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
City Hall! I hope you don't mind c: I've been looking here and I couldn't help it.
[ That hardly makes it easier or any less annoying. She'd meant to click no to the orientation - maybe you're simply not allowed to ignore it she decided, or she misclicked, because she sat through the whole damned thing anyway. Useless, hardly necessary, and she was off. Half glowering at passerbys and keeping far to herself, she's looking for the other Guardians. The uniform, still covered in dirt and grime, is at least some kind of solace; For now she's still a Guardian, wherever here really is, and there's a job to do. ]
[ She finds a Guardian... Sort of. Not really, not in her timeline. But a sister she's a little on the mend with while still being estranged with is something. And rather they're at odds in factions or separated across time, she's not going to take her family for granted. She grunts, more of a snort, half of a greeting and just as much in response. ]
Of course they wouldn't want to be useful.
[ The remark is dry and she adds, ] Not to their prisoners.
[ Because if they can't leave and they're here that's what they are to her. ]
no subject
Nebula...
[For all her stoic and cool nature, there are threads of emotion in her voice as she looks upon her sister, as if not believing the sight before her eyes. It can be said that neither of them are the touchy feely type. Any sign of weakness had been snuffed out and feelings of happiness or joy had been among them. Yet Gamora cannot help it as she steps forward, full aware that Nebula may not exactly appreciate the unexpected gesture, and yet she hugs her anyway.]
no subject
[ So she doesn't expect Gamora's movements any more than she had all those years ago, but she's grown in her own ways. She doesn't flinch or pull back a fist, even if she still stands stiffly for a moment. Just a moment, because the movement is slow and awkward, but she does choose to half hug her back. ]
[ Her voice is a gruff grunt as she asks: ]
Why?
no subject
Why not.
Why?
Because she can.
Why?
Because there are so many moments lost.
A part of her thinks to question it all, to ponder if it is some test. If it is, to hell with it and any implications. Yet Nebula is solid and whole, does not vanish beneath her fingertips as she thought that she might. For a moment, a few heart beats, it can all go away, blown like particles on the wind, before reality does start to creep back in. She isn't a dreamer, although she may have hoped for a world without one like Thanos. A lofty goal and perhaps it is hubris that had been her downfall.
She pulls back, only ever so, hands resting on her shoulders unless Nebula steps away. It is confusion, and perhaps shame that crosses through Gamora's eyes for a moment.]
Thanos- did he...?
[He might not need her for another sacrifice, but that doesn't mean that he wouldn't inflict hurt if it suited his means. Kill her in turn, whether though a purposeful intent or by an uncaring result.]
no subject
It's the question that she asks with it's lingering meaning; For this Gamora, their father is still alive. When? How? Who? It doesn't matter. ]
Thanos is dead.
[ Firm, she may be lighter now but there is no way a past, present, or future her would joke about that. ]
[ But it does matter - she does matter, so she asks: ]
What happened to you?
no subject
But that... That. That is not something that Gamora expects to hear. True, it has been a goal that she has carried for some time now, and one that had seemed a little unattainable. One she had failed at, stopping his plans. But here is Nebula, saying he is dead. She isn't one to just spout things like that, which is what stills Gamora into silence.
Dead.]
You succeeded then?
[More of an all encompassing you than just a you as in her. Her gaze does break away from Nebula. It is fresh, all that had happened on Vormir. Between the sensation of falling down and the realization before she hit the stone beneath, to waking up here on a train.]
Thanos happened.
[It is an answer, isn't it? Not really an explanation. Her face hardens, that hate and self-loathing. For all that she had tried, it had been her that had gotten him what he had desired.]
It was my fault he got the Soul Stone.
no subject
[ They're behind her — the dog days are over — but they're not behind Gamora. She can tell that much now as her sister answers and she can begin piecing it together. Her jaw sets at the question: ]
Eventually.
[ Not soon enough. He still got what he wanted in the end and he still killed her to do it. ]
[ Gamora's follow up isn't unexpected - If this wasn't the Gamora she'd come to know again recently the only other answer would be that. There's an unknown feeling in her chest at the thought - it's not relief or pity or something in-between. It's indefinable, perhaps as much in its confusing nature as her still trying to understand more tender feelings. ]
[ A brief second and that jaw gives a tremble as she asks herself: ]
So that's when you're from...
[ She half glances away, in an age old kind of awkwardness at such remarks: ]
Vormir.
no subject
Eventually.
How many stones does he gather? ... all of them? She knows the power that they will grant him, making him a more formidable force that he already is. Knew that with the snap of a finger, he could alter the universe. It makes her sick to think about it. They succeed in the end though, says Nebula, and that will be a small victory for her, even if she will not be there to see it.
She swallows, hard, the question on her lips but she doesn't ask. The rest of the Guardians? Had they...? Rather she nods, glancing back to Nebula. It hasn't registered yet, that Nebula hadn't seemed like she was looking at a ghost and that there had been only a slightly odd reaction. Yet she speaks from a future stance, which will take Gamora time to wrap her head around, and instead she focus on now, giving a nod of confirmation.]
I underestimated him.
no subject
[ She knows better than to linger on a future that would not be her own, could never be here own. Telling her all that transpired would be a waste and cause more hurt than it would not. All that mattered was the end result: Thanos was dead. The details of the how and why and who meant little to the dead (formerly dead). ]
[ So she doesn't think about it, but she does offer a snort of contempt - not at Gamora. Just at everything. ]
You weren't the only one.
