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

No matter how many discarded beer cans Eddy grabs, none of them start glowing. Apparently Bearigold is not secretly concerned with conservationist efforts.

He hears Audrey out, and.. the smile returns. Just a small one this time, but he crosses back over to her and takes the six pack before settling onto the ground. This is a sitting down kind of project.

Off go six lids, one by one. He peers into the box at the remaining cups, doing a quick mental count. Even this much pudding is a lot for Eddy, who like many teenage boys, seems to be a bottomless pit. Ah well.

"Gotta do our part to save the world." Down the hatch.

Eventually, as they work their way through pack after pack of chocolate-y goodness, the duo does find one cup that begins to glow—though its glow flickers, only growing solid after they've eaten the contents. Why is this one so special? Was it especially tasty?

Eddy and Audrey found the linchpin!

Once it's in hand, though, Bearigold starts moving again. She methodically works her way through pudding cup after pudding cup, having a bear-y good time. The only sound is her schlorping on that pudding, until a sound cuts through the peaceful evening air.

"Um, who's Lionel?"

Bearigold falls backward off her log with a start just in time for a vine to whip out of the ground. She lets out a soft, fearful yelp, clutching that last pudding with her one good paw. Just before the vines reach her they're frozen solid. Heavy with ice, they fall, shattering into a fine crystalline dust.

With a confused yelp Bearigold bolts through the brush. Branches and twigs snap, and the duo find a bearret-shaped hole through the shrubs that leads back to Peckenpaugh's auditorium.

[Memory Complete! You have reached 12 replies and found the linchpin. You may head back to school or stay and play with beer cans.]

She'd missed...so much pudding over the course of the year. But now she never wants to eat it again. The vines make her jump back, but it seems to be okay. Like the pudding, they're just a memory.

Before they get a chance to scurry under some shrubs, though, she pokes Eddy's shoulder with her elbow. Friendly jab, nothing serious. "Your boy's watching out." Past tense. Technically. But it's nice to see evidence of the cicadas here. Now.

Developing an aversion for pudding is unfortunate, but Eddy thinks he might be there. Luckily a gut full of memory pudding doesn't slow down the reflexes, because shit, those vines are completely unexpected.

Eddy bumps his elbow back at Audrey, gently. The sudden, sourceless frost is unmistakable, and he glances over his shoulder to the train car. Strange, comforting, and a little sad, to think he'd been watching over this little spot and they'd never known he was there.

"Find her. Save her," he promises before they disappear through the shrubs.

Audrey and Eddy have completed the memory "Snacktime"!

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

Somewhere on campus, Bearigold has been freed — she makes her way to the safety of the old train car.

Audrey and Eddy earn 5 Tokens for completing the memory!

They earned an additional 3 Tokens each for locating Bearigold's linchpin before the memory capped!

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: Snacktime

MEMORY: Snacktime - COMPLETE!

MEMORY: Snacktime - COMPLETE!

MEMORY: Snacktime - COMPLETE!

MEMORY: Snacktime - COMPLETE & TOKENS!