SO LATE THAT IT'S EARLY

[peckishmods]

a frigidly cold night

what's up?

The unrelenting icy cold sends most everyone inside early tonight. Even with magical heating, it’s hard to keep the chill away, almost like the holler, itself, wants you to stay snug under the covers, safe in your bed.

Sleep comes quickly and heavily tonight, and students dream of singing bugs and dancing birds…

Not a collaborative routine but two performances at odds, each vying tonight for your attention, dear child. The dancing of the birds beckons — follow and find truth and memory — but the buzzing insect song vibrates in your very bones, too: they are home, they are warmth, they are safety. Stay, stay, stay.

You are pulled in two directions in a forest of old maples. Beneath your feet the ground grows warm as vines creep up from strange dark cracks in the ground, climbing over each maple until they are overgrown with ivy leaves that look like fire — that are fire — and the maple seeds that fall from the dying trees as they burn are the singing bugs, their music fading until only one insect’s song remains.

Tonight, four pairs of feet climb from their beds and follow the birds.

Tonight, four different pairs of eyes open at the sight of the burning forest. Merlin Pletcher, Howdy Stoppelbein, Presley Mondragon, and Cicero Cook each wake with a start, each with a feeling of terrible dread.

And from there as more students wake it quickly becomes clear that something is very wrong:

It is late, so late as to almost be early, and Gertrude McGilliguddy, Xenia de Bourgh, Patrice Tang and Atlas Quigley are gone from their beds, nowhere to be found…

how this works!

⬥ Welcome to Peckenpaugh’s second major petition event! The primary winners of this event were Trudy, Xenia, Patrice and Atlas!

⬥ Petition winners please check your email again. we've sent a message to you all with more information. You can then refer to the “SOMEWHERE CLUTTERED” header for post-dreaming details!

⬥ Xenia de Bourgh has lost her journal and can’t find it! As soon as she realizes, Mr. Stirling provides her with a new one. It’ll take about 48 hours to get her properly added to the journal network, so for the next two days any of her journal posts or comments will be signed “UNREGISTERED USER”, rather than with her own name.

⬥ Merlin, Howdy, Presley and Cicero all woke with a start ahead of everyone else in the school. We assume y’all got the word out to staff that students were missing, eventually! Feel free to play these portions out in threads or journals, just put a descriptive timestamp in the subject of your posts.

⬥ There is no magic at work obscuring the location of the four missing students. They should be easy enough to find with the right tracking magic.

⬥ Classes are canceled for Thursday, January 30th, but will resume again on Friday. The scheduled party at Mothgarden is still on — if asked, the staff just doesn’t want the kids to worry too much. Also they have all this cheese and chocolate to deal with.

⬥ For the next few weeks, each House will have a faculty member staying in the chaperone’s room on the first floor over night. This’ll make shenanigans a bit harder, but (hopefully) disappearing kids less likely. The schedule is rotating, though usually it is your Head of House.

⬥ Mr. Purcell and Mr. Stirling can be seen around campus for the next week or so double checking magical locks and wards on all the dorms.

⬥ There is a sense that Peckenpaugh staff is taking this very seriously. Even the most immature faculty members aren’t making jokes about it, and it’s clear that most staffers have been given additional work investigating what’s happened. The four disappeared students can expect regular check-ins from their heads of house, and TAs may find their workloads increased as teachers hand off paper grading and other small tasks to them for the next few weeks...

locations!

⬦ AWAKE ON CAMPUS: After the first four students wake, it doesn’t take long for the rest of campus to start stirring. From there, word quickly spreads that four students are missing. This is a space to thread any on campus scenes before the students are located.

⬦ SOMEWHERE CLUTTERED: Dark and cold and musty. There’s so much junk in here, you can probably guess where you are without too much brain power…

⬦ SO LATE THAT IT'S EARLY: Returned to campus, the four missing students are held in the infirmary overnight, checked for any injuries, any signs of strange enchantment or forbidden curses. Aside from some reddened skin on their backs, there’s nothing. Their parents are informed via owl immediately. You may have slept like the dead earlier in the night, but for the rest of the night sleep proves fleeting for everyone...

