Track 21: Alone in This Metropolis

Track 21: Alone in This Metropolis sits on the desk like a shard of neon rain—a compact square disc, its surface a brushed obsidian that catches the light in tiny, impossible reflections. The edges are beveled, worn smooth by countless fingers, and a slender seam rims the border as if it were a lock on a memory. The center bears a faint, gilt skyline—towers lean into a rain-soaked boulevard, a single lantern glows red, and nowhere in the image does the city pretend it’s finished. The lettering is spare, Track 21 etched in a typeface that nods to old transit signage, as if this item were a ticket stub from a metropolis that keeps walking after midnight. The texture is cool under the thumb, a whisper of lacquer and metal, with a trace of ozone and rain that lingers long after you’ve set it down. It feels, in short, like something that should be heard and not simply collected. In the lore that threads through the markets and memory-shelves, Track 21 is linked to a night when the city’s grid hiccuped—an event the residents still tell in hushed tones. A lone street musician, guitarist and courier of rumors, recorded this piece as the metropolis exhaled in the darkness. Some versions of the tale insist the track was a map as much as a melody, guiding listeners through a labyrinth of alleys until the skyline itself seemed to tilt and lean back into silence. The musician disappeared soon after, leaving behind only winking neon and that one name stamped on a disc: Alone in This Metropolis. The story travels with the item, suggesting that its notes might awaken memories long treated as weathered. When you put Track 21 to use, its significance unfolds not as a blaze of stat sheets but as a thread in the world’s living fabric. In your home instance or during certain world events, playing the track releases an atmospheric layer—the air tilts, a distant train sighs by, and voices from the city’s edge murmur through the walls. Players report that listening to it during a tense moment softens the contrast between danger and hope, like the city itself leaning closer to hear your choices. Some meet it as a key to a side quest that ties the musician’s vanished story to a living, breathing market in the open streets—an echo that invites you to follow the clues rather than merely press forward. Pricing drifts in whispers at Saddlebag Exchange, where collectors trade sight unseen by notepads and tags. One tin-sided vendor might offer Track 21 for three silver, another for six, depending on wear, the depth of the engraving, and whether the skyline glows a little too brightly in the lamplight. It’s not merely commerce; it’s the city’s memory moving through hands, a reminder that some melodies owe their life to their buyers as much as to their creators. Track 21, after all, is less a song and more a doorway—one you might walk through when the metropolis seems to lean in and listen.