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
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[ Duo looks up, through his bangs, as Heero says that the toy Leo was his. There are certain types of people that are preferable to become Gundam pilots, for what it was worth, but a toy Leo seems to fit more with a person who had someone who cared about them at some point in time. Something.. opposite to what he would expect with what he knew of Heero Yuy.
The obvious confusion on his face throws Duo even more off balance as the door closes behind them, but it doesn't take long for Duo to sigh, head hanging as he realizes he should have known better.
They are probably stuck in here, at least for a little while, and the braided pilot is soon groaning loudly. ]
Christ - Fuck -
Why does it never fucking end, here!?
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When he opens his eyes again, they're fixated on that door, the blood seemingly drained from his face.
Of the two of them, Heero isn't the one who nearly asphyxiated in an airtight room like this. And yet, he's clutching the torso of the Leo doll so hard that, had he all his strength, it might be crushed - but instead of shards of plastic, all Heero has to show for his rising agitation is white knuckles. ]
Is it... will it open?
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[ Duo, head hanging, only catches the flinch in the slight movement of Heero's lower body, but it's enough to bring his focus from his introspective whining back to the other pilot. Heero, with his face pale as he'd seen a ghost, is not a usual sight, and brings Duo back to standing with a sudden seriousness to his expression, already reaching out to touch and hold Heero at his shoulder and arm.
Yes, Heero is not generally a touchy person, but Duo has found no other way he prefers to communicate with the other pilot, gentle in his coaxing for Heero to settle a little.
Even some measure of bringing Heero down might be more helpful than the tensed, ready-to-jump version he is looking at now. Duo speaks lowly after a moment, making sure to keep his eyes on Heero's, watching his friend closely. ]
Hey, we're okay. And even if we're not, we're together, which makes our chances pretty damn good at figuring it out, right? [ A little smile, typical Duo Maxwell and his little reassurances despite all the chances against them. After a moment of steadying, he turns to the door, assessing it for a moment before he begins to attempt to push and pull at mechanisms, fiddling to see if anything would cause a result.
... So far they can still breathe, so he isn't losing his mind just yet. ]
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He just wasn't expecting Duo's grounding touch to reach down into those parts of him that have been buried for so long. Before the war, before their Gundams... years before they ever met.
Heero exhales slowly, some of the wildness leaving his eyes as violet fills his field of vision, replacing thoughts of steel-grey bulkheads and the sooty blackness of space on the other side of them. Duo's right, of course: they're fine.
No earthbound vault is as airtight as an OZ brig, Duo knows.
And Heero knows there's no fire here rapidly burning through their oxygen.
He watches Duo fiddle for another quiet moment, before finally Heero sets the Leo doll's torso down on the table, beside the box with the letter inside that he still hasn't read. He approaches the door. ]
I'll try.
[ Said with a slight scowl, but resigned - Heero isn't eager to showcase his diminished strength, but of the two of them... he's still stronger by a margin. ]
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You're not gonna break out, Ro. [ It isn't a potshot at Heero's decreased strength - even fully as strong as he normally was, Heero wasn't breaking through this vault door barehanded. What he wouldn't do for some sort of weaponry at the moment, but this is the situation they're in.
For his part, Duo is squatted down, still tinkering, eyes following where different mechanisms move or slide to as he moves one item or another, keen in what he is watching. This is how he susses out many things that he does not necessarily know how it works like a textbook.
After a moment, Duo has a thought, and pauses to look at Heero. ]
That's all that was in that box? There wasn't anything else?
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Heero retraces his steps back to the table where the opened deposit box and broken toy both sit, quickly scanning for a key, or a clue - anything. All he sees at the bottom of the empty box is a paper, as aged and worn as one might expect for an item seemingly kept "safe" for so long.
After wiping his clammy palms on his jeans, Heero gingerly picks up the note, reading from it in an even voice for Duo's benefit: ]
"Nothing is yours. It is to use. It is to share. If you will not share it, you cannot use it."
