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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citylogs2023-11-01 09:00 pm
no subject
It's not important.
[ Nothing he can't figure out by talking to Altria right now, he figures. ]
Do you instead need some help with picking all of those up again? It's probably better than just leaving them to lay around like that. [ They'd go to waste! Especially with the way the shops seems to be restocking less and less often lately.. ]
no subject
[She looks sheepish, but seems to at least be aware that if she bends over to try to pick them up, she's likely to make just as much of a mess if not more of one.]
That's very kind of you to offer. I'll... be a lot more careful from here on out...
no subject
And it gives him a good excuse to ask about said hoard in the first place. ]
How come you have so many of these though?
[ It's just truly a wild, wild amount, Altria.. ]
I mean, not to rain on your parade or anything, but.. there are other people who need to eat too, you know. [ At least it doesn't sound like he's full on scolding her. He's a dad, so if he was scolding someone, they'd know it for sure.
Instead he still mostly just sounds lightly confused. Altria seems a little bit too old to be someone who'd instinctively hoard this many snacks. ]
no subject
His words sink in slowly; it's pretty obvious that it's slowly chugging through her brain, making all of the correct stops to help her connect the dots.
Dot A: these weren't just leftovers people tossed out that they didn't want.
Dot B: these belong to everyone, then, they're not just garbage for her to hoard and pick up
Dot C: she was absolutely stealing, then.]
I--um, I didn't mean to steal these from everyone! They were left out and I'd never seen anything like them before so I wanted to try a few, and before I knew it, I'd grabbed so many...!
[AaaaAAAA.]
I'm sorry, I'll go put them back right away...!
no subject
Daniel can recognize the slow onset of panic and embarrassment. It's definitely not the sort of emotion he wanted to induce in the other, so he shakes his head. Usually he'd put up his hands to make a soothing gesture, but.. you know, he's kind of got those bags of snacks in his hands, blocking him from doing so. Truly the way to render an Italian-American man incapable of doing what comes naturally to him.. ]
Hey, it's alright. Don't worry.
[ Hopefully the friendly smile has the same relatively soothing effect - he hopes. ]
It's not stealing. The stores-- It's a little strange, right, the way they're unmanned? You really must have gotten excited. Don't worry, I understand.
no subject
She's still bright red, but his efforts to soothe her do work despite that; she settles a little bit from "panic" to something closer than reasonable embarrassment.]
R-right... I've never seen any of these foods before, so I acted without thinking...
[This is a trend with her.]
... But I don't really need them, so I truly can go put them back. Um, I started grabbing them from over there.
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[ Daniel is already looking for a reasonable compromise here. She looks relatively young to him - then again, just about everyone looks relatively young to a guy in his mid-fifties - and it wouldn't be Daniel to not want to indulge a young person just a little bit.
Especially one stuck in a crappy place like this city. ]
How about we put away most of these, and then pick the ones that look the most appetizing to you for you to take back with you? [ He smiles at her. ] Does that sound like a plan?
no subject
... If you think that that is really okay, then... yes! That sounds perfect.
[She's still a little concerned about taking food that others might need when she herself doesn't need to eat, but...
But...!!
... One bag is surely fine. He even said so, and he would know, probably!]
I'm going to start putting all of these back!
no subject
It's quite a balancing act, but hey, balance is Daniel's thing. ]
Do you remember what store you took them from?
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[Of course she was snooping and ferreting around a bunch of them. Of course she was. It can never be easy.]
But it's okay! I'll remember them by sight for sure. They were all so unusual looking, I could never forget them.
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Unacceptable.
So he's definitely resigning him here to maybe an hour of visiting various stores across the city to put all of this back.. ]
Sure. We'll figure it out. [ Apparently not blaming Altria in the slightest, he just flashes her a smile, seemingly unbothered by the task ahead of them. ] Is that practically all you've been doing so far since showing up here?
[ Since it kind of seems like it..
Well, at least she's got her priorities straight in that case, right. ]
no subject
Um... well... I guess I got distracted, and before I knew it, I'd spent a lot of time trying to find all of the different kinds...
[... So. Yes.
... Ahem!]
Oh, there's the first store over there...!
no subject
So it is.
[ He'll push open the door with his foot - look, his own arms are also kind of full - and hold it open so she can wander in first to put back some snacks.
Which also gives Daniel an opportunity to talk again. Sorry, Altria, you almost managed to sneak past this point, but apparently the man hasn't forgotten.. ]
Does that mean getting kidnapped to a strange empty city is that much of a common occurence to you?
[ It doesn't sound like he's judging her, really. If anything, his tone is a little curious..
