JUMP TO MONTHLY PROMPT ↓
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, 3, 4, 5, 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 center. 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.
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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IT IS THE ULTIMATE SHADOW, THE DEFEAT OF CREATION.
In one section of the newly accessible portion of the city, nestled in among normal looking residential and commercial buildings, is a wide and relatively short and industrial-looking building with no windows and only one grand set of black glass doors set into one side. Above the entrance is a neon sign that plainly states ART. with smaller letters sm added to the front in metallic paint. Hopefully, this simple signage will give passersby the impression that this is an art exhibit of some kind, with a twist.
DO NOT TOUCH THE ART…
Once stepping through the front doors, guests will be greeted with a lobby with walls covered in vertical neon lighting that pulses in a rotating rainbow, and mirrored ceilings that make the space feel surprisingly small. To one side is a bar where various cocktails await pickup. They don't have any special effects, but being a bit tipsy might help enhance the experiences waiting for you beyond. There's also a rack of bottles behind it, stocked with the typical liquors and mixers, if you'd like to play bartender for a while. Thanks to the disorienting amount of colored lighting and dark corners, it may be easy to get lost and turned around in the large building, and guests may be surprised to find that they're unable to locate the exit (or entrance) while alone.
After leaving behind the lobby and stepping into the exhibit proper, you'll find yourself walking through a central winding hallway with large rooms branching off from it in both directions at regular intervals. Some of them are more interactive than others, but all of them are dimly lit except for the "art" that guests will find themselves in the middle of, encouraged to touch and participate in creative collaboration. A few of the simpler rooms include:
Hanging ropes that will light up where touched, changing color with the amount of kinetic force applied: purple for a brush of the fingers, red for a crushing grip. These pulses of light will travel out to either end of the ropes the longer touch is applied, and considering that the room is pitch black and seemingly endless thanks to the mirrored walls, you may want to find some help in lighting up the dark.
A sunken floor filled to the brim with translucent plastic balls. This ball pit is a literal bath of color with every-changing light shining up from the floor of the ball pit and diffusing through the balls. A wall of cubbies at the room's entrance awaits belongings and shoes that are asked to be removed by a polite sign at the top of the stairs that descend into the ball pit. Be careful, for the pit is deep and it's easy to sink beneath the surface if you sit or lie down; you may see some shadows of people a ways away from you, but if you wade through the balls to their rescue, you won't find anyone tangible there.
A small theater of benches all facing the back wall that is a single large screen. The display is a moving series of lines on a black background that give the audience the sensation that the room is moving, or they themselves are traveling through the space. Atmospheric music—mostly heavy bass and noise that's been timed with the movement on the screen—hums through the room and adds to the sense of immersion.
... IT MIGHT TOUCH BACK.
One of the more interesting rooms is actually divided into three smaller rooms, each with a heavy, sound-dampening door that only has a small square window set into the top of it. Through the window, you can see that there is a red room, a green room, and a blue room. Stepping into any of them will be a different experience where guests will be entirely immersed in the color—even the window is a one-way mirror from the inside, blocking out any sights from beyond. The longer guests stay in these isolating rooms, the more disoriented they'll become, and it's entirely possible that moods will shift from the experience. Be careful stepping back out into the exhibit itself, your eyes and ears may need time to adjust.
In the green room, guests may feel like they've stepped into a concentrated and unfiltered essence of nature. The speakers play a variety of animal noises layered with leaves rustling and branches creaking as they move as well as wind, rain, and other kinds of weather. Looking at yourself, or your companions if someone stepped inside with you, you see their eyes and teeth pop clearly in the bath of green, somehow more obviously animal than ever.
In the red room, the temperature is higher than the rest of the exhibit, not uncomfortably so but noticeable all the same. Looking down at your skin, you can see more of the blemishes, the dark spots or pale scar tissue that contrasts much more starkly. From hidden speakers in the ceiling comes a mixture of sounds that are hard to place as they're so layered over one another, but the overall noise is inorganic, discordant, unsettling. It's hard to focus, let alone look at anyone else you might be sharing the room with.