[ Then he frowns, almost childishly. He hates riddles. ]
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C'mon.. even regularly you couldn't.. [ Duo sighs, knowing what that grumble meant and.. well. He gets it, but all the same, better to not waste energy that may be better used elsewhere somewhere along the line to help them get out of here.
He's still finicking with the parts as Heero reads it out, a frown of concentration settling onto his face as he continues on. This is also a fool's errand, but Duo is currently fooling himself to think that it is everything but. ]
Is it to use. It is to share. ... will not share it cannot use it.. [ Duo mumbles to himself, rolling the riddle over in his mind much like he's rolling over the many finicky pieces in the back of the door. ]
What like.. are we meant to share the Leo? Play with it? What am I, seven?
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[ Is that the age that normal children play with toys like this? Heero wouldn't know. Unlike Duo, he's never spent any significant amount of time in the company of other children. He wouldn't know how to mime at collaborative play with this beheaded model Leo even if the City demanded it of him directly.
He sets the note down. If it's to "use," whatever that means, he'll have to fix it. He can do that while Duo continues to fiddle with the locking mechanism (they don't know that it's fruitless; Heero has faith that if anyone can crack that door without a single tool to his name, Duo can). ]
I was four. Maybe five.
[ But he doesn't know why he says that out loud, on his way to collect the separate pieces together: head, arm, torso.
Was that why she'd slapped it out of his hands? ]
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Just spit ballin’… [ though Duo had spent time around other children, the majority of that time had been spent stealing to survive, basically doing anything they had to in order to have something in their bellies. And by the time he’d been in the Church, no longer having to worry every day about survival… mentally, he was too adult to fuss with toys.
Despite the Sister and Father pushing him to go and be a child, he found himself incapable. Bad at pretending, and even worse at things like sharing or generally not being an asshole to the other, more tender children.
But then Heero moves on to sharing some and Duo falters for a moment. Talking about his life before Meteor.. other than in passing anecdotes about being a street kid.. Duo tends to avoid. ]
I… never really had toys. I was too busy trying to eat and finding a warm place to stay before the orphanage and after that I just .. I dunno.
I wasn’t the same as the others so I kinda finagled my way through pretending.
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That's why you're so good at it.
[ He's still doing it, isn't he?
Heero settles down onto the floor near him, after collecting that last piece, and begins turning bits of plastic over to see where and how to snap the pieces back together. Something he was too young to do the first time, though it's such a simple thing now. ]
I only had it for a day. Then I didn't have anything.
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At pretending? I guess. Kinda a thing you learn when you have to steal to live.. blending in.
[ Blending in and going unnoticed are one of the top skills involved, at the very least. Duo, in all of his vacillations since the war, is still trying to figure out which made up Duo Maxwell is closest to the real one.
Or maybe he hasn’t discovered that one, yet. He isn’t sure he really cares, at the end of the day.
Having nothing .. it gives Duo a moment’s pause as he looks over at the other teen, unsure how to respond. He, too, hadn’t had much of anything up until recently, but he doesn’t want to seem as though he’s trying to overshadow whilst commiserating.
Going back to his fiddling, Duo finally thinks to ask: ]
So you weren’t on your own from the jump like me, then?
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Snap. The little arm pops back into its socket. Heero wiggles it around a bit as a test, laser-focused on doing it right. It feels important, somehow.
He doesn't look all that worried about being "upstaged," so to speak. ]
We all had parents at some point.
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Yeah ok. For the genetic materials, maybe. [ Aside from that, to Duo’s memory, he’s never had anything close to having a parent up until the Church.
And even that hadn’t lasted all that long. ]
I guess I kinda… had a mom of some sort at some point. For a little while.
But I was ten or so at the time so I didn’t really think of her that way until I was lookin’ back on it.
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A mom.
Heero glances over momentarily, his rare curiosity admittedly piqued. He's known Duo for years and worked with him more closely than he has any of the other pilots, but they've never talked about this. ]
Was she kind?
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[ Duo, pointedly, does not return Heero’s glance and continues his fiddling with the inner workings of the door.
Talking about Sister Helen is .. painful, in a very particular way. She had extended such patience and kindness to him, even when he hadn’t really deserved it at the time. ]
Very. Too kind, actually, in the end.
