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~Bartender another Irish Whisky please

So my last post was a rant. I want to do something different now. I have a book I have been writing for a while - finished an act of it and I am realising just how much I have left to learn. I thought "Hey, why not share it with you all"

So sit back and enjoy :)

Welcome…

To the man who will read this and not remember writing it: My name is Bram. Your name is Bram.

I am on the afternoon train to the

Banks of the Isles to withdraw the

This one time, I walk in there

after work and see this black thing

The notebook itself. It's this textured, fragrant thing. I keep bringing it to my nose without meaning to — it smells of something old and warm. Lou told me it was made of paper, which is apparently made from wood, which explains the cost I suppose. On the inside it's just empty. Page after page of nothing, waiting for me to fill it. The spine creaks when I open it wide, which doesn’t sound right so I shall avoid doing that.

(By the way, random tangent, ForBram is my name but everyone just calls me Bram for some reason. I’m tired of explaining this to people. So what if it is weird, it’s 42% of my name you’re ignoring)

Anyway. The route of the afternoon

train takes me from the Residential

I will approach the immigration check for the Uppe Crafting sector from where I can go to the Banks on the outskirts of White-Town. I have roughly 2 hours.

While I wait, I’ll just write down all the context that I have swirling around in my head so that whatever knowledge pushed me on this path keeps me on this path post-wipe.

Context

Everyone in Greymarket - and some say Blackmarket too - has been having their memories wiped. Every seven days, like clockwork. Clean. Total. Pristine. No one remembers why it happens, but everyone just goes along with it. Every time it happens, people treat it like a change in weather and move on. It boggles my mind. Every time I bring it up, people tell me to "let go of it" and "stop asking stupid questions."

We’ve created a lot of ways to

bypass this recurrent amnesia.

The plan is… well, previous me didn’t get that far. All I know is, I needed to get a notebook, which I did earlier this morning. It hurt me to see a third of my money go, but it needed to be done. Next, I get the rest of my money and then start digging for information.

Ok the bit about the old man is bugging me now, I can’t leave it unresolved. I’ll just go over and ask him…

I went up to him. "Excuse me, sir. I was wondering, I saw you from over there and I'm just curious. Where are you headed?"

First he told me to ‘bugger off’. On further cajoling, he softened. He was a craftsman who, along with his wife, used to make chess pieces for the tourneys. "Forty years we made them, me wife an' I," he said. "That is un'ill she had to go and get herself killed. Now I donne even remember what she looked like, or smelled like, or sounded like."

He paused. He was looking at the floor of the train, at his own reflection in the silver, his eyes glazed over. He looked back up..

"Now I need to go and make chess pieces alone."

I opened my mouth. I was gonna say something.. Something about how sorry I was, or how unfair it seemed, or how I understood. But I didn't understand. And this whole thing made me deeply restless and uncomfortable. So I closed my mouth and told him I was extremely sorry and went back to my seat

The thought wouldn't leave me. After a while, I tried to see his situation. I tried to picture it. Someone important enough to shape your whole life, and then just… poof. I don’t think I got very far. I looked out the window instead.

Right, we’re pulling into immigration check and this small, all black, neatly dressed little man with shoes that make these weird clackety noises as he walks is clacking down the train checking tokens. I have mine and it still works… I hope. Oh wait he’s coming to me.

As hoped my token worked. Now we just wait for another half hour for the inspection to be done and then we get to move on. I’m going to take a nap.

Banks of the Isles

I was woken up by the kind bank lady who was sitting next to me. The train station is split in two - one side goes toward the White-Town Imports section and the other goes towards the Banks of the Isle. The station itself looks magnificent Marble - I recognise from Lou’s - with a bit of gold along the edges. The marble was stained with all sorts of hues and tints - light pinks and greens, mesmerising turquoises and violets, deep scarlets running through it all.

I took the path to the Banks. It led me through a tunnel, lit with gas lamps and that smelled dank and mossy at the beginning but turned into the fruity Banks smell as I neared the end. There was so much crowd I felt like a drop in a river, thankfully the lanes for going and coming are separated, though a great many pickpocketings happened at the fence separating the two. I exited the tunnel through some stairs and was greeted by the brightest sunshine I’d seen in a while.

Everything looked… clean, crisp and airy is the best I can describe it. Completely unlike Greymarket that always had this thickness in the air that wore you down just that tiny bit and that seemed to dull your senses. It was this big open plaza with gardens and footpaths and in front of me I could see the three towering Banks of the Isles buildings, tapering away into the distant sky like glass shards that went to the clouds.

The teller was this twig of a man who somehow had the twirliest bush of a moustache you'd ever see, and he had me hop through a million hoops to get my account emptied. Apparently it's for "safety" but I suspect it's because they don't know any other way, given how unknowable these remnant computing systems tend to be. An hour later I walked out of the bank with 20,000 bucks in gold. I felt like a burglar.

I found a cafe where they were brewing coffee. I'd always wanted to taste one. It's good - this smooth, bitter thing with a hint of sourness. The colour was deep and captivating and the smell was something to die for. I've heard from Nan that they used to have coffee in the Banks that would keep you up all night. "Now," she says, "all they have is brown sock juice." I still think it tasted quite nice.

I sat there with my hands around

the warm cup and my notebook open

I didn't want to leave. I left.

On the train home, I planned.

I need muscle. I have no idea how deep this goes but I want someone scary-looking beside me. I look like a wire. Second, I want a butter-fingers - someone light-handed. It seems handy to have one, and every team in Lou's historical stories has a thief. Once I get those, I'll make my way to White-Town. Someone there is bound to be interested in the same thing I am, and even if they're not, they're likely to have some strange artefact or piece of knowledge that helps.

Next steps: set up a stall in the Business Sector. Get my team.

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