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
he shouts (shrieks, even) and buckles to the ground before pitching his body to the side in a barrel roll. he manages to narrowly avoid the dog in his pounce, but not without crashing into wall of safety deposit boxes and rattling around the single braincell in his head like a kid's toy. pain flares up in his shoulder, but it actually does well to shock his system with adrenaline.
in retrospect, badou isn't sure what he'd been expecting. things had been a little too quiet as it was, so this kind of disturbance seems a long time coming all things considered. plus, it isn't like his talking in situations of duress has ever really worked before, but damned if he won't keep trying anyway. his toxic trait is throwing more words at things in case any of it actually sticks. ]
Hey! Uh — y'mind putting Heine back on? We were kinda in the middle of something—
[ he's scrambled back up to his feet by now, scurrying around the small space in a constantly moving frenzy while his mind flips through plans a to d and skips straight to w as in what the fuck do i do now? ]
no subject
that's not right, though. is it? kerberos should be here. if he's not here, that means he's somewhere else. heine can't quite remember why that's not good.
on the surface, the dog has collided with the vault door with a force that rattles his teeth. he spits blood on the floor and whips his head around to look at badou, then grins, his teeth red. ] Not very nice. [ he stretches out, the sound of joints popping audible. ] I came to play with you, after all.
[ he stalks around the table, body moving no way heine's ever has, faster than should be possible in his pursuit of badou. it would be easy for him to leap across the table and take him by the throat, squeeze the life out of him, pop his head off his neck—but the chase is what's thrilling.
in his mind, heine thinks, wait, fuck. wait a second. ]
no subject
as you do. ]
Aw man you don't wanna play with me — I'm no fun! Real boring, card-playin' kinda guy, yanno!
[ he tries to keep the long metal table in between them at all times, but he knows it'd be an easy feat for the other man to just vault right over it so he knows he's working on borrowed time here. his eye darts to the door, but it's as locked as it was at the start of all this.
running out of time, running out of ideas. ]
... Let's talk this out?
no subject
(in the end, what will probably save badou's life is that the dog doesn't know yet how badly he's been limited.)
he pursues badou one more time around the metal table, but when it's the short edge of the table between them, the dog launches himself without warning. he grabs an arm, twists it until he feels the bone fracture under his hand, uses his body weight to pin badou back against the wall of deposit boxes. one forearm goes across badou's throat, pushing down just to hear the way his breath croaks as he struggles to inhale, and the dog brings his other hand up to almost gently push badou's hair out of his face. ]
He likes you. [ another grin, too wide, all teeth. ] That's why you're gonna be so much fun to kill.
[ but inside—
heine looks around the landscape of his psyche and finds it empty, and that fact makes something like panic start to bubble under his skin. he opens his mouth to yell, the sound dying on his lips, and summons every ounce of his willpower, everything he'd ever learned about wresting control of his body back from the dog. uses it all at once, although the effort makes his head feel like it's splitting in half.
it makes the dog falter for just a second, and that might be enough. ]
no subject
instead it's this: pain receptors on overdrive fighting for dominance and losing out to the overwhelming reminder that the ones left behind have to carry their grief and their guilt and — he's gonna blame himself for this too, isn't he? fuck that. fuck this. badou's not gonna be another flower in heine's box.
one hand, down, out for the count. that's where most of the pain is, centralized around his wrist that's probably bent at an awkward angle, but some of it's on his back too, his head. skin raw and brain rattled where the metal of the safety deposit boxes dig into him without forgiveness and, oh yeah, he can't breathe anymore, that's gonna be a problem soon, but it's fine, it's okay, he can still work with this.
more specifically: he can still work with the other hand, the one that'd managed to grab for the empty deposit box on the table before not-heine decided he'd had enough of him. brain switching off to let instinct take over and take that second actual-heine offers him to slam the flat of the metal against the softest parts of heine's head and fuck, fuck, how hard is hard enough?
