peckenpaugh | HE IS HERE

the vines have run wild

it's over Everything is in shambles. Walls and floors torn and broken from roots and branches sprouting through. They block doors and crowd passages and pulse with sick life. The Thing sits in the center of it all, angry and starving, its trunk both still and moving in ways you catch only when it is in the corner of your vision. Branches that look less like bark and more like skin stretch in every direction, lush with shadowy leaves and dotted with bits of glowing blue. The ruined floor is littered with those little twinkling dots. Seeds. Everywhere, seeds. They hang on boughs, and rest on banisters in the upper levels. The one thing in this nightmare that doesn't radiate that awful, pervasive hunger.

The roof is gone, replaced with a writhing canopy of shadow and muck. Some parts of it are complex spiderwebs of tendrilly shapes, others solid formless movement. The only consistent thing about it is that it is terrible to behold, faintly nauseating to look at for too long. Ash rains down between gaps in its branches, and what glimpses of sky are visible are nothing but swirling gray clouds. What stars still shine are magic, man-made, floated between balconies by prom committee before the dance.

Those remaining begin to stir. Each one of you has heard Pocket's words, "Find the roots." And if you want to save your friends, your family, the holler — hell, maybe even the world — that's exactly what you're going to do.

You climb from protective cocoons of dying moss, push your way past walls of solid ice, emerging into utter destruction. Things move and make noise at the edge of your vision, but for now, at least, all is calm. What to do? Where to start?

it's ruined Among the twinkling maple seeds are the dropped possessions of students and staff, lost when they were pulled away. A compact mirror, a cell phone, a pair of glasses, cups of punch spilling across the floor. A single red heel sits at the edge of the jagged pit that peers down into the Sorting Path. The air here is hot. Too hot. If you jump, you'll surely be boiled alive.

Though locked when everyone tried to flee, vines and roots have torn the doors to the auditorium off their hinges. The splintered remains of heavy oak doors litter the entrance halls and stairwell alcoves, leaving an open path outside. Not that you'd want to flee, by the looks of it.

A cool night breeze is the only relief from the growing heat of the auditorium, yes, but even that is tainted by the heavy scent of flowers. Outside, vines and purple flowers have exploded over every surface. They climb up lamp posts, engulf buildings whole, hang from trees. It would be beautiful if it weren't horrifying. Campus is unrecognizable.

there is no hope Roots and vines clog the way to the Sorting Path, and most stairwells are completely obstructed by the growths of that horrible tree. Up above, something buzzes and wails, a mockery of a cicada's cry, and beyond that the twittering of birds nesting in the tree's highest branches.

Pouch coalesces in the middle of it all, a one-winged magimagicicada, weak and weary but undaunted. Resolute, if not reinvigorated. He bends down to touch a seed, and the moment his obsidian fingers light on it, a blue-white portal to somewhere else rips right through reality. A memory begins to play. Somehow, the bug seems to know what he's seeing.

She gave us what we need, the one who ran says to the gathered students, his voice in their heads as much as the air. Let's all not let her down, huh?

Find your friends. Find my siblings. It's time to fight.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Audrey's heels strike true (ROLLED 7) but it just makes the vine angry. It coils even tighter, pulling her closer to the boxes, drawing her who-knows-where.

But then Imogen (ROLLED 10) crashes onto the scene, and the bookshelf rips free. The cluttered shelves slam down onto the boxes, scattering shoes and whatever else you keep in a bowling alley basement to the ground.

There is no more movement. The girls have defeated the vines!

Maisy scrambles to her feet and skitters her way over to Audrey to help her up. It's only once she's gotten there that she realizes that the planchette she's holding is glowing.

"Uhmmmm," she says, holding it out for Imogen and Audrey to see. "Is it suppos'ta to do this?"

Back by the Ouija board, the scene unpauses.

"Kyle!" Geri hisses. "That was my—" But she doesn't get to finish. The door opens, light spilling down the steps, and all six teens freeze right where they are. Lir Liu, with a head full of bleach blond hair, sticks his head in.

"Hey kid!" he yells. Kyle can't move. He’s frozen. There's no way they aren't all in perfectly plain sight right now. "Grab the mop and sawdust will ya? We got a barfer up here."

Lir closes the door again, with no mention of the five girls in the basement (or anything, really). Kyle shoves his glasses out of his face and pinches the bridge of his nose. "Just—don’t leave all at once. Be discreet, okay?"

"Kyle, what about my board?" Geri whispers.

"I'll find it later." He climbs to his feet and starts toward the door. "Please don't get me fired from another job."

At the top of the stairs, the sticky old basement door clicks and pops open, just barely. Neither Kyle nor any of the girls notice; it seems to be an exit to somewhere else entirely.

[MEMORY COMPLETE. The criteria has been met, the linchpin acquired. You may continue to thread here or move back to Peckenpaugh through the portal.]

As they watch the memory play out, Audrey pulls herself up on to Maisy's arm. "Poor Kyle." She muses, but her eyes follow him up the stairs. That doesn't go to the bowling alley anymore. But she looks around for the board, first. "...We should still close their session out. So the weeds don't follow." This is wishful thinking, but she doesn't want to take any chances. She chances a grin at Imogen, and it's grateful. "Can't make you carry a bookshelf around. I guess."

Imogen, Maisy and Audrey have completed the memory "Mr. The Dude"!

Upon emerging from the memory out into the auditorium, the portal snapped shut behind them.

Somewhere in Elflock Falls, Kyle has been freed, and immediately takes a fat rip off his vape.

Imogen, Maisy and Audrey each earned 5 Tokens for completing the memory!

They received an additional 3 Tokens each for defeating the Vines, and 1 Token for locating the linchpin on the 13th tag.

You can check your token totals in Pouch's shop here, and maybe see if there's anything worth grabbing while you're there!

HE IS HERE

MEMORY: Mr. The Dude

MEMORY: Mr. The Dude

MEMORY: Mr. The Dude

MEMORY: Mr. The Dude

MEMORY: Mr. The Dude - COMPLETE & TOKENS