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
no subject
You know, I don’t think so. But isn’t that fitting?
[It could be a little bit of both. Henry was certainly given enough freedom to dress himself nicely for a little picture in front of the that rose strained glass window adorning the front door; or maybe it was an impromptu picture. The fact of the matter remains that he stood out, distant in more than just one way — if not in spirit, then manifesting in accruing difference between them. Yes, even wardrobe.
That’s the power of costume design for you.]Couldn’t it be both? But I think what I hated most was the idea that anything could be any different from the last place. Everywhere’s the same; the people are always the same.
[The circumstances didn’t change, just because the moved out into the middle of nowhere in a nice new home, playing pretend at life slotting itself back together for his own sake.]
Not that that little town had much to offer anyway.
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The sentiment is unfortunately true. From Hawkins to Lenora the same bullshit was still there just in slightly differing forms, maybe more spread out. ]
I grew up in a small town and yeah, can’t imagine it was that fun.
[ Better if you have friends but Will can’t quite imagine the small sullen child pictured managing to settle in well in a new school even if the man before him as an adult is personable enough ]
One of my friends moved from California to Hawkins and her brother was furious about it, said there was nothing to do and the whole place stunk of cows.
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Because forget about anything else, the name of the town makes Henry perk up in a way that can only represent some manner of recognition.]
Did you say Hawkins?
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Will works to keep his expression from letting it show, merely raising an eyebrow and cocking his head slightly ]
Yeah, in Indiana.
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It seems his original notion of being the only one here from him world was patently wrong, though even that lens has narrowed — not world, but town?]
That’s where this photo was taken. [He taps the photo again with a fingertip, though his gaze remains on Will.] This is my old home in Hawkins, Indiana.
no subject
That’s… Weird. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you around.
[ Maybe the bizarre feeling is just some kind of weird recognition of coming from the same location and there’s nothing more to it than that (sweet summer child…)
The lab thing is suddenly setting puzzle pieces in place but he still can’t quite work it out.
He looks again at the photo. The clothing is definitely… out of place. Not something he would expect to see someone in Hawkins wearing. And the man doesn’t look old enough to have grown so much it would make sense unless his family just really enjoyed period dressing.
Wills brow furrows as he tries to make sense of any of it. ]
What was your name again? And I guess since it’s all weird here and time doesn’t seem to mean anything… what year were you in before you got here?
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[Seen him around. Not recently, unless this young man hails from his time period as a child, but that would certainly be the anomaly — and guessing from his clothes, from his haircut, even from the slight difference of inflection in his words… He’s going to assume probably not.]
Before I arrived here, it was 1979. This photo, of course, was well before that.
[Twenty whole years.]
My name’s Henry. Henry Creel.
no subject
To his credit he doesn’t have a panic attack on the spot, he actually keeps his shit together remarkably well in the face of that revelation.
At least he has a solid explanation for the vague unease and persistent feeling of recognition even if it’s the worst one possible ]
1979… Huh. I came from 1986 so that’s quite a while after.
[ If the recent talk on the network about powers is anything to go by he’s probably not that dangerous here and it’s almost like the urge to pick a scab instead of leaving it alone, making his excuses and then staying as far away as possible, which would be the smart thing to do. ]
Will Byers. You won’t meet me until 1984, and not in person but we have met.
no subject
But he certainly has no recollection of this young boy, and his explanation illuminates why. A difference of time, of years.
A bit of Henry's usual polite facade slides right off, though there's nothing sharp so much as needlingly probing.]
1984... [So, did he manage to escape wherever that awful limbo was that Eleven sent him wheeling through? Oh, the thought sparks strange emotions in him again, entwining; anger and a bitter kind of satisfaction.] And how did we meet, then?
[He can't imagine what business he has with a kid like Will, but he does hail from Hawkins, so who's to guess?]
no subject
Hell dimension rips and monsters, I think the first time was your fault but I don’t know.
[ Thank you empty or fuzzy spots in his memories.
He reaches into his bag, pulls out his current sketchbook and flips through it until he finds what he wants. ]
But we properly met through this thing.
[ It’s a somewhat messy sketch of the Mind Flayer, smudged pencil because he had to get it on to the page and out of his head ]
Which got in my head [ No he won’t say how ] and is somehow in yours too.