(in the end, what actually ended up saving badou's life wasn't the dog's weakness, but heine's strength. maybe that's the beautiful thing about humans.) ]
no subject
he's not sure how long he's out. he doesn't dream, or if he does it's but barely, more flashes of imagery than anything he could grasp onto. impressions of lily, of badou, of blood on his hands and shouts in the air. heine hasn't had a good dream in a decade, so it doesn't surprise him that this one is more of the same.
what does surprise him, as he slowly comes back conscious, is how much he hurts. his head aches, both the sharp surface ache of a contusion and a deeper throb that means he's probably concussed. his shoulder hurts, too, maybe from the position he'd been lying in. ]
Nngh... [ heine's brow furrows, eyes still closed as he tries to remember what happened. he and badou had come into the bank, searching for their safety deposit boxes—heine had opened his. it had been... a flower. and then—he had—
heine forces his eyes open and sits up in a rush that makes his head swim and his stomach roil, blinking blood out of his eyes as he looks around the room for badou. ]
no subject
badou can be found not too far from where heine sits, propped up against the wall of deposit boxes with one leg drawn up towards his chest. one arm he's got held close to him, the hand hanging limp on his lap, but the other's busy holding up a half-spent cigarette against his lips. when heine rouses, the redhead waits a couple of moments to allow the other man the chance to gather his bearings. then he cracks open a grin, crooked and muted. ]
Yo.
[ far too casual for the situation, perhaps, and it doesn't match up to the sharp way his eye traces the lines on heine's face. ]
How's your head?
no subject
nothing has changed, but everything is different.
badou's posture is too casual. the smoking, sure, that's familiar, but the way he's holding his arm is all wrong, the angle of his wrist. the bruising already starting to show around his throat. ]
Hurts. [ an automatic answer. heine's eyes are hollow as he tries to force himself to remember what he can. the flower. lily. telling badou everything—more than he had ever said, back home. and then... and then...
they're locked in a fucking vault, heine thinks. who else could have done this but him? ] Fuck.
Fuck. [ he pushes himself back, putting distance between himself and badou. distance seems safer—for badou, that is, trapped in a room with a monster. heine might not have much schooling but he can read a context clue, and between the state of badou and the ache in his head and the metal box on the floor, heine can suss out what went on here. ] I lost it. Didn't I? I tried to—
no subject
so frankly there's a flood of relief upon recognizing the light in those red eyes, though it only translates to a slight droop of his shoulders. tension gone, a deep breath and smoke exhaled. it lasts all of four seconds before he watches heine's expression twist into one of delirious agony. ]
No.
[ cuts heine off before he can even finish that sentence because fuck that shit. ]
You didn't do nothin'.
[ he jerks his chin in a brief, abortive gesture towards heine's head, white hair streaker with red. ]
Pretty sure I did more damage than whatever's happened to me, anyway.
no subject
I heal. [ maybe a sign of how fucked up heine is about it that he doesn't even stick on a "moron" or "dipshit" or some other almost-affectionate pejorative. but he can already feel the throb of his concussion lessening, and he's fairly sure that the bleeding has stopped, however gory his hair looks right now. meanwhile, there's badou, who will be bearing the marks heine left on him for days if not weeks. (how long does it take a human wrist to heal? how could heine know?)
he looks at badou and feels—something he's never felt before, that call-of-the-void sensation of having narrowly avoided disaster. it's sort of like the realization of what he'd done to lily all over again, except this time mixed with the relief of not having succeeded and also the dread knowledge of how easily this could happen again.
next time will they be so lucky? ]
I'm—sorry. I should have told you. [ the words come out like broken glass in his throat. heine drags his knees up and leans his head back against the vault wall. his gaze casts wildly around the room ] You have a right to know [ and lands on the vault door, now open several inches ] what kind of monsters you've invited in.
[ badou had the guts not to leave him unconscious on the floor of the vault, and heine can't bring himself to do the same. despite the way the floor tilts under him, heine pushes himself to stand and—coward that he is, cursing himself with every step—makes a run for it. ]
🎀
he finds his voice again when he sees where heine's gaze lands. ]
Don't—
[ do anything stupid, he would have finished, except heine beats him to the punch and does the stupid thing anyway. it shouldn't be possible for heine's retreating footsteps to echo as loudly as they do in the significantly emptier vault, but here we are. here badou is left behind, once again.
he sighs. the pain at his wrist isn't going away like he'd like, instead growing more intense as the last remnants of adrenaline finally leave him. the nicotine makes for a pretty paltry balm. ]
Is this what you wanted? [ he asks of the room, of whoever has to be tuning in to watch the havoc their machinations have created. beside him, his gaze falls to the key neatly labeled with his name. don't, he says this time to himself, but he's already reaching for it and climbing back up to his feet. ]