sugarnspite: (๐Ÿ“ (fox 5))
Valkyrie Horvat is soooooo nice! ([personal profile] sugarnspite) wrote in [community profile] peckenpaugh2020-01-24 07:18 pm

HELL HIKE

HELL HIKE! hell hike! hell hike!
what's up? Upon discovering a map that led out into the woods towards something that had been scratched out with ink, Val, Mary Grace, Trudy, Merlin, Audrey and Holland decided to investigate first hand. They left this morning, hoping the map will lead them back to that haunted town.
visuals!
how this works! โฌฅ Val, Mary Grace, Holland, Merlin, Audrey and Trudy are going on an overnight winter hike. Val found a map with a strange location obscured by ink, and the group decided to hike out there and see what it's hiding.

โฌฅ They left after classes today, and are planning on staying two nights!

โฌฅ Mr. Youngblood and Mr. Trullinger will be following them... at a polite distance. The kids have privacy, and the teachers already assume they're up to something weird. They're just here to make sure no one dies.

โฌฅ Assuming all goes well, they'll be back by Sunday evening.

locations! โฌฆ SETTING OUT: The adventurers pack their gear and start rolling out. Pack warm!

โฌฆ THE HIKE: Eight fun hours of trudging through the beautiful, snow-covered West Virginia back country! They make it halfway there before making camp, and will finish their journey the next day.

โฌฆ THE DESTINATION: What was being hidden behind that dark ink stain?

โฌฆ MAKING CAMP: After finding what they were looking for (or not), the intrepid teens have to set up camp as darkness falls. They won't get back to school before sunset, so they'll be staying another night. (NOTE: This section will be frozen until after we learn about what they found.)

โฌฆ OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!
crowhop: ((/) let me get this straight)

THE HIKE

[personal profile] crowhop 2020-01-25 03:24 am (UTC)(link)
"You think they're takin' bets on who's gonna make it?" Mary Grace asks the others, jutting her chin in the direction of the teachers. So far they've kept their promise to maintain a polite distance, but so far all they've seen is just some beautiful fucking country. Pretty trees. Cool rocks. A rabbit. But no Hell. "'Cause I got bets on them."
andpoke: (๐Ÿ”ฎ091)

THE HIKE

[personal profile] andpoke 2020-01-25 04:46 am (UTC)(link)
Audrey, surely, is way up there in the rankings for Dies First. She cuts a particularly small figure today, only because she's had to bury herself under about sixteen layers of coats. But she's alive. For now. And she glances back to assess their chaperones. "Youngblood's...more outwardly scrappy." She theorizes. "But Trullinger has tricks up that sleeve. In that beard. I bet."
merlinpletcher: :| ([PH] 25)

THE HIKE

[personal profile] merlinpletcher 2020-01-25 07:01 pm (UTC)(link)
Merlin, who has been silently pondering how to approach the topic of the cicada with Youngblood (or maybe just find a subtle way to get it close to him and see what happens), huffs at this turn in the conversation. A dramatic white puff escapes into the air and he adjusts his scarf, almost completely covering the lower of half of his face. He's as prepared as he can be, but it's still cold out here.

Then he retorts, "They're both worse off than any of us, if you ask me. But everyone's making it. Val and I have got this covered."
Edited 2020-01-25 19:02 (UTC)
gold_digger: ((-) get it under control)

THE HIKE

[personal profile] gold_digger 2020-01-26 02:11 am (UTC)(link)
Holland, who opted for cute and practical for this hike so she's less likely to die, makes a small face at the conversation. It feels like courting disaster, but she doesn't want to say anything for fear of being labeled a worrywart. Mostly by Merlin. She momentarily glances at him before focusing on the path ahead.

"I'm sure everything will be fine and uneventful," she says, which probably exposes the fact that she's uneasy. "If they're taking bets, they're terrible and ridiculous."
peckishmods: ([place] our little holler)

THE HIKE

[personal profile] peckishmods 2020-01-26 03:47 am (UTC)(link)
And for the most part it is fine and uneventful. The hikers' trek through the snow only seems to reveal more and more dense wilderness. Sometimes a bird passes by overhead, sometimes they spy a pile of deer poop, but otherwise it's woods, woods, and more woods.

