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

Ummm, Tony does care about racing Felicity up the hill. And that accordion sure is slowing her down. "I'm here, Pax," he calls, as he guns it past Merlin and his sister.

"Gosh, she's the best," he smiles when he reaches the top of the hill and side steps to block Felicity with his butt.

Edited 2020-06-07 03:57 (UTC)

Nuh nuh nuh nuh. Not so fast, mister.

Felicity abandons the accordion, jumps onto Tony's back -- arms wrapped around his neck, legs around his chest -- and attempts to bring the man down.

Edited 2020-06-07 04:25 (UTC)

Still kneeling by the frozen Pax, Merlin's expression is pure exasperation. Don't Tony and Felicity know this is serious? But...he doesn't quite have it in him to interrupt the pair. They've been at this longer than him. So maybe they need it.

Wordlessly, he rolls his eyes and stands, glancing around and trying to decide where to look next.

Edited 2020-06-07 04:35 (UTC)

Tony's first instinct is to grab Felicity's barefoot and tickle but that hasn't worked in at least a decade. He's never met anyone else who managed to actively train themselves not to be ticklish. Gotta give credit where credit is due. "Hnnnfff," he gags and wedges a hand under her arms to spare his windpipe, "Don't make me crush you." He feigns falling backward before catching himself at the last moment.

Felicity may have trained herself not to be ticklish, but she hasn't yet figured out how not to be smushed flat by a literal giant. The threat of tipping over is enough to make her let go. She summersaults through Tony's legs and tries to tip him backwards if he's still off-balance. Either way, she hopes the maneuver is enough to give her a head start as she races toward Pax. She's making a bee-line for the apples, which she plucks up and adds to the ones she already has in a plastic bag. Her collection grows!

She's laughing throughout all of this.

Listening in on this exchange, Merlin huffs and fights back a small grin, "Yeah right. You never crush anyone. You're all talk."

Since Felicity has started digging through Pax's bag, he kneels by the Quidditch clutter, first moving to grab the broom. Partially because he knows how much the girl adores flying and partially because, if push comes to shove, it wouldn't be a bad makeshift weapon. Not having his wand is such a pain.

Edited (Crush him, Tony.) 2020-06-07 22:15 (UTC)

Tony stumbles and has to catch himself on his fingertips but doesn't quite fall. There's no time for another dislocated shoulder. "I should start chargin'," he grunts as he rights himself, "Crushin' of this caliber has gotta be worth three times Joop's goin' rate."

He's chuckling under his breath as he kneels beside Pax's frozen form. Gosh, she's great. He wishes he could stay in her mind for longer. But that would mean the real Pax stayed trapped somewhere else.

Delicately, Tony reaches out to take the shiny beetle from Pax's finger.

The beetle doesn't glow, but something else happens. Things start moving again, Pax and the beetle included.

The beetle crawls down Pax's finger a ways before suddenly taking flight, directly at her face. She lets out a squealing laugh of surprise and twists her entire body. It's enough to unbalance her, and she begins rolling down the hill. In true Pax form she just sort of lets it happen, laughing brightly all the way down. But watching Pax roll down the hill isn't nearly as interesting or useful as the door that slowly appears in the tree she'd just be lying in front of.

[MEMORY CRITERIA MET! You guys can keep threading here and looking for the linchpin, or you can leave through the portal back to Peckenpaugh.]

Felicity dives after Pax, rolling a few feet behind her all the way down the hill, the world spinning in her line of sight until she reaches the bottom. She looks over at her friend, and plucks the daisy chain crown off the grass where it's fallen.

"That was awesome!" she yells back up to the others, spotting the door in the tree for the first time.

The vine glows under Felicity's touch, a golden copy coming away in her hands. Felicity has found the linchpin!

Standing at the top of the hill and watching as Felicity cheerfully, thoughtlessly rolls her way down and has the linchpin more or less dropped into her lap, Merlin feels a twinge of irritation. But this is Felicity, Tony's little sister and his Seeker pupil, so it's just a small one. Dumb luck can be endearing, sort of, but only on friends.

He gestures to the glowing flower crown and calls to her, "Hey! Put it on and c'mon already! You want to find the real one, right?'

Edited 2020-06-09 23:29 (UTC)

"Coming!" Felicity yells, and she runs back up the hill, a little zig-zaggy because she's dizzy from all the rolling. She needs to tell Pax that she won the memory!

Tony, Felicity and Merlin have completed the memory "Reclined"!

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

In the dance studio, Pax Sweetapple was freed!

Tony, Felicity and Merlin each earned 5 Tokens for completing the memory.

They got an additional 1 token 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!

HE IS HERE

MEMORY: Reclined

MEMORY: Reclined

MEMORY: Reclined

MEMORY: Reclined

MEMORY: Reclined

MEMORY: Reclined

MEMORY: Reclined

MEMORY: Reclined - REPLIES MET!

MEMORY: Reclined - REPLIES MET!

MEMORY: Reclined - REPLIES MET!

MEMORY: Reclined - REPLIES MET!

MEMORY: Reclined - REPLIES MET!

MEMORY: Reclined - TOKENS!