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But he sees Duo avoiding his gaze, so he turns his attention back to the Leo, because he isn't the type to press. He isn't the type to share either, but for some reason he's still doing that.
Snap. There's the head back on. He lifts it to inspect it.
As a toy, it's entirely unremarkable. It doesn't look like it's spent over a decade as space debris, but Heero is sure this kind of product can't even be purchased in the Earth Sphere anymore. There are no more Alliance gift shops to buy them from. ]
I don't remember much about her. My mom.
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[ Why they keep talking about the subject of their 'mothers', as two people who have spent a lot of time together before this moment is beyond him. Duo tries to ignore it, really, tinkering away at the door even though he wasn't making any progress on it for the simple fact it allowed him to keep his mind off of things.
But then Heero continues, and Duo stops for a moment, looking at the other man as if he doesn't quite understand what's going on right now. ]
I - [ A pause, Duo works it over, and then - ] - How old were you when you last saw her?
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That day.
[ Back when he was four or five, or... whatever. But Heero has a feeling that he didn't see much of her before then, either.
At least the strange conversation is helping to distract Heero from wanting to tear the vault door clear off its hinges. Surprisingly. Normally, he'd be doing whatever it took to escape a subject like this. Maybe because it's Duo, it's okay. He knows whatever he says won't be met with judgment. Or worse: pity.
For lack of anything better to do, Heero sort of poses the figure on the floor between them, until it stands freely. He still hasn't really figured out how to share it or use it. Then his brows draw together in a dawning realization. ]
This place... wanted to remind me.
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[ Duo is momentarily distracted from what he's doing, hand in place for what piece he's currently fiddling with, as Heero gets the toy Leo to stand. There's a long moment where he watches it, as if expecting the toy to begin moving any moment from the time Heero releases his hold on it.
It doesn't, of course, though Heero's next sentence does raise his brow. ]
Remind you? Of what? Your dead mom? How kind of them.
[ A huff, and Duo is back to work, mumbling to himself about how ridiculous that is, to boot. ]
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Heero lets go of another tense sigh he's been holding onto.
He doesn't enjoy feeling so specifically targeted by an enemy he can't identify. ]
Everything. I remembered everything about that moment when I picked it up.
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[ Duo grunts lowly, something like a 'so that's why you were so pale not that long ago' without the words. Pointing it out won't help him when they're trapped in this small area together like this. Heero no doubt already knows, too, so it's doubly worthless to make a fuss out of.
Still.. to bring back something obviously so traumatic for him like this by surprise. It's a low blow. He's almost childishly tempted to kick the thing as if in punishment. ]
That's fucked, is what it is. How the hell would this place have even gotten their hands on it?
..I always disliked Leos the most. Hangin' over everyone's heads like that.
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Couldn't have. It's space junk.
[ His frown persists.
Something invaded his mind. Recreated it from his thoughts. That's the only explanation that Heero can figure, but it tracks with how strange and unreal everything else in the City is.
Is everyone else's deposit box secretly stocked with such things, or is the sick joke reserved just for him? ]
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[ yet indeed.
Duo frowns at the little Leo doll as if it’s done something truly offensive, hands beginning to tinker away.
He’s rolling it all over, mentally. The doll, the note, what that little riddle could mean now that the doll was back together again. Obviously the ‘sharing’ hadn’t been literal -
Duo pauses, then, staring ahead but not at the door and it finally clicks over, his hands stilling slowly. ]
Wait. Sharing… does it … does it want us to share about ourselves?
Our pasts, I guess, considering the Leo?
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Heero almost wishes he hadn't. it's asinine. ]
...........why.
[ Ugh. Duo is right, isn't he? ]
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Fuck if I know! [ and he most certainly does not want to share, either, so it looks like they both might be up shit’s creek. At least until they got desperate enough to begin telling things just to get out anyway.
Duo’s hands meet his face, rubbing there as he thinks about how much he wants to blow this place up. ]
I… hate this. I don’t wanna talk about any of this.
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