They've been at it for a couple hours when someone stumbles on a small pile of loose bricks, covered in snow.
themurderbird: (Default)

THE HIKE

[personal profile] themurderbird 2020-01-26 02:31 pm (UTC)(link)
Trudy is pretty confident that they're all going to survive, particularly with teacher backup here, but she's still steeling herself for cannibalism, just in case. Mostly, though, she's just bored. They haven't found anything even remotely spooky or unusual. "Oooh, what's that?" she says, rushing over to the brownish-red pile to toe at it with her boot, glad for something unusual to investigate.
peckishmods: ([place] reclaimed)

THE HIKE

[personal profile] peckishmods 2020-01-27 08:12 am (UTC)(link)
The bricks are perfectly normal bricks. A loose pile, coated with snow, sits next to a few rotted wood beams, and a few yards away, a chunk of asphalt leans up against a young tree.
crowhop: ((?) oh-ho?)

THE HIKE

[personal profile] crowhop 2020-01-27 08:16 am (UTC)(link)
Mary Grace blows a strand of hair out of her eyes.

"You think that's a pile of hellbeast droppings?" she calls out and makes no move to follow Trudy. She's holding out for something more exciting.
merlinpletcher: :o ([MH] 01)

THE HIKE

[personal profile] merlinpletcher 2020-01-27 03:31 pm (UTC)(link)
Merlin rolls his eyes at Mary Grace's question and moves around her to follow after Trudy. This might not be exciting, but it's the only unexpected thing they've seen all day, so it at least warrants a look. He glances at the pile of bricks and the rotten wood before making his way over to the asphalt slab leaned against the tree and tilts his head thoughtfully. "...Wonder how long this stuff's been out here," he murmurs to no one in particular. The tree isn't that old, so it can't have been all that long, right?

But does that matter?
themurderbird: (Default)

THE HIKE

[personal profile] themurderbird 2020-01-29 02:16 pm (UTC)(link)
"It can't be all that old, because it would be more buried bye leaves and dirt. Then again odd that it's all in pieces, right?" Trudy looks around the group for confirmation. "Even over time, nature might reclaim a road and bust it up, but this is just a chunk. Where's the rest? Was it blown up?" She leans down to get a better look, examining the signs of civilization for any signs that someone blew up a hell town.
crowhop: ((?) taken aback)

THE HIKE

[personal profile] crowhop 2020-01-29 02:58 pm (UTC)(link)
Mary Grace kicks up some snow, but it only reveals rocks and dirt and no signs of a road or a town or hell.

"Planting trees over something you wanna hide ain't exactly unheard of," she says and moves closer to the brick pile. "Just don't know why we'd need to be hiding shit out here."
Edited 2020-01-29 14:59 (UTC)
peckishmods: ([place] our little holler)

THE HIKE

[personal profile] peckishmods 2020-01-29 03:08 pm (UTC)(link)
As far as Val can see on paper, the group is still pointed toward the mysterious ink splotch, following the general bent of the Muggle byway cutting through these hills.

Off paper, there's more wilderness than road. One of the beams of wood is rotted and grown over with moss, but if they look closer they can just start to make out some words.
andpoke: (๐Ÿ”ฎ111)

THE HIKE

[personal profile] andpoke 2020-01-29 03:17 pm (UTC)(link)
Wandering alone for a moment, and newly trained to look for glyphs and words, Audrey crouches by the beam. She scrapes off a little moss, and pockets it. Itโ€™s...probably just moss, but on the off chance it does something special, she wants to know. Squinting, she canโ€™t quite make out if the words are just carvings, or what. โ€œGuys.โ€ She murmurs to the group behind her, โ€œdoes this say anything?โ€
merlinpletcher: :o ([CH] 23)

THE HIKE

[personal profile] merlinpletcher 2020-02-01 07:47 pm (UTC)(link)
At Audrey's question, Merlin turns back from the concrete slab with furrowed brows. He moves to join her and leans over her shoulder to get a look at the writing or symbols or scratches that she's seeing in the wood. There's definitely something there, but it's difficult to tell what even with the moss gone. He pulls out his wand, murmuring a quiet Lumos and holding the light close to the markings to (hopefully) bring them into clearer relief. "...Maybe?"
Edited 2020-02-01 19:55 (UTC)
peckishbeings: (Default)

THE HIKE

[personal profile] peckishbeings 2020-02-06 05:22 pm (UTC)(link)
The wood has been softened by rain and age, but the words scratched into the surface are just legible: PAW_AW _MI
peckishbeings: (i n t e r f e r e n c e)

THE DESTINATION

[personal profile] peckishbeings 2020-02-06 05:23 pm (UTC)(link)
As the hikers continue, more signs of life crop up—an old signpost with no directions here, a pile of bricks or rusty nails peeking out of the snow there. No one is here, that much is obvious, but someone was here, once. And maybe not that long ago. The woods around Peckenpaugh are old, an unknowably ancient home to the creatures and spirits of Appalachia, but the trees here are younger.

