THE THINGS I GAVE YOU.
» THE BANK — INTRODUCTORY NOTES
District 2 is open, bringing with it access to new and interesting locations—including the city's main bank branch. The bank is a large building with a stone exterior, wrought iron grating on the windows, and large, heavy metal doors that take surprisingly little effort to open, their hinges silent and well-oiled.
Early in the day on July 19, characters in the vicinity of the bank will hear first a low, metallic creaking sound from inside the building, like metal straining against metal. This is followed by the sharper noise of locks disengaging, and then the large, heavy doors on the front of the building swing open slightly, enough to let a person through.
Directly inside the doors is the bank lobby, and beyond that is the main banking floor, with elegant marble flooring and dimly lit chandeliers. It would appear that this was once the main commercial bank of the city, although it is now completely empty, with no tellers behind the counters and no cash in any of the drawers.
You may rifle through the tills and filing cabinets to your heart's content, but similar to the files in City Hall, there is no useful information to be found—all the papers are blank, or are empty forms without any personally identifying information. There are no monetary devices to be found either; this is, after all, not a city that operates on a cash system, so there are no coins or paper bills in any of the tills or, indeed, anywhere within the bank.
What you might be able to find, though, is a rack of delicate, burnished brass keys on a wall toward the back of the main banking hall. Each of these keys is attached to a stamped metal keychain bearing a name on one side and a number on the other. Some of these may be names you recognize, and some of them may not, but they are all names belonging to current residents of the city, and each key corresponds to a safety deposit box within the vault at the back of the building. Can you remember what you stored in that box for safekeeping? Maybe you had better go find out.
At the back of the main banking hall is a vault secured with a large circular metal door. The door is currently unlocked and propped open; it can be closed, but cannot be locked (intentionally, anyway) from either the inside or the outside. The vault contains row upon row of safety deposit boxes, each locked. Participating characters who are in possession of a key can open their own safety deposit box, but it is not currently possible to force open any safety deposit box that does not belong to them. After August 1, players will be able to use their safety deposit boxes to store their own belongings, and break-ins will become possible with prior player permission and appropriate consequences.
Below sections detail the safety deposit boxes for both choose-your-own-adventure players and randomized players! Please see the randomized matches for this event HERE.
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IT'S TRUE, PEOPLE TAKE THINGS BUT RARELY.
» SAFETY DEPOSIT BOXES — A SELF-GUIDED TOUR
For some of you, getting into your safety deposit box is quite straightforward.
You take your key from the rack behind the teller's counter and make your way back through the building and into the vault. It's cool inside, the temperature well-regulated and the air dry. On the walls are rows upon rows of safety deposit boxes, and it may take you a moment to find the one that corresponds to the number stamped on your key. Does that number mean anything to you? It may, or it may not.
When you find your box, it takes very little effort to open it. A slide of your key, a quick turn, and the safety deposit box's door springs open to reveal the metal container within. You remove the metal box from the wall and bring it over to the table in the center of the room, clearly placed there for this express purpose. Maybe there are others around, or maybe you're alone. Do you remember yet, what it was you put in here? Well, there's no time like the present to check.
You open the safety deposit box to find—something that shouldn't be there. It's yours, that much you're sure of, but you didn't bring it with you to the city. You reach into the box to pick it up, and the surge of memory is immediate, sending your mind back to your strongest memory associated with the item in your hand.
Then the vault door swings shut, trapping you inside with whoever else has the misfortune of sharing the vault with you right now. No matter what force you try, the door won't open again. There doesn't appear to even be a mechanism that unlocks the door from the inside, and from within several feet of metal and stone, no one on the outside will be able to hear you shout. It seems hopeless—how long can anyone last, trapped in a place like this?
Should you turn back to the open safety deposit box, you might notice a slip of paper resting on the bottom. The paper looks aged, like it's been in the box for quite some time, and in printed text it reads: "Nothing is yours. It is to use. It is to share. If you will not share it, you cannot use it."
Maybe it means you should let another hold the item you've retrieved from the box… or maybe it means you should share the weight of memory. Try to interpret the meaning in whatever way you can. But should you decide to unburden yourself, and share with someone else the weight of the item you're holding in your hands, you may find that there's a means of escape after all.
Once you free yourself from the vault, for the next several days you find yourself feeling rather honest, like you may not be able to stop yourself from confessing the truth about the item you now carry…
Characters who wish to participate in the event, but who do not wish to randomize the contents of their safety deposit boxes, can open their safety deposit boxes to find an emotionally significant item belonging to the character—player's choice as to what the item is. The only guidelines are that it should be small enough to fit reasonably in a pocket and may not have any magical or weapon properties. Similarly, players are able to choose the memories associated with the items in the safety deposit boxes. The vault door will remain closed until the characters in the vault explain to each other the significance of their items and the memory associated with them, at which point it the vault mechanisms will disengage and the door will swing open as if it had never closed to begin with. However, for the four days following the event, characters who carry their safety deposit box item on their person will feel oddly compelled to tell other characters about its significance and meaning.
