A TRAIN COMES INTO THE STATION.
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?
▶ 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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SO A TURKEY WALKS INTO A BOWLING ALLEY...
There's a bowling alley open in the newly-accessible district, and you're invited to come test your mettle!
Walking into the lobby, you're struck by a peculiar combination of scents—shoe polish, floor wax, pretzels and nachos, and something pungent and a little oily. On the wall behind the desk is a shelf full of pair after pair of shoes, in every size you could possibly imagine, and there's a low rack filled with brightly-colored, heavy bowling balls that are ready for the taking. You can also hear the low hum of machinery and the rattle of pins being reset every time someone knocks them down, the bowling alley a well-oiled machine despite the fact that no one seems to be manning it.
You can bowl alone, start a match play (1-v-1), or bowl as a team, but you'll quickly find that bowling is much more fun (and somehow easier) when you're playing with others. Maybe it's because being around other people raises your spirits, but you feel more confident when you step up to bowl, and you find that when you're playing as part of a team, the bowling ball travels faster and in a straighter line, and you seem to be making strikes and spares with much greater frequency. Teamwork really does make the dream work!
If you occasionally see what you think might be the shadow of someone passing behind the machinery at the far end of the lane, don't worry about it—that's probably just your imagination.
If you stop by the bowling alley at night, you will find the place totally transformed. There's a disco ball hanging from the ceiling and brightly-colored lights flashing and dancing around the floor and walls. Any white parts of your clothing glow a delightful blueish color, and you find that you're illuminated in all kinds of interesting shades by the blacklight bulbs glowing in the ceiling. This is cosmic bowling, truly not for the faint of heart!
When you've finished bowling, you may want to stop by the snack area for a pretzel or hot dog, a soda, or—if you're there for cosmic bowling—maybe even a more adult beverage from the food counter on the far end of the building.
There isn't anything especially spooky about the bowling alley—except, of course, being forced to wear shoes that have been worn by a hundred strangers before. Characters are welcome to find their shoe size, grab a bowling ball, and go to town! Characters who come during the day will encounter a normal bowling alley, but they can always come back at night to get the full cosmic bowling experience. There will always be shoes in their sizes, the pins will reset themselves, and the balls will always be returned. Just be careful, those ball chutes can crush your fingers if you're not careful!
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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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citylogs2023-07-01 11:00 am
sarafa | nier re[in]carnation
Graveyard
graveyard. (hi~ canonblind but i'm also qrow on bkst! lol)
He does give the hoarsely cackling woman her time to get it together. In fact, the scrawny-seeming, somber boy continues to stare in silent observation well after most would call his extended notice rude, or even unsettling.
No one ever taught him to look away from weirdos.
Finally, after she's made her exclamation: ]
It's fake.
omg HI...sorry for her all over, she's. from nier. that's it that's her excuse.
So it is.
What a lovely thought, though...A comforting one. I wouldn't mind that illusion, if it ever happened again...Nor if it became real. Have you seen any familiar names on these gravestones, or is it only me who suffers so?
NO don't apologize she's great!! let women be unhinged 👌👌
[ His head tilts. He'd thought she sounded... not happy, exactly. But not sad in a way that Heero recognizes.
She clearly didn't dislike it. Right...?
He looks out over the graveyard, the tombstone and statues. Remembers how haunted Quatre looked. This illusion is a very powerful one to the human psyche, Heero thinks. He should keep an eye on it. ]
It's common.
[ the "for every else" is implied. ]
RIGHT. we deserve unhinged women and they deserve freedom to be batshit u_u
Is there no one who would distress you to lose, or who would please you to see dead? Or am I reading too much into it? Do forgive me if so. I only wish to find some common ground.
[A lie, but then, she's happiest in her lies.]
no subject
Common ground? With him. ]
No.
[ He doesn't expand on what that 'no' means, whether there's no one close to him or grudge he harbors. He has no idea how to explain that he sees the names and he doesn't know whether he's allowed to feel anything at all, because he has yet to determine if he's involved in an active war zone or not.
How viscerally his stomach turns when he sees her name in stone and has to walk away, unable to check if she's safe.
He can't think about it. ]
I know a hallucination when I see it.
graveyard
And what does he find instead?
He finds an attractive woman who breathlessly tells him that she's dead! and he does the only sensible thing, which is the following:
1. He takes a half-step back, the reflexive half-step one does lest the follow-up is her shouting something like, "And you're next!" And throwing lightning at his head. Or something.
It comes with the territory.
2. Make sure his hands are somewhere she can see them. No sudden movements.
3. Blurt out the first thing that comes to mind, which is an enthusiastic,]
Great!
[Totally supportive of whatever's happening here.] Who's dead?
sylvain's craze-dar is the best protection of all.