[ Does that include her in the mettle? Probably, at least some. Because even she was struck that he would kill his favorite for his mission. But more went wrong than Gamora going with the man that tormented them both - all to stop him from torturing her. She won't forget. ]
But what's done is done.
no subject
But there is at least one question that she can make certain of.]
You are still alive? ... the rest? Are they alright?
no subject
[ The question isn't wholly unexpected. She'd learned to always expect the worst, not hope to see someone again. Gamora is, in part, why she thinks that way. Hope lost never leaves a good taste - but Gamora's words are more ones of hope. ]
[ She could tell her that most of the Guardians had died - and they had - but it's no longer the truth. They worked damned hard for that, too, so there's almost a flickering of an amused smile. Almost. She swings her arms out as if to say 'here I am,' and her response is a singular word: ]
Obviously.
[ For her, but for them as well. ]
no subject
It is such a Nebula answer, so much so that it brings a soft huff from Gamora. The Guardians... sometimes she wonders how they, such a seemingly tag tag group, had been able to accomplish what they had accomplish. On paper, it doesn't seem possible. On paper, it seems like they would survive five second, let alone be able to take down Ronan.
Peter... The expression on his face when Thanos had taken her. She knows he is not alright, but so long as he will be alright... In time, and she doesn't expect him to just carry on. That isn't Peter. That isn't any of them. Yet in hard times, they have always banded together, even if they might squabble and bicker.]
Obviously.
[She echoes, eyes closing for a moment as she let's a breath out, before glancing around them. Then this place isn't some sort of... of an afterlife or whatever comes after being a sacrifice for a Stone. She has no precedent for it. She's not sure anyone does.]
You woke on the train as well?
no subject
[ There's really no other answer for it - she's not ready to get into sentiment. Not to her sister - this sister - who was a Guardian. Somehow, it feels like admitting to years of weakness. At least for now, there's a question to answer and a situation to figure out. It keeps her from lingering on it as she answers, ]
I did, but I wasn't asleep before I woke up.
[ Which is the most nonsensical thing to say, but there's no other way to explain it. She'd been wide awake on Knowhere and then suddenly awake on a train (and we're not even calculating how much sleep she may or may not even need). ]
Whoever can set something up to this scale has a power that rivals the Reality stone.
no subject
The few who I have spoken to have no answers.
[Not that Gamora immediately trusts what people have to say. It is something that she will want to investigate herself to confirm or deny. Blind acceptance isn't in her vocabulary - or at least is used only for a few rare people now.]
I was going to explore, see if I couldn't find a higher vantage point to try to understand more.
[That silent offer, not really an asked question.]
no subject
[ The answer is dry, a testament to the fact she's not expecting others around here to be capable of more answers. The ones she's received yet has been dissatisfying and she doubts they'll get any better. This place seems devoid of any information of actual worth. ]
[ It may be a silent offer and Nebula may even recoginize it as such, but the complexity of it isn't one she's unaware of. And she's not entirely ready to - in her own ways - so her answer may come quick and steady, but the distance is notable: ]
I'll check the lower levels. Break into any buildings needed.
no subject
She nods.]
I'll pass on any information I do find.
[But pauses. She hasn't delved deeper. Fear? Uncertainty? Awkwardness? Yet she does ask, allowing Nebula to fill in the blanks of her passing to when Nebula is from.]
How long?
no subject
... Eight years, by the Terran calendar. Five of it during the Decimation.
[ Which she knows Gamora has no words for, neither as the Blip or the Decimation - but her sister is no fool, she can take a guess. ]
no subject
Five years though. It's actually a little impressive that five years is all that it had been. It could have been so much longer. Having one Stone is powerful enough but all them? She wonders the particulars of how it had all come to be, but does it matter? She's a remnant of the past.]
Thank you.
no subject
[ Nebula's response is as immediate as it is short, something intangible in her tone. Not quite anger or disdain, not pity either, but there's something sorrowful in it all the same. She doesn't keep her gaze on Gamora. What is there to say or to offer? Perhaps she should warn her, of the future and herself. If she knew better, she'd warn her of Peter - maybe, but she doesn't. As far as she knows, it's just the two of them and there's no reason to complicate things for Gamora than what they need to face right now. ]
[ If they found a way out, maybe Infinity Stone bullshit science would let her return (or maybe it wouldn't). But to do that, they have to get to work, so she grunts as she pulls out the phone with a look of disdain for it - it doesn't look like the most reliable technology to an alien. ]
Contact me on this if you find anything.
[ If you need anything goes unsaid. ]
no subject
[For what she has told her, and for everything else, even the things that Gamora does not know. She knows Nebula will never be bubbly and sparkly, never charismatic and personable. Gamora won't either. They may be able to slowly come back from the years of trauma that they had suffered, but there are some aspects that are too ingrained. Trust will never just be given. Always looking over their shoulders. Aggressive.]
You as well.
no subject
You're not supposed to thank her Gamora what is she supposed to do with that. :/][ What more is there to say? Talking to Gamora had never been easy, less so than it is to speak to others who she didn't know as a child or under Thanos. She cares for her sister, certainly, but there's always something there even now - a tensity under the understanding and maybe if things were different she'd stay now. Certainly, she'd be there if something happened to Gamora, but it's one thing to go from past Gamora to someone who should be a ghost... even if she's much better at not freaking out than others.
It's a considerable pause, then, enough to mask what other things she might be thinking with if she wants to answer... but it comes: ]
I will.