peckenpaugh | HE IS HERE

Entry tags:

! ic/ooc,
* endgame

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

[MODERATED - Player Memory]
[CRITERIA: Complete Puzzle]
[RESERVE: Wildgulch Juniors]

Single-wide trailers stacked like drunken Jenga blocks sway gently in the breeze, a feat of magical engineering born of necessity and poverty, but the boy leaning over the railing on the rickety porch doesn't look impressed or even aware. In the trailer above him, he can hear their neighbor listening to the radio beneath the buzz of a magically enhanced window AC unit. In the tin box one level below, some stinky green smoke is wafting out of open windows, and it makes Wyatt wrinkle his nose and back away towards the door to his home. As he turns, the screen door squeaks on rusty hinges, and before he can pass through, his mother is exiting. Wyatt, always stout for his age but still small enough that he looks to be around ten, greets his mom with a broad smile. Cassandra Webberley is sad sometimes and worried all the time, so he does his best to make sure that she's happy. Today, though, even though she still has dark circles under her eyes from too little sleep, his mom smiles back as she holds up a tattered old tarot deck whose box is made mostly of tape by now. "Practice with me?" she asks.

Felicity was already glad to be adventuring with the rest of her roommates, but she's extra pleased once she realizes whose memory they're in. "Wy Guy!" she cheers at the sight of her prom date. Or, perhaps more like, Wy Little Guy.

She puffs her bottom lip out big. "Awww, he's so cuuuute."

Stepping into Wyatt's memory is a huge relief, even if the location of it seems to be a little precarious. Patrice looks around curiously, but much like Felicity his eyes are drawn to little Wyatt fairly quickly and quirks a smile. Ok, this is kind of cute. He snaps his fingers, the action partially to refocus himself.

"No cooing, we have work to do."

Mary Grace's stomach lurches at the height and the way this whole damn stack was swaying. She'll fuck with evil bees all the damn day, but she'll throw baby Wyatt to the wolves if something tries to knock her over that balcony.

She steps up next to Felicity, bends down in Wy Little Guy's face, and blows a cloud of vape smoke in it.

"It's gonna be a sport ball, callin' it."

Edited 2020-06-04 03:38 (UTC)

Presley does not like heights. It's not something he'll admit to—who ever heard of a Quidditch cheerleader who's afraid of heights?—but his face is looking a little pale as he pulls away from the railing and braces one hand against the wall of the trailer.

"Not a lot of room for us to maneuver here," he mutters. He tightens his grip on his burner wand. "And really, you don't think it's the incredibly obvious tarot deck?"

"Wyatt's got layers," Uriah objects, tip toeing along like this is nothing to him. Nothing feels real anymore, so, sure, whatever. Here they are. Maybe this is just some extended death hallucination. "It's probably somethin' less obvious than a ball or some cards."

Uriah's comment makes Felicity take in the rest of the scene once more. Look for something less obvious. That stinky green smoke that's wafting up? Could it be? A vape was the answer earlier tonight...

She leans over the railing, arguably too unafraid of heights, and tries to get a better look at it. The movement causes her to wince and let out an audible. "Ugh." She's still sore from her encounter with bugs back at school.

Precariously perched, she closes her eyes and breaths the smoke in deeply through her nose.

Patrice squints at Felicity, debating on grabbing her clothing to keep her stable or grabbing the tarot deck instead. She's probably fine. He wiggles past whoever he needs to so that he can try to pluck the deck from Wyatt's mother's hands.

"Don't fall, Felicity. I guess we should just start picking things up?"

"Careful, some stuff might be other stuff," Mary Grace warns in the same tone as a distracted babysitter warning the kid not to touch the stove. She wrinkles her nose at Patrice as he squeezes past her, then goes back to checking her makeup in her compact mirror. "If anything starts ringing, just deck the bitch."

Edited 2020-06-04 05:12 (UTC)

"I hate all of you," Presley declares, because it's been almost twenty-hour hours since the last time he said it, and familiarity brings comfort. He inches over to Felicity (every self-preservation instinct in his brain screaming) and sets his loaded tote bag down on the ground. Presley forces himself to stand right by the railing, and readies to grab Felicity in case something disastrous happens.

Edited 2020-06-04 05:46 (UTC)

"You can't punch his dream mom, McGee," Uriah tuts, less concerned about the rickety construction of the stacked trailer homes than Presley.

