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
ii.
He leans over the park bench where she's seated, forearms resting against the back of the bench, a sad smile on his face. ]
You look tired. Haven't been sleeping well lately?
[ Goodness knows his own sleep has been fitful at best this past week. ]
no subject
No, I haven't.
[For a moment, that's all she says, as she looks at him to try and gauge how he is, whether he's been plagued by nightmares of that fight, or if she's the only one. Then with a sigh, she leans back against the bench, letting her head rest against the top of the bench so that she can look at Welt with a minimum of movement.]
I knew I'd have nightmares, after the.. fight. But these have been so vivid and terrible: like I'm going through it myself, instead of just a witness.
[She shakes the letter in her other hand slightly then, almost scoffing as she does.]
And then there's the bank vaults dredging up even more, you know?
no subject
Going through it yourself?
[ How strange. It's not impossible to have similar dreams every once in awhile, but for both the timing and even the nature of the dream to be so similar.... His brow furrows as he thinks.
Is this another one of this city's strange responses? ]
Have you had them every night since then?
no subject
Yeah, like... experiencing it, not just seeing it.
[The explanation comes cautiously, not sure if she's said something she shouldn't, but too tired to fully filter herself when it's someone she at least sort of knows, and who knows what happened.]
Mhmm. Not quite a week yet, but close. ...Why?
no subject
I've been having similar dreams, if not the same one. Dreams where I relived that young woman's death as though it were my own instead of hers.
[ Disturbing, to say the least. He looks into the distance a few more seconds before turning back towards Althea. ]
It can't possibly be a coincidence if it's happening to us both. Have you spoken to anyone else about it?
//sorry for the delay, rl is a lot right now haha
That's... definitely odd. I haven't talked to anyone else about it, no... Have you? Do.. you think.. [This was definitely odd, but she could think of no other explanation, if they were having the exact same dreams, dreams not from the point of view they should have had. And so, strange as he might think her, she'd say it anyway.]
Do you think it's being done to us, somehow? To the people who witnessed it? If not as 'punishment' so to speak, then at least as a deterrent to letting this kind of thing happen again?
it's all good!! take your time and i hope things clear up for you :(
He mulls to himself, voice just loud enough to hear. ]
It's certainly a possibly. This city seems awfully fond of the rules its set into place, for better or worse. [ Mostly worse. ] If it's willing to go so far as to punish those who go far enough to actually break those rules, then it's not unreasonable to assume it would want to put preventative measures in place to stop such rule-breaking from happening again.
[ A sort of warning system, though how something can be so narrow and targeted in scope he hasn't figured out yet. Regardless—he looks back up, expression clearing a smidge. ]
I haven't spoken to anyone else about this yet, no. It might be worth digging into further. [ But here his face creases again, this time in worry. ] Will you be alright though? Is there anything I can do to make things a little easier for you?
[ Insomnia and bad nightmares are familiar enough companions for him by now, but it's not something he would ever wish upon anyone else. ]
<3
So I've noticed. [Said with a huff of an exhale not quite a laugh, but certainly wry.] I was worried something like that might happen, though I didn't expect like this.
[At his question however, she starts to shake her head, as if to brush the concern away, but something stops her, before finally she sighs and shrugs.] Well, since it seems we can't do anything about the nightmares, I'm not really sure. I've just been staying awake as much as possible, but this... bank vault nonsense has just made everything worse. Did everyone get something in there?
no subject
How about we get some coffee later? It might help you stay awake longer.
[ Once again, not the ideal solution, but better than nothing. As for the bank.... ]
It seems like everyone did get something, from what I saw inside the vault.
[ Not that he'd proactively gone snooping through the deposit boxes or anything (as if he would ever do something so unprincipled) but it doesn't take more than a keen eye to notice the objects clutched in everyone's hands the short time he'd been in the vault.
Still though....he purses his lips, chin resting lightly atop on hand. ]
I'm not sure why they chose the things they did though. [ What a strange sense of humor those in charge have, though he can't quite say he shares it. ]
[ Even if it had sent a jolt of alarm and regret down his spine as soon as he'd picked it out from the box. ]
no subject
I'd love to, actually. I'm sure movement and conversation would both be pretty helpful for staying awake too.
[As he continues to the matter of the vault however, she can't help but frown again, watching him as if that would somehow answer the questions in her own head. She could feel a weird desire to share gnawing at the back of her mind, and was only barely stopping herself from just launching in on what it was: the only thing stronger right now than the desire to share was her desire to not annoy someone who'd been so kind to her.]
I'd like to know the reasoning behind it as well. I'm... not happy about what I got, or what it might mean about how it got there.
it's my turn to apologize for the delay on tags...
Then how about we head towards a cafe, and talk while we walk?
[ Not that he minds relaxing on a bench outside, but she's right, a little movement would probably do them both good. ]
But you're right, I don't think I've seen anyone happy about the object they received from the bank.
[ His run-ins may have been few, but they'd all left their own impression on him, a series of tense, upset faces and tired empty eyes. Even his own 'gift' tucked away in his pocket had brought less joy and more long-buried regret. ]
snailin' our way downtown, writing slow, got places to go, but we're busyyy -aggressive piano-
Alright.
[And with a huff she's up, letting herself take a moment to stretch and just... breathe. Telling Welt about the nightmares had already lifted one burden slightly, if only so she knew she wasn't alone, and trying to brainstorm over what was going on with the bank felt like a productive use of time.
It likely wouldn't be, with how everything in the city seemed to be, but it would at least feel like it!]
I just... don't understand, I guess. I mean, not that anyone is claiming to, but it really makes no sense? The items they picked, the timing of it, the reason in general, nothing!