You can probably thank your future self for my lack of clear answers.
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Hell dimension rips? Monsters? His fault? He has zero context, and Will's propensity to just charge through with explanation like he's supposed to know what he's talking about is utterly baffling.
More so when he unearths his sketchbook and shows him that image of the Mind Flayer -- but Henry, of course, remembers it only as the large, long-limbed "spider" he once drew with dark charcoal in his own sketchbook, ages ago.]
That's my spider.
[He says, quite uselessly, but it's confirmation enough. Eyes flick back to Will, trying to understand, sharper and more hollowing than before.]
You're going to have to start over. I don't know what you're talking about. What hell dimension?
[(Again, he thinks of the storm. Does he mean the same place-?)]
no subject
He takes a deep breath and scrubs his face with his hands ]
So I was twelve and something followed me home. It pulled me through this rip in… the wall I guess. It was wet and glowing and all these vines were coming out of it.
Where I ended up was wet and nasty and there were all the vines and the sky was stormy and I… I don’t remember much of the rest other than monsters with flower shaped faces and too many teeth. I was scared and alone and a girl showed up and told me help was coming, I thought she was an angel but it was a kid from the lab, number Eleven, you might have known her.
And there’s scientists, Dr Brenner and Dr Owens, but we thought Brenner was dead because Eleven killed him, but recently he wasn’t, and now he is again because the government shot him. But nobody would really tell me anything, because I was twelve and I guess you don’t have to explain things to children, better to keep them in the dark so they don’t understand what happened to them.
[ resentment practically drips from his last statement ]
And then when I thought it was over I started having these visions of your spider. They told me it wasn’t real, that it was all in my head but it wasn’t and it… possessed me. [ Will clasps his hands and deliberately doesn’t check his arms because if he does he might see it swimming through his veins again. Because sometimes it is all in his head ] So that’s basically a blank too, all I know is I was used to attack the lab and a lot of people died and my family in unpossessed me with a fire poker. And afterwards I could still feel when things were about to attack.
Then there was some bullshit with a huge human meat version of the spider and I really, really don’t want to go into specifics because I will definitely puke.
Then over spring break a bunch of people died. They’d just go into trances and all their bones would break but I was in the desert trying to get Eleven back after Brenner kidnapped her so I only know second hand. But the person responsible was still in the hell dimension and was taking their souls or absorbing them or something, in a fucked up version of your house and claiming to be Henry Creel.
I don’t know, this place is fucked up, maybe whatever version of Hawkins you’re from things won’t be so bad, but where I’m from they’re bad.
[ and he needs like twenty more cigarettes and to hide because all trying to explain is getting him is a headache from trying to push through the foggy parts and maybe reach some kind of satisfactory answers to give ]
no subject
Hard to hide the way his gaze hardens then. The sharpness behind it. As Will rambles on, nothing more of what he says needs to convince Henry that yes, this young man is from his own world, and the circles they "run" in are more connected than initially thought.
And when he's done? There's so much to ask, so much to string together. Even Henry will need a moment for it, but he can take that moment later. Right now-]
Wait, you know Eleven?
[The bitterness there is, ah, pointed.]
Of course I know her. She's the one who pushed me through to that other place. I imagine the dimension you're talking about is one and the same.
no subject
I think that’s a reasonable conclusion, yeah, seeing how that’s where my times Henry is stuck.
[ for now, because he’s tearing the fabric of reality apart trying to get back out.
He’s almost afraid to get into it. Not even just out of fear of Henry but fear of the complexity of how he sees the situation. Sure it was wrong to slaughter everyone he could in the lab, the other children in there, but Will has witnessed El resorting to violence when she needs to or feels threatened. Hell he watched her hit somebody in the face with a roller skate and that suggests that they were encouraged to use violence or at least not taught not to. And he can understand the unending rage of having your autonomy stripped away and being unable to do anything about it.
It’s empathy that he doesn’t want to have, but it’s still there, because they are talking about a child who was subjected to horrifying things, in the name of science, and put in that situation by people who should have tried to understand and protect him and made a decision to do the opposite. Even if that child grew up to inflict terrible things on other people.
