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
o7 i'm at the dungeon at the end of canto II i think so here's to hoping w/ my ramshackle team
Is this what actually interacting with people is like? She could get used to this!]
I can show you the basics some other time, if you like, but splitting up is probably good. I guess, if you see a computer that looks especially different from this one, either let me know or bring it over?
[The pat on the shoulder is a surprise, but a welcome one: it was so weird having people not be scared of touching her, and not being scared of being touched.
As he walked away, Althea hesitated for a moment, then looked up.]
If someone is watching, I swear I'm not breaking anything, I'm just looking! And then borrowing maybe!
[Muttered under her breath because, you know, just in case. Now it was time to work.]
oh......that boss is nnnnot fun. well it is but in the 'what the fuck just happened' way :'O
[Except, uh.
Even after ten minutes' worth of digging through various cubicles and examining the tech as closely as he can for any real noteworthy differences, he comes up with exactly jack shit. Not even anything customised. Identical mouses, identical keyboards, identical monitors, identical towers, identical the lot. Maybe a few extra blank papers here or there, a clean coffee cup, maybe maybe the rare off-centre photo with an erased subject.
He looks rather sheepish when he pokes his head back in the cubicle to see how Althea's holding up.]
...Any luck on your end? I haven't seen anything different in a good way. ...Though the water machine's filled up, so I got you a cup.
[Gotta stay hydrated.]
That's about what I'm starting to expect from this game :")
His words take a moment to break Althea out of her focus; he'll see her look up and blink a couple times before registering what was said and taking the cup.]
Oh, thank you! I don't suppose there's a coffee machine anywhere? [But she will drink the water because yeah she's had a lot of caffeine already today oops. Afterwards she'll sigh, gesturing at the parts around her.]
No worries on not finding anything different, I kinda expected it but figured it was good to look. I imagine it's probably all the same on the inside too, if everything else in this city is any indication.
YEAH......yeah. right as you think you're good, it's like 'ok phase change' or smth. rip
[Still a relief, that she's drinking the water. Folks like them, at least right now, really need the actual h2o over caffeine at alarming rates...Actually, he's impressed with how steady her hands must be to get so much work done already. No whistle this time, but he raises his brows as he squats beside her to get a better look.]
Mm, I think you're right. Especially if it's a corpo outfit; they'll be standard across the board so that employees are on the same footing on that front, I figure.
I'm not going to understand if you get into proper details, probably, but...In layman's terms, what are we working with here? You think you can do any good?
the win rate button helped SO much after i looked up team stuff, thank youuuu
Mm, well, maybe I'll get something outside somewhere, those'll taste better.
[As he squats down to look over her work, she starts to shift away before remembering... yeah she doesn't have to worry now, so she forces herself to stay still and pay attention again.]
Yeah, that's what I'm figuring just from what I've seen and what's in this one. From what I can tell it's... around 10-15 years old computer parts, compared to where I'm from. [She shrugged apologetically at Gregor: since she didn't know what his world was like, and he didn't want technical details, that was the best she could do.]
It's not bad by any means, but it's not going to be playing any top of the line games. As long as your goals are just data management, text editing, moving files, that kind of thing, this should be more than fine.
it's a life saver...im happy 2 help X(9 ONWARDS TO CANTO III
[The City's...Well. This is probably standard in one Wing, and ancient in another, but being where he's from, it's...more on the ancient side, as far as computers go. That's alright, though! Because Althea's hit the nail on the head, and he can't help but smile faintly with the slivers of relief now in his system.]
But we don't need to play games. Just-- all of that. That's exactly what we need. Don't know if we even want internet or anything, so moving it should be a breeze, if we get the guts up to do that much in time.
[There's a good few seconds of silence, because he's not sure what else to say or do, until he settles on another shoulder pat. Paternal, approving, brusque yet fond.] Thanks. It's also a relief to know that, if anything goes wrong, I got more than one person to rely on for this real brainiac stuff. Because stuff will go wrong, and we need to protect this once we get it up and going.
no subject
Yeah, I don't know whether separate networks or internet is really... possible here without all the infrastructure in place, but for what you want, this looks good.
[Those few seconds are... well, she isn't sure whether he has something he wants to say, or whether it's a normal lull in conversation as he thinks, but at another shoulder pat, she can't help brightening perceptively. This is more affection and confirmation than she's been given in at least 15 years, give her a bit.]
Of course! All of us have different skills, I'm just glad mine are actually useful somewhere. [And she means that, truly. She absolutely believes Gregor has his own talents and skills and that working together is the best thing all of them can do here. The talk of 'protection' however, does get a frown.]
Protection... from things happening to the computer? Or for us? [She can't even argue against things going wrong, there's already certainly been a few things, but if there's more fighting in the future...]
no subject
Though, what I'm trying to say isn't that it's not normally possible. Just that it's abnormally impossible, if you get what I'm aiming at. [It's science-magic, probably. But at least, if nothing else, his shoulder pats seem to be going down well! That makes something in his eyes light up for a few seconds, and then light up even more as Althea restates the bit about everyone having skills, perhaps even him
but ahhhh, back to reality. His frown forms to match her own, and he flops back to sit on his ass, legs neatly crossed and avoiding kicking any of the parts, thankfully.] Both. Mostly the computer, though. I don't know if the city'll be upset if we try to innocently document things, since it's not criminal, and no one's been hiding their intent to do this in the first place.
But it won't hurt if we can type up the same stuff on our phones. Everyone gets a copy, then. Or if we can use the internet we have to send it out. Or...Something, hah. If it doesn't stop with one, that's all that matters. Long as there's someone out there willing to take up the mantle from us, then I won't worry so much.