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
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[Izuku quickly yelps on the spot and then flusters to turn away to frantically scramble with the laundry machine again. He quickly starts riffling through it to hopefully find something- anything- that he could wear until he can find which machine ate his hero gear.
All he finds is a long oversized black shirt... That will have to do for now? He quickly pulls it on and it hangs low enough to at least cover his brightly-coloured boxers.]
There... I still don't know where my gear went. I put it in the wash and dryer to clean it and now...
[It's vanished.]
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And maybe there's something that they need to talk about. But Katsuki doesn't want to. Doesn't think it's really necessary to mention what they had been doing before arriving here. Not the scar that's smack dab in the middle of his chest or how he almost - ]
Are you sure you got the right machine?
[ Just asking! Focusing on that is... Easier. For now. ]
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This wasn't exactly the kind of reunion he'd been hoping for either, okay?]
I- I have to check the other machines... Maybe somehow things got mixed up. Can you help me, Kacchan?
[Please, he's dying of embarrassment here. And maybe it is better to be dealing with this weird situation than the reality they actually have to deal with.]
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Because Katsuki doesn't want this shitty nerd to think of him as weak. To think that he couldn't hold off or out until Izuku got there. Doesn't want the other to realize what a failure he must really be.
So yeah. This is. Easier. ]
Tch. You don't even know! Typical.
[ Yeah hold on. he's turning around to check those machines. ]
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It's not my fault? I swear, this was the machine I was using but my gear isn't in it anymore...!
[So he's going to another machine to check! This place is strange and a lot of strange occurrences are happening... Is this one of them??]
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Then probably back to stupid because that's just how they are.
Katsuki is moving through the dryers. Looking at what's inside. Scowling. ]
Oi. Izuku. Look over here a sec.
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[Izuku perks up like a rabbit on high alert! Coming over to the dryer he comes to see what Katsuki has found!
Please be his hero clean gear his legs are kind of cold!]
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Meaning, he's found some of Izuku's gear. Instead of being nice and, you know, just handing it over? He throws it right at Izuku's face. ]
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Ahhhnhn?!
[Izuku gets slapped right in the face with them and almost loses his footing. Okay now he would really like his Danger Sense to be working properly...]
Kacchan!! You didn't have to throw them at me?!
[That was mean?! He frowns on the spot and gathers up his gear from the floor...]
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Fucking weird.
But then he's looking at Izuku and snorting. ]
Tch. Your reaction is worth it.
[ Since he can't handle it. That expression that Izuku has when he is... Concerned. Filled with emotions and about ready to burst. Those eyes are too fucking expressive. ]
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At least you managed to find my gear ...
[He mutters...]
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He stares for a moment before turning away. ]
Some of it. Dunno where your cape and gloves are.
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Well. One dire situation into another one. This place is not making his anxiety any better.
Izuku finishes wiggling into his suit and then frowns to start looking through machines again.]
I'm sure they're here somewhere...
[At least he hopes...! And when he does find them he quickly yelps and holds them up in victory. This yellow fabric is very important to Izuku, after all.]
Ah!
no subject
Bakugou is also aware of the fact that the looks are going to come back. As far as dealing with it goes? The blonde is also waiting for the other to be fully clothed. ]
Now if there's something you wanna say? Say it.
[ Apparently he just couldn't do it while Izuku wore basically nothing? ]
no subject
... I...
[Izuku looks at Katsuki and while he might look like he might look away for a second Izuku's eyes are glued on him. Like he's afraid that Katsuki might vanish if he blinks.]
I'm just glad that you're okay right now, Kacchan.
[He doesn't know what else to say in the very moment of it all. He frowns. Fingers clenching the fabric gently.]
Do you ... remember what you were doing before you woke up on that train?
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But he's getting there. Katsuki can see it in the way that he fidgets. In how he keeps holding onto that scarf and just trying to find the words.
Of course he doesn't just come out and say it. Probably never will when Katsuki is involved. Because things between them are just. Complex. ]
I remember damn well what I was doing.
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But Katsuki's words make a painful image flash in Izuku's memories and he clenches his jaw. He swears... He's going to lose so much sleep.]
Shigaraki.
[Izuku swallows a breath.]
You were fighting him.
[Or was it more like... Katsuki was barely holding him off? Trying to buy Izuku time?]
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Yet in that moment, all he could think about was - ]
Yeah. Things went to shit after we got split up. Was hoping you'd get there.
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I was trying my best ... But I...
[He can't help but feel like it's his fault. If he was only faster. If only he had been there beside Katsuki instead of behind him.]
Kacchan, I'm not sure what happened for sure before I woke up here on that train but I ... I'm sorry.
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Which is why his hand shoots out. Grabs Izuku by the front of that dumb cape that means so much to him. Yeah, his voice is hoarse. Thick. But firm. ]
Don't fucking apologize. The plan was never for me to take him down on my own. Just better be enough for you to finish the job. Got that?
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What kind of job is it to get done if you're not there too.
[He bites out with tears welling up in his eyes.]
I should have been faster. I should have been there. You shouldn't have had to buy time for me in the first place.
[He should have been strong enough.]
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[ Augh. The shitty nerd is making his guts twist. Like, he knows how much he must mean to the nerd. Katsuki can't fathom why, not really. But he acknowledges it. Hell, even the Crusty Bastard had said something to him. It's just he doesn't really know how to feel about it.
Then again, Izuku wants to save everyone. He can't actually fathom loving the people that matter to him. Any of them. Katsuki isn't really exclusive to that.
There's a shift. Katsuki has been about to say "are you looking down on me?" But that's not what this is. He knows it too. Which is why the hand shifts. It releases Izuku's cape and instead slips to the back of the shitty nerd's neck. ]
Fucking stop. Since when are you so strong that you can control the universe? Did you develop that Quirk when I wasn't looking?
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N-No. Not really. Not like that. [Izuku mutters in return as he looks down, ashamed for these things making him feel nauseous again.] But you shouldn't have had to go through that sort of situation without me to at least ... help you.
[He knows how pathetic that must sound.]
I don't know where we are now, Kacchan. But I ... I'm not not going to let something like that happen ever again. I don't care what you say.
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[ Katsuki sighs, completely put out. He's rolling his head back and looking at the ceiling. This shitnerd... The fuck is always going to do what he wants when it comes to Katsuki. Bakugou just as to accept that, as much as he hates it and also wants to smirk at it. ]
We're not always gonna be side by side, you know. Didn't the entire class tell you to depend more on us? So rely on me, you dumbfuck. Trust that what I did and what I do is because someone has to be able to be your opening act.
no subject
I'm sorry. But I mean it. I know you're strong enough to get through anything, Kacchan. I know that about you more than anyone else. But I just...
[How many times is he going to have to endure Katsuki getting hurt or taken away without being able to do something about it? He doesn't want to live with another regret on his shoulders.]
I'll... try to rely on you and trust you. So long as you do the same with me.
[Let Izuku believe that he can save Katsuki too.]
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