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

Ramona has spent months absolutely refusing to feel bad for this tiny little thief, but it's kind of hard not to take a little pity on it now, watching this chaotic scene. The fairy certainly has a MacGuyver-esque ingenuity that she'd appreciate in literally any other living being. But her lot in life is to be dealt ironic trials, of course, and now she has to rescue the very nemesis she swore she never would. And to make it all the more entertaining, she has only a Quackenbush for backup.

After letting out a frustrated huff of a sigh, she steps forward into the frozen memory, scanning the room.

"I guess we're looking for an important item," she tells Cedar, having gleaned this information from the mob of idiot freshmen that had rescued her. In retrospect, she regrets not asking them to give her the linchpin from her own memory, but she's pretty sure at least one of them was the kid she stole her cicada shell from, so maybe she shouldn't complain. "And that will start the memory up again."

Cedar DOES NOT know what's going on, but Cedar kind of NEVER knows what's going on and is ALWAYS prepared for a disaster. They dig into their fanny pack in search of the mini flashlight they're absolutely certain they packed just before prom in case the lights went out when they were trying to go to the bathroom, but all they find is... nuts.

Just... so many nuts.

They zip the fanny pack close again and decide to try again later. Sometimes that helps.

"I bet there's something inside the shoe!" Cedar suggests and hops up to grab the yo-yo string, hoping to climb up into the shoe. They miss by a mile and crash back down, landing flat on their back.

"Please don't die," Ramona tells them while sounding totally indifferent as to whether or not they die. She circles the shoe a few times, sizing it up. Despite her very best efforts, she's beginning to feel sorry for the Muscheron. Even at scale, her instinct is just to pick the shoe up to examine it.

Instead, she tries to tip the entire thing over.

The shoe is heavy at Ramona's size, but she shoves hard enough for it to teeter, totter, and then (ROLLED 10) flumps onto its side. Something rattles inside, while the perfectly static muscheron clings to the yo-yo string, moth glued to his face.

Cedar lets out a screech as the shoe slams to the ground and immediately runs toward the tall grass.

“Where are you going?” Ramona calls after them as she circles the shoe again. Crawling into a giant shoe seems really gross and unhygienic to her, and she loses any burgeoning sympathy she had for the Muscheron. It’s a pest and it lives in a shoe.

“Do you have a flashlight or something?” she yells over her shoulder as she pokes around inside the shoe.

"I DON'T KNOW!!!" Cedar shouts as they reach the grass. There's still plenty of air left in those lungs for screaming, but they stop at the edge of the grass, panting lightly, and crouch down. What if there are THINGS in here??? Cedar doesn't know what to expect, except for the worst.

"I THOUGHT I did, but my fanny pack just has NUTS now." They unzip to check again, but nope, all nuts.

Oh, and a single bandaid. "I BET I could start a fire?"

That's a bad idea.

"Don't start a fire..." Ramona says, but she's pretty resigned to the fact that Cedar is probably going to start a fire anyway. Still, she kneels down and crawls partway into the shoe, feeling around for whatever was rattling in there.

Bzzt. Whrr whrr.

What Ramona finds in the shoe is certainly startled to see her. The single cicada, massive at this size, panics. It fumbles around and shoves off the inner toe of the shoe in a vain attempt at tackling her (ROLLED 9) but Ramona is able to avoid a collision.

Then again, now there's an angry, startled and probably embarrassed bug flying around, and certainly more nearby...

Cedar screams and starts grabbing around for dried grass.

"I'M GONNA START A FIRE!!!" they yell and just start rubbing tiny sticks together. One breaks in their hands but they don't notice. "STAY AWAY OR GET BURNED BUG."

(ROLLED 8) The cicada seems to believe Cedar's claim despite all signs pointing otherwise.

So it goes after Ramona again instead. (ROLLED 3) And knocks her into the frozen Muscheron. That's gonna leave a knot on her head later.

"Motherfu--" Ow. That hurt.

But there's a bug attacking them and she's totally unarmed, so she doesn't have time to whine. Looking around for some kind of improvised weapon, the only thing Ramona sees that could possibly be of any use is a sizable, smooth rock - actually, it's just a pebble. But it's about as much as she can lift right now. Thankful for her rigorous beater training, she picks the rock up and lobs it at the bug.

Edited 2020-06-04 23:26 (UTC)

Still screaming with no purpose, Cedar reaches into their fanny pack for nuts to throw.

And grabs a handful of packing peanuts instead.

They throw them anyway.

