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

[citycenter]

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. JUMP TO TOP ↑ | ↓ JUMP TO COMMENTS 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. JUMP TO TOP ↑ | ↓ JUMP TO COMMENTS 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. JUMP TO TOP ↑ | ↓ JUMP TO COMMENTS 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. JUMP TO TOP ↑

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Comments

kamui uehara | no more heroes

[metafictions]

01; network
text, un: UEHARA

Would you classify the item you found in your deposit box as:

A. Positively associated

B. Negatively associated

C. Neutral

D. It's complicated

You don't need to go into specifics if you don't want to, but if you could elaborate (i.e. it was very positive/negative, or what might have made it complicated) it might help us find a pattern.

[He doesn't add anything else, nor does he bother turning on anon. The more he tries to sort this into making some kind of sense, the less he's thinking about the implications of what he found inside his own box.]

02; doing bad!

[Kamui is... filing.

Wait. He's filing?

On the desk behind the young man are several sizable stacks of paper. One by one, working in complete silence, he's sorting through the bank's files, checking them for any notable names or information, then replacing them in their cabinets. Unfortunately, everything is blank, useless, or unfilled-- so this is turning into an exercise in painstakingly re-sorting empty sheets of paper.

In spite of the drudgery of the task, Kamui works with a focus that never once wavers, nor does he look up if addressed. At long last, he glances over his shoulder at whoever's approached him:]

If you aren't going to help, can you leave? [he says, tone matter of fact.] I don't want to talk about what I saw in there.

[So, yes: he's already been in his own vault.]

03; still doing Bad
(possible thread cws: child abuse & neglect)

[Once the initial rush of interest in the bank vaults has passed, Kamui makes his way out to the nearest park. He's got a contemplative, distant look on his face as he stares down at the burnished key that he, like everyone else, has received. It rests on top of his item: a child's sticker book, slightly dog-eared and worn, but otherwise intact.

He'd forgotten all about this. He had been content to have lost those years of his childhood, really: knowing that whoever has brought them all here has unearthed this long-buried part of himself is, to say the least, unnerving.]

They really do know us. [he says to no one in particular. There's a troubled frown on his face as the thoughts race through his head.]

This is going to be a problem.

wildcard;
[feel free to hmu at smithsyndicate or at the plotting post if you'd like something different!]

02

[gradenine]

[ after calming himself down from that incessant and utterly embarrassing mental breakdown from the vaults, roland comes out of it... looking fine? his suit may be a touch wrinkled and his eyes look bloodshot with tears, but at least he ain't a blubbering mess anymore.

he's still looking for a decent enough distraction from all that, and he spots some guy... doing paperwork? tf. ]

Depends on what you need help for in the first place, jeez.

[ that's the thing, they all need help..... lmao ]

I ain't gonna ask about that, since we just met and all and there are better icebreakers out there. Like what you found here so far.

[metafictions]

[They're all Coping tbqh. Even Kamui, on closer examination, looks unsettled: the attention he's paying to his papers seems to be, well, a way to focus on literally anything else.]

Filing. [SIMPLE AND SUCCINCT AS THAT.]

I was hoping to find something about the bank outside of, um, the vault. Stuff.

[Yeah. He's trying very hard to steer away from the topic, even if the thought of it is nudging an insistent place in the back of his head.]

I can't believe a bank of this size would have no money and no completed paperwork. [Roland, you're getting a random assortment of papers pushed your way-- if he doesn't help file, he can at least see how empty they all are.] Not even money.

This place is really, really odd.

[gradenine]

Yeah, I can see that. [ through roland's bloodshot eyes. wings, he looks like such a wreck. ] If you're not prepared to see whatever you put in that box, don't go in there. Give it a week or so. Maybe never if you're that terrified.

[ roland doesn't blame him. speaking from experience here!! he then takes a step back from the pile of paperwork that's been pushed onto him, casting the younger male a Look as he picks up an presumably empty sheet of paper. ]

Well, considering that we can take just whatever we want from shops for free, I assume that this place doesn't need money in the first place. [ but then why even have a bank in the first place... ] They probably took away the money along with the previous occupants of this City. Did you have money on you when you first got here?

@deku

[fullgauntlet]

D.

I know it might seem like the easy way to answer but... I picked that because my item is both positive and negative for me?

[metafictions]

Thanks for replying. It's okay if it feels like an easy answer-- as long as you're answering honestly.

Again, you don't have to give me exact details if you aren't comfortable, but is it that the associated memories are both good and bad? That they're attached to a certain complex time in your life...? I want to see what info we can gather, and if there's some sort of commonality...

[fullgauntlet]

Yeah, that's about what it is for me. The item I received is one that makes me think of a good childhood memory of the time that I got it. But it's also a reminder of someone very important to me getting badly hurt.

I'm not sure what other items were found... But this item in particular is a very emotional one for me.

01

[codenametesla]

[As much as she doesn't want to be sharing her life story with everyone, she does still feel compelled to try and share information in the hopes of figuring out why all this happened. that's definitely not the same thing, don't worry about it.]

