(no subject)

[crowhop]

If you got one of those memory rocks and don't mind sharing what you saw it seems to a lot of us like it'd be helpful to have em all in the same place. So consider this that place. Share your stories if you've got one, friends.

We're trying to piece together a whole ass story here and it seems like we've got a whole lotta half asses.

Comments

[teratophilia]

2016. i am mr. zahidi, in the library.

there's a scream. my vision goes dark, i pass out and fall to the floor. my student wakes me up. "mr. zahidi, there's an eyeball in the library," she says as i start to come to. "i'm aware," i say dismissively, pulling myself off the floor.

i look up. there's an eyeball in the library. but i get the feeling that there's something strange about it, aside from it being an eyeball that is also in the library.

"did it attack you?" the student asks.

"of course not." the details of the library go a bit fuzzy. i'm focused on the unblinking eye. "wait here, danielle, i'm going to go investigate."

i slowly go up the spiral staircase to get a closer look and notice the eyeball's pupils are dilating and constricting. it's morse code.

i go back down the stairs to fetch a book on morse code, but details are fuzzy again and the passage of time doesn't feel real.

i have the book on morse code and a notebook. i bring them back up the stairs to sit on the floor in front of the eye.

"i'm sorry, eyeball, do you think you could go a little slower? no? can you even hear me? -- oh, okay."

i observe the eye and reference my book, writing down each letter.

THE SEAM PULLS. HE IS COMING. HE BURNS. SEE HIM TO S


and, suddenly, the memory cuts off.

end scene.

[crowhop]

If I still had my phone I'd insist on recording a dramatic reenactment of this.

[bratsquatch]

okay okay okay. so i'm al falco and i'm OLD. like, shouldn't you be dead old? and i'm reading and showing pocket this book, "knowing the unknowable," and i say something like, "it's knowledge. some stuff grows more powerful when you talk about them or believe in them." and pocket is like, do we stop him by knowing him?? and i'm so old and tired i can't even with her anymore and i just cut to the chase and say, "NO, the complete OPPOSITE. we have to look AWAY." and then i convince pocket that everyone needs to forget.

also, pocket was not in party mode. she was quiet and nervous and like regretful and hopeful?

but yeah, that was mine!

[crowhop]

Who the fuck told our party bug to listen to a man

[necrodanseuse]

And you know what they say about halves of asses. Thank you.

My stone involved Mr. Swint. Somewhat important to note that Pocket gave this memory back herself, the night of the fire at his shop. I'm not sure if he got the memory before or after, so that's, you know, just about as weird as everything else.

I saw a family picture above a hearth. There were cauldrons, and a woman was crying. (I think this was Marilynne Qualls), and a teenage boy was trying to comfort her (Lionel?). Then it cut to Caleb Qualls talking to Mr. Swint in the shop. I'd heard their conversation, before, in the Wildgulch springs when Kermit Creekmore tried to kill me. Mr. Swint said "You don't have to do this, Caleb." And he said that someone had to! And Mr. Swint told him that Paw Paw wasn't his responsibility. To think of Marilynne (who's Mr. Swint's sister, turns out.) And Mr. Qualls answered, "What about PECKENPAUGH," like that's more important than his wife.

He looked [...] resolved.
And then it cut out, that's all I saw.

[crowhop]

Hmm. Maybe Mr. Qualls just really likes his job.

[quodpotted]

oh I got trullinger

do you think you can make it show you the memory again I don't remember all of mine

[crowhop]

What can you remember, my dude? Know where it was? Or when?

[fratsquatch]

I'm Ms. Dorkins and I'm sad that I have to have this kid named Tristan Ashley who is gross, ungrateful, and can't read. Least that's how I see it.

I'm arguing with Tristan Ashley about cleaning his Wildgulch dorm room and in the mess, along with some socks he's been making love to, I find some old papers with handwritten notes on them from [...] February of 1989.

Tristan Ashley says he found them in an old book, which is funny because he can't read.

The notes say something like:

BUG CLUB

G + G research: KNOWLEDGE = ??? = DEFEAT (Tink's idea?)
M + Z Paw Paw Patrol
Earthquakes?
Fritzy portkey in the library
BoNE involvement???

And there was also a business card that said: Burton Bland and 'Embrace Infinity: Ask Me How!'

Anyway, real nice of Pocket to take that memory from Mrs. Dorkins. I wouldn't want to remember that if I were her.

[crowhop]

So if we can just figure out what the ??? is then we're obviously set.

If I wrote Tristan Ashley you think he or his sock girlfriend would still have those notes.

Or sent a howler since he can't read.

[bratsquatch]

[teratophilia]

oh is that what you meant by sock companions

[themurderbird]

Fantastic idea, Mary Grace! Just let me get my notes.

[crowhop]

Don't leave me on the edge of my seat for too long now

[gasgiant]

lmao oh yeah fuck

[crowhop]

You didn't eat one did you

[lionellovelace]

I saw one of Mr. Qualls' memories. It was a family breakfast with his wife and two sons. Mr. Qualls tells Lionel to stay clear of the Embrace Infinity man, who had been approaching Lionel and his friends -- many of whom are now our teachers.

