Destiny City is hosting an annual scavenger hunt during the Star Festival to encourage people to get out and explore their city. The prize for turning in a completed scavenger hunt is a coupon booklet and a few free tickets to upcoming city events. Even if you aren’t interested in the prize, the scavenger hunt is specifically designed to take you through the city to showcase a few historic buildings, some art installations, and some of the city’s greatest accomplishments. While many of the places are familiar, during your explorations you come across a building you’ve never seen before--something that feels out of time. You’ve been in the area countless times before, so how did you miss this place? When you lay eyes on the building, you feel a strange timelessness and have the distinct sensation of being a part of something bigger. Briefly, you may see flashes of some distant past--a flickering memory that you can’t quite place or fully form. It’s hard to make out, but at some point in time you have the distinct impression of a faded figure taking your hand and telling you to do something. They sound hopeful and encouraging, like they really believe in you. By the time you blink, the visions are gone, the building is gone. The only thing that remains is a beautiful little garden and a plaque so faded that you can’t make out the inscription.
It was safe to say that Liliane was lost.
She had followed the clues, and for a while she'd been doing all right. A few more clues and she'd gotten lost, spoken to one or two passing officers and tour guides, and found herself heading towards her next clue. Alas, with each location that she managed to reach, she found herself even more puzzled. Evidently, when it came to the city's major landmarks, this particular woman was only reliable when it came to buildings... Anything to do with statues, plaques or something else more obscure, had her a touch turned around.
She had, however, come to appreciate just how many of these things that the city seemed to have though.
It should therefore have come at no surprise that she had come to a halt, taken a seat on a nearby bench, and was staring at the sheet of paper in her hands with a forlorn expression. She could work this one out eventually, she just had to be logical about it, right? This had been what she thought, but she'd been sat here for a considerable amount of time already and she was still none the wiser.
...It was highly likely she was going to ask for more help again.
genovianprince
Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2020 3:51 pm
Epine de Rose
Ryan had been wandering around the city again, not really doing much of anything besides just enjoying being outside. It was nice to just walk around and not think and find neat little tucked away spaces. Tiny restaurants with good food, curio shops, even empty buildings that Ryan stood in front of and imagined building his restaurant in.
As he meandered, he spotted someone sitting on a bench, looking lost and staring at a paper. Ah. Scavenger hunt. He winced slightly, thinking about how horribly lost he'd gotten just a day or two before.
Stepping closer, he smiled and waved in an attempt to get her attention.
"Hi, you need any help with the hunt?"
genovianprince
Offline
Epine de Rose
Offline
Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2020 4:31 pm
A friendly face!
Her features immediately brightened in to a sunny and delighted smile, perhaps accompanied by a shred of relief. She knew when she was beat and when someone just happened to walk straight up to her and ask about the thing she was stuck on... Well, it was safe to say that she was of the opinion the stars had aligned. She wasn't alone in this and if someone was willing to help her figure out the next set of clues then she didn't have too much pride to say yes.
"Oh, are you doing it too?" she asked, perhaps a tough breathlessly though this might have been due to a sliver of excitement. "Or maybe you've finished it, I don't know, either way... " She raised her hand and gave the paper a little way.
"You'd think I'd be better at this but I'm totally not," she admitted.
"I think it wants me to head to a park but there's like 50 million of those in this city and the whole 'it's got a plaque in it thing' doesn't really help with that either because apparently we really like those too," she mused.
"You don't know which one they're on about do you or if I'm completely wrong and it means something else entirely?"
genovianprince
Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2020 4:54 pm
Epine de Rose
Ryan smiled more brightly, sitting down next to her and scanning the clue she was stuck on.
"Yeah, I finished it a day or two ago," he answered, "I got horrifically lost and had to ask for help; figured I can use my still fresh memory to help you out."
He read it more carefully and then nodded sharply. "Mhm, 'with a benched plaque'. I'm pretty sure this is the one talking about the one where the entire bench is a plaque. Nobody sits on it, obviously, because it's the most uncomfortable thing ever, and I think it was a dumb idea, but I guess some pinheads in city council thought it was brilliant."
