rokurou Rangetsu lights nothing in his memory.]

What I make of this place— [wariness returns, withdrawing one step for two of Rokurou's own,] is nothing. Books, pamphlets, folders... they're all blank. You can take anything from the stores without payment. The residential buildings have rooms that are completely empty, while others are furnished. It looks like people might have lived here once. If they did, they're gone now.

[Hesitation claims him then, but so far this other man has proved no threat. Yet Sasuke remains a rigid fixture on the roof, aura cold and bristly, like fine electric static — if that is something Rokurou might be able to sense.]

Have you been to the garden with the statues? Or the cemetery?

☺️

swordhardy - 2023-08-03 15:28 (UTC) - Expand

rokurou rangetsu ―〈 tales of berseria 〉

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dr snakes strikes again

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cat wife ...!

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