He picks at his sleeves and doesn’t look Henry in the face ]
You’re probably better of here than there, if my experience was anything to go by.
no subject
At least the younger ones knew nothing more. Henry was never truly happy before the lab, either, but knowing of the world beyond only hammered home the idea that he was trapped, so much more trapped than any of the others truly realized.
All that to say... No, no one should be surprised that anyone unearthed from that underground marathon of experimentation and awful socialization skills would default to violence when struck by anger, or fear, or uncertainty.
But is that really an excuse for what Henry did? Or what he hasn't yet done? A quandry, indeed.]
So, then...
[Clearly, he's still turning all of this over in his head. His time spent in that other place was going to be a long one, if what this young man is saying is true. If if applies to him.]
From what it sounds like, according to you, I'm still trapped. Is that right?
no subject
[ Not to mention the monstrous form his Henry has taken on since getting stuck there, because he definitely doesn’t have answers for that.
Instead he gestures at the sketchbook that’s still open on the table. ]
There’s a bunch of sketches of what I remember from being in there and being attached to the hive mind in there…
[ This particular sketchbook is the trauma outlet one, pages littered with demo-creatures and scenes of tunnels and decaying scenes from the replica of Hawkins. ]
It’s easier to sketch than put some of it into words.
no subject
For now, his gaze filters over to the sketches.]
This is... [Sorry, reaching out to turn the sketchbook in his direction. The creatures are unlike anything he's seen before, looking both alien and their own kind of deadly. But more notably-]
These are parts of a town. Hawkins?
[How is that possible?]
no subject
[ Will stares at the sketchbook instead of at Henry because it’s easier, it stops his brain making connections he doesn’t want to think about in regards to how someone could turn into the thing he knows Henry has ]
It’s all broken though, twisted and covered in vines and I wish I’d tried to figure it out better while I was there but I was twelve and I was just trying not to die.
no subject
What you've told me... It's a lot to wrap my mind around. I'm sure you realize that.
[His head tilts.]
But what I'm really wondering about is why you're telling me this, Will.
no subject
[ Will sits back and regards him right back, there’s a long pause while he thinks about it and reminds himself how stupid this is, how dangerous.
He doesn’t want to stoop to a level where Henry finds out the hard way that by the time he and the other Hawkins residents who are here he’s done some pretty atrocious things ]
Because I’m not the only person from 1986 Hawkins here, and they know your name and what you’ve done too.
I don’t think it’s fair if it’s sprung on you by someone too angry to consider that when you’re from means you didn’t hurt me, or them, or our friends yet when you don’t have your powers.
[ he considers another moment, because sure it’s a weakness, but whatever, if the network is anything to go by you can’t die anyway, but still… ]
I don’t want anyone to start a fight nobody can win, or get hurt trying.
no subject
Too angry?
[Will isn't wrong, but somehow the assumption... rankles him. What does this young man claim to know about his anger, no matter how much he claims to know about a future that hasn't come to pass.]
You know... [He sits up straight, a little bit of his facade slipping back on. That quiet smile.] Like I said, you know a lot about me. And even more about something that hasn't happened yet. But you're making a big assumption in thinking that I'm not going to act the same way... Just because you've told me ahead of time.
Is this supposed to be an olive branch, otherwise?
no subject
Everything I know comes from what we put together from what our Henry has told us and a bit of sleuthing… So I wouldn’t say I know for certain, it could be that the spider is possessing him, it could all be bullshit.
[ Is it naive to give Henry a chance now based on not being absolutely certain? Absolutely. Is he going to do it anyway? Also absolutely. ]
You might, I can’t really avoid that I guess, and if you and my friends want to get yourselves in trouble with whoever is running this place over it I can’t stop any of you, but if I met people from my possible future and one of them had the opportunity to warn me I might face some hostility for things I hadn’t done yet I’d want them to warn me, I’d be upset if I found out they chose not to, so I’m warning you. I don’t want anything from you, I just think it’s unfair not to.
[ he shrugs and tries to regain the sense of nonchalance he was aiming for but the way he clasps his hands in his lap to prevent anxious finger tapping probably gives it away that he’s anything but ]
And I really don’t want to be in the firing line if you did tell somebody who you are and they flipped and you figured out I’d kept it quiet and it pissed you off. You’re not really someone I want to anger deliberately.