⬦ OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

Comments

AWAKE ON CAMPUS

[peckishmods]

Wildgulch Juniors Wake Up

[infamously]

Presley often dreams about dancing. Sometimes literal—spinning, spinning, spinning until the skin wears off his feet and his lungs shrivel in his chest—and sometimes more metaphorical. Birds and insects, whistling wind and sparking embers, and Presley can't pin down the moment when he realizes this isn't right until he's already up and awake, shivering despite the press of warm bodies on the bed. What—?

He rubs his eyes with one hand, impatiently, already reaching out to touch the shoulder of the person next to him. Not to wake them up, just... to know he's not alone, maybe. Not that Presley cares about whether or not he's alone, but if he's going to be trapped in this idiotic sleeping arrangement for the foreseeable future, then the least everyone can do is tolerate the occasional bumping in the night from him. Even as these thoughts run through Presley's head, he's scanning the room, trying to figure out why his heart is freaking out. His mother told him to always trust his instincts.

It's still late, late enough that the night is pitch black. Presley picks up his wand, igniting it with a whispered Lumos, and counts quickly, almost without thinking. "...Patrice?" It doesn't mean anything, he could be in the bathroom—but Presley can't get the image of the burning forest out of his mind. He reaches over his roommates to shake the arm of the last person who would've been snuggling with Patrice. "Hey! Where did Tang go?"

Biggest Bigfeet Sounding Alarm

[gasgiant]

It is not so unusual for Jupiter to barge in on the boys at any given moment, a thunderous cacophony of girl with something dumbshit to say or a weird adventure to lead them all on. Usually, though, she has the common sense not to do it at such an odd hour. Usually, when she does it, Xenia is in tow. Tonight, though, Xenia is gone, after a strange and unsettling dream.

Her fingers are wrapped around Claudia's arm, clinging to her ostensibly to bring her along, and certainly not because she's worried that Claudia may disappear, too.

"Wake up!" Jupiter shouts as she bangs on the senior boys' dorm room door. "Eeeeee-mergency!"

SOPHOMORE RESCUE MISSION

[chirographic]

Cicero hasn't stopped moving since he woke up, and he hasn't stopped talking much either. He spoke so fast relaying information to the teachers and upperclassmen that he had to repeat himself a couple times, with each interaction growing more and more frustrated.

Clearly, he needs to take things into his own hands.

The moment Ms. Altizer's eyes are off him, Cicero is gone. In short order he's amassed a crew of like-minded sophomores, whom he paces in front of in a sharp peacoat. He's commandeered somebody's white board, and on it written the names Atlas, Trudy, Xenia and Patrice is lovely cursive. Other sophomores have provided possible places to look for the missing students.

"...but before we start our search, I want to make sure we're fully prepared. One last check. I have the first aid kit, water for re-hydration, a fully charged cell phone."

DIRTY DEEPLURKERS

[maledictorian]

Kermie is not in his bed. Not because of a dream or supernatural kidnapping, but because he fell asleep on a pile of laundry heaped in front of his dresser.

"Helloooo Sam," he mutters into the dark room as a rat pads up onto his chest. "Watch what you do with that mustache."

Kermie's dream has clearly moved on.

Mothgarden Seniors Assemble

[merlinpletcher]

Merlin is so done with mysteries and symbolism and ominous feelings that he can't explain or easily shake off. Since snapping out of that dream of a burning forest, he's been sitting up in bed, focusing on his anger in an attempt to push down the sense of dread that he can feel down to his bones. But it isn't working. Something isn't right and he knows it. Exhaling a hiss of breath, he abruptly jumps down from his bed and hurries out of the room, determined to rouse the nearest of his fellow-investigators from sleep.

Will they like being woken up in the middle of the night? No. But they'll get over it.

When he reaches the Mothgarden senior girls' door, he first tries the handle and only knocks once he finds it locked. "...Hey. Hey. Open up, already." While he's making some attempt to keep his voice low, the knocks are firm and his tone is demanding and sharp. And maybe tinged with panic.

SOMEWHERE CLUTTERED

[peckishmods]

Faint blue light is what finally wakes you, an eerie glow splashed across your face. Or, not your face, the mask you are wearing. It’s cold here, and musty. A basement, probably. You are not alone. Each of you is lying on a poured cement floor, positioned around a hatch covered in glyphs: Atlas above it, Patrice below, Trudy on the right, and Xenia on the left. You are all in cowled masks, lying still with hands at your sides. You cannot move. Around you, ghostly figures stand, glowing, translucent in their hooded robes. That is where the light is coming from. They are murmuring that chant they murmured in your dreams, louder and louder, clearer and clearer. That dim light grows brighter, and now seems to be coming beneath you as well. A glyph etched in chalk on the floor starts to shine. Hot as a griddle, it quickly grows uncomfortable, but you are awake and you are free and as you move to get away, it sputters and dies. The light fades. Then the hooded figures do, too.

