A TRAIN COMES INTO THE STATION.
You wake up on a train.
Your phone is buzzing. It's in your pocket, in your hand, on the seat next to you. It's a normal phone, and you're on a normal train car. One of the lights flickers, a little further down. The world is very quiet. It feels like you're right where you're meant to be. On the phone's surface is a white screen and the words—
WELCOME TO THE CITY. BEGIN ORIENTATION?
▶ NO
Please take a moment to complete your orientation.
Once you're finished, the subway doors slide open to let you out onto the train platform. To your right, the platform continues on and eventually ends; to the left is a set of stairs that will lead you up into the station itself. The platform is quiet, clean, empty–there's no one else around, and the only sounds you can hear are your own footsteps, your own breaths, and the occasional faraway sound of a creaking pipe or rush of air. The train you disembarked will stay there as long as you do, its doors still open, until you finally decide to venture up into this new locale.
As you make your way up the stairs to your left, you find yourself in the belly of City Hall station. The station is large, a sprawling underground mini-metropolis of corridors and storefronts. Here, you may find others like you, freshly-arrived city residents from other realms (or even your own). There is also a subway map, which will give you an idea of the layout of the neighborhood, and ticketing machines, which can currently only be used to buy tickets to a handful of stations located on lines 1, 2, and 9.
If you're hungry or in need of any kind of supplies, there are plenty of storefronts inside the subway station as well—snack stands, convenience stores, restaurants, clothing stores, a pharmacy, and a variety of empty shops that may or may not have ever been in use. Everything is unlocked, and you can take whatever you need.
Characters may stay on the train platform indefinitely, and may re-board and re-disembark from the subway as many times as they like, but the train will not depart nor will the doors close. Once they go up the stairs into the train station, they may hear the train doors closing and the train departing. Another train will not arrive, no matter how long the character waits. Only once they come up the stairs into the station itself may characters encounter their fellow newly-arrived residents and take advantage of what the city has to offer.
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WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD.
The station is located in the city center. It has three major exits that lead to areas of interest in the district, but there are several other smaller exits that lead in other directions around the neighborhood. You are welcome to use any of them, but may find the north, southwest, and east exits to be the most welcoming.
TO THE NORTH
The northern entrance to the station leads up into the sunlight and puts you out in a brickwork plaza. There's a modest building in front of you, three or four stories of stone with a welcoming facade. There's a sign above the entryway–it says City Hall. You may be tempted to explore, if you're interested in learning more about the city and how it functions, but prepare to find yourself disappointed–the folders in the records rooms are full of empty, blank sheets of paper, and the logbooks and balance sheets are similarly devoid of information.
Immediately to the west of City Hall, you will find a small building that houses the tourist information kiosk. The kiosk is not currently operational, but you may want to remember its location...
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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A WASH, ANYONE?
The coin laundromat is tucked into the first floor of one of the tall apartment buildings. Soap is complimentary, and while the machines say that they cost a quarter per load, in reality they are fully operational without any money being exchanged at all. If you have any clothes that need a wash, perhaps items that have been dirtied by your explorations (or your travels before arriving in the city), you may want to take this opportunity to wash them for free.
From the soap dispenser, you can retrieve packets of detergent in different strengths. There's plenty of stock of for mild to moderate grime and for heavy-duty stains, but there are also a handful of packets with slightly less obvious purposes. For things remembered, says one. For unhappy accidents, says another. Feel free to use whichever seems most suited to your needs.
When your laundry cycle has ended, the buzzer sounds and the door pops open so the clothing can be retrieved. You grab a laundry basket and reach in to start pulling fabric out of the machine by the handful. But wait a second–the more clothing you retrieve, the less familiar the items seem, and by the time you've retrieved the last bundled sock from the depths of the dryer you're absolutely positive: These clothes don't belong to you.
You're sure that you put your own clothing into the machine, but these are someone else's clothes entirely. Did someone sneak in while you weren't paying attention and swap out your laundry? Or did you accidentally open up the wrong dryer to retrieve the wrong load? Maybe you'd better look around at whoever else is in the laundromat with you and have a go at trying to find the owner of these clothes.
Whether the characters have had their clothing swapped or simply opened the wrong machine to grab someone else's laundry is up to the player's imagination, but one thing's for sure: you have someone else's clothes in your basket. Maybe these are clothes that belong to another character in the laundromat, or maybe they're garments that belong to someone that character knew back home. Players are encouraged to mess around with the premise and use it to get to know other characters!
