cityofhex | WEEK 03

Preparation for the holidays continues at a steady - if slow - pace. Almost all traces of Halloween are gone by now, except for a few rotting pumpkins shoved into compost heaps, but with over a month until Christmas and the Day of Lights, nobody is yet in a hurry. Still, a few early holiday shoppers are out and about, usually in pairs if they aren't families with children, happily chattering about gift plans.

Weather forecast: The rain has passed, and days grow clear again for this week. Hex’s weather has been getting colder, and people are bundling up a bit more - even those who don’t need to, just in an effort to fit in. Hats and gloves are being prominently displayed in stores, even if they’re not strictly needed yet.

Moon phase: The moon is full on Monday the fourteenth, reaching peak fullness over the city at about 2AM. Afterwards, it begins to wane.

More employment: More decorations for the Day of Lights are going up, with some stronger-backed labor being recruited for the stockrooms in preparation for the incoming holiday rush. No one seems concerned about work history, a boon for people without a human paper trail. The park lights aren't finished yet, either, though things are on schedule to open next week.

Hitting the books: To prepare for the holidays, and raise funds for their community party, the library near the university is selling some of its used books. Most of them are fine, if an odd selection - you might find a cookbook, or you might find a book of poetry. There’s something weird about the books, though - a few of them smell faintly of mint. Watching over all of this is a sharp-eyed librarian. Don’t take a book without paying, or she’ll get up from her desk and try to block the door. She keeps having to chase away teenagers with dirty hands, too.

Bake sale: Some of the local schools are starting to take up donations for their holiday parties. One in particular in the residential district is holding a bake sale in front of the elementary school for an hour each day after classes let out. If you can fight through the sea of small children hoping someone will buy them something, you’ll find a variety of brownies, cookies, and tiny cakes. Many of them are lopsided, but a few look put together by expert hands. They cost more, of course, but it’s all for a good cause. A grouchy mother can be found near the cash box at all times, making sure no one steals the money.

Whoo are you?: Malin will notice that owls seem to be happening at her; they're hard to see, just shapes against the lesser-dark of the night sky, but they definitely seem to be watching her. They particularly seem to gather when she feeds. If she doesn't confront them, this will increase slowly but measurably throughout the week.

Time waits for no one: An old clock tower in the part of downtown leading into the Sixth has been restored to functionality... Mostly. The belltower stands empty, though there's a visible place where a bell should be hung, several stories above the floor. Ryoji might find the scene familiar. On Wednesday evening, there is some kind of reopening gathering at the church below it; the brief service and meet-and-greet is not particularly unusual, save that the young Acolyte handing out papers in the entry won't step into the congregation hall itself.

Like a dog with a bad...: In the Sixth, the construction is ongoing, still with the same handful of men, who rotate through almost like randomly generated NPCs. Lurking around outside is a thickly built man, who watches the whole goings-on with suspicion; strangely, he seems to be watching it mostly through the camera on his phone. On Friday morning, though it shouldn't be cold enough for frost, three of the strangely similar men slip on patches of ice and fall behind a half-finished wall... Where they vanish completely. They reappear after lunch, if it's even the same men, with no signs of injury. That afternoon, the man with his phone looks smug.

A touch of the season: And speaking of ice, passage into many of the city's Avernian Gates is blocked this week by a thick frost that seals the entries shut. An Unsettling Youth and his girlfriend can occasionally be seen investigating them; though they're constantly together, they don't seem much inclined to talk to each other. Occasionally, she'll drape her arm over his shoulders and giggle, while he looks confused; other times, she seems almost to shy away from him.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"So you'll need a good-sized data package, too, unless you go places with free wifi," Corwin nods. "And the most usable keypad for typing. Are your fingers warm enough for a touch-screen keyboard or should I see if there's anything with a slide-out physical keyboard? Those aren't very common anymore, but I can ask."

...Did she ever show Corwin her hands? Probably not, she realizes - she's shown her face, and she has picked up things around him so he knows that her hands are not formed like a human's anymore, but she always kept them covered by her sleeves.

"A slide-out keyboard would be good." She thinks on it. "Or if something comes with a big one of those touchpad styluses." Assuming those still exist - they always seemed awkward and free of sense to her when she still had human hands, and she's never seen many people use them. But now...

"Oh, a stylus would be even easier, you can even just buy those separately even if the phone doesn't come with one," Corwin says, relieved. "Okay, let me go in and see what I can find, I'll bring anything good over to the show you so you can make the final decision."