The four of you are alone in a cluttered room wearing cowled masks fashioned from white plaster. Intricately molded eyes on the mask give way to a flat lower half and a mouth shaped like a keyhole. Beneath you the hatch is still warm to the touch, and it gives a bit if you pull on the handle, like maybe those locking glyphs drawn all over it aren’t holding it so fast, anymore. Around you there are shelves stuffed with boxes, stacked with broken bowling pins, old bowling balls, advertisements and decorations from yearly events at Elflock Lanes. It’s not hard to guess where you are, and though you have no clue how long you’ve been down here, it’s not long at all ‘til you’re found.

Lir Liu arrives with Mr. Youngblood and Ms. Kwan, the three of them showing more emotion on their faces than you’ve maybe ever seen. There’s no interrogation, no assumption that this was a prank, the two teachers just usher you hurriedly back to Peckenpaugh, to Healer Greatheart, to have you checked out.

SOMEWHERE CLUTTERED: Pre-Rescue (Open but optional to rescue kids??)

[bigshoulders]

Ah. Good old sleep paralysis. Atlas has heard about this,though he's never experienced it before. You think you're awake and there's something in the room with you, but it's just because your mind is trapped in its last stages of dreaming, and your body is trapped in its REM state; unable to move. It explains everything. The weird setting. The shadows. The fact he can't run away. So Atlas just lies there. And he blinks. And the light fades, eventually.

His arms can move again, and they do, up to his face, where it isn't his face, but cool plaster. He yelps loud, in a way he'll absolutely deny later, and pulls the mask from his face. He sits bolt upright, staring at the face that was on his own, and only then realizing there's other people in this circle. In this basement (?) He feels cement on his legs and the fading heat from the door and it's not a dream after. Not even the worst kind. "What the hell." is the only thing to demand out loud, in the hiss of a whisper that carries further than he'd like.

SO LATE THAT IT'S EARLY

[peckishmods]

Winter Watches (Open?)

[damnnearkilledem]

Bugs and birds. Bugs and birds. Even when she shuts her eyes, it's all she sees and hears. Before curfew is even lifted, before the dark has begun to scatter at the horizon, though not by much, Winter slips out of her dorm, through the gardens, bound for central campus. It's easy enough to sneak away. 'Look like you belong or don't be seen at all' works well even at times like this.

By the time she sits on the snowy dead grass on the central green, it's light out. Sleepless students are surely beginning to stir, but here in front of the Surly Stump, everything is still. With the last wizelf dramatically decapitated, the muscheron have started to take down their war blockade but parts of it still stand. Winter sits for a while, waiting for something to happen, but nothing does.

So she fumbles around in her pockets until she finds a rock that looks like a ring, or maybe a hardware nut. She holds the adder stone to her eye, peering through the hole at the tree in the heart of campus, then sighs.

Patrice & OPEN++??

[shoulderdevil]

Normally, Patrice wouldn't mind the infirmary so much - it's a great place to get fussed over and act like you're putting on a brave face given whatever injury or sickness has befallen you. He's not happy about it right now, though. He just wants to be back in bed with his roommates, where it's warmer and... safer isn't the word he'd use, but it's something like that. He's not afraid. Just wary. 

Sitting up in his stupid not-very-big bed, his fingers run a little anxiously over the mask he'd ripped off his face when he'd woken up. Hopefully someone will come see him for a little bit before they banish everyone back to the dorms; even if he doesn't want the fussing, he could use the distraction. Heedless of anyone else present, he lets out a loud, annoyed groan. 

Atlas & Jupiter

[gasgiant]

Being both a seeker and a former quodpotter, Jupiter numbers among Healer Greatheart's frequent flyers. She's been in here dozens of times for herself and for teammates, but not for her baby brother that she can recall, and certainly never for a reason so strange. All the same, once she's inside, she knows right where to go if not what to expect, and that sick feeling that turns in her stomach with each step isn't helping her come up with a plan of action.