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A CRASH-SITE IS SACRED, WE'RE FAITHFUL.
» SAFETY DEPOSIT BOXES — A JOINT VENTURE
For others of you, the contents of the safety deposit box may be considerably more disconcerting.
You also take your safety deposit box key from the rack behind the bank teller's counter and make your way back through the building and into the vault. It's cool inside, the temperature well-regulated and the air dry. On the walls are rows upon rows of safety deposit boxes, and it may take you a moment to find the one that corresponds to the number stamped on your key. Does that number mean anything to you? It may, or it may not.
When you find your box, it takes very little effort to open it. A slide of your key, a quick turn, and the safety deposit box's door springs open to reveal the metal container within. You remove the metal box from the wall and bring it over to the table in the center of the room, clearly placed there for this express purpose. Maybe there are others around, or maybe you're alone. Do you remember yet, what it was you put in here? Well, there's no time like the present to check.
You open the safety deposit box to find—wait, what is that? It certainly doesn't belong to you. Tucked inside the safety deposit box alongside the item is a slip of paper with another name on it, as well as a cryptic message: "Nothing is yours. It is to use. It is to share. If you will not share it, you cannot use it." The item isn't yours, but it does appear to belong to another resident of the city. Maybe your safety deposit boxes somehow got mixed up? It seems like it would be a good idea to find this person and return their property to them.
Whether you encounter the owner of the item in the vault or elsewhere in the city, when it comes time to hand the item over, two things happen. One—the doors are locked tight, refusing to allow either you or the item's owner out until you both understand what the item is and what it means to the other. To unburden your heart is the only way to free yourself.
And two—as the owner of the item explains its significance, you find yourself oddly captivated, resonating strongly with whatever emotion the item's owner most closely associates with it. You may not be able to see the memory that the other person describes, but you can certainly feel the emotions they felt—after all, the easiest way to unburden oneself is to share the load with another. Isn't that right?
Once you free yourself from your enthralled state, and once you have your own belongings returned to you, for the next several days you find yourself feeling rather honest, like you may not be able to stop yourself from confessing the truth about the item you now carry…
Characters who opted to randomize the contents of their safety deposit box during the plotting post, or who plotted a joint experience with another character, will open their safety deposit boxes to find a small, non-magical but emotionally significant item belonging to another player character in the city. They will need to find the owner of that item and return it to them—this can either be inside the bank vault or in another location within the city. Regardless of where the meeting takes place, the character holding the item will find themselves unable to leave until the character who owns the item explains its significance; as they do, the holder of the item will find themselves swept up in the emotional highs and lows of the memories associated with that item, allowing them to share all of the feelings, regrets, joys, griefs, and rages that the owner experiences in the telling. Additionally, for the four days following the event, characters who carry their safety deposit box item on their person will feel oddly compelled to tell other characters about its significance and meaning.
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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.
This month's event headers come from "The Things" and "The Gatherer," two poems by Brendan Constantine. The text of the paper slip comes from Ursula K. LeGuin's The Dispossessed.
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citylogs2023-07-19 08:45 pm
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he looks at the glass in daan's hand, then looks at his own bottle, then shrugs. ]
Sure. [ what's a little more liquor? ] What's in it?
[ heine might have no idea what an old-fashioned is, but he watches daan put it together with narrow focus. it reminds him of kiri—of buon viaggio, of miahai. of a place he never deserved to think of as home, yet had been selfish enough to claim regardless.
the memory is an ache in the center of his chest, and heine presses his palm there unthinkingly. ]
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[Another glass is set next to his own as he begins to make his preparations. His eye flicks to Heine, observing him silently, but waiting.
He's dwelled in his own misery. Still is, mostly, but it's... easier to touch upon someone else's.]
Whiskey, water, sugar, ice, and orange peel. Might not sound like much, but I always found it comforting.
[Daan gets to the assembly, well practiced in an old life.]
Is the flower from the bank?
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Sounds fancy to me. [ daan is talking to a guy drinking well whisky straight out of the bottle, it's not like his standards are very high here.
maybe it's just slow processing by his soaked brain, but heine doesn't expect to be asked about the flower. which is stupid—it's right there, next to him. he starts to look, then freezes, jaw clenching and unclenching for a moment before he looks away from it again. ]
Yeah. [ heine can guess he's not the only one who found something they didn't expect to find in that fucking vault. whether it's the alcohol or something else that compels him, heine adds, ] A... lily. After Lily, I guess.