He snorted, rolling his eyes. "At least it's not a very important one; I think way more people would've objected if there were war heroes on it or something. Sitting on it then would be, like, super offensive. But nah, it's just some award bullsh--onkey that the city made up for themselves."
genovianprince
Offline
Epine de Rose
Offline
Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2020 4:46 am
She did at least attempt to think back to what he was referring to, but having no memory of this odd bench, she surmised that he was probably right. Someone in one of the districts had been given too much funding and this was the stroke of genius she'd come up with. Apparently they had friends in the part of the city that also looked after the Festival though if it happened to be featuring in the Scavenger hunt.
"It certainly sounds impractical," she agreed with a small smile and pursed her lips. "But it really doesn't ring any bells either," she admitted. Based on his description though, it probably made perfect sense that it wasn't something she recognised. Some random bench that was entirely useless and for things that no one necessarily needed or remembered wasn't exactly the best use of public funds.
...At least not to her.
"Don't suppose you know how to get to it from here?" she asked. She really didn't know where to start with this one, even if he had identified what she was supposed to find. Hopefully she'd find a clue eventually that she did know without help.
genovianprince
Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2020 11:44 am
Epine de Rose
Ryan nodded. "Yeah, it's just an oddity that I probably wouldn't even care to remember if weren't for this hunt," he admitted, "I know where to go from here, though!"
He grinned, standing back up and holding out his hand. "By the way, I'm Ryan. Nice to meet you."
genovianprince
Offline
Epine de Rose
Offline
Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2020 12:24 pm
She grinned, at least he was honest...she probably wouldn't remember it either, and even after the hunt it was likely it wouldn't stick around in her memory. Unless something monumental happened, like finding a relative on that plaque which was pretty much impossible, there would be know reason to bank this information for the future.
"I'm Liliane," she replied and gave his hand a shake, she certainly wasn't shy when it came to introductions. "But you can call me Lily, almost everyone else does," she added. There were obviously a few people in the world that were sticklers and detested shortening names, she knew at least two of those people too, but she was perfectly comfortable with four letters where possible.
"If you're busy you can totally just give me the directions and I'll write them down," she pulled her bag round to rummage for a pen. "Or if it's in the direction you were headed anyway we can go that way and split off when you've reached your stop," she added. She didn't want him to feel unwelcome, but she also knew she could be a touch overbearing sometimes and expecting company the whole time was, in fact, a bit unreasonable.
...Especially from a kind stranger!
genovianprince
Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2020 12:31 pm
Epine de Rose
"Nah, not busy at all!" he said brightly, "Mostly bored, actually. Well, less bored now I've got something to do with someone. Lily's a nice name."
He shoved his hands into his skirt pockets, and then promptly took them back out to mess with his bun and re-wrap it.
"Long hair is kind of a pain," he said with a sheepish smile, "But I love it." He began to walk in the direction of the park the plaque-coated bench was once he finished fixing his hair.
genovianprince
Offline
Epine de Rose
Offline
Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2020 1:27 pm
"Heh, I can appreciate how pretty long hair looks but I'm too lazy to look after it," She admitted. She'd always had short bobs, typically ruffled and loosely curled, and the one time she'd tried to grow her hair out it had ended in disaster. She'd had more dead ends than a funeral home and in the end she'd waltzed in to the hairdresser and let them put her out of her misery!
"Does look good though," she agreed with a nod, matching his stride as he took the time to adjust his. It was only a few moments before he seemed satisfied and then they were on their way.
"Any time I get bored I normally end up getting in to trouble," she added with a grin. "Either that or I end up with a stack of magazines...or buried in the news sites on my phone," she pursed her lips. "I'm not the best at being idle, kinda have to do something, you know?"
She cleared her throat.
"I'm supposed to be working on that but it's been a lot harder to find that inner zen that people talk about, starting to think some people are just way quieter in their own heads than I am," she mused.
"You don't have anything like that though, something that you just kinda...fall back on when you're looking to fill time?"
genovianprince
Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2020 1:38 pm
Epine de Rose
"My brain is a ceaseless chatterbox," Ryan said, laughing softly, "I wish I could just sit there and not do anything and feel super chill. I'm on my phone even in the bathtub."