When Patrice touches the deck, the memory begins to play again. "Okay, Mama!" Wyatt agrees eagerly. He has some sort of food smudged at the corner of his mouth, an artificial orange that suggests that it might be cheese whiz, but neither he nor his mother seem bothered as they settle in to flimsy plastic lawn furniture against the porch railing farthest from that acrid smoke that seems to creep into the lungs and buzz pleasantly.

Cassandra takes out the deck and begins to shuffle it, the motion repeated and thoughtless as an old habit. "Why don't you do the honors?" she asks, still unconsciously shuffling over and over, before passing the stack to him. "Three card spread. Past, present, future." She looks up briefly, smiling faintly. Maybe it's just because the porch is so small, but she seems to be straight at the group of teenagers standing here in Wyatt's memory. "Your past, present, and future."

Wyatt takes the cards and begins to shuffle them awkwardly. His hands are already getting big, but he holds the deck awkwardly, trying to hide the scrapes and bruises on the back of his knuckles from his mother, and he doesn't have her years of practice. More than once, he nearly fumbles the deck, but manages to keep a hold on it. One by one, he lays out three cards on the top of an overturned plastic milk crate without flourish or any thought to presentation. They're blurry and difficult to distinguish, like you could see them if you squinted very hard or just put on your glasses. The bold colors and the clean lines of the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck could be recognized by anyone familiar, but the individual cards are still impossible to name.

"Okay, so. This one's…" Wyatt says, pointing to the first card representing the past. "It's like… success. Confidence. Winning. And this suit means fire. Oh, but it's upside down, so it's like the opposite."

Cassandra doesn't comment, only watches Wyatt as he moves on to the next card. He leans in, searching the card's illustration for clues. "This suit's water, like tears, so it's for feelings. So it's… Sad?"

Wyatt scrunches his nose at the last card and pointedly refuses to look at his mother, thinking through his options. "This, uhh…" He scratches the back of his neck. "It's an end."

"And how do you put that all together?" she prods. "You look at everything you have first, whether that's bones or tea leaves or clouds or any other tools, but then you have to look at the big picture."

"I lost at something, so I'm going to be sad about it, and uh…"

The memory suddenly freezes on Wyatt's uncertainty. A breeze begins to blow, but it only impacts those visiting the memory, picking at their hair and skirts impishly. It almost feels like the breeze is trying to pick their pockets or do some other mischief, until it starts to pick up anyway. It gets faster and stronger, whipping into an angry frenzy, though it still has no effect on Wyatt and Cassandra Webberley. It wails and thrashes and threatens to blow the Wildgulch Juniors over the porch railing. Then it grabs the cards from Wyatt and flings them everywhere. Just like that, the wind is gone, though it leaves a mess in its wake, tarot cards on the ground, stuck to the walls, tucked in Wyatt's hair and on Cassandra's shoulder, laying on the banister, and even a few in a spiderweb overhead. Did any get blown over the railing? It's hard to say. Wyatt, meanwhile, is still frozen holding a deck that isn't there with the other hand hovering over an empty makeshift table.

"'Stuff might be other stuff?' And love you, Pres."

As the memory starts up again Patrice pivots awkwardly to get out of Cassandra's way, because death by falling because someone's memory mom knocked you over is a pretty embarrassing way to go. Once the dream residents settle in, though, he's immediately close again, peering over the woman's shoulder, watching as the spread is laid out. He does squint, trying to make out the cards with no luck.

"You'd think he'd be able to remember the c- shit." The seemingly harmless breeze has picked up, and a real wind is bad. One hand grabs onto Cassandra's arm as an anchor and his other reaches out to grab whoever is nearest to him.

Edited 2020-06-04 19:09 (UTC)

"Yeah, saw it in the mushroom girl's head, and—" The swaying of the trailers in the whipping wind swallows the words in her throat, and Mary Grace jumps backward, throwing herself behind Patrice instead of taking his hand. Oh, were they doing a baby chain? Because Mary Grace is pretty sure you were just trying to protect her.

"Gonna fuckin' kill this kid," she mutters through gritted teeth.

"Fuck!" The swirling wind has only started to kick up when Presley wraps an arm around Felicity's waist, and grabs the railing with other hand. This is far from the most stable position (why isn't there a wall here), but Presley refuses to die like this, and he is not seeing Felicity tumble to her death either.

