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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citycenter) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
citylogs2023-07-01 11:00 am
i don't remember what i first saw
The white hair is striking even from a distance—a stark contrast from her pale skin and dark hair—though any admiration on the matter remains hidden. She steps close; Not too close, but enough so that she need not raise her voice to respond (enough to try and catch sight of his face). ]
Perhaps the residents have long since achieved immortality.
[ Her jest is dry, and perhaps easy to miss with her initially neutral expression. That would be until she sees his eyes in the sunlight. Red like blood. They are stunning, but she is subtle in her appreciative glance. If anything, his unusual appearance puts her more at ease, softening her sharp features just a touch. She need not worry about looking so unkempt with her hair unbound. ]
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but this isn't the underground. the sky is still blue above him, and although heine knows that einstürzen's depravity has no bounds, he's still relatively sure she's not able to coordinate something like this. (besides, the woman's unkemptness actually helps—the shock of her appearance is one thing, but the physical resemblance isn't there.)
he snorts equally dryly at the joke, his hackles lowering very slightly. ]
Condolences to them, then. [ fuck immortality, actually. or maybe they deserved it. heine isn't sure yet. ] Achieved immortality and fucked off altogether, leaving their dead behind?
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Vanessa dares to glance up at the clear blue of the sky. Somehow, she doesn't look up as often as she used to; not without desolation. ]
Hm. To become as gods, would you then choose to remain in the past?
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Dunno. I might. [ not that he was given much of a choice, about the immortality. the godhood, on the other hand... ] But most wouldn't, I bet. Gain some power, enough to put you above most... cull the weak and the dissidents, leave just enough left alive to worship what you've created.
[ after all, what's a god without adherents? and einstürzen didn't do what she did to even the playing field. ]
When you put it that way it's not so strange that the city's empty.
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And so we are here to worship, then? Which self-proclaimed god keeps us here?
[ It does make her realize, and she ought to be ashamed it took her so long... Has she seen any churches since arriving? The architecture of the city is so alien to her that she may have walked by one without even noticing. Were it here, it would be as much of an illusion as everything else.
Wicked temptations twisted into something pure. Her eyes cloud and narrow, and her nails dig into the top of a headstone. Vanessa looks through him, wrapped in the concept. ]
Who would keep us in a realm that should tempt us with an eerie perfection, but the Devil?
[ Where do you hide, 'beloved'? ]
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[ ah, fuck. heine had looked for a church, once he'd come up from the train and adjusted to the experience of bona fide sunlight on his skin. hadn't found one, but that doesn't mean one doesn't exist. if ernst is going to be anywhere, that's where he'd be. ]
Me, I don't know that gods and devils are all that different at the end of the day.
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It would be as ridiculous as her masquerading as anyone serving the church. To be compared to any priest is laughable. Faintly, she can still remember the taste of one priest's torn flesh, and her fingertip reaches to touch just beneath her lower lip while her other hand seeks comfort from the rosary in her skirt's pocket. (It offers none.)
The memory of a different priest gives her further pause, but only because his own words could strike disturbingly close to similar blasphemy: If you have been touched by a demon, it's like being touched by the backhand of God. It makes you sacred in a way, doesn't it? It makes you unique, with a kind of glory. ]
The glory of suffering...
[ The whisper is uttered as distantly as her glare, before she recalls who she's speaking to (a mere stranger still) and the intensity behind her gaze diminishes a fraction.
It always lurks beneath the surface, no matter the occasion. ]
There is a difference. One knows only the ugliness of envy and nothing of true beauty.
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the glory of suffering indeed. ] I heard even Lucifer was an angel once.
[ he shrugs. he has no dog in this fight. ]
Not that I care one way or another.
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[ She has no right to speak of the church or its practices anymore. Once she had been lost as a Catholic girl in a Protestant England, but now she could not even claim to be that. As Lucifer fell from Heaven, so too has she fallen from the faith. How much simpler it would be if she could choose to not care.
Vanessa ought to be grateful that her hand doesn't burn when it slips free of her pocket to rest against the headstone once more. Does he know as little as he seems to? Suspicion coils in her the more she considers why he may be here. No matter if he is a sinner like her; is he a trap? ]
But he did not fall alone. Did you hear that, as well?
[ Nobody else should have, and so she watches his reaction with the pinpoint readiness of a cobra. Little escapes her sight. ]
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Can't say I did. I missed out on the churchgoing part of my youth. [ just a tiny understatement. truthfully heine didn't set foot in a church until the bishop dragged his broken body there, some six-odd years ago. ]
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But this young man has too unique of an appearance to act as a successful spy. She sees his tension, but with some consideration doesn't judge it. For now, she decides him to be no enemy. ]
It was not taught in any church.
[ But should he be free of the prophecy, then let him remain that way. ]
But I can no longer speak for the faith. I can only say with assurance that if Lucifer still desires my submission, then he is to fail, and his envy will be overcome by regret. If he is here, then I shall find him.
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...Okay. [ his eyebrows are up about as far as they go, trying to wrap his mind around what she just said. ] Hope he's not here, then. Or if he is, that the ass-kicking is swift and brutal.