[ he hasn't said her name out loud in what feels like years. it tastes like ash on his tongue. ]
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May I ask who she is?
[Giving the option that Heine can refuse. Because honestly, Daan would understand simply wanting to drown one's sorrows and forget everything else.]
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how is it that every time he talks to daan, he ends up spilling yet another of his secrets? ]
She's— she was— [ the past tense sticks in his throat, and heine swallows hard around it. ] my... sister. Back... before.
[ underground, in the place that made him. another of einstürzen's monster children, until she very much wasn't anymore, until she was nothing more than a mess of guts and limbs. (tell him what you did.) he doesn't want to, but the words come too easily. ]
I killed her.
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I'm sorry, Heine.
[His voice is softer than usual. Not pitying, but carefully trying to understand.]
What happened?
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I was— [ how does he even start? ] We were... fourteen, I think. When Lily started talking about wanting to see a real flower.
We were born underground. None of us had ever even seen the sky, forget about a plant. But she had the idea in her head and she wouldn't let it go. [ and heine cannot admit it to himself, not even now, but he loved her, and he would have done anything she wanted. ] So I told her I'd get her out and we could go see flowers. Her and the others—Arthur, Lott, me, Lily. Giovanni.
[ he spits that last word like a curse, between clenched teeth. the more he says, the easier it becomes, but there's still that knot in his throat that holds the words back.
heine takes another drink—not to savor it, just to do something else for a second. ]
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I won't ask you to continue, if you don't want to tell me.
[He can see the agony in the way Heine speaks, his expression. Though Daan is curious, he's wrenched enough dark secrets from Heine and isn't keen to draw out more pain.]
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I tried... but the scientists knew. Of course they knew. [ he hadn't realized it, in the moment—stupid teenager, full of bravado, though that he was playing the scientists' game better than they were. ] They offered me a chance to sync with the Führer spine, told me it would make me more powerful. A better leader to all the others.
And I was... I was cocky. I thought I could play them. Take the upgrade and use it to free everyone. So I said yes and they took me for the procedure. [ his hands tighten around the glass. he remembers seeing the implant, asking for the procedure. the "interview" with the dog that now inhabited his spine. after that, nothing for a long time, not until— ]
The next thing I remember is— [ a shudder, as he remembers the smell of blood, of shit, the death rattles of the other tests subjects. ] They were all dead. Arthur, Lott. Giovanni. It was just a—sea of bodies.
And Lily. I had—ripped her. In half. We can't die, right? So she was alive. [ the knife in his chest twists, pushes a little deeper, cold steel in an artery. ] I was elbow-deep in her guts and she was still alive. I had to crush her skull to end it.
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Then he looks at Heine, not a hint of judgment.]
Carrying that kind of weight is a shit deal.
[Plainly said, but not without compassion. He reaches into his pocket and sets down a small blue box, opening it to show a small, elegant sewing kit.]
We have our burdens and sins, even when we're just trying to get by and survive. You didn't know that kind of agreement would cause you to wake up to that, what your hand dealt. But you have to live with it anyway. Who do you blame? Yourself, maybe. The scientists, definitely.
The world turns and doesn't care about what you mourn. So fuck the world.
What do you live for now, Heine?
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the item being set before him jolts heine slightly out of his daze, and with some effort he focuses his eyes on it. ] What's this?
[ but even as he asks, he knows: this is daan's burden the way the lily is heine's. why else would daan choose now to show it to him?
he reaches out a fingertip, but doesn't touch the sewing kit. just lets his hand fall back to the bartop as he processes daan's words. ]
For a long time I lived because I didn't have a choice. [ the hand he'd dropped to the bartop lifts again to tug down just a bit of the bandages that encircle heine's throat, showing daan the scar tissue, the metal collar embedded in his skin. ] Then I lived to find the underground, so I could go down and—I don't know. Piss on my mother's corpse, I guess.
[ and now... now. ]
Now I— [ stuck in his throat, again. heine no longer believes himself capable of justice, of redemption, of something so noble as saving anyone, but... ] Guess I live for revenge. So the kids she's kidnapped don't have to grow up the way I did.
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He nods. Again, no judgment. Just knowing.]
All good answers, I think. Most importantly... for the ones that deserve better than the lot we ended up with.
[There's a pause, then he taps his finger next the sewing kit so he can answer the question. Daan had been planning on explaining even without whatever encourage is nagging at the back of his mind. Is it Pocketcat? Something else? He isn't sure, but he lets himself speak anyway.]