He cleared his throat, blushing slightly from his own oversharing. "Anyway, yeah, I have some time-filling stuff, but I didn't really feel like doing any of it. No baking or gaming or reading or even watching a movie. Y'know, when nothing sounds good at all? So I went for a walk. That usually helps at least a little."
genovianprince
Offline
Epine de Rose
Offline
Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2020 3:25 pm
If she was bothered by the over sharing, she didn't seem to show it. Instead the girl was more than happy to converse in much the same animated fashion that he was. Truth be told, she could probably talk about almost any topic, even the more risque ones, if she was given cause to do so!
"Oooh, no that's definitely a mood," she agreed. The 'meh' phase, as she liked to call it, was something she'd encountered more than her fair share of times and she could totally sympathise with someone else in the same state. "At least with the Star Fest going on there's some random stuff to do while you're in meh-mode, you know?" She motioned towards the paper again and shook her head.
"Although I'm not quite in that meh mode, I'm doing it for the keychains," she grinned and pulled her bag around to show the pin collection she'd collected the previous year. "Love these things, I'm on a mission to get all of them this year as well," she admitted. "Last year they gave them out a lot at the stalls and whatnot but I haven't had time to do much shopping this year, that's my goal in a couple of days."
"Hopefully you get back into a groove eventually though, not that I dislike walks or anything, normality is just nice."
"You know last time I tried to bake I blew up the microwave," she confessed and raised a brow. "Safe to say my parents weren't best pleased, gonna assume you're way better at it than I am."
genovianprince
Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2020 5:21 pm
Epine de Rose
"Meh-mode" was an entirely accurate way to describe it, Ryan thought to himself, nodding.
When she pulled out her charms he sprung up in a cute little excited skip. "Oh, yeah!!! I got all seven of those!!! They're so cool. I'm gonna string them all up onto a necklace or something, provided they're not too heavy together like that."
However, when she mentioned the microwave, he came to a dead stop, giving her an aghast look.
"You... tried to bake... and blew up the microwave?! How's that even possible? The microwave isn't even used in most things you bake, unless you're doing that 'brownie in a mug' thing?" Suffice to say, he looked absolutely horrified by how badly things had gone for Lily.
genovianprince
Offline
Epine de Rose
Offline
Posted: Mon Jun 29, 2020 10:18 am
A fellow hoarder! She seemed positively delighted and equally enthused by the fact that someone other than her was inclined to collect everything. Apparently she had some catching up to do though, if he'd already gotten them all then she was a bit further behind than she would have cared to admit. She'd not be beaten though, oh no sir, she'd gather them up too and she'd have plenty of time to spare before the festivities ended!
...Or so she told herself.
"Turns out," Lily's attention was drawn back to his otherwise horrified expression and her own became grave. Well, more accurately her features became grave but her eyes held an almost comical glint to them. "Puff pastry is flammable and should not be put in the microwave," she pointed out. She gave a firm nod, as if she had just bestowed upon him the most important fact in the universe.
It was perfectly acceptable for him to judge her in those moments if he was so inclined.
genovianprince
Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2020 2:00 pm
Epine de Rose
Ryan's shoulders shook with silent laughter. At least, it was silent for a few moments, because he couldn't help bursting into giggles and shaking his head.
"You right," he said, attempting to smother his laughter, but not doing so well. "You know, I'm actually planning on going to college in the spring to get a culinary degree. Gonna run my own restaurant someday."
genovianprince
Offline
Epine de Rose
Offline
Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2020 4:30 pm
"That'd be really cool," she smiled encouragingly. She was already at university, wallowing in the disaster that happened to be her dissertation at this particular moment in time, but she couldn't knock the experience. Besides, if he was studying for a culinary degree then that meant she could sneak in and steal the really nice food.
Well...Not steal.
"So this is the part where I shamelessly declare we're BFFs and you have to feed me, you know that right?" she wagged her finger teasingly, turning a corner as they drew nearer to where her clue should have taken her.
"I mean, when you start studying that is, not right now -" She coughed.
Unsurprisingly what lay ahead of them was exactly as he'd described and she couldn't help but shake her head. The placed had been decorated in a way she probably could have spotted it from orbit (well the outside was at least anyway), and it even had one of the tour guides who looked after the little charms! She'd be shameless in that, happily accepting the gold star keychain as she wandered into the garden and towards the bench he'd described.
"Oh... Oh dear," she cleared her throat and shook her head.
"It really is as unfortunate as you described," she agreed.