The gusting wind feels interminable. Presley's eyes squeeze shut, but he feels the unexpected spray of tarot cards, and just as suddenly as it started, the wind dies down. Presley peeks around them. No one died? Unfortunate. "I have a new suggestion. What if we just leave Webberley here?"

Edited (no one in this group is helpful) 2020-06-04 19:33 (UTC)

"I wasn't going to fall." It's Felicity's way of saying thanks, and also an outright lie. Presley 100% saved her life. "And don't be ridiculous. We're not leaving Wyatt." He wouldn't leave one of them behind.

Of course, she has no idea how to save him. She'll leave that to the others. It's called delegating. "Maybe someone can figure out which cards he was... looking at..."

She trails off because she just noticed what Presley's holding. Her tote bag.

"Well that's gonna be a bitch, 'cause I wasn't paying that close attention," Mary Grace says, picking a card out of Wyatt's hair. It's... a guy? It's a guy. "We could just start fuckin' laying three cards down at a time."

Mary Grace hiding behind him is better than her falling to her death but is definitely a little annoying. Patrice takes stock of the others, reassuring himself that they're all there, before he starts to think. He's got a decent amount tarot experience unlike the rest of his roommates, so maybe this won't be too hard? If they don't get blown to hell again.

"Do you not know how to grab a hand, Mary Grace? Anyway, first one is a wands card, second one is a cups, and the third is probably Death," he says, glancing around, reaching for one of the cards on Cassandra.

"I'm going to have to think about what specific cards the first two are, but it's going to be a little hard if they're all still blurry."

Edited 2020-06-05 00:51 (UTC)

The card on Cassandra's shoulder is the five of cups, as clear as day. In fact, looking at the cards that are face up, they all seem perfectly clear and visible now.

Edited 2020-06-05 01:14 (UTC)

"Ooo, I got a few wands," Felicity says, bending down to pick up some cards. "And a-- huh." The corsage on her wrist is glowing. "Guys?"

The tote slung over Presley's shoulder is momentarily forgotten.

Presley collects the cards stuck to the railing, dropping them into his Pouch-gifted tote as he goes.

"If the answer fell off the building, I'm going to kill Webberley." He turns to see what Felicity is talking about. "Did you... pick that up in someone's memory?"

"Wyatt gave it to me for prom," she replies like it's the most obvious thing in the world. Didn't anyone pay attention to the fact that they went together? Do they not know she won Prom Princess? She blinks it all away and goes on.

"So I guess it's technically not from his memory..." which means it's not the linchpin. Her shoulder hunch slightly. "...but still kinda cool, huh? I think it means we're on the right path." She nods. Definitely.

There's no evidence to support this claim.

Edited (okay, done taking tags!) 2020-06-05 01:37 (UTC)

"Ohhhh, did my guy Wy spring for the premium package?" Mary Grace asks. "Did someone's mama raise him up right?" She elbows the stuck Cassandra, like the compliment will travel back in time, and plucks another card off her. "I've got a... Magician? Oh, and here's a bunch of cups, like eight or nine of 'em."

"This is the present card!" Patrice says, confident, almost excited, as he looks at the card he's taken from Cassandra. Maybe it isn't such a hassle to be the only one that has the information necessary to solve this. He leans to set it on the table, but, after a moment, thinks better of it and keeps it in his hand, in case the wind blows again.

After he settles back on his heels he looks up, eyeing Felicity's corsage. It's weird, but not exactly informative.

"....the past one is the six of wands. And did he make that?"

Edited (more confident) 2020-06-05 02:18 (UTC)

Patrice probably has the right idea, because a light breeze blows past, making the cards on the floor skitter slightly. The one in the spiderweb wobbles precariously.

MEMORY: Practice

MEMORY: Practice

MEMORY: Practice

MEMORY: Practice

MEMORY: Practice

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MEMORY: Practice

MEMORY: Practice

MEMORY: Practice

MEMORY: Practice

MEMORY: Practice

MEMORY: Practice

MEMORY: Practice

MEMORY: Practice

MEMORY: Practice

MEMORY: Practice

MEMORY: Practice

MEMORY: Practice

MEMORY: Practice

MEMORY: Practice

MEMORY: Practice

MEMORY: Practice

MEMORY: Practice

MEMORY: Practice

MEMORY: Practice