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

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.

Cedar could keep running, but they ran out of bugs to punch. Their mind whirs as they glance around for something to swing or throw or stab with and—OH! STICKS!!

They grab a stick as tall as they are and let out a warrior scream as they run back toward the swarm, swinging the stick over their head the whole way.

Ramona was meant for a proportionately gigantic yoyo (ROLLED 9), and Cedar's ?terrifying? warrior cry at least seems to startle the bugs (ROLLED 6).

The swarm winds up for a massive attack, but Ramona's spinning yoyo squashes too many of them.

The remaining bugs pull up and away. Their incessant buzzing grows softer and softer as they flee, until there is nothing. A second of silence ticks by, and then, abruptly everything rewinds and finds its right place in the memory. The scene explodes with sound once more.

"Noooo no no no!" the muscheron cries out, righted on his shoe once again, blowing at the moth on his nose. "Can't!! Cannot!!! Gibbaaaaaaaaaaak."

With a sneeze, the string yanks loose of the yo-yo, somehow back in the muscheron's arms. The muscheron slams forward in the shoe. The force of the sneeze rocks the entire shoe and it tilts precariously to the side while the muscheron scrambles to stay upright. It swerves, abruptly changing course toward the doors. Hands pressed against his face, peeking through his fingers, the muscheron watches as the shoe careens straight toward the big glowing door. Seconds before he hits, the door unlocks, and green and purple bubbles cascade down.

Welcome to Deeplurk, little guy. With no other exit available, this seems like the best way back home.

[YOU HAVE DEFEATED THE ENCOUNTER AND COMPLETED THE MEMORY! You found the linchpin. You may continue to scene here or leave through the portal.]

Edited (whoops lmao) 2020-06-05 01:25 (UTC)

Cedar doesn't stop. They scream and run all the way to the door.

Ramona spits at the Muscheron before she leaves.

Ramona and Cedar completed the memory "Getting Sorted"!

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

Elsewhere in the auditorium, Shoe Muscheron and toadstools, a magimagicicada were freed.

Ramona and Cedar each earned 10 Tokens for completing a memory with an encounter!

They earned an additional 1 Token for finding the linchpin

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: 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!