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: Defeat NPC, Find Linchpin]
[RESEREVE: Jupiter Quigley, Trudy McGilliguddy]

Everything begins midair. On a broom, thankfully, not falling or anything, but still dozens of feet above the ground, bobbing lazily on a stick. Most of a Quidditch pitch can be seen from here, the grass a little greener and the stands a lot shinier than what Peckenpaugh has to offer. Birds chirp somewhere nearby, probably because this, the sky, is supposed to be their domain.

"Ready for it, Cloudy?" A young man hovering nearby knocks into the memory holder with his shoulder. He's handsome and athletic, and though he's not familiar, there's something in his eyes reminiscent of Claudia Vega.

"I'm ready to kick butts, Teo." The voice is a little young, a little more filled with hope and optimism, but it's definitely Claudia.

"They're hazing you, not testing you, there's no winning." Teo laughs, but his tone warm. Someone behind him blows a whistle, a shrill blast that echoes through the entire fancy Quidditch pitch.

"Not with that attitude," Claudia calls out as Teo backs away from her. "Bet if I catch the Snitch they'll make me first string Seeker."

"Yeah, and if you catch a Bludger they'll carry you out of here on their shoulders."

The jolt of excitement that shoots through Claudia Vega's entire mind at that idea is tangible. Even Teo seems to sense it, sputtering as the whistle blasts again. "Cloudy, don't you dare actually—"

"Vega! And Vega!" As Teo backs away, Claudia can see more people on brooms waiting several feet away, all of them are holding a ball. No, several balls. The burly senior with the whistle palms a red dodgeball and smiles just a little dangerously. "Everyone to positions!"

"Aye aye, Captain!" Claudia throws her hand up in a salute and takes position in front of the goals. Tense. Focused. Waiting, her entire core tightened and engaged just to keep her from teetering. Just outside the scoring zone, an entire Quidditch team worth of people readies their ammunition.

Once more, the sound of a whistle rings out, and every flyer lets loose a ball. They barely even have them out of their hands before the whistle signals another wave, and then another.

Claudia doesn't waste a moment looking for the most dangerous target up there. The Bludger zips toward the goal and she throws herself to the right, locking her knees around the broom and trusting a little too much in her own conditioning to keep her airborne.

And before a single ball can hit home, everything freezes. Claudia hangs, mostly horizontal, while waves of balls hang in the air. There's the big red dodgeball and a volleyball with a face, a golf ball and a medicine ball, a Snitch and a quod, and they're all good and stuck there. No matter how hard you pull or how much weight you put on them, these balls ain't going nowhere.

"Hey! It's Claude!" Jupiter declares with a broad grin and a jab of her finger as she's literally dropped into the scene. She falls like a cat that's reached terminal velocity, perfectly okay with this the moment she's realized it's happening. Pure, unadulterated Don't worry, I do this all the time energy.

She lands fairly gracefully on little Claudia. Gives her baby Chaser an apologetic pat on the head. A professional plummeter.

And then she remembers that her memory-spelunking companion is not. "Oh, peanuts."

Jupiter cranes her neck up to see where Trudy's coming from, reaching out to grab her if she's falling too far.

For perhaps the first time in anyone's memory, Trudy screams. She's falling and she doesn't know where from or where to or whether injuries in memories even stick, but despite repeatedly claiming that she isn't afraid of death, self preservation does kick in. "ARRESTO MOMENTUM!" she shouts, trying to cast on herself with a burner wand while plummeting to the ground.

Trudy's wand (ROLLED 2) spits a pair of fuzzy pink handcuffs at her face instead.

Okay, maybe it's not the right response, but Jupiter's first response is to breathe a loud laugh through her nose. After that, she hooks her ankles together to stay partly secured, then throws herself out, arms stretched, to try and snatch Trudy out of the air.

Trudy shrieks the entire time, even when she and her handcuffs land in Jupiter's arms.

Trudy's (ROLLED 1) glasses fall off her face when she lands.