She's honestly not sure how well this would work, but nods. Corwin knows what she needs this for, to at least a degree - she's pointed out that it mostly needs to be capable of letting her browse the internet, stream things and similar tasks, she neither wants to game nor do office work on it - so she hopes that she can trust whatever he picks, because showing things like phones through the window doesn't sound super informative.

But she still doesn't dare going inside a place with that many cameras.

"I'll be here."

He flashes her a quick, reassuring smile, then shuffles on inside. He's not approached by any of the sales people, most of them giving him wary looks and a wide berth, but he doesn't mine. He circles the room, reading the schematics of the different phones, picking a few up and playing with them a little, before selecting two he thinks will suit her needs and bringing them as close to the window as the cords on them will allow. The screens are nice and big, though neither one has a slide-out keyboard he's got a stylus he can show her, too, for whether she thinks she can hold it properly.

One is relatively fat, and an iphone, and the other is actually curved, and an android. Otherwise, they're both about the same in abilities for what she wants them for-- it's a matter of physical and usage preference.

(He hasn't even looked at price. Price doesn't matter to him, at all.)

Price matters... or it would matter, if she was paying, but she's not. And in a way it wouldn't matter if she was paying, either, because she has no money. She'd probably be able to lift some off people that she drinks from, or could drink from, consdiering that she specializes in people who are for one reason or the other not conscious, but then a good number of those are victims of a robbery or the homeless so... Even if she was to try ~~and return to~~ stealing, she probably wouldn't gather enough money in a very long time.

But Corwin said that he would pay, and while she's still not sure why he offers her so much (can loneliness really go that far?) she won't look this gift horse in the mouth. She wants to be back among people, even if only virtually, and more crucially, she needs the news, needs to learn more about this place in general.

When Corwin shows her the phones, she picks the fat one, hoping that it will be easier to hold for her, only realizing when he turns away again that it was an iPhone. WELL. So much for the price.

Corwin gives her a cheerful thumbs up, then shuffles back to the counter, forcing one of the salespeople to actually interact with him. He's polite, though, and keeps it as brief as he can. Adding her to his own cell phone plan isn't even that expensive, though the phone certainly is. But he can afford it. He'll just be more careful about his alchemy ingredients for a while.

So it's only half an hour later that he comes out with her new phone in a box, in a bag which he offers her, beaming. "It's all yours! They haven't set it up with an account yet, I don't know what account you want to use, but I can help you with it if you don't know how."

"I should be able to set it up myself, I used to be really into this." Before all things computer or internet became a world far away from her own.

She takes the box from him gingerly and a bit nervous, cradling it against her chest. Unpacked, it should fit into one of the pockets of her coat, and perhaps she will find a way to use it without scratching the surface.

That's a good point.

"Did you get a protective seal for the screen?"

"I did, I know living out by yourself means it could get scratched or broken a lot easier. Plus, I got you that stylus you mentioned, so you can hold that instead of using your fingers, in case that works out to be too hard to do." Whether her fingers are warm enough or she has claws under her long sleeves or something like that. "I can give you my number, if you want it, too, now that you have something to call on. That way if you need something or you're in trouble, I can come help."

"That would be good."

She's not sure how to handle all of this. Not the phone, she'll figure that out, but ...Corwin.

"And you can call me if you need help, too."

It would be stupid to not try and protect a source of as much ...resources, for lack of a better word, as Corwin. The phone, a place to sleep inside that is as safe as she can get right now, and well ...friendship, tentatively and awkwardly on her part but still there.

"Of course," he agrees, though he has a hard time thinking of anything where he might be in trouble where he'd need the kind of help she could provide. Maybe if demons were real, or there was another vampire around? He couldn't make her come help him if the humans went mob on him... not unless she could make herself an owl big enough to carry him away. And he's pretty heavy.

Still, he'll certainly keep it in mind. He's just excited he got to help her in this very mundane way, like a real friend, like a real person. "Do you eat people food at all? I mostly don't but I like hot drinks sometimes. I could get you one and we could drink some while you set your phone up."

No, she really couldn't help him with a mob. She could escape one alone, probably, unless they were very savvy and brought shovels, but save someone... only if it was a very tiny mob that could be killed by one Gangrel.

"And no, I don't," can't, but she'd rather not put it that plainly, to dodge further questions or deductions, "but I don't mind sitting down and setting up my phone while you get one."

He considers, then nods. "At least it will be warm. You can hold mine on your hands, if you want to, too," he offers, then motions for her to walk with him. There's a shop not far from here, just down the street. They can sit at the furthest booth in the coffee shop, and play with her phone, and actually act like real, live people-- like friends.

((and that looks like a good fadeout point maybe? :) ))

WEEK 03

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