This was my wife's. My beloved Elise. She loved to sew, and her stitches were immaculate. Hell, if she wanted, she could have been a surgeon too. Inquisitive as she was, she didn't pursue the path. I don't think even her father could have stopped her if she so desired, but she was content to make dolls and clothes for her fun. I was finally... happy. I had a family, at last. Someone to love.
But war came, and men were needed. I went as a field medic. The letters came for a time, and it brought me solace. One day, they stopped. When I was finally able to come home, the halls were empty in the estate. All that was left were two corpses, one of them being hers.
I did try to use magna-medicinal to save someone once, Heine. I sacrificed parts of myself to try to save Elise. [His fingers reach up to trace over his eyepatch.] But I was too late. Much, much too late.
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at least he had been there when lily died. no matter how bloodstained the memory, how fucked up inside it still makes him feel to think about—at least he had been there. heine can't imagine the horror of coming home to find your lover dead, and then to know how long she'd been dead by how long her letters hadn't been coming. ]
Fuck. [ what words could possibly touch this? heine feels like an asshole for his quip about daan not having tested the theory since he had all his arms and legs. ] I'm sorry.
What keeps you going?
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The question, though...]
Looking for answers.
I'm trying to find out why it happened. I went through notes at the manor, found out about a town. I went there and... I only ended up with more questions.
So I hope when I'm able to leave this fucking place, I can find them.
[After that, who the hell knows.
It's not like anything or anyone is waiting for Daan.]
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[ even if he doesn't understand what it's like to love someone the way daan had loved his wife, he can relate to the bitterness that touches daan's tone—"this fucking place." this fucking place indeed. and this, too, heine can understand: going through something senseless, something violent, and afterward needing to know why. as if knowing the reason would help put together the pieces in a way that makes sense.
(he's not far enough along the journey yet to know that it doesn't work like that.) ]
Do you think we can? Get out of here. [ now that he's spilled his guts, metaphorically speaking, heine feels a little better—more sober, too, since he stopped drinking straight out of the whisky bottle. ]
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[Just a fraction, but his voice is softer. It isn't easy for him to share parts of himself like that. He hates the idea of feeling vulnerable, but he also believes making it even between two people. They've both shared, just enough.
The question makes him look at his own glass. He takes a moment to finish its contents before setting it down.]
If I stop believing we can leave, then I have nothing left. So, trite as it might sound, I have to.
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I'll drink to that.
[ heine lifts his drink in a toast and then takes a sip.
it's good, the drink—he'd been too in his own head to appreciate it before, but he notices it now that he's a little less weighed down. ] Could always become a bartender if you need something to keep you busy. [ that's... slightly, maybe, edging on a joke. ]
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[Briefly, he's quiet because he's going to make drinks Round Two. Might as well. Self-medication time baby.]
I thought to myself that after I left Prehevil in my world, I might reopen the clinic, but... well. That's a lot of busywork for one man. I also thought that maybe having a bar instead would be more fun.
It's definitely easier in some respects. Until people get too rowdy, of course.
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Lower stakes, seems like. They get rowdy, you... dunk 'em or whatever, kick them out.
[ unlike at a clinic where patients either leave on their own two feet or they don't leave at all. ]
Invent drinks, name them after medical... stuff. Tools. Probably not diseases, that might put people off drinking 'em.
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[Daan sets a glass in front of Heine, then holds his own up as he looks at the amber liquid.]
Either way... Here we are, for now.
And for your information, I keep a decent stock in my office. So if you ever need another one, do let me know, Heine.
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[ imagine a beverage called smallpox! rabies! it just doesn't sound like something people would get excited to drink. amoxycillin, though... or oxycodone? now that's better.
...or something. ]
A decent stock of medical tools or of liquor? [ it could be either, all things considered...
and the more important question: ] And where's your office?
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[He lets out a small chuckle.] Liquor mostly. Not enough medical tools right now. Plenty of prescriptions, though.
I placed it at one of the apartments for now. Easy enough to find, not far from one of the pharmacies. I'll make sure to send you the location in case you need it.
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[ but the answer being liquor rather than medical supplies makes sense. although the pharmacies were fairly well-stocked, heine couldn't recall seeing anything more than the basics of bandages and creams on the shelves. he's no doctor, but he's pretty sure you can't do surgery with the supplies available. ]
I'm not gonna go out of my way to need medical attention, but I'll swing by for drinks sometimes. What did you say this was called?
[ lifting his half-empty glass to indicate. ]
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[It could be worse. Oh it could be worse, but he would feel better if he still had his scalpel.]
Let's hope you stay tat way.
An old-fashioned. My specialty.
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he does, however, regard the drink semi-quizzically. he's sobering up quickly, but still tipsy enough that it somehow makes sense to ask, ] Then what's the fashion now?
[ if this is old fashioned... what's new fashion? ]
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