[crowhop]

Well that just sounds sweet, I thought these were supposed to be ominous and sinister.

[tristfully]

I saw one of Montgomery Crockett's memories. He was running down the street of a burning town, completely engulfed in flames. He breaks into a burning bowling alley with the help of one of those spider-like people. It's not Elflock Lanes. He tries to stop Lionel from rushing downstairs. The building is collapsing, there are vines everywhere.

But Lionel goes anyway. Says he has to save 'her.' If 'she dies, so does the whole holler.'

[.....]

I knew in my gut that he was about to die.

[crowhop]

Oh juicy.

[...] I wonder how an entire holler could die.

[ohwormhole]

Well I can tell you someone in town has a real potty mouth!!

[crowhop]

I'm already intrigued.

[arisahn]

i got one.

[......]

it was mr. purcell and mr. qualls before he died. they met in the room that's the computer lab now and talked about some glyphs that mr. qualls wanted him to look over. he'd made some changes so everything was more secure. i saw the parchment but all that stuff sorta goes over my head. mr. purcell said that it would need to be recharged every ten years but that it'd work as long as it [...] got the blood it needed. which is like. [...] neither of them seemed to like that part either.

mr. purcell asked why it had to be him and mr. qualls said it was because they took his son and it 'only made sense that the same blood that opened it locks it all away again'.

that's all i saw. but it felt really bad.

[...]

i was gonna give the cicada back to mr. purcell. to see if he can tell us more about those glyphs and stuff.

[crowhop]

Oh fucked if true.

I don't understand thing one about symbology and someone who does probably has more interesting insights than that but I bet it boils down to the same thing.

[merlinpletcher]

[...]

Yeah. Fine. I finally got the uncut version, anyway.

Not sure where this went down, but there were fluorescent lights and concrete walls that were overgrown with weeds. Maybe that tunnel from the other night. But it was hot and there was smoke everywhere. Youngblood was breathing it in and he was bleeding and it felt like he was in rough shape. But he was trying to fight something. He got on his broom and tried to fly toward whatever it was, but one of the vines caught his leg and pulled him back to the ground, dragging him across the floor. Gunzenhauser was there and she was trying to help, but she seemed [...] far away and the weeds didn't let go.

Then something was coming toward him. He'd been talking all this shit before, you know. 'Hey fucko' and 'finish what you started' and all that, trying to get its attention and now he had it. It didn't say anything but he could feel how hungry it was and then there was this [...] pain. It started from where the weeds had latched on but then it was everywhere and it was bad. Like, I think he was close to passing out and it was taking everything out of him bad. And there was this light coming toward him.

[...]

The last thing I remember was Youngblood saying 'you don't need me. you need him.' But hell if I know what that means.

[crowhop]

Just fucking like Youngblood to cut out without saying anything useful. Wonder if that's when he saw the roots with Ms. G.

[quidditched]

Said this before but [...] yeah. Hall we were in felt familiar. Less moss. More [...] bad shit.

Ms. G was fighting something. Maybe the roots ? Couldn't see. Too much vine shit and wand light. Youngblood was out cold.

[...] Patronus knocked it back. Pocket showed up. [...] No sunglasses. Had both her eyes. Real serious face.

Said she'd get him back. [...] Lionel ? Probably.

Ms. G says she's the last. But [...] guess she ain't entirely.

[wrencredible]

I don't think it'll come as a surprise to anyone that Mr. Youngblood's always been a hard partier. For awhile it seems like this is just going to be a PSA about the dangers of underaged drinking (starring all the younger selves of your favorite educators of this fine establishment) but then Mr. Potkin starts speaking.. very loudly. Painfully so. The assembled think Mr. Youngblood's passed out again but no one could sleep through that, and now they're onto the good stuff.

It seems that all the authority figures in our lives who are now insisting that no one goes snooping into anything were going quite a bit against their own advice. They aren't just going against school wishes, they're defying the whole damn government, so of course Mr. Trullinger is at the center of it all. There is, to quote him, a 'nefarious secret society' that they've all decided to infiltrate with the help of Pocket. Because [...] either a door has been opened to 'infinity', or is going to be opened, and they have to seal it shut. Very standard end of the world talk.

Someone asks how exactly a bunch of kids are supposed to do this, and apparently it's all Pocket's idea. They're going to use old magic, you know, the sort that non-humans tap into. Elemental magic, specifically. But the catch is that they all have to be 'there'.

It's clearly a super important mission and Mr. Trullinger is taking the whole thing quite seriously saying that no one has to go, but he's so delighted to get up to some danger when Mr. Crockett's brother immediately agrees. (When you think Mr. Crockett's finally taken the time to do some personal grooming, that's actually this brother.) Then the rest of them all agree one by one, and Mr. Youngblood says a rather self-loathing thing about himself, which may or may not be the hangover talking, but the memory unfortunately cuts out before anyone can actually explain to him where 'there' is or when this is all supposed to happen.