In the blue room, there is almost an absence of experience. The only sound is a low, steady hum that vibrates through you as you stand and close your eyes almost on instinct. Everything gets erased in the layer of blue that covers everyone and everything in the room, skin looking almost gray from the lack of any other colors that are so often associated with life.
The last room of note is completely black and empty except for three massive umbrellas of flowers and other plants that are suspended from the tall ceiling, illuminated by lights shining on them from above. Each umbrella is about as high off the ground as the average human and varying by a few feet or so, so that it's possible to stand or crouch beneath them. Once standing in their shadows below, guests will be able to hear whispers coming from above…
These whispers tell real secrets of city residents—past, present, and future—though names are never included. The secrets are told in their own voices, though, almost like confessionals to a confidant or their pillow in the dark of night. These secrets can be positive, negative, or simple fact. Some may be shocking revelations of guilt, or shy mutterings of love, or secrets spilled as if the speaker has never thought of this part of themselves before. There is a hush throughout the room, and if guests were to whisper to each other beneath the umbrellas, conversations would not be easily overheard.
Residents are encouraged to meet up in the bar with friends, grab some drinks, and then head into the art exhibit. It's also a great place to meet someone new as there will be plenty of interactions happening as everyone hopefully discovers a bit of their inner child. There's no right or wrong order to exploring the rooms, but residents will not be able to find the exit without the presence of another with them—even if you came alone, you're leaving with a friend!
For the Secret Garden whispers, players are encouraged to make up something scandalous to discuss with others or even have their own character's voices whisper to them from the flowers. Please remember to discuss with other players before including any information about existing and potential characters that may affect their gameplay.
Inspiration for this location includes 9 Lights in 9 Rooms as well as Hopscotch. Title is from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?.
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WILDCARD.
The city is by no means small, and there are plenty of things for you to see. There are even some places that other residents have created! 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. We highly recommend checking out the Character-Run Locations as well - they might be great places for new characters to get started!
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citycenter) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
citylogs2023-11-01 09:00 pm
face in hands... my shame... my thirst...
[ it's idle musing, really. hong lu's picturing it, and there's something terribly sad about the prospect, almost like dragging a dead bird like roadkill. hong lu likes his companions more than he would like a dead bird. and in any case - yi sang looks unwell.
so hong lu picks a door, and strides through it with the confidence of a man who has very little idea where he's going, only that he's going to figure it out when he's getting there. the hallway stretches before them. the lights from the previous display dims. hong lu measures their steps until they're halfway down said hallway. illuminated by only the dim LEDs that frame the walkway, hong lu looks down at his companion in his arms. ] Feeling better?
well you have my attention go on...
Please refrain from dragging me across the floor.
[ The droning hum from the theater exhibit fades away, alleviating most of his headache. Cautiously, he opens his eyes halfway, blinking several times as his pupils adjust to the new lighting. He rubs one of them with the back of his hand while considering the other's inquiry. ]
Yes, much better. My head is clearer, and the squall gathering within my stomach appears to have quelled for now. You have my thanks.
[ He glances up at his current companion, tired irises meeting Hong Lu's mismatched ones. ]
You may set me on my feet again. I believe I am presently capable of standing.
grips ur hand...
[ says hong lu, with the light airy tones of someone who absolutely does not believe the bullshit he's saying, but is content to say it anyway. it gives him time. their eyes meet. three dark eyes and a single, bright cyan blue. hong lu takes his time. there's no rush. he observes yi sang's pallor, and the set of his jaw. he looks down curiously at the wrapped planes of his stomach, in case he can spot the storm that had been brewing.
but yi sang does seem a little better, even if it's in an incremental way. hong lu nods, and lowers him to the ground. feet-first, because he understands how people stand! ]
Let's see... if you fall over, though, you'll owe me a meal.
you can use your words it's ok...
Refraining from dragging me across the floor; it is, indeed, an ideal outcome from you.
[ Yi Sang exhales as he's set back on the floor. It is good to feel one's feet steady against the ground. He doesn't think he'll owe his companion a meal anytime soon.
