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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“Indeed, it seems everyone here has been stunted in some way. However, that is not what I asked. Your homeland, is it more of the arctic variety?”
Loki was no exception to enjoying talking of himself, and he was well aware of that. However, finding out more about the man in front of him at the moment felt a lot like talking about himself seeing as he was trying to figure if they had any sort of relation between them. Besides, Loki could be as stubborn as Thor when he saw something he wanted, and right now he wanted information.
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It's only for a second, though, before a grin snaps back into place. First step is never let anyone see you sweat. "Oh no, dear. All tieflings come from the fires of hell, I thought everyone knew that." There's more than a touch of dryness to his tone, but it's a common enough thought. And a stupid one, but when has that ever stopped anyone.
no subject
When the man finally catches up, Loki is surprised by his response. “A tiefling? I have not heard of your kind before. How odd that we could end up looking so similar when coming from very different climates.” This last part is more muttered to himself as he considers this. He looks at the other man again and smiles. “I do not normally look like this.” He’s unsure if it will count against his abilities to use magic here, but he drops his Aesir glamour, revealing bright blue skin with raised markings and ruby red eyes. He only holds it for a moment before returning to his previous look.
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"We're common enough, where I come from," he says instead, shrugging slightly. Maybe not quite in his particular shade, but still. "I've a dear friend who's a lovely blue herself, but she's from Nicodranas." Very much the opposite of ice, sunny port town that it is.
"As for why," he gives an overly theatrical sort of gesture, waving at nothing in particular, "perhaps this place is in need of color? Quite a few humans here, after all."
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“I would like to see that one day.” Though he doubts that will ever happen. Loki is well aware that he will be lucky to be alive at all if he ever manages to leave this place.
Loki laughs then, justly lightly but a real and true laugh. “Yes, there does seem to be a lot of humans around, though some of them seem to not be typical. I suppose they have that going for them.” This place would be dreadfully boring if it were mostly run of the mill humans.
no subject
Ah well. If Molly has to provide color variation all on his own, he can certainly manage that.
"So tell me about your ice palace, then," he says with an easy, expectant sort of look. Perhaps it's some sort of genasi thing. Ice elementals? He's heard of weirder.
no subject
Not like this man, who so proudly walks around looking different from most of the others here. He can’t admit it, even to himself, but Loki is a little jealous of that. Perhaps one day he will stride through town in all his blue glory. Of course with his luck it would end up draining all his magic around here and he’d be well and truly screwed then.
“I’m afraid I do not know very much. I can, under normal circumstances, wield ice as a weapon and my touch can burn you with cold, and I believe my seidr is innate within my species, but I sadly know little else. As the story goes, my birth parents abandoned me as a baby. Odin, my adoptive father found me and took me in. Though it was not as benevolent as that may sound. He used me as a tool to try and keep the peace between our peoples. This was all hidden from me and the only stories I was told of my true people were that they were monsters bent on destroying those who I thought were my family.” He says all this quite casually, as if it is no big deal. Once upon a time it had sent him into a rage, but now that Odin is dead, and had tried to truly make amends before his passing, Loki feels better about the whole mess.
no subject
Still, one can't help but respect a good story. "My, how dramatic. Stolen children and warring peoples! It would make for an excellent play." He can think of three different ways to build on it off the top of his head, in fact, but he suspects that someone may not want to have their life fictionalized to quite that extent. Couldn't be Molly, but Molly's working with a blanker slate than most.
"So what does one do with themselves after all that?"
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Like how he killed his birth father and most (if not all) of his brethren.
“Would you believe I actually staged it once? All the people of Asgard came out night after night to see the tale of my life.” Loki is clearly amused by all of this. Though he really had loved the attention.
“Oh, I put my father into what other realms would call a coma, made sure my brother could not return home to take the thrown and ruled my people for awhile. It all fell apart of course, but these things do.” He waves his hand flippantly, again as if this is a normal story. He knows it’s not, but it happened such a long time ago now and so many more interesting (and terrible) things have happened since.
“But what of you? You must have some interesting stories. I have yet to meet anyone truly boring who was brought here.” Though he hasn’t met even close to everyone. He’s sure there are plenty of boring people, he’s just not about to say that right now.
no subject
He grins easily, spreading his hands a bit to add emphasis. "Oh, stories I can certainly do. Do you know an entire town treated me as foreign royalty for a week?" Because he'd convinced them that he was foreign royalty, but that's besides the point. "Put me up in the nicest place they had and all. Lovely people, them." And it had the added bonus of running a much less savory con man out of town in the process.
"But I can hardly compare to an actual ruler, I'm sure."
no subject
Loki gave Molly an amused look. It was starting to sound like they had a few things in common. “I did not, do tell!” Because yes, he did want to hear that story. That was the exact kind of story he liked to hear.
And if Molly wanted to hear more of Loki, he would gladly do so.
“The first time, my trickery was discovered rather too quickly. My brother’s friends ratted me out, the fiends. Brought him back from earth on their own, against my wishes as ruler and I was ousted.” He does not plan on going more into the intervening years as they had not been pleasant ones, so he skips a few years before continuing his own story. “The second time I took power, I got my father sent to one of those homes for the elderly on earth and then assumed his visage. I am told for the years I held reign, my people enjoyed more riches and happiness than in all the generations that preceded them.”
Of course, Thor had ruined that again, but it had been fun while it lasted.