[It's her mom bro, her shitty, shitty mom. Or so she thought, but the thought's a buoying one; enough so that Sarafa gets back up and does a dreamy little spin, arms floating through the air with the poise of a dancer.]
Sometimes, justice is a real thing. I hope I didn't scare you so with my joy, however; I know it must seem quite unbecoming, but you would understand, if you had seen what she had done. Oh, you would understand.
no, the best protection is actually the fact he not alone in the city and, thus, responsibility
[Yeah, sure, he'll go with that.]
Still look radiant.
[Sure why not.
It should be noted how he's saying this, which isn't...smooth. It's not smooth. He's not trying to be smooth. He's as smooth as homespun cotton: not the worst? He's not burlap. But he's also got lumps and bumps in his delivery.
It's far from being smooth as silk.
Because this isn't flirting and flattery to fuck a woman, this is flirting and flattery to feel out the situation, and flirting is, sometimes, a reflex.]
You just caught me off guard. And sometimes a bastard needs to be killed, so...
[So...]
Yeah. [Yeah.]
I'm pretty sure I saw a store over there if you want me to run over and grab something you can deface this grave with, like some...uh, paint? Eggs?
Station
[Now this is a turn of events. Yudil died. Swept out to sea — with her. Infinite darkness swirling all around.
The strangeness of this place no longer seems to matter. The mechanics of this world. The constant noise. The life forced back into him like air in his lungs.
Nothing at all seems to matter when she’s here now, turning to face him. Eyes open at last.]
I don’t want any of that.
[Yudil watches the way she weaves the trinkets through her hair. He watches her eyes, the familiarity of them dawing at last, and he thinks: I just wanted to make her smile.
Is it her? Could it be?
Fate is strange. Fate is cruel. And maybe, in a way, it is kind. In another world — the one they’ve left behind — he would have given her all the hair trinkets she could have wanted. He would have given her everything.
Instead, he is here. Damned to face her once again.]
no subject
[Oh!
Oh!!! Her eyes fly open when she hears his voice, and she smiles so hard that it feels as though her face is going to crack into pieces. For good measure, she undoes the veil with the shyness of a blushing bride, just so that he can see the tiny way her lips curve at the sides (and how it doesn't match her eyes, full of wildfire).
She winds a hair tie around her fingers and moves in closer, as though to put it in his hair despite the fact that it's pink, with a plastic Hello Kitty knock-off, but...Thinks better of it, even if they're both unarmed.]
But you could have everything you ever wanted, here. Look, even the thing you wanted the most~ Was I not accurate to the end?Who wouldn't kill to have such a wife? Ha!
[Her smile manages to widen enough that teeth show in a white sliver, and she puts the tie in her hair at random instead.] You got what you wanted, and I did too. Why aren't you smiling?
station!
Typically, one must pay for the items they take.
( call him a stickler for the rules. it's here where arjuna steps inside to discern if there's anything more useful to seize in the paradise of possibility that this store offers, a gloved hand trailing almost solemnly across a spotless counter. items with bright colors litter the corner of every display, child-like in all their splendor, oblivious to the future that awaits them: to be snatched up and worn without a price. )
I take it there's no clerk, then, much like a few facilities that're now behind us.
( arjuna's gaze flits about cautiously, as if he expects something to wolf them down. )
no subject
[She snaps a cherry hair clip in her bangs, then a banana one just below it. Perhaps not cute at all, with the mishmash of colours her long, dusty pink hair is becoming, but fuck it. Her childhood was stolen too early, and she's going to cherish the simple things right now.]
There was no one here. Now I am here, and what I take is mine. What you take is yours, unless you take it from me. Then you are the thief. But why squabble over such things when there's plenty to go around?
[She pauses, then plucks up a small bow hairclip, in a soft shade of mint. Holds it out to him with a curtsey.] A token. Peace, truce, whatever you would like to think of it as. Rejection will be seen as a refusal of these ideals.
ugh... she's so cute
arjuna shuts his eyes, letting go of the stress that'd been building from the pit of his stomach since they'd stepped off the platform and into the deliriously clean quiet of the station. he's sure his brothers would've humorously said that his self-opinionated convictions in reaction to her may have been far too off-putting of an introduction...
in any case, he needs to relax. tuck that hall monitor attitude away. it's not as if she were mistaken; nobody was alerted by the swish of fabric, and nobody else except them was listening in on what they were saying. the store was otherwise empty. a tormented farewell to all these goods.
he accepts her offering sheepishly, fiddling with the hair pin awkwardly between fingers that just barely catch any shadows. she's not expecting him to wear this, is she? )
A truce, then. Even still, the prospect that some artisans may not be getting adequate compensation for their efforts concerns me. If I'm to take then it must only be what is necessary for my survival.
( said like a true hero. maybe. a pause, and then, straight-faced: )
I trust these are... essential items for you?