He glances back at Hong Lu with a curious arch of his brow. Now that he's feeling better, it's much easier to string his thoughts together. ]
This city is... unfamiliar to me. Perhaps it is fair to assume it is similarly new to you as well.
[ Yi Sang hasn't traveled much, but he knows by now that he's seen more places, more Districts than someone kept in a gilded cage like his current companion. ]
slides into ur dms...
[ says hong lu cheerfully in a sing-song tone, without a single hint of irony or otherwise. yi sang stands. well, that's one meal that hong lu won't be able to bum off of him, but there's always another chance. it's not a bad thing, to see that his companion is truly feeling better. the manager isn't around, after all. if anything happened, he wonders if anything could bring yi sang back. they are in a strange place, after all, and nothing says this isn't another dimension, or that he himself is experiencing a distortion.
what an odd thought. would hong lu know if he is experiencing a distortion? what would it feel like? much to think about. but yi sang is saying something, and hong lu carefully brings himself back, his hands tucked away behind him neatly so he can consider this. ]
Hm... It resembles a Nest, though. Well, only on its surface. It's as if the skin of the Nest is covering the Backstreets beneath. What an odd place, isn't it?
no subject
Also, there's no way the Backstreets would ever be home to anything like an art gallery. ]
It is strange, yes. Initially, I had thought this was simply another District, but a District would not be so barren.
[ Yi Sang falls silent, deliberating on all of his earlier observations. He hadn't run into any other living souls, but there were signs and traces that people had once lived here. It is for that reason he was drawn to the art gallery, in hopes that it would have a guest or two for him to ask some questions. ]
I arrived by train, but... I do not recall witnessing any other passengers. It is for that reason which I find myself grateful to meet a familiar face.
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as expected, what yi sang says is amusing all on its own. hong lu's head tilts as he considers this at length. ]
Why are you grateful to see a familiar face? Did you miss me as well?
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A familiar face acts as an anchor when one finds themselves in a curious place.
[ After all, that's why he hadn't pushed Hong Lu's hand away earlier, and instead, held onto the other man's wrist.
The second half of the other man's inquiry is more complex. It would be inaccurate to assert that he'd missed Hong Lu, given that he'd last seen the man a little over an hour ago. But over the span of days, weeks, perhaps even months -- yes, he'd miss any of his old colleagues.
Only after he's sorted through those thoughts does he respond, because Hong Lu deserves a proper answer. ]
Sufficient time has yet to take flight for that to occur.
[ It's not a "no," rather, a "not yet" in more words than necessary.
He pauses again. Should he have said yes? ]
no subject
yi sang falls silent again. hong lu waits. the second half of his answer makes more sense - it's in line, hong lu thinks, with his own understanding of what it means to miss someone. his head bobs, pleased, as he picks at his own fingers behind his back. ]
I think the same. It hasn't been more than thirty minutes since I last saw you, so it wouldn't make sense to miss one another. Did you know, though? Don Quixote missed me, as did Sinclair. They say they haven't seen either of us in months. That's long enough time to miss someone, right?
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Indeed, that length of time would be sufficient.
[ Perhaps in the past, Yi Sang would be able to endure the separation. After all, he'd possessed little interest in getting too close with those around him. It happened several times, where his feet would be like cinder blocks, unable to chase after others moving with a shifting world. Following after them would be futile in a world where bonds ultimately led to ruin.
Things are a little different now though. ]
...I believe after several months, missing one's colleagues and companions would fall within the realm of possibilities.
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hong lu's little smile is gentle. it tends to be. he considers yi sang's quiet words. ]
Are you thinking about your past companions right now, Yi Sang?
[ the fate of the fated nine. ]
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There was nothing to miss, nothing to yearn for after such an inglorious fall. The act of "missing" something requires there to be a person, an idea, a memory that one can salvage from the past.
[ Reminiscing on those times had been like swallowing a bitter pill. He'd done his best to forget, to turn his back on that past. ]
...and yet, I see that is no longer the case. It is said that volcanic rock and ash make for rather fertile soil. Upon initial glance, one might believe they stand before ruin. But should they bend their knee and sink their fingers into it, they may discover the verdant sprouts of mountain orchid.
