So now your group has collected three items when you spot a clock on the wall - it’s got the same countdown as the one in the theatre where you started. Only 10 minutes left! Time is running out!
You head back to the theatre with your group. The other four groups must have had the same thought because they’re all arriving too. Max and Bonnie are there as well. You gather in the audience and on the stage.
MAX: Okay everyone! Let’s focus and regroup. Did every team run into stories?
You say yes!
BONNIE:Did every group collect pieces from those stories?
You say yes! But you wonder how all these pieces are going to help you unlock the Secret of YPT. What do they even have to do with this machine? Max approaches someone from another group.
MAX:Hey searcher - where did you get that?!
BONNIE: And….what is it?
They tell Bonnie it’s an ocarina - they got it from the Pied Piper. No way! That group met the Piper too! Your group comes forward to offer the kazoo the Piper gave you.
BONNIE: Okay - interesting! Two strange instruments.
MAX:Bonnie, look!
Max slides the Kazoo onto the end of the Ocarina - it’s a perfect fit! Together, they make the perfect shape of a missing part on the machine. Bonnie gets a searcher to help them put it into place. It fits!
BONNIE:Okay searchers! It’s clear what we have to do! Anyone with a piece of a story bring them to the front and line up! Everyone else take a seat so we can all see!
One by one searchers present the objects, trinkets, and treasures they collected from the stories. It turns out some of the groups met the same characters, but they had totally different experiences, and some groups met characters you never even encountered. You can’t believe all of this was happening in the same building.
As the objects are brought forward and placed into the missing spots along the strange machine you think to yourself that it’s less of a machine, and more of a big mess of stories - each piece contributing to one bigger story. A story that couldn’t be told without each of the pieces. You consider the different story elements you encountered on your search. You realize that every good story needs these elements: a name, heroes, images, rhythm, and love and when those things come together they can make a masterpiece.
Finally, the last object gets placed into the machine. You hear a low rumble. Music. There’s fog and flashing lights. The machine is moving! All the parts are working together, spinning, tilting, shifting until finally….The chest opens! Everyone in the audience cheers as Max and Bonnie reach inside. They pull out a smaller chest. It sparkles in the stage lights. They open the smaller chest and their jaws drop.
BONNIE: Oh my goodness. Max. Is this real?
MAX:I can’t believe it.
BOTH:Storytelling stones!
What’s a storytelling stone? You’ve never heard of that.
MAX: Of course you haven’t!
BONNIE: They’re super rare!
MAX:I honestly thought they were a myth.
There are enough stones for everyone to have one and the chest is passed around so every audience member can take their own. The stones are small, sort of opalescent, like semi-translucent pearls. You can tell they are precious as soon as you touch one.
Max and Bonnie tell you about the history of the stones - how they have the power to collect stories, and that everything is a story, even you. Every person you meet, the places you go, your thoughts and the things you encounter - these are all stories. No one can possibly remember every piece of every story they run into, so these stones hang onto them for you, like magnets that never let go. And no one’s story stone is the same as another because everyone’s stories are different. They also explain that Storytelling Stones are so rare because they cannot be given or gifted, they can only be found.
MAX:Everyone hold your stones up to light.
You hold your stone up and see the stage lights shining through it, creating a beautiful prism of light reflecting in different directions.
BONNIE: Even right now your storytelling stone is collecting this story: the story of us here today, searching and unlocking this secret.
Wow. You’re going to need to keep this stone somewhere really safe.
MAX: Hey searchers, thanks for being part of our story.
BONNIE: We unlocked the secret of YPT! And it was cooler than we could have ever imagined!
MAX:We couldn’t have done it without all of you.
BONNIE: And remember everywhere you look, and everyone you meet has a story just waiting to be discovered, to be listened to, to be remembered.
MAX: So keep searching for stories because they’re literally everywhere.
BONNIE: And keep that stone close so you can collect them all. We gotta run though. We’re off to solve another secret.
MAX:Sorry for interrupting the show!
BONNIE:But like, not that sorry.
Max and Bonnie run off. You wonder if you’ll ever see them again. You hope so, but if not - your storytelling stone will always remember them, the secret, and the stories you uncovered together. Which means you will too.