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COME ONE, COME ALL...
Have you ever noticed that flickering sign hanging in the window of that little building around the corner from the parking lot? The one that says PSYCHIC READINGS in bold neon lettering?
You step inside the shop and immediately smell a powerful combination of aromas: herbs, candles, incense, something spicy and warm underneath. It's a small space, cluttered with objects. A crystal ball covered in velvet sits in the center of a table, and there are tarot card sets and drawers full of dried herbs and flowers. On the shelves are various remedies with labels printed so neatly it's impossible to tell whether they're typed or handwritten. Headaches, or hemophilia, and also irascibility and fits of sighing. There are also jars full of less easily-identifiable contents, but a close examination may show you frog legs, fish eyes, rat tails. For some reason, it feels like sticking your hand in one of these jars might not be the best idea.
Toward the back of the shop is a glass case that holds the bust of a woman. As you approach, your movement triggers a light inside the case to illuminate the woman's face–or where her face would be, if she had one. The normal human features of her face are smoothed out until they barely resemble a face at all, with slightly hollowed divots for eyes and a faintly raised bump for a nose. The closer you get, though, the more strongly you feel that despite the absence of eyes, the woman is indeed watching you.
The lettering at the top of the case states FORTUNE TELLER, and a sign affixed to the front of the glass says, Ask for anything, but be careful what you wish for.
You form a question in your mind, then ask your question out loud. The woman shifts, straightening up, and you hear the faint whirring of clockwork and pneumatics moving inside her. She gathers her hands in front of her, cupping them like she's holding water, and strange light emanates from her palms, casting harsh illumination on the blank space where her face should be. Although she has no mouth with which to speak, you nonetheless hear a vaguely female voice intone, "Your fate has been read."
A paper slip emerges from a slot in the front of the case, your freshly-printed fortune, the ink barely dry.
Although the crystal ball will not actually show the future, characters with any kind of herbal knowledge may clock that the herbs and remedies in the drawers and shelves of the shop are legitimate. Characters can ask anything they want of the fortune teller, or make as many wishes as they like. They'll get as many fortune slips as correspond to the number of questions they ask. Players are encouraged to come up with whatever vaguely-accurate fortunes you think work for your character, but if you're low on ideas, you can always try an online Magic 8 Ball or fortune cookie generator.
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WILDCARD.
The city is by no means small, and there are plenty of things for you to see. There's no rush in exploring, so feel free to take your time looking around and peering into various nooks and crannies and alleyways—and don't worry, you're not very likely to find anything peering back.
If none of the above prompts appeal, feel free to check out the Locations and Maps pages and write your own freestyle prompt using one or many of the available locations.
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citycenter) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
citylogs2023-06-01 12:00 am
fortune teller
Anyway. Dimitri asks a good question, and Sylvain somberly declares his fortune.]
Never give up. You're not a failure if you don't give up.
[Yeah.]
Not sure how I feel about that, Highness, but I guess I can take it as a sign all of those slaps in the face mean something in the long run, huh?
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[ well. at least he's not alone, but also: why sylvain? but also: why just sylvain? the goddess has a very funny way of dealing with things.
only sylvain can take him out of his thoughtful reveries and into a more exasperated state, because that comment brings out the prince out of him. ]
... perhaps if I was added to the list you'd come to your senses.
[ kidding! anyway, he pockets his own fortune. ] It's not the wrong sentiment, however. In certain areas of life a degree of perseverance is required, and encouraged.
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Hopefully that perseverance doesn't include you wanting to slap my head off of my body, Your Highness.
[And Sylvain...gives Dimitri his fortune to also pocket because they can be friends in Dimitri's pocket, it feels right, somehow. Moving on.]
You know, being in here makes me feel like any second Seteth's gonna show up out of nowhere and drag us both off to remedial choir classes. Is it just me? It can't just be me.
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[ he frowns when he's given the fortune, and he looks at sylvain in confusion: ]
Shouldn't you keep it? It's your fortune, after all.
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[Sylvain says this with utter sincerity, like this is something he truly believes instead of just some wyvernshit he pulled out of his ass. And he says this with conviction, like discussions about pockets are far more important than things like where are they, what are they doing, what's going on, is there anyone else they know here, etc al.]
This isn't your way of saying you're gonna run out the back and abandon me, taking my fortune with you, are you?
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Where would I run to? You're more likely to get into trouble than I am.