[ heine thinks this lady's beef with the church might rival his own with the underground, and that's really saying something. ]
Heine. [ he points up, at his own chin. ]
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Yes, she's always this intense, though usually it's quieter. Everyone (her most of all) is lucky that it isn't any louder. For now, the cobra in her soul stays coiled and dormant.
If anything, the tension nearly softens to something nearing amusement at his response, and her lips quirk a bit. This time, the humorous consideration is less cynical than her initial jest on arrival. (Ass-kicking?) ]
Vanessa.
[ A pause, then with a start she remembers her manners. Just because others are omitting their last names doesn't mean she needs to forget all propriety. ]
Ives. Vanessa Ives.
[ How embarrassingly slow of her. Vanessa's lack of sustenance might be catching up with her, and she leans a bit more into the gravestone for balance as a dizzy spell attempts to take her. She shakes it off. ]
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[ if it sounds german, it's because it is! not that heine has a concept of germany, being from ambiguous melting-pot future europe.
heine might not be a social engineer, but he's observant. he watches the sway, the steadying grip on the headstone next to her. if she's gonna croak, at least she's in the right place for it—but unfortunately she's also in terrible company for it.
the best sympathy heine can offer is a distracting question: ] So, you new?
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I will not be here long enough to be considered anything else. [ Especially if this is some circle of Hell. ] What of yourself?
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[ heine looks up at the sky, still so goddamn blue, and then shrugs. after a moment he straightens up from his gargoyle posture atop the gravestone, stretching to his full height before hopping down to the dirt. ]
Hell, I don't know. I'd like to say the same, but this place... [ he shoves his hands in his pockets. ] I think there's more going on beneath it than we know.
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What we must find are the cracks in the surface. The beauty of this world does not...belong.
[ And if it were all an illusion? How might she combat that? ]
Might I ask where you were taken from, Mr. Rammsteiner?
[ Dare she hope for a familiar city uttered by her new German albino acquaintance? ]
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he slants a look at her that invites her to return the information, but doesn't press if she doesn't offer. ]
Looking for the cracks in things is my speciality. [ this isn't even the first time heine has had to look for the cracks in a city, as it were. ] But you know this place takes from us, right? Like any, uhhh. "Special" [ real air quotes, there ] skills you had back home are probably mostly gone.
( ooc: heine's city almost definitely has a name, but the name isn't dropped in canon, so i'm going with "something that sounds german and probably vaguely familiar but not immediately recognizable" as the poison of choice orz )
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How she wishes to return, especially as he reminds her of the worst instance yet. ]
Oh, I was made keenly aware. I did not believe it at first, but I have been proven the fool several times over.
[ But there is something she knows to still be there, no matter its dormancy. She is no witch with simple magics; they cannot take what is innate. This is the only belief that can sustain her for now, or else she may let desolation consume her.
She is not accustomed to someone else speaking of having unique abilities, and not so freely. How does he intend the meaning for himself? He said 'us'. Did he only mean his weapon? He had reached for his holster on her appearance. ]
And you have 'special' skills that they attempted to weaken?
[ An attempt at the air quotes. She's quick.
He had mentioned seeing through cracks, but Vanessa had assumed it to be metaphorical. ]
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[ and it speaks to something considerably more sinister than just kidnapping. being able to grab people from their lives and drop them somewhere else is—unlikely, heine will grant, but possible. being able to grab people and undo what's inherent to them is another task altogether.
and at least in heine's case it shouldn't be possible, not as long as he still wears his collar. ]
Yeah. [ he doesn't offer what they are, although probably five minutes in a gunfight would give heine away. ] You know what really gets me, though, is they took my fucking guns. I like those guns.
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Or would he be happier with his monsters tamed?
He certainly wouldn't be happy if his firearms were taken. Thinking of him now makes her heart ache. Before being brought here, he had only been just outside the cottage, waiting for her. Is he still waiting? ]
They must be kept somewhere. Perhaps we can find them.
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which leads to the problem. ] No security forces, though. [ he ticks it off on his fingers. that would have been his first guess. ] No police, no army either. [ another finger. ] No churches I could see. That was the last ditch, in case it was some kind of "you get your guns back when you repent for the people you've killed with them" kind of thing.
[ judging by the cavalier tone of heine's voice, he's not especially remorseful on that front. ]
Only place I haven't checked is the city hall.
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I was there. I could only find blank papers. I...admit I did not check every room before I became...impatient.
[ Someone had a temper tantrum. ]
I will help you find them.
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he regards her warily for a second. kindness freely given is a rare commodity where he's from, and heine is in the habit of considering the strings attached to every offer. ]
In exchange for what?
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Remaining out of my way, should we happen upon the ones who took them.
[ Assurance he doesn't get too trigger-happy before she gets to do her thing. ]
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1/2 i hate myself
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breathes heavily i love it here
60% chance of miss ives getting punched in the snoot by the end
i apologize in advance just in case
she can take it
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the psychic part won't work but the gentle compulsion can for a short time (only if you want it to)
heine will enjoy his brief moment of not being a micron away from a nervous breakdown
the spa package includes a mellow joint and a boobhug as amenities for less resistant clients. alas~
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