The further they go, the more prominent the signs of life. There's an old outbuilding, nothing inside but a paintcan rusted shut, a rocking chair for either a child or a very small old woman left to the elements.

More than anything, though, it's getting warmer. Hard to tell if that's just a consequence of all this walking, or maybe they're just freezing to death, but the icy cold is a little more tolerable as they come up on another sign. This one is in much better condition, and written in several languages not covered in any Peckenpaugh textbook (though at least Gobbledegook is covered in there):

GREATER APPALACHIAN BEING RESERVE

* * * * * RESTRICTED ACCESS * * * * *

NO ENTRANCE WITHOUT A PERMIT


It's not the only sign. There are more signs, similarly written, but bigger, and some with exclamation points, and eventually, they see more than that. Buildings, in the distance, taking shape against the sky, while the students find even more signs of a life once lived in this area. One student finds a picture frame with a photo only partially destroyed behind the cracked glass, another finds a dog leash, and a third finds the wall. Wandering through the woods they slam right into an invisible barrier just behind the final RESTRICTED ACCESS sign.

The students walk along the barrier, but they can't find a way in. Their access is, apparently, RESTRICTED. Eventually they stumble on a bowling bag sticking out of a tree. When they open it up they find a bunch of bowling shoes of all sizes, and on the tongue of each one is a single, tiny rune in the shape of a swirl, scribbled in ballpoint pen. There's a rustle in a nearby bush as they look at the shoes, but the students see nothing. Huh. Must have been a rabbit.
Edited 2020-02-06 17:24 (UTC)
crowhop: (Default)

Re: OOC ๐Ÿ‘ป DISCUSSION

[personal profile] crowhop 2020-01-25 02:24 am (UTC)(link)
oh look at all the cute snow fox icons
merlinpletcher: :) ([LH] 37)

Re: OOC ๐Ÿ‘ป DISCUSSION

[personal profile] merlinpletcher 2020-01-25 02:28 am (UTC)(link)
Merlin agrees that this hike will be much more fun with Val as a fox and that is not the drag it sounds like.

Valfox is Perfect. ♥
pageantree: (Default)

Re: OOC ๐Ÿ‘ป DISCUSSION

[personal profile] pageantree 2020-01-25 02:42 am (UTC)(link)
Then who's going to drag Trudy when she gets too tired to go on?
crowhop: (Default)

Re: OOC ๐Ÿ‘ป DISCUSSION

[personal profile] crowhop 2020-01-25 02:43 am (UTC)(link)
we play by everest rules out here mcgilliguddy
pageantree: (Default)

Re: OOC ๐Ÿ‘ป DISCUSSION

[personal profile] pageantree 2020-01-25 02:43 am (UTC)(link)
She always wanted to be a ghost, this is seems like a good way to do it
crowhop: (Default)

Re: OOC ๐Ÿ‘ป DISCUSSION

[personal profile] crowhop 2020-01-25 02:50 am (UTC)(link)
this is starting to sound like a cartoon team
merlinpletcher: :| ([CH] 11)

Re: OOC ๐Ÿ‘ป DISCUSSION

[personal profile] merlinpletcher 2020-01-25 02:44 am (UTC)(link)
I think Merlin owes her a piggyback ride for all the emotional anguish. ยฏ\_(ใƒ„)_/ยฏ
themurderbird: (Default)

Re: OOC ๐Ÿ‘ป DISCUSSION

[personal profile] themurderbird 2020-01-26 09:46 pm (UTC)(link)

HAVE FUN!!

andpoke: (Default)

Re: OOC ๐Ÿ‘ป DISCUSSION

[personal profile] andpoke 2020-01-26 09:57 pm (UTC)(link)
oooooh yes have fun!
I still know all the words to this show, surprising abso nobody I am sure