[ they talk a walk. where to? nowhere. dimitri thinks he hears music, which is more or less an electronics store playing several different tunes. he follows it, out of curiousity.
he glances at sylvain strangely - ] .... you seem to be doing well.
[ you know. being transported here, fighting a black beast, miklan's everything, the realization that when he says his brother hates him, he really hates him. something he can relate when it comes to his uncle, and he pities him, although he tries to keep that out of his voice, keeping things light and neutral, staring dead ahead. ]
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[Walks are good. Walks are nice, at least up until the point in which Dimitri says that and Sylvain stiffens in a way that most people wouldn't notice, but Dimitri would. Ingrid would. Felix would. Dimitri would. It's like skipping rocks. It's like he's a lake and most people skip rocks and graze along the surface, and then Dimitri goes and throws a fucking rock and the fucking rock sinks, and the ripples spread out everywhere.
It's like that.]
Guess so. It's not like I've really got a choice, do I?
[Shrug!]
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[ and it's strange to say that coming from him. it feels sacrilegious. but it's what he realized when he first arrived here and someone asked him for his name and he stuttered and stopped before he got to his middle name: nobody cares what his name is here. it doesn't have the same weight, and it never will. not until sylvain was here, anyway.
so he says it, offers it to sylvain if he wishes to take it. ]
I don't believe I'd ran into anyone else but us, from our world. [ a pause, and then he adds, ] If you want to, anyway. I'm not forcing you to do anything.
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Yeah, but. [But.] It's not like Gustave's here to bail us out if I start to...be not doing well. [Sure! Sure, he'll go with that euphemism. Sure!] You've got me and I got you, and right now we don't have much of anyone else. Would be nice if we both had somebody like Dedue and Dedue had us, but we don't live in that world, do we?
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... what are you expecting to happen should you start not being well? [ sure. for whatever that means. ] The transformation [ the monster thing, the - ] happened because of the lance. And you have the Crest. The Archbishop had said it wasn't random.
I would like someone else to be here with us, too, just to assure us things will be fine, but ... I'd rather not see anyone else, really. [ so. ] So all we have is me and you.
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Yeah, so, unless that changes I gotta be someone you can count on. Not in a bad way, just more like- if I stop doing well, who will you turn to? Which means I need to take the...transformation, the lance, all of that, and set it aside for now. Leave it back home? Focus on what we're doing here. I'm your knight and your friend. Your friend who really needs to stop calling you 'Highness', now I'm thinking about it...
[After all, why draw attention to Dimitri's status when it currently means nothing? It'll only cause trouble. But, regardless, Sylvain drapes an arm around Dimitri's shoulders, tries to steer him towards That Thing With Music that they heard.]
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[ his arm is over his shoulders now, okay. dimitri keeps walking to the source of music, until they end up in an electronics store. there's nobody in there - as he looks through with a cursory peek - and there are fascinating images on the glass wall, but it's the same clip again and again of someone singing.
eventually it stops holding his interest and dimitri sits on the stairs of the storefront. ]
And so, if you wish to be anything else but the heir of Gautier for a minute, now is the time. [ a pause, and then he adds, ] For both of us. Because neither of us matter here.
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I can't tell if I'm the best person or the worst person for you to be stuck with. Because you're right. We don't matter in terms of status. People don't care if we live or die. I'd be the first guy to encourage you to try new stuff. But you know-
[Mouth shuts, mouth stays shut, he is not going to talk about feelings, it's way too early to talk about feelings regardless of what time it actually is, it could be in the afternoon and it's still too early to talk about feelings.]
We could get tattoos? [This is not what he was going to say.]
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[ what? also .... what is this non-sequitur? he can't follow his train of thought at all. he thought they were gonna talk about feelings. his butt was seated and prepared For Feelings. he had that pinched look in his face as he feels himself stand over a precipice because it's Feelings Time.
but not, apparently. ]
I don't want to get tattoos. Are you alright? [ hey, go back to the feelings channel. ]
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[...okay. Fine. He sees that pinched look. He feels Dimitri's regard.]
Fine, I'll say it. I can tell when you want something from me.
[Which is, apparently, Feelings. Fine. Sigh!]
I didn't bring up the knight thing just 'cause you're my prince. Sure, my father would tan my hide if he knew I was here with out and didn't look out for you, but what he doesn't know won't hurt him. I brought it up because you're my friend. And if your uncle was here instead of you, sure, I'd politely call him Your Majesty, but I wouldn't go out of my way to seek him out if I could help it, and I definitely wouldn't be sitting on the steps of a...whatever this place is, talking about feelings with him. [Because Dimitri's uncle is kind of a dick. And also because that's weird.]
