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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citylogs2023-06-01 12:00 am
no subject
[ was it worth it ]
[ Getou could've stopped her, probably, or at least done the polite thing and made a show out of trying — but she doesn't look too hurt or offended about where she's wound up or how she's suddenly wearing a sticky jackson pollock. were he in possession of cheek muscles not currently preoccupied with a citric acid seizure, he might've even smiled and laughed about it. ]
[ as it stands, he... has a face currently going to war. is that where the name comes from? it takes everything in him and a few tears glassing up his eyes until it passes, his head turning to the side to spit: plgheh, plbbt pto pto, until he pants and sticks his tongue out with a sigh like an overheated dog that finally got some relief. ]
Ah yeth, I can thee the likeneth. [ a mix of sarcasm and resignation. her casual insult slides off his back like rain as he extends that one hand to help her back to her feet. ] Better than you look. Let me guess... fingerpaint and mud pies as a kid?
[ there's a knowing fondness to his voice that speaks of personal experience, more genuine than what's come before it. ]
no subject
the ground is sticky--and slick, beneath her boots, so she doesn't try to vault or tumble over the counter. rather, she leans into the other side of it, nearly face to face with the stranger; it gives her a chance to get a really good look at him, like this.
her lips purse together; he looks tired. )
Fingerpaint, yes. I didn't have a lot to do, though, so... Limited-resources-kid.
( with a soft laugh, she puts her sticky hands on her hips, twisting slightly on her heels to give a glance at the kitchen behind her. something about it feels eerie, even if the lights are all on. )
Do you want to take a look, with me? I don't know that I want to go alone, but...
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"Want" is a strong word... [ his sharp gaze then slides to her from his peripherals. well... there's nothing to be done about it. he's pretty sure, even in his injured state, he could probably take anything this city has to throw at them. after all, at even a fraction of his power, he could decimate it. ] But I shudder to think of you going by yourself.
[ no, he's already quite keen to protect her — she seems like the type to attract trouble. once again, he offers his hand out to her for help navigating her slick steps. she can either walk the slippery plank of spilled soda, or he can hoist her right back over the counter into safety; she's birdboned and delicate, compared to him. ]
One question: what are we going to do once we find a culprit?
[ assuming there is one. big assumption. ]
no subject
with a glance to his hand, she gently leaves her palm in his, using his weight to help carefully balance her steps along the slippery floor.
and with one last glance towards the kitchen, she gives the stranger an imploring tug. )
String them up? Kidnap them and force them to cook for us for all eternity? ( she's beaming at him, almost grinning, but quickly dissolves into a laugh, using her free hand to wave idly in front of her face. ) No. We should be understanding. After all, they answered your wishes, didn't they?
( with a gentle squeeze to his hand: ) My name is Aerith. You can scream it out if it ends up being terrifying in there. Let's go!
1/2
Got it. We should open it together, right? [ that swinging door there that says 'staff only'. he first puts his ear up to it, the only sound coming from all directions the little click of his ear plug against the cold metal. a few moments pass and all that comes of it is hearing his heartbeat in his ear. ]
[ he nods to her as a signal, pressing his shoulder against the door where he has no otherwise unoccupied hand, and whispers the countdown: ] Three... two...
no subject
[ ...nothing happens... ]
[ slowly, he emerges from his protective squat with a big, sheepish(?) grin. ]
Just kidding.
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--but there's nothing there, right? as she scans her gaze around, instinctively squeezing her partner's hand as though to ensure nothing will force them apart, she doesn't see anyone at all. there's no chef, no cook, no line staff, no wait staff. the kitchen looks well used, and yet nobody is there to use it.
with a laugh, she immediately uses her free hand to swat suguru on the shoulder. )
You're a jerk! ( it's said in laughter, so it's not serious. ) I thought we might have to fight to the death...!
( lips pursed, she glances around again: ) But it's just us. Magic, then?
no subject
Mmm, guess so? It just appears on the otherside of the window...
[ well they're in here on this side of the window... and the torrential mess of soda is out theeeeere... ]
Cold soba?