So when she finally finds her brother, her face is scrunched into a scowl and the breath is stalled in her lungs. But he is there, and he is whole, evidently, and so Jupiter remembers to exhale. "Hey squid," she plops down beside him, ruffles his hair a bit too hard, then lets her hand drop to his shoulder. He is still solid. She's not sure why that comes as a relief. "What's the story here?"

OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

[peckishmods]

🦗🦗🦗

Re: OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

[maledictorian]

Jenny you do good spook

Re: OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

[chirographic]

AN EXTREMELY GOOD SPOOK RIGHT HERE

Re: OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

[infamously]

hey this is bad

Re: OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

[bigshoulders]

out of the jingle pan into the basement
(I LOVE THIS AHHHH SO SPOOKYYY)

Re: OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

[quidditched]

whoa

Re: OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

[gasgiant]

HEY SO I would love to try and do a Thorntrail seniors thread in the "Awake on Campus" section with Joop and Claudia going to check on the boys and tell them about Xenia?

Hawthorne's going to....just freak.

Winter and Adrian both are a little more level-headed.

All available for any threads anyone may want.

Re: OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

[chirographic]

OKAY REAL RESPONSE

Cicero is going full mom on this one. He's EXTREMELY agitated about that bad feeling and the idea of missing people. Would any sophomores like to go on a Quest to Save People in what I'm sure will be a very productive scene?

Uriah is upsetti spaghetti because his dear sweet Patrice is missing from Big Bed, and they technically never made up after their fight about Tybalt and what if Patrice DIES never knowing Uriah loves him???

Val would have probably slept through this if if weren't for Merlin.

Laszlo is watching this chaos from a distance.

Re: OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

[quodpotted]

Wyatt is going to FIGHT A GD GHOST. And if he can't find a ghost, he will substitute by throwing hands with a regular human to hide the fact that he is very upset. Would anyone like to cope with their emotions in a very mature and manly way with him? Sissies need not apply.

Willow is going to be BIG worried and want to check on her siblings and roommates. ALSO?? If she finds out about the keyhole masks she's going to be FREAKING OUT because she joined a secret society with keyhole masks and signed a paper IS IT AN EVIL CLUB, SHE THOUGHT IT WAS JUST ABOUT POETRY???????

Trudy is actually pretty pleased, if a bit irritated at having been kidnapped. She's weird. Let's solve a mystery, guys! Isn't this fun?

Re: OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

[bigshoulders]

I have a real response tooo
Audrey is very excited about this. She told you guys. Oh Trudys gone? She is sure she’ll be back. Who wants to go to the basement again.

Atlas is missing! And uh. Little freaked out? I’m not sure yet other than he’s shocked a little. (We should probably thread the kids)

Tybalt prrrrob doesn’t learn about this for a little but he’ll be a lil freaked when he knows? Available as emotional support rat and would help do a look?

Chanel doesn’t like this one bit but is deeply glad Armani was not taken.

Re: OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

[shoulderdevil]

Ahh! I can't fully absorb this since I'm at work but hey, sorry big bed. I'll have a few response when I'm home! I just want to establish that I'm alive?? I guess??? And will eventually appear??

Re: OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

[merlinpletcher]

Oh, bad. WELL.

Merlin is awake and in a mood and would like to drop in on the Senior Mothgarden gals if anyone's interested in a scene? He thinks this dream might be related to their Hell Hike and wants to chat with the Hottie Investigation Squad but will quickly get distracted by Trudy's missing status. :o GOTTA FIND THE GIRL! The guys are also welcome to tag along if they got woken up by Merlin getting up?

Zadie doesn't like disappearances from Big Bed. :((( Not okay. She thinks her plant 'stalker' or the very haunted photopiano might be relevant but is mostly just Anxious.

Aris is asleep unless someone wants to wake him up.

Nico will be displeased to hear about Xenia disappearing; he'll help if he can! I assume he's fairly knowledgeable with tracking charms and such.

Re: OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

[bratsquatch]

I LOVE THIS.

Just a note about the masks with keyhole mouths, which resemble the ones Lionel gave out at his secret poetry event: Xenia was invited to it, Trudy was not, and Patrice and Atlas did not exist then, but Rin and Lyss you can feel free to say they attended if you'd like.

---

Oh! And my characters!

Felicity and Lionel are both caught up in the hunt for their roommates!