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
vaults c: sorry will you (cannot) escape
The key had slotted in easily and while the item had been a surprise - a metallic paper football - and the memories sent her back to a time that was both a rare case of what she might call happiness and existential terror... She doesn't want to see it nor need it. Which is a good thing, really, because the circuitry of her ears first pick up the slamming of a vault and she looks up, angry, ready to yell at someone.
She spins around as the vault slams shut and her arm - the metal one - itches to become a gun that it can't be. She rounds back on the other person and notices it's the boy. The skittish one who claims to know what it's like to be tortured (she still wonders about that, but her circumstances were on the far extreme side of things). She makes a face, like she wants to yell at him, but she can't yell at a crying kid. Doesn't want to and while she doesn't soften she does speak up.
" Deal with it later, we need to find a way out," Nebula addresses. To her credit, she sounds neutral yet firm, but not angry or impassionate.
he has spicy trauma, sorry Nebula, you’re probably gonna see him cry for real
He rubs his arms in lieu of itching them, which is what he wants to do, because he doesn’t want anyone, even if they’re not quite a stranger, to see him having a full fledged trauma flashback.
“Did you see someone shut it?” Will manages, scrubbing his eyes with his sleeve as he walks over to the door and tugs it. It doesn’t budge. So he turns his attention to the area around the door, searching to see if there’s some kind of timer mechanism that would cause it to shut itself.
Looking for a way out gives him something to try and shake the memory of a buzzing, chittering swarm in his ears but he can’t give the door his full attention either. Catch twenty-two.
There doesn’t seem to be anything special going on. That or he’s too distracted to spot it if there is. But they definitely seem to be stuck. “Try moving the boxes? There might be a secret door.” There probably won’t be a secret door and if there were he’s sure he’d think it was much cooler if he wasn’t wading through mental treacle trying not to have a panic attack, the first signs threatening in the way his hands tingle.
(: it's not like she doesn't have trauma!!! but kids crying is a big im sorry for nebula
She abandons her own box entirely, the item in it useless of being anything useful. Eyes the door - In any other circumstance, she'd be able to do something about it (she thinks). But her arm is useless and there's no noticeable things to hack into. She growls, a sound of quiet frustration as she turns around.
"A secret door in the boxes," She returns dryly, not meaning to sound as harsh as she does as she does say it. "Unlikely." Why would there be? The point was what was in the boxes — their names are labeled and clearly whatever is in it they want them to deal with. Her arm, which had begun shifting to some kind of tool like a screwdriver, starts turning back to normal as she crosses back to the box to check if the idea is right.
Indeed, there's an additional note that earns a snort. "Guess that solves that," She says, half to herself, "not that this is anything useful — Here, have it." Pulling the silly little football out of the box she spins it on the table to his direction. "The way out is to share." Helpfully, supplied, as she eyes him warily. There's something going on there, but she's never faced any effect of the kind (how can she? When to survive it was shut down all emotion?)
no subject
“There’s a photo in my box, it’s me and my friends, it’s in half,” maybe it’s trying to tell him to give Mike away? As if he didn’t do that already when he tried to get Mike and El back together despite them being together having caused him nothing but pain.
“I don’t see why it would want us to share some random pieces of garbage,” Will sighs, failing at letting the frustration take over. “Not that whatever that is is garbage, if it means something to you, mine is garbage though. I left it to rot in the forest.”
Maybe it’ll let him focus in on the interpersonal issues, maybe it won’t force him to relieve the worst part of his life to anyone just yet, it’s really not a subject he ever wants to talk about. “Unless it means the story behind them I guess.”
no subject
She stares at him as he speaks. Goes on like he doesn't know how to stop or is clamoring to figure out how to parse his own feelings — maybe he doesn't, it's something she can understand. Nebula spent so long filled with rage, rage, rage and having only that rage fostered that other things... annoyance, happiness, tenderness... are all things she's uncomfortable with, still sorting out.
"They're not garbage," Nebula finally says firmly. In spite of herself, in spite of the dangerous undercurrent it's sincere. "It is your history and yours alone." It's the last part that has the most emphasis - Because she spent so long feeling like she had no ownership of herself, that she would live and die by that hand and only know pain, torment, and anger.
"And I doubt you want to hear that story."
But wants are not what today is about.
no subject
It is his history but he doesn’t want it, he’s spent so long trying to push it away, trying to run and leave it behind, erase the marks it left, that being forced to confront it instead is frustrating and unfair. “What if I don’t want it?”
He hadn’t been lying about torture back in the convenience store, sure he seems to young to know, but he does. From his screaming fathers rage to having his entire person taken over in every aspect he’s been hurt over and over again and having to say any of that to someone he barely knows feels like fresh new trauma that he doesn’t want.
“Well you probably don’t need to hear my story either but apparently this place thinks it might be fun to watch or whatever so I guess we’re stuck here or we own up.” Or he smashes his face into the wall hard enough to land him on the train, but that might leave her stuck in the vault alone and he can’t in good conscience do that to someone.
no subject
Which means more to her - noticeably missing an arm that's been replaced by a metal one. Someone had said as much to her once, in a moment where she was reminded she wasn't always like this. A fact that now looms over her in a place that's messed with the body that she'd finally, truly began to make her own again.
"No, I don't." He's right, she doesn't want to hear it. Because it's his story, not hers, and it's not her business to hear about. Not when it so clearly effects him even if she's made no mention of it. She notices, hears and sees the way his hands move and the visible anger. The second is easy, she's lived her life filled with anger.
That's why the stupid football holds a different meaning - healing, freedom. Sorrow. "Who goes first, then?" She finally says raising a brow, if there's an attempt of mild something - amusement? maybe - she doesn't admit it. "It can be me. Get the end of existence out of the way."