[ there's no need to be watching the window to hear the unmistakable sound of noodles hitting the floor with a splat, and this one... this one seems like it hurts, judging from the sour expression that twists onto his features. why did he do himself like that? it was just the first thing he thought of. with his head hung out the door, he looks forlornly at the little bundle of noodles beginning to soak up blue soda and heaves a sigh, turning back to Aerith melodramatically: ]
Magic. [ well, mystery solved. ]
no subject
( a curious repetition, and like a dog called by the sound of food, her head whips around at the little ding from the window--and the disappointing 'splat' of noodles on the other side. given that he hadn't really taken much to the sour soda, she doubts he's going to like his noodles drenched in sour sauce.
with a soft sigh, like a mother tending to a child, she reaches for both of his hands, holding them together in a tight squeeze. )
Sometimes it's not enough to rely on magic. Come on. What do you think about grilled cheese?
( dropping his hands, she carefully steps forward, further into the kitchen--if it's a proper restaurant, then there's definitely a fridge or a freezer back here somewhere, full of ingredients, and now she's determined to find it. )
no subject
Oooo-kayyyy, [ like a brat who reluctantly accepts an alternative. as Aerith makes to look around for some physical evidence of sustenance, Getou leans against the countertop, intent to use both hands to hoist himself to a seat. he only realizes his mistake when he almost slips, his absent limb going unnoticed even by himself, and recalculates when he uses one hand to bounce himself up. ]
[ now content to watch with high interest and mild wonder — he's seen a thousand grilled cheeses made in his day — he kicks his feet inelegantly as he slouches into the cabinets. ]
So! Aerith. [ amicably, or perhaps sly: ] Tell me a story. It can even be your own, if you want.
[ decidedly agreeable with liars? sus. ]
no subject
a story, is it? when she returns, confident and calm, it's with butter, cheese, and bread in her arms, setting them down neatly onto the counter across from where suguru has settled. it puts her back to him, but she doesn't feel particularly bothered by that: she pops open the butter, looking around for a moment before locating a knife. )
Hmm. Is one from a story book okay? ( she sounds content, easy-going enough, that it'll be hard to discern whether the story is truly made up or something actually from her past. ) Once upon a time, there was a woman who could talk to the Planet.
( she sets out two slices of bread, right on the counter, already starting to butter one side of each. )
She fell in love with a wonderful man, and had a baby girl, who could also talk to the Planet. They were meant to take care of it, you see. Sort of like guardians.
no subject
To talk to the planet, huh... [ a digesting repetition, the way it catches his attention and sends his mind twisting into frenetic possibilities. the whole earth, one giant spirit? mother earth manifesting as a curse? as humanity grows more complex in their ability to think, so to has their parameters of fear; not just the typhoon or the earthquake, but the terror of planet itself come wrathful entity... fascinating. ]
[ of course, he's coming around to the idea of other realities, other magics and laws to the supernatural, since arriving in this city. it doesn't stop him from painting everything with the one brush he has in perspective. ]
Two people protecting something that big? [ well that certainly drums up a different image; it's been a long time for him to think of his curses as anything more than a tool. ] Isn't that hard? They're really outnumbered, you know. The planet's probably pretty mad at them...
[ can he not shut the fuck up or what. he seems to realize his rudeness after a moment, slumping with regret. ]
Ahhh, sorry sorry. Do go on.
no subject
Er, I guess...They were killed. ( there's a smile on her face, patient and sure, but it's harder for that smile to meet her eyes--if this is from a story book, she's doing a miraculous job of remembering it. maybe it's not from any written page at all. ) By something that wanted to...take the Planet's energy for itself, rather than protect it.
Anyway, the wonderful man ended up being killed for trying to stay with the woman and his daughter, and...Bad people, who wanted to take the Planet's energy, stole the woman and daughter away, and locked them up.
( setting the buttered knife down, she reaches for another: this time, it's to start slicing the cheese, carefully unwrapping it and putting all of her weight into cutting down thick pieces, laughing a little at the effort it takes. she definitely would never survive in a restaurant. )
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[ so instead he only patiently listens, reaching to clear her cheek himself — regardless of how otherwise stained with soda she is — before she beats him to it. a beat and his hand returns back to the cool metal surface of the counter. when she struggles to get through the block of cheese, he does not offer his assistance immediately, instead watching her struggle through it. character building! ]
Sounds like they're winning the planet-war. [ or... whatever the point of this story is. ] It can't end there, right? Did she get revenge for her father?