[ He opens his eyes again to glance back at his current companion. ]
...perhaps my sole regret is that I failed to appreciate those idyllic days in the moment. And if possible, I... would prefer to avoid that same mistake. Thus, I have no desire to return to those days. A river can only carry a dead leaf downstream, though... it seems that flow has been temporarily interrupted.
[ After all, being here means he won't be any closer to tying up the League's loose ends. ]
no subject
[ says hong lu, who thinks of the myriad art pieces that dot this funny little exhibition. he thinks of the embroidered brocades and the elaborate wall-paintings decorating his family's estate, delicate wood carvings that were so thin you could see light pass through them. hundreds upon hundreds of master craftsmen working on pieces like that, but none of them were as entertaining as the funny balls in the pit over int the next room.
hong lu shrugs. very reasonably, he adds: ] Besides, if 'missing' something means there needs to be something that you can salvage from the past, weren't you in that past too? You should be able to salvage yourself. Or is that what you mean? That you're a verdant sprout?
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I --
[ It's a little nudge, a little reminder of what his reflection had tried to tell him: he'd had the ability to pluck the pieces of the past off the floor all along. ]
...I suppose I may be one. The memories of those days, they are more than sufficient for proper soil.
[ He glances over his shoulder in the direction of the other exhibits. ]
Perhaps you may add to it.
[ There's a whole rest of the museum to witness, and while they are here, perhaps more memories can be added to grow additional sprouts. ]
no subject
hong lu thinks - ]
Mm, I don't think I've ever been good compost, though. Shall I lie down for you?
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Instead, he observes a map mounted upon a nearby wall. It doesn't provide much description on any of the exhibits, save for the names of each one. ]
...so long as you do not lie down in the installation we have just exited.
[ He is, admittedly, a bit fatigued from that experience. Having to be in that room again really might end up with him purchasing a meal for Hong Lu. ]
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[ says hong lu happily. his head tilts as he joins yi sang in front of the map, looming over his shoulder with the patience of a very large, pleased and sedate dog. there are quite a few rooms, he notes. there are three that are coloured.
he points. ]
What about these? They're the colour of stop-lights - well, if they slow at blue instead of yellow. Perhaps that's how it is, in this city.
no subject
[ As usual, Yi Sang gives Hong Lu's musings serious consideration. Then again, Yi Sang has always thought in terms of potentials as opposed to limitations.
So he imagines a stoplight, replacing the yellow light in his head with a blue one. If that is the case --
He glances over at his companion hovering over his shoulder. ]
The green one then. Let us begin there.
no subject
[ the green one, hong lu thinks. if it's something that yi sang has taken the time to think through, then it must be the right way to go about it.
still, hong lu thinks of the way yi sang had been unmoored. hong lu tilts his head. ]
Yi Sang, hold out your hand.
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Yi Sang cants his head a bit to the side. He doesn't quite understand the request, but he lifts his hand, palm facing the ceiling.
For what it's worth, he'd be content to comply with most of his current company's requests. ]
Is this sufficient?
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earnestly: ]
Isn't an anchor attached to a ship? That's what it looked like on Mephistopheles. [ a familiar face acts as an anchor when one finds themselves in a curious place. ] Now, we are properly attached~
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He doesn't quite understand its purpose, but Yi Sang closes his hand around Hong Lu's anyways. ]
Do you think of me as a vessel...?
[ His only real frame of reference is Faust's busboat. ]
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well, how do they get there? hong lu, too, doesn't know how to read a map. but you had to start walking to get somewhere, or so the logic goes. ]
Do you think of yourself as a vessel? [ hm. ] You contain yourself, don't you?
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He falls silent, deliberating over Hong Lu's question. Perhaps he wishes to engage in a bit of wordplay. ]
...that is true.
[ There had been a time when he did not make a particularly good container. It seemed nothing could fill him or provide any purpose, and instead, seeped out of a hairline crack along his walls. ]
The process of determining what I might contain is an ongoing one.
[ After all, he'd spent most of his years content to fill himself with other's requests and desires. So long as they was a smile on their faces, that was all that had mattered. ]