peckenpaugh | Just before curfew tonight...

outside central classrooms tonight

what's up? It’s Spirit Week! As is tradition, Peckenpaugh’s cheerleaders meet after dinner to decorate Central Classrooms in the lead up to the big game this Sunday. It’s not all hanging banners and throwing glitter, though. There’s music and snacks and time flies by fast as the kids get distracted from dressing up the lockers of the school’s quidditch and quodpot players. By the time they’re done, it’s damn near curfew, and they all decide to leave in one big group to ensure everyone makes it where they need to go on time.

Leaving the well lit school halls behind the squads step out into almost total darkness. The streetlights that usually illuminate central campus’s cobblestone paths are dim and flickering, their usual golden glow somehow a sickly yellow-green, as though something is sapping them of power. It’s far too still, too. No wind. No sound. Just darkness and silence, or near silence.

Armani is the first out the door, and they come to a skidding halt at the bottom step. Several of their squadmates plow into the back of them and they almost topple over, pointing straight ahead and shushing their friends.

There’s something by the statue of Yalldive Peckenpaugh. Somethings. Two forms, crouched at her base, fiddling with the bricks while she flails and complains. They don’t seem to notice the gaggle of teenagers spilling out of the building before them, too focused on their work.

Thinking they’ve found two Malstrom students pulling a prank again, Willow approaches with their wand drawn, but it quickly becomes apparent that those are not students at the base of the statue. Each step Willow takes is harder to complete than the last, and whatever spell they were about to sling winds up caught in their throat. Hearing footfalls, one of the two figures looks up, gaze flashing with the eyes of a predator. Under that gaze, not a one of the cheerleaders can move.

The form at the base of the statue stands, slowly, wrongly, and steps out into the sallow light, moving as a spider moves. She is a woman, or a girl ⁠— the age is hard to pinpoint. Human, but wrong. Deeply wrong, as though plucked from the uncanny valley. Her clothes are dated, worn and patched, but clean. In her arms there are clumps of vines and purple flowers and after what feels like an eternity of silence, she makes a sound.

At first it sounds like she’s popping her shoulder, then cracking her neck and knuckles, but she’s not moving. The snapping and popping continues, coalescing into more complex sound. Words, though her lips are still. “Wood from the West... he... has gained. Three keys... yet remain.” Snap, pop, crack. Like tumbling pebbles. “_Tell… her. ^Warn her. Tell... her. Tell the thread that sews shut the maw. Tell the tailor. His garden… is... growing.”

The second figure, still fussing with the statue, stands abruptly and takes a step away, disappearing into the shadows down the path. Two silvery eyes blink from the darkness and then are gone, and suddenly the air seems lighter for it.

“Tell her,” rattles the woman. Is it a warning? A threat? Hard to say, but it’s difficult to feel as though her presence could mean anything good, the way she skitters back toward the dark like a bug, disappearing suddenly as her companion had.

Once they’re gone, each student feels starkly as though they’ve just surfaced from a long dive in cold water. Lungs burning, heads clearer, and each feeling acutely the desire to return home to their beds. Within seconds, all the lights buzz, burning brighter suddenly before returning to their usual golden glow. Adrian, startled, lets out a loud shriek that scares the hell out of everyone around them. With the paths lit again, the coast seems clear, and no sign of those two figures remains.

Now what...?

how this works! ⬥ This event is open to House and school cheerleaders, but is not mandatory. If your cheerleader sat this one out, that's fine, too!

⬥ Feel free to thread or search/investigate under the "LATE: NOW WHAT?" section. For the next couple of days, a mod will get back to you if your comment necessitates a response.

⬥ Students left Central Classrooms at quarter til 10PM.

locations! ⬦ EARLY EVENING: IN CENTRAL CLASSROOMS: The music echoing through the halls of Central Classrooms ensures the academic building is slightly less eerie than a mostly empty school can be after sundown. Club Room 1's doors are thrown open and snacks and drinks have been set out besides the materials you'll need to decorate halls and lockers tonight. You haven't been spooked yet. Why not enjoy it?

⬦ LATE: NOW WHAT?: The two figures are gone and that oppressive feeling with them. Standing outside Central Classrooms, what will you do?

⬦ LATER: BACK HOME: You've made it back to your House, but can you get to sleep?

⬦ OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Felicity appears in a large sleep shirt, already doing Tik-Tok dances to Mary Grace's slappin' song. Her physical, dancing presence in front of him should be enough to let Presley know she's here, but she still checks in to roll call, "Felicity Deverill. Present!"

Still dancing, she remembers where her roomies have been. "Oooo, you got some spirit week news?"

"One, two, three, four..." Mary Grace pats each person she counts on the top of the head, barely checking to make sure she's not just counting Quackenbushes as she goes. She doesn't see Bear, but that's probably her curled up in the corner, so they're close enough to good.

"We caught some goofy-lookin' fucks stealing plants and they told us a riddle," she summarizes succinctly for Felicity. "Now I think they're on the lam."

Mary Grace pats a very asleep Uriah, who mumbles into his pillow as he stirs. "What're ya on about now?" he complains, almost as grouchy as Presley. He was having a great little spoon sleep with Wyatt and now everyone's shouting and singing.

Wyatt pets Uriah comfortingly, like he's encouraging him back to sleep, except he pipes up with his own loud voice, "Was it lamestrom losers?"

"And were you too dumb to figure out the riddle?" Patrice yawns, lazily swatting at Mary Grace's hand.

"Mary Grace isn't dumb," Wyatt puts in with a pout, offended on her behalf.

"Thanks, boo," Mary Grace says with a wink, reflexively tossing Wyatt a heart candy in her pocket. "Y'all're welcome to take a crack, but I don't wanna disturb the beauty sleep you desperately need."

"She likes it when I call her dumb," Patrice argues, putting out a hand in request for his own candy heart that he definitely doesn't deserve. "Tell us what they said."

Mary Grace pulls another heart candy out of her pocket and pops it in her own mouth.

"Any y'all know a tailor?"

"A tailor with a garden," Presley adds. He's tapping the door frame with his fingertips, still thinking about defense measures. What if it's not even a Dark creature...? Dammit. "I should be clear, as O'Malley was not terribly eloquent on this point, but these were not merely hooligans from a rival school. They were..."

He pauses. How to describe that dark, oppressive feeling without sounding hysterical?

"Not human. And not welcoming," Presley finishes. "I strongly advise that none of you travel alone after dark for the foreseeable future."

"We've seen a bunch of non-human critters before! You need to be specific!" she instructs Presley. (Mary Grace's super vague description receives ZERO notes from Felicity.) "Was it like Bub or Pocket or Timotheye or a Squatch or--" she takes a breath before continuing, "--whatever the fuck Uriah saw in the photopiano or like a big dog, I'm talking BIG."

She's done. No, wait.

"Oh, and it was 'non-welcoming' to everyone or just you?" Sorry Pres, she's being unfair to you tonight.

"Was it like the squirmy stuff from that porno tape?" Wyatt puts in helpfully, but he's sitting up now (sorry, Uriah), looking a little tense already.

Just before curfew tonight...

LATER: WILDGULCHIN'

LATER: WILDGULCHIN'

LATER: WILDGULCHIN'

LATER: WILDGULCHIN'

LATER: WILDGULCHIN'

Re: LATER: WILDGULCHIN'

Re: LATER: WILDGULCHIN'

LATER: WILDGULCHIN'

LATER: WILDGULCHIN'

LATER: WILDGULCHIN'

LATER: WILDGULCHIN'

Re: LATER: WILDGULCHIN'