D.

I think I'm supposed to feel negative about this, but I don't. Yet? I wasn't sure how to feel when I got it back home either.

[metafictions]

Hmm. Then let me rephrase the question.

It's something you definitely feel strongly about?

[codenametesla]

Yes, definitely.

If the items are all supposed to provoke a strong reaction, or be somehow formative to the owner, then mine would fit that.

Have you seen a pattern so far?

01; text; un: The Seventh Crown of the Seventh Demon King

[unrequite]

D. It was a letter addressed to me from someone I hold very dear, but the content veered a bit more personal than I would have liked, especially if the idea was to share it.

[ At least he'd been expected to share it with someone he already knew. He would've much rather kept it to himself, but that interaction could have been much worse, all told. ]

[metafictions]

That does sound pretty alarming. I know I don't really want to share what I got either-- it's not something I like to think about often.

[But isn't this also kind of sharing? Dammit. Stupid city got him again.]

Did you end up talking about the letter to someone?

[unrequite]

Had to, actually. The city saw fit to give it to someone else to deliver to me. Fortunately, we'd already been acquainted and had something of a rapport, but I'd rather that something that personal be left to my own discretion to reveal.

I do hope your experience has been manageable, at least. This has been a uniformly difficult experience for about everyone I know.

3

[cranekin]

(His robes feel heavier now that he has his rosary tucked away within them but he won't let that weigh him down. Not now. At least, not any more than it already has. He'd wanted a quiet place to bear things on his own but it seems he isn't the only one with the same idea.

It's the color pictures on the book's cover that catch his attention. It looks like it's for children but this guy is clearly too old forthat. Someone from childhood, he wonders?)

For you or someone else?

[metafictions]

[Tsuru NO, you activated the city's stupid show and tell card!!!

Kamui shoots the other man a tired, resigned expression, fiddling with the key to busy his hands (and not touch the sticker book).]

It was mine. When I was small. [It could be worse. Tsuru could've found him in the vault, re-experiencing all of these emotions fresh. He exhales, then continues speaking, like he's reciting a script he's thought up for himself to make this easier.]

I had a... difficult upbringing. I didn't want to think about it again at all, much less see the reminder.

[cranekin]

(Ah, yes, this strange curse that seems to be going around... Kamui gives an unprompted explanation and he only listens patiently, expression unchanging, a light smile on his face as if Kamui was telling him about the weather or something more mundane.)

Hmm. (He hums, crossing his arms in front of him as he seems to consider what he's heard,) Then why not a change of topic?

(If the compulsion has passed and will allow it, he's happy to move on.)

01. text. @kaveh

[fussiest]

Option D, certainly. That option seems to cover the span of A, B & C, but isn't that how memory is?
Ah, are you collating these answers? What sort of pattern have you seen so far?

[metafictions]

So far? Everyone else has answered D. I'm the only strong B, I think...

[fussiest]

Oh, so... there wasn't a bit of positive association with yours, then.
I'm sorry to hear that. They ought not be doing this sort of thing - toying with people's emotions, I mean.
Are you going to keep the item?

01, @Kromer

[gripper]

A, positive.

( ...all of her issues with it are a result of dying here, really, but the item itself? Delightful. Truly one of her favorite school memories. )

Any patterns so far?

[metafictions]

[Oh, it's the person who'd died again...]

One you've broken, actually. You're the only A; everyone else has said it was something too complicated to be an A, B, or C.

[Barring his own very strong B, that is.]

3

[wrenchedup]

[ And here Wrench was just laying on the fucking grass nearby smoking a cigarette and trying to numb the myriad of emotions he was having through being kinda drunk as a base state of existence. He'd even managed to find some cute little flask as to not make it painfully obvious what he was doing even though it was pretty obvious.

This crisis that had been aired to no one in particular by someone who was having A Moment on the bench nearby was definitely not what he had any desire to talk about. Not like he didn't know what it was to be continually thinking about this shit, its just— ] Coming to this conclusion just now, huh?

[ BUT HERE HE IS ANSWERING ANYWAY. ]

[metafictions]

Ah.

[Kamui doesn't start, but he does snap right to attention at the sound of Wrench's voice. (How did he miss this guy? His powers really are gone, or at least severely diminished.)

He shifts uncomfortably, putting the little book and key into an inside pocket of his coat.]

I assumed it before, but now it's all but confirmed. [A beat. He cants his head slightly, watching this strangely-dressed man drink and smoke for a moment.] How long have you been lying there?

01, un: stratos

[lockingout]

Pretty hard to categorize. The item itself is squarely A. It's a memory of a happier time.

But since that happier time's irrevocably gone, the feelings associated are complicated anyway.

[metafictions]

I'll put you down for a D, then? Maybe I should've defined the categories better, this is getting kind of mixed up already.

Anyway, while I do still think whoever has brought us here is trying to mess with our emotions... there's something to be said for how much they're stirring up the past with these items. Your item is from a time gone; mine is from a time I wished was gone.