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
2, my energy is back i wanted to tag you before too
it is something she's trying to get used to, starting with the earlier hours she knows holds no threat and always returning before 3:13 sharp. hearing someone jogging around would set her off if not for the streetlights that line the straight paths of the city, offering her a view of who's to come, and she recognizes him as one of the two wufei had brought with him to their encounter.
the cause of heero's recent nightmares offers a happy wave, hand high and voice calling-- ]
Good evening, fellow night owl! Wouldst thee care for some company?
\o/!!
there's the pain again, just the memory of it from his recurring nightmare enough to kindle a searing phantom heat behind the eyes, where he knows the sharp point of Wufei's spear must have pierced through the thinnest bones of her skull.
it isn't fair or even sensical that he feels it, Heero thinks as he stumbles over his own footing and quickly catches himself on one of those lightposts before his gritted teeth have a chance to greet the sidewalk. Don Quixote's existence would have quit her before what was left of her mangled brains could have processed the pain.
and she is obviously no worse for wear. ]
You -
[ muffled behind his hand - for all appearances Heero looks as he's been struck with a sudden migraine. and yet, he recovers quickly. he wipes the cold sweat from his brow with the tail of his shirt, and straightens. ]
- fine. Yes.
[ Heero wouldn't mind hearing what she has to say, actually. if anything. ]
no subject
while don quixote knows not a moment of the pain she would have felt, those that survived her did -- and she casts her eyes away as heero stumbles against the lightpost, offering that much privacy, and once he's settled again is when she closes the gap.
it's not surprising to her, apparently. though she doesn't give him a pitying look for it -- more apologetic than anything, smile slight and sheepish. ]
Allow me to get this out of the way. [ ... ] I... would like to apologize to thee. It had not been mine intention to catch innocents amidst our experiment, particularly when I have seen with mine eyes the effects of it. My friend and roommate, Sinclair, suffers the same.
[ ... worse, even, as she'd asked him to be there. it's unfair. ]
I do not know... how long it will last, but I hope it will not stain our interactions too much. I should like to befriend those who are companions of Young Wufei just the same.
no subject
it helps his mood considerably that she doesn't show him any pity. Heero doesn't have much patience for those who would patronize him. he doesn't look formidable enough to have as much experience with pain as he does, but the collection of overlapping scars that texture his shoulders - bared by his sleeveless shirt and just visible in the dark beneath the spotlight of a street lamp - tell a different story.
Heero shakes his head. not to dismiss Don Quixote's apology, but let there be no misunderstandings: ]
I'm not an innocent. I would have done it myself if he hadn't.
[ the consequences apparently haven't changed his mind about that. ]
no subject
[ she doesn't think either of them could manage it, after all. she can. she could kill one of them if they asked, or if it was necessary as far as her morals went, but not sinclair. not gregor. they already feel too much at fault for things out of their hands.
but if he wants to take it as her not wanting to ask them to kill her for more sentimental reasons, that's fine. if ever she needed a hand in that again, though she promised she wouldn't, then at least she's got two... three, if she's thinking rightly that duo would as well, people to count on. ]
Thy world, or rather the life thee lead, must not be so different than mine own if thou'rt able to easily agree to it. What is it thee do?
no subject
I was a soldier.
[ he hopes her world isn't like his. but Heero has no idea, of course. he can't know what the rest of the universe is capable of, nor does he have much imagination for it.
which is why he doesn't quite understand her work. maybe he'll hear about it. maybe not, if Don feels her business is done. Heero Yuy is not the type to to push for details or company, and not everyone can recognize his not immediately taking back off into a solitary jog as the sign of interest it is. ]
Do you run?
no subject
disgression aside, the question both surprises and more clearly gladdens her, bouncing on her heels. was she surprised at the soldier comment? no, it'd been a nod of understanding, but the offer-- yes, happy surprise. ]
When I am able! We most oft go by way of bus, but I am the most nimble of my companions -- there is no one faster than Don Quixote and her Rocinante! There, at least.
[ plenty of people are, but she's ever self-confident anyway. one of her other lives is built around speed being her power, so it's very apt to say she likes to run. she'll touch on the soldier thing in a moment's time. ]
Do thee wish to race? Or simply continue as thou were doing before mine interruption?
no subject
[ and: Rocinante?
but more immediately, Heero can't think of a time that he's ever raced against someone else for... no reason at all. on his own, or for training, or even to keep undercover? all yes.
but for sport alone? that will be a first.
but with no reason to decline, Heero nods an agreement - because now he is wondering just how fast she is, and what he might be able to discern about Don Quixote from how she runs against him. after all: she was confident going into that fight against Wufei, too. ]
To where?