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.
JUMP TO TOP ↑ | ↓ JUMP TO COMMENTS
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.
JUMP TO TOP ↑ | ↓ JUMP TO COMMENTS
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!
JUMP TO TOP ↑ | ↓ JUMP TO COMMENTS
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.
JUMP TO TOP ↑
|
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
citycenter) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
citylogs2023-07-01 11:00 am
no subject
But he's afraid, and he's lost, and he wants to get out of this foggy overgrown place. The boy reaches out, grasps the man's fingers gently. It's maybe a comical sight, considering that Peter's hardly a young child, and also that his lank frame reaches six feet tall, but here he is holding onto someone and trailing along like an overgrown toddler. Did Daan ever expect to have a giant possessed duckling at his heels...? Life is weird!
He'll follow him, movements slow and stiff and occasionally with an odd little convulsive shudder that ripples up from within himself. The question makes him think, confused and afraid by his own confusion. His name.....? (What is his name?)
The man says he can say no if he wants to, but Peter's shaking his head fitfully; there's more to it than simply refusing. ]
I don't remember. [ Not yet. It's there, somewhere, but.... there are so many other things there in him, too. The boy's frowning deeply, giving a sharp wince. ]
I think I might've... hit my head or something. I can't remember.... a lot.
no subject
There's a small sense of relief in knowing that his hand is taken. He's careful of course, like he's dealing with a stray confused animal, but nonetheless Daan accepts the progress with silent enthusiasm.
His gaze is compassionate at the answer, then nods.]
I'll have a look at you if you'd like. I'm a doctor, so perhaps I have some insight if I do a brief examination. But if you do have a name, it should likely come back to you in time.
For now, let's just leave this place behind us.
[Worst case scenario, a person can always just pick their own name. Something that sounds or feels right, although he wishes it was easier than that. Whatever this man's been through has been enough to hurt him deeply.
So carefully, Daan aims to guide Peter slowly out from the cemetery, toward the closest seating they can find that's well enough away from the headstones and gloom.]
no subject
His fingers curl around the man's, and then tighten a bit, latching on. Still, his grasp is mostly soft, not much strength behind it. He's so tired. But he'll follow Daan, trudging through the thick overgrowth on worn Converse sneakers, not once letting go of his hold on the older man's hand, trailing a bit behind him. The trek continues to that odd garden of statues, and Peter doesn't like it here, nudges closer towards Daan's back, nervous.
But when the path clears out a bit again, towards the city's park and its more sparse trees, he can relax a little bit more. Breathing in the faint scent of petrichor, it feels like the woods he knew back home. (Before they became so dark and horrible, hiding lurking things within.) When he was a little boy he enjoyed playing just outside of his house, in the safe line of trees there.
There's lampposts casting a soft glow through the lingering fog, and benches, and when they draw close to one, Peter finds himself moving to sit without conscious thought, his body exhausted. Long limbs slump there; he gazes at the soft ground below. He hasn't let go of the man's hand yet. ]
Glad.... to be out of there.
no subject
So he doesn't fuss over his hand being held. Instead, he follows to sit next to Peter, tilting his head to examine his face.
Broken nose. Set and bandaged decently. Daan could probably finish healing it with a spell, but to be honest he isn't sure if doing that is wise. Peter is in a delicate state and it might only serve to trigger him.
So he refrains, instead focusing on other parts. Scrapes, weariness, not to speak of on top of the anxiety and fear. Not all wounds are so easily healed, after all.]
As am I. I think we're both better off not going back there.
In any case, I can look into checking on your nose and replacing the bandage. It might hurt a bit, but you should be fine.
[Physically, anyway.]
no subject
He can... tell it's bad, though. The pain, the sharp smell of blood. The way his eyes feel swollen at the edges. His face doesn't feel like his face anymore, feels like some foreign mask he wears, something that's too thick and too tight and aches too much. He wishes he could sleep until everything stops hurting. (Will it ever stop hurting?) ]
Okay. [ He agrees softly, with that same obedience. It's some quiet relief, again, to have a doctor nearby. And slowly, thoughts and memories trickle in, voiced slowly. ]
At school... the school nurse was there. Then I think they took me to the hospital.
....I think it's broken. My nose. [ He winces softly; even that slightly movement of his face hurts. But if the man does want to take a look at it now, he won't resist. Maybe there's medical supplies somewhere in this city, fresh bandages, wipes. It'd be nice not to smell blood, constantly. ]
no subject
["It", whatever it is that happened. Either way, to know he was treated at the hospital makes sense, as the work does look professionally done of what he can see of it anyway.
Broken nose. It'll heal, if nothing crazy happens.]
There are pharmacies around here. Undoubtedly, there are places with first aid containers as well. If you're up for it, we can have a small walk and get that worked on a bit?
no subject
I think so. I think I hit my desk.
[ Was smashed into it is the true thought, but it can't be real. It... can't. He had some sort of episode, some kind of break, did this to himself. (Only he can't shake the memory of that whispering phantom at his ear, and the alien light flashing, lighting him up from the inside out. The pain came from within; it was like nothing he's ever felt in his life.)
Peter closes his eyes for a moment, feeling the pain radiate more sharply at just the memory alone; his body can't forget no matter if the details in his mind are so hazy and strange. When he opens his eyes again, he's giving another soft nod. ]
Okay.
no subject
[With a slow pace to give Peter leeway, Daan does guide him toward the closest pharmacy that he can remember; it's a bit of a walk, but manageable, letting Daan get the supplies he needs to help check on and clean up the younger man.
Daan's touch can be described as gentle yet firm. He's careful but decisive as he cares for the broken nose. There's the temptation again to just use magic to help its mending, but... no, he won't give Peter more reason to dissociate and panic. With good reason, really.
At the end of it, Daan takes out his phone.]
Let me give you my contact information. Reach out to me whenever you need me, and I'll do what I can to aid you.