[ priorities. ]
no subject
with a puff of breath, she finally wills the knife down once she's gotten a good pile of cheese for one sandwich, at least. if he wants two, then she'll have to come back to it all.
but then--holding up a buttered slice of bread in either hand, she whips around, this way and that, looking for...a pan, which she's pretty sure wasn't on the stove before, but it's not much of a problem. moving over to it instead, she sets the bread down on the counter, twisting the knob to immediately turn the heat up to high on the burner with the pan. )
For her father? Oh, well... ( that's an interesting thing to say. it's something she never even considered, made obvious by the way she pauses in her movement. ) No, she was very little, and it's hard for her to know if the story she got is the real story, or not.
( impatient, she flops one of the slices of bread down on the pan, moving so that she can bring her handful of cheese slices over to start lining and piling them up on the bread. )
...This is a terrible story, isn't it? And then a dragon crashed in, and everything became fire. The end!
( she's grinning as she says it, neatly tucking little cheese pieces around each other like some kind of geometric puzzle. )
no subject
Maybe the dragon was coming to rescue them.
[ it's his turn to steer the story now, as he reaches back to the serving shelf behind him to pass her two plates; she'll be needing these eventually. ]
Huge and long, with fangs as thick as a man's head, [ a description he begins to paint with a tongue for the dramatics, his hand waving to paint a mockery of its long body in a stroke. his thumb becomes the bottom of its jaw and his fingers the head, pinky and pointer finger raised to imitate its antlers. it slithers through the air in swimming curves, his body remembering how the Rainbow Dragon had moved in spite of it being severed from him and exorcised years ago. it had occupied so much space in him. ] With fur and long whiskers that shimmer iridescent in the sun, coming to devour the bad people who locked them away.
[ his 'fingers-mouth' makes a show of chomping at great bits of air, a bent wrist throwing the head back — and he imitates its screeching roar in a low, quiet falsetto before looking back at her for approval. ]
Yeah? A better ending.
no subject
Oh, it sounds beautiful. ( encouraging, a brief hint of a smile as she checks on the sandwich with sight, only, deciding she has a moment--her sticky, buttery hands get wiped down on the sides of her skirt, and with both hands, she reaches for suguru's wrist. ) But what is its name? It can't be a rescue dragon without a name.
( her fingers lace together, gently, along suguru's wrist, forcing his arm to twist this way and that, under the guise of still being the dragon--and then she tips her face in, bonking her nose neatly against the finger-mouth of the dragon. with a soft laugh, she releases suguru's hand, but only so that she can retreat to peek at the sandwich again.
when she finally turns it over, it's a bit too crispy on the other side, but that's okay. she's learning. )
no subject
Mwoar-ar-rar. Yeah? No, that's probably not a very good name.
[ that, he works out for himself. the literal concept is a bit foreign to him; sure, each curse spirit he takes in might become a part of his energy, a part of him, but he's no more named the limbs he still has or the one he'd lost. the arsenal in his belly has no more differentiation between it than right arm, left leg do. aside from that, it'd only be good on a plaque for a torii, the closest thing a local deity gets to an epitaph. ]
You decide! That's probably— oh. [ oh. that's got some black on it... hm. well, he's eaten worse, and she's giving it her all, so... ] ...Wanna know the secret to cooking absolutely anything?
[ he doesn't scold her; he doesn't even interrupt or intervene to take over himself, in spite of the slightly crispy scent in the air. she's learning! ]
no subject
( the way she says this, almost gravely, seems to imply that she knows something more than she's letting on--or at least that she's good at feigning it. still, her eyes are a little round with disappointment as she plops the crispy sandwich onto a plate, picking it up between both palms to look at it in scrutiny.
her chin lifts to glance at him, instead, bright eyes full of determination. ) There's a secret? Tell me.
( she clearly needs it: he isn't scolding her, and she isn't too hard on herself. but she would like to improve. )
no subject
[ when she goes to inspect the grilled cheese, he can't deny the pang of empathy. people fumble into adulthood in different stages and at different ages, but he remembers burning more than a few eggs in his early attempts at independence. she isn't hard on herself, but he would prevent it for her if he could anyway, plucking the extra crispy sandwich off of her plate to take a big bite, oozy melted cheese forming a tether between him and the sandwich he must contend with before speaking. ]
[ after a few haphazard bites, he smiles with a crust of black stuck to the front of his teeth. ]
Low and slow. No matter what it is, it's always made better and safer if it's low and slow. [ especially as a beginner. ]