.. it wouldn't be the strangest thing he's heard about someone's previous experiences, after all. ]
no subject
[Said so casually, chipper and calm, as she carefully places chip bags and candy bars back.
She scoops up the rest of what she has, moving back towards the door for the next shop. It takes a moment for it to sink in that he's concerned about her reaction.]
... I suppose I figured I'd find a way to make it back eventually.
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[ His tone doesn't sound like he's looking down on her for it though. Sure, some people might find it kind of a simple reaction to a situation like this that could be so distressing to some people, but..
Something about it is a little nice. He hopes she can keep that kind of optimism, even when this place seems pretty determined to try and break people down. ]
I'd really like that too. Finding some way for all of us to go home. None of us should really be stuck in an odd place like this in the first place. [ A slight pause, and then he does add: ] Especially since it's not all fun and snacks.
[ Considering she's saying she hasn't done much else here yet, Daniel can't help but wonder if she's even gotten to speak to anyone who might warn her about the dangers here..
So maybe he'll have to be the messenger here, even if he hates giving bad news like this. ]
no subject
...?
[She didn't think it was all fun and snacks (probably), but the way he says it is so deliberate...]
What do you mean?
no subject
Bad things sometimes happen here.
[ He isn't sure how much he wants to get into details here. Altria seems so sweet, and a little innocent, and Daniel wants to do nothing more than protect the innocence of people younger than him. ]
Sometimes this city makes us see things that aren't actually there. Really unsettling things. And at other times it actually makes us attack each other.
no subject
Not unlike faeries in general, by nature.
She nods a little, expression thoughtful but not terribly surprised.]
I see... so that's how it is...
[...]
It sounds like you've been through a lot! Have you been okay? Are you hanging in there?
no subject
Ah. Hm. He expected her to take that news a little harder - but after she had a moment to think about it, she mostly seems worried about.. him?
Daniel isn't sure if this is a good thing - she's showing that she's concerned about other people, after all, which further reinforces his rather good first impression of her - or a bad thing - does she just not.. have a sense of danger, maybe??
It leaves him staring for a moment before he finally exhales, shaking his head. ]
You really don't have to worry about me. Especially when I'm the adult here. [ He thinks she's quite young, at least. Maybe not a full on kid, but she definitely looks like a teenager to him. ] That means I should be asking you that, you know?
no subject
[... Right. She supposes he is an adult. An adult human, maybe? But it's hard to say for sure. Wow... she's still getting used to seeing those.
Hm... It's kind of him to want to look out for her, she thinks, even though it feels a bit strange too.]
Well, I'm totally fine. Thank you! I mean, the fact that this place is dangerous is a little unexpected, but... [Feels a bit like home, really.]
I'll be okay!
no subject
[ He's trying really hard to be tactful here. Even if she's young, and even if that makes him assume that it might be the overconfidence that young people tend to have - Daniel was one of said youths, okay, he knows.. - it's not like he wants to be mean about it, or seem like he's underestimating her.
That would just feel cruel.
So he tries to give her a soft smile. ]
Have you dealt with dangerous situations before? [ There, that might be a better - and more neutral - way of finding out why she's saying so easily that she'll be fine. ]
no subject
But... it sounds nice, too.]
Hmmm... I guess you could say that... I can take care of myself, if that's what you're asking! And I've been traveling on the road and fighting off monsters all on my own for a little while now!
no subject
You fight monsters? [ It would have been a more surprising concept to him a few months ago, back when he was still new to this place, but.. well, at this point she certainly isn't the first person he's met here who seems very familiar with the sort of concept you'd only see in movies where Daniel comes from. ]
Because it's the only way to get around? Or is it maybe your.. [ .. he'd say job, but she seems so relatively young.. ] -- some special task you have?
no subject
I guess you could say that! Back home, I'm on a pilgrimage.
[As one does. Casually.]
But there are mors--that is, monsters--and other things like that out on the road, so it can be a little dangerous sometimes. But don't worry! I have my magecraft, and I have friends who are traveling with me.
no subject
It sure sounds like she comes from the kind of world that's very different from his own - a concept Daniel has had to grow rapidly more familiar with in this place. It seems like the man has a brief struggle to process what she's saying, but he slowly looks a little more normal again before he nods.
He's learned to just accept the oddities as they come. ]
Well, it's kind of you to tell me to not worry. [ Let's focus on that. Let's focus on the normal stuff, thanks!! Especially since he can actually smile at her as he says this and mean it. ] Do you think any of those friends are here too? If you're not sure, you could try describing them to me, I might know them. I've come across a whole lot of the people in this city by now.
[ The upside of running a diner-slash-social-gathering-place.. ]
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