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

"Basket setting? Inlays? I'm afraid I don't speak jewelry-making language." Fiona looks over the elf, then bends down and tries to unstick its foot from the sugary stuff it's stuck in. "I don't really want to touch this, but I don't know, maybe it'll help."

"Makings of a good engagement ring," Lydia shoots back absently, bracing her hand on the wall and crouching down to examine the sugar herself. Mostly it just looks gross. But the hard and fast rules of this thing aren't always super clear.

"That or the gigantic roses." A huff. "Don't really want to carry one of those things, though."

"I'll keep that in mind for if I get engaged." Fiona removes her hand from the sugar and inspects the roses. "Maybe if this works, it'll return to normal size once we go back to the regular world." She drags one of the roses toward her, being careful to avoid any giant thorns.

Okay, so that mission was unsuccessful - but, fortunately, lacking in aphids.

"Or not." Lydia flops back to rest on the edge of the last candy heart, not caring overly much if the color stains her dress. "Do we give this guy a full pat down? Start tapping everyone's shoes?"

"It's worth a try." Fiona slumps down on a candy heart beside Lydia, rubbing her tired eyes. "I'm running out of ideas." She starts tugging on someone's heeled show. "I hope this won't make them trip when the memory restarts. I don't know how this works - do the things we do to the scene have retroactive effects on the memory?"

The candy heart, reading LIE 2 ME in big bold candy letters, starts to glow as the girls lean against it, and then suddenly everything starts to move. Any flowers they moved or bells they flicked seem to have gone unnoticed as the WizElf starts to climb up the wall of the wishing well behind him.

The climb up the wishing well takes forever. Muscles ache and little lungs burn. But it persists, and soon enough it's on the precipice of a well. Two choices. Risk its life on the dance floor, or risk the fall. But that's not really a choice, is it. Only one will allow the trip to a storage room at the end of this. A chance to lie low.

A freshman leans in to whisper a wish, and if it's spotted it'll be too late. "Naughty." The elf breathes, and grabs a flower to surf down into the bottom of the well.

The bottom falls out, revealing an exit.

[MEMORY REPLIES MET! The girls can continue threading here or leave through the portal back to Peckenpaugh. And grab that linchpin if you can carry it.]

Edited 2020-06-06 20:00 (UTC)

The second their makeshift chair starts glowing, Lydia's up and off of it like it might accidentally set her ass on fire. But then everything else starts moving and, hey, guess this is as good a place as any when most other places run the risk of getting punted by their gigantic classmates.

This really wasn't on the prom flyers.

"So we're supposed to haul this thing," she says, and the tone doesn't quite reach questioning. Because obviously they're supposed to haul this thing. It's just that the whole action seems very dubious, considering the size ratios they've been given.

Edited (hey so apparently THAT didn't post last night) 2020-06-07 15:58 (UTC)

Fiona looks at the hulking candy heart, then at the towering wall of the well, and back to the heart.She likes to climb, but this is ridiculous. "How are we supposed to get it up the well? If I climb first, do you think you can lift it up to me? Or vice versa?" She thinks her back would break if she tried to climb the well with the heart on her back. But they've got to act fast - heels clack and dress shoes stomp dangerously close to them. With some effort, Fiona tips another of the hearts on its side to form a shield.

Fiona and Lydia completed the memory "Sleigh Bells Ring"!

When they emerged from the portal into the auditorium, the portal snapped shut behind them.

Out in the woods, the final WizElf on the WizShelf was freed!

Lydia and Fiona earned 5 Tokens for completing the memory!

They also earned 2 Tokens for locating 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!

[You can continue to thread here, or assume the girls made it up and out with the linchpin eventually!]

HE IS HERE

MEMORY: Sleigh Bells Ring

MEMORY: Sleigh Bells Ring

MEMORY: Sleigh Bells Ring

MEMORY: Sleigh Bells Ring

MEMORY: Sleigh Bells Ring

MEMORY: Sleigh Bells Ring - REPLIES MET!

MEMORY: Sleigh Bells Ring

MEMORY: Sleigh Bells Ring

MEMORY: Sleigh Bells Ring