So, even if our statuses don't matter, I'm always gonna be your knight and make sure you're okay. [...goddess take him.] I can't believe you got me talking about feelings. Feelings, Dimitri. We're from Faerghus.
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[ does it make sense, really? anyway he'll ... go with that.
he pays attention to his words. he nods at the appropriate bits. but there's a pressing issue here, which is that - ]
... I mean ... that is incredibly kind of you, Sylvain, but this isn't about me, either. Surely my knight can be honest to me about his feelings at all?
[ inquiring princes would like to know if that's possible. and he recognizes that's part of the problem, too, and why they're so bad at this - it's because they're faerghan, and he's forcing sylvain to do the impossible. ]
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No.
It's just him, and Dimitri, and some kind of store, and everything's empty. Sylvain's face falls, a little. He falters. He searches for words.]
I...
[Saying "I'm fine!" would be a lie and an insult now. And his prince is asking and he has to rise to the occasion, but...]
Dunno how I feel, Dimitri. Really. I don't know. How can I be honest about something I haven't even figured out for myself? Sometimes I feel all sorts of things, and other times I can't really say I feel much of anything.
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in any case that is answer enough, isn't it? dimitri pulls his knees towards him, hugging his legs close as he considers sylvain, the complicated way things ended before they got here, in a place of nothingness where nothing matters. and all of a sudden, by virtue of nothing mattering, everything is suddenly important, even the awkward silences.
so all he says is, ] Alright. That is fair.
... when you're ready, tell me how I can share your burden, and as your prince - in our world, in this world, if you so insist on it - I will do my best to bear it with you.
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But they're not in Garreg Mach, are they? Their titles don't mean anything here, and Sylvain just resolved to call Dimitri Dimitri and not Your Highness (unless he has to tease Dimitri and the title was necessary for that, in which case all bets are off) because drawing attention to the fact he is a prince somewhere would be more trouble than it's worth. And Dimitri's his friend and how much of that prince-Faerghus-duty thing applies here?
He doesn't know. And Dimitri wants to know what he's feeling. Just more feelings to add to the pile, to sort through later, by which he means never.]
Yeah. Sure.
[No, that sounds too much like he's taking Dimitri and disregarding him-]
Once I've got an answer for you and not just whatever it is I've got. I don't even know what I've got. I don't even know if I should have anything. Sometimes I feel like I should be more upset than I am, and other times?
[He's spiraling, going in circles. Dimitri tightens up; Sylvain loosens, stretching his legs, hands against the step, feeling the rock beneath them.]
Quick change of subject. What do you make of this place?
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anyway he leans his chin over his arms as he has his knees pulled up against him and ponders his question. change of subject. ]
... it's empty.
And as it's empty and we're here, I suppose it needed to be filled.
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[He leans back. If they weren't on steps he'd just lie down. They are, and it seems uncomfortable, so Sylvain just remains awkwardly leaned back, weight on his arms, legs sprawled out, regretting leaning back already.
Actually, yeah, nevermind, gonna sit up again.]
You'd think they'd at least grab somebody like Mercedes. Not that I'd wish her being stuck here by all by herself, but you know. She probably would've found the best cooks and organized weekly potlucks by now.
[Sure, it hasn't been that long, but she's got that sort of energy.]
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We can still make a potluck by ourselves, if we find some willing companions. I'm sure that's going to be an ongoing project. We don't even know who else is here. [ dimitri pauses before he adds, ] Or when will it end.
[ he can feel sylvain shifting beside him restlessly, and when the other boy decides to sit up again, dimitri shuffles to his side - to keep him steady. ]
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It'll be nice to have a break from doing all the cooking, probably.
[Because, yes, they're going to live together. Even if they haven't discussed living together, they're living together. It would be stranger not to. He's saying this like it's a fact, because it is.]
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[ like, vending machines exist, that's so amazing. ]
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Yeah, you and me both. I can't imagine the sort of people who'd build a place like...this, and it's not like it's ruins, or run down, or there's any signs of them leaving. It's like they just...were erased. You know?
[The nice thing about being this close is that he can nudge Dimitri, and, so, he does.]
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brought to u by my friend reminding me coffee is only in dagda/south in 3h
omfg they will DIE
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