citylogs | EVENT: That Stuff Never Winds Up in a Pocket, Honest (July 2023)

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EVENT: That Stuff Never Winds Up in a Pocket, Honest (July 2023)

THAT STUFF NEVER WINDS UP IN A POCKET, HONEST.

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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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

You said your powers started kicking in when you were twelve, right? If you were the only one who was like that, I think... maybe even before it happened, things might've felt strange. And especially after, because how do you even explain that? Is it even safe to talk about it, or would your family think there was something wrong with you or you were lying?

[ Maybe it's conjecture, but she gets it, a little. No one in her family knows Tsuruno is a Magical Girl, and she wonders how it'd feel like to have someone who got it. Like Iroha and Ui, or Mitama and Mikage. ]

And you moved? I can't even imagine that...

[Ah, she remembers that, too. Tsuruno does put things together well enough for someone he thought was mostly air-headed upon a first meeting.]

My powers started kicking in right after the move, actually. So you're correct.

[There's something there, something in her words that are more telling than the usual. (It's called empathy, Henry.) He feels as though he might unravel a bit more of her story if he offers, piecemeal, his own.

And he's just feeling looser-lipped in general, too.]

But when I say they misunderstood me, I don't mean just because of my powers. Before, yes, things were strange. From their perspective, there was always something wrong with me.

[ Well, I guess she's just going to sit beside him so they can talk like she isn't trying to loom over him for dominance.

Not that she's trying. Not that she'd try. ]

You mean, just your personality? It's not hard to talk to you, though.

[ Though maybe if you'd stared at her like a Dead Fish like your younger self, that'd be another story entirely-- ]

Practice does wonders. I've had many years to [pretend] get used to talking to people. To get used to looking them in the eye when I'm speaking with them.

[The same way he does it with such ease now as she settles next to him. We'll say they're at the park, and the bench creaks a little under the extra weight. He scoots aside to give her room.]

I couldn't connect with people.

[People aren't worth connecting to.]

I kept to myself too often.

[No one would understand how he felt, besides.]

I'm sure you knew kids like that, too.

Kids who had a hard time connecting with others who kept to themselves...

... [ Ah. ]

Yeah, I know someone like that. She had a hard time making friends. Her family also pretty much excluded her to the point where she wanted to disappear.

[ And she quite literally disappeared. ]

[Versus Henry who ended up taking out that discontent towards the smiling family in the photo.]

Sounds like a similar situation. [He's curious now, of course.] Are you friend with her now, though?

Yeah! We're sort of her new family now.

[ An entire family of teenage girls. ]

[He doesn't know you come from a whole gaggle of teenaged girls, though.]

And who's "we"? Your own family? [Tell him about your family, Tsuruno!! Enough about his. They're (mostly) dead, anyway.] Tell me about them.

I mean, I could tell you about my family, or the "we", I was talking about. They're different.

[ Don't worry, he'll learn. ]

[He's going to have to. Making leaps of assumptions with this girl always ends up landing him in another set of questions. His smile twitches.]

...Which one are you closest to? Tell me about that one.

[How about that?]

I love them both the same.

[ Sorry, Henry. ]

But I can tell you about my actual family! I've got two sisters, a mom, a dad, and a grandma. My grandpa passed away last year, and my mom and grandma accidentally took the money I got from winning the lottery and went on vacation, but they should be back soon!

[ sparkle. ]

[This girl,,

She really is one of the few that Henry has difficulties telling the difference between sincerity and simply having his questions so expertly cartwheeled around. He wants to chalk it up to the former, but then Tsuruno will surprise him with moments of cleverness, and then he's back to being unsure again.

Ah, if only his powers worked to their full capacity--]

I'm sorry to hear about your grandma, but that's a lot of money to "accidentally" take, you know.

[ The real reason Tsuruno was brought here: to confuse the hell out of Henry Creel. ]

Yeah, I thought so too! It was really unlucky, right?

[ Yep. Totally unlucky. Totally an accident! Her mom and grandma surely didn't take the money she'd won to save the restaurant for any other reason and she definitely doesn't think otherwise! ]

[An elongated beat of silence.]

Do you really think that was all just due to bad luck? All of it accidentally for a vacation?

[Henry has purposefully sheared away any judgment from the tone of his question. This is an honest to god, sincere question.]

... [ Her eyes lower, after a few seconds. ]

I want to believe in them, that's all. Whatever the reason, I have more important things to focus on than whether it was an accident or not.

[Ah... now, that's telling.]

...Parents are just full of disappointments, aren't they?

[Saying this right after she says she wants to have faith in her own is probably just his cynic showing; just the misanthropic part that refuses to see good intentions as they are in anyone. In this case, he highly doubts that her parents have just accidentally run off with her lottery money, but maybe that's unfair, given he has no real context for the situation.

But anyway!]

What other things are you focusing on while they're gone?

Well, I don't know about that. My dad's really doing his best, which is part of what I'm focusing on.

[ ... Henry really seems to have a lot of bitterness packed away behind his polite smile, doesn't he? If his parents hadn't understood him long before his powers had started developing, it sounds as though he'd never actually had a good relationship with them. ]

Basically, I'm trying to help drum up business to keep our restaurant going! And making sure I have plenty of energy for that by being active!

[He is embittered, and that's something of an understatement. Indeed, if he really stretched out what goodwill he has saved for his parents (and there is barely any at all), maybe he could say that his father tried his best, too. But it changed nothing. Henry was still as unhappy as ever back then.]

Oh, so your family owns a restaurant? [That lottery money might have been better applied towards a business, he thinks.] That's funny.

[What's funny? He doesn't say.]

[ That's okay, brackets! She's got you! ]

Is it? [ Genuinely puzzled by this statement, of course. ]

What's so funny about it?

[help...tsuruno doesn't deserve to go through this cr

Just a questioning little look.]

I'm just trying to put your story together pieces at a time. [And it's sure proven interesting!] Like where the brainwashing falls into all of this, in the middle of helping run a family business.

Oh, it's completely unrelated, actually. The brainwashing was more of a Kamihama thing than a family thing.

[He figured, but here's his opening to ask again!]

So where does the brainwashing fit in, then?

[ With the most sincere smile and the most sincere tone-- ]

I don't wanna talk about it.

[Ah, to be so blunt with such a smiling face. An art form he can appreciate, even if his own reply is an easy one-]

You can't blame me for being curious, can you?

I'm not blaming you. That's why I want to be honest about it.

[ She's hardly offended, but she's also definitely not up to talking about it for many, many reasons. ]

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