"EAT... POISON PEANUTS!!!"

It's a one-two punch of river rock (ROLLED 7) and itty bitty packing peanuts (ROLLED 9) and the cicada simply can't avoid all that teamwork. When it flies up to dodge the packing peanuts, it winds up flipping head over butt and landing hard on the sorting path floor.

That kid with the nuts is a liar and the cicada knows it now — there's no fire and it bets those peanuts weren't poison at all. This is not normally how bugs fight their fights, but the cicada scurries up to Cedar and (ROLLED 3) pops them right in the mouth with one of their buggy feet.

It's a brawl, y'all.

Getting down to their level when the bug can fly is a mistake. Spotting her opportunity, and perhaps feeling a vague pang of protective instinct over Cedar, Ramona takes a running start at the bug and tackles it.

Cedar blindly swings their hands through the air at the bug, and hopefully not at Ramona. They fight the urge to run for now, but, like, barely.

Cedar's hand waving (ROLLED 2) unfortunately just comes across as cheering the cicada on. However, Ramona (ROLLED 9) tackles that cicada like an ace. When it hits the dirt, it's just enough to knock the little bug silly.

It's still, and a few seconds of silence tick by, before something buzzes overhead, growing louder and louder.

Oh no. It's the rest of the bug swarm.

Not even enough time to celebrate the victory.

"We're going to die," Ramona deadpans.

Cedar, still screaming, turns and starts running toward the doors. MOTHMAN!! SAVE THEM NOW!!!

Fleeing... does seem like a good idea. Before Ramona follows Cedar toward the door, she wrenches the string of the yoyo out of the Muscheron's hands, pulling the toy along with her with the intent of using it as a makeshift weapon.

The bugs weren't expecting targets to be only six inches tall, and harrying them isn't as easy as they'd like. They swarm down in a blob and rush the two fleeing teens. (ROLLED 4) Cedar is knocked off their feet when one of the bugs flies low, but Ramona (ROLLED 8) manages to avoid their sweep attack.

Wrapping the string around her arm until she's got the yoyo at a good length for swinging, Ramona throws all her weight into taking a shot right at the middle of the swarm of bugs.

"HELP ME," she demands of Cedar, even though she knows this is as likely to result in mayhem as it is actual help.

Cedar faceplants, tripping over a maple seed in the path, and flips over on their back. Quackenbushes may day in all KINDS of comical and unfortunate ways, but they ain't COWARDS.

They climb to their feet and charge at the swarm, swinging their arms and flinging nuts all over the place.

The maple seed Cedar trips over begins to glow as soon as their feet touch it. It glows more as they splay out over top of it, too, but right now there's more to worry about.

Ramona's meteor hammer yoyo work does wonders in knocking out a whole cluster of bugs (ROLLED 8), and they just aren't fast enough to regroup and get her when they attempt to counter her (ROLLED 5). Cedar proves a surprisingly adept bug pugilist (bugilist?) (ROLLED 7) socking several bugs and sending them spinning away.

The little swarm isn't smart enough to pull back, but their numbers are certainly dwindling now!

Ramona sees the maple seed, but figures getting her hands on the linchpin won’t matter if she dies by bugs first. Spinning the yo-yo a few times to build up momentum, she takes another strike at the big swarm, a little more targeted this time as she acclimates to the absurdity of yo-yo combat.

HE IS HERE

MEMORY: Getting Sorted

MEMORY: Getting Sorted

MEMORY: Getting Sorted

MEMORY: Getting Sorted

MEMORY: Getting Sorted

MEMORY: Getting Sorted

MEMORY: Getting Sorted

MEMORY: Getting Sorted

Re: MEMORY: Getting Sorted

MEMORY: Getting Sorted

Re: MEMORY: Getting Sorted

MEMORY: Getting Sorted

MEMORY: Getting Sorted

Re: MEMORY: Getting Sorted

MEMORY: Getting Sorted

MEMORY: Getting Sorted

MEMORY: Getting Sorted

MEMORY: Getting Sorted

MEMORY: Getting Sorted

MEMORY: Getting Sorted

MEMORY: Getting Sorted

MEMORY: Getting Sorted

MEMORY: Getting Sorted

MEMORY: Getting Sorted

MEMORY: Getting Sorted

MEMORY: Getting Sorted

MEMORY: Getting Sorted - COMPLETE!

MEMORY: Getting Sorted - COMPLETE!

Re: MEMORY: Getting Sorted - COMPLETE!

MEMORY: Getting Sorted - COMPLETE & TOKENS!