Jupiter is too busy having her ear screamed in to stop Trudy's glasses from slipping away. Good-bye, glasses.

She keeps one eye squinted shut and tries to carefully maneuver Trudy and her kinky cuffs out of her arms and onto the broom. "That was fun?"

Trudy clings tightly to Jupiter. She isn't afraid to die, but she's not nearly accomplished enough to become an influential ghost yet, she decides. "No, it wasn't!" she complains. "Whose memory is this? I'm going to curse them."

"Hey, hey, hey," Jupiter says, as calm and placating as she can manage (success questionable). Her fingers flex and flutter a little, but she doesn't move to unwind Trudy's fingers from her clothes. Not so long as she seems tense, at least. "I got you. You're good."

She turns her chin up, taking stock of their surroundings. "Anyway..." she begins, thinking over what she sees. "We're in Hyperion's memory for sure. So curse him."

Nevermind that they're both riding young Claudia like she's one of those quarter pony rides outside the Family Dollar. "Ready to climb, Gertjert?"

"Climb?" Trudy demands. Of course they'll have to climb. Like the balloons in the other memory she visited, the brooms will stay in the air, but they won't respond to the weight on them and actually fly. She heaves a large sigh for a small witch, then starts digging in her purse for one of her spare pairs of glasses. "This is a stupid memory," she declares, straightening out her dress slightly in case her underwear is showing. "Fine. You go first."

"Bet they'll have a survey you can fill out afterward," Jupiter quips, carefully untangling herself from Trudy and moving forward over the broom, mindful not to step on little frozen Claudia's head, although she does get momentarily distracted (Has Claude had a nose job???).

Jupiter doesn't have much trouble moving, really. She tentatively toes the nearest ball with her foot, and then steps aboard and seats herself on it, dangling her feet over the sides with a satisfied grin. This is delightful.

After a moment, she extends her hand to Trudy in what seems to be an offer of assistance, but then she says, "Hey can I have one of your pairs of glasses?"

Regardless of what Jupiter intended, Trudy takes her hand, using it as balance as she navigates (and does step on Claudia's head). "Hmm. I mean, I guess? But you won't be able to see with them on." She doesn't hand them over now anyway, too busy wobbling precariously. Finally, she sits down heavily on one of the balls, holding on to another one to make sure she doesn't topple over. "What looks important? Let's jut touch it and go."

"Hummm," Jupiter breathes a heavy puff of air that blows stray curls out of her face. She examines their options, slaps her palm over the face on the soccer ball, and then seems to come to an epiphany: "Oh! It's gotta be the bludger, right? Claude loves losing teeth."

Before she's even stopped talking, Jupiter is scaling the scene again, trying to get to that great big metal boulder in the sky.

"That makes sense!" Trudy agrees, even though all these balls look pretty much he same to her. Years of being in marching band have not actually increased her interest in sports. "I'll catch you if you fall!" she says, brandishing the unstable burner wand.

Somewhere in that frozen sky, a bird starts to sing while Jupiter climbs.

"If yer gonna whistle, you gotta look, too," Jupiter complains, glancing down at Trudy with an arched brow.

"I'm not whistling, you're whistling!" Trudy complains.

Jupiter presses her lips into a flat line. If she's not whistling, and Trudy's not whistling, then...

"We should hurry." She returns to her ascent, slapping anything she passes on her way to the bludger in the hopes that something will turn gold. "C'mon, Trudes, get to ball touchin'."

A single bird appears in the sky, dancing over the girls' heads.

It's joined soon after by another bird. And another. And another.

Trudy can agree with that. She has never been good at sports, and crystalizing it in memory form doesn't help. She begins to climb,setting out in a different direction than Jupiter to cover more ground. It's slow going for her, and she is too focused to notice the birds yet, but she slaps dodgeballs and a snutch as she goes, trying to touch everything she can reach on the way. "Have you got the bludger yet?" she calls out, sounding annoyed by this whole thing. Of course it's Claudia's memory.

The birds get louder overhead as the girls start slappin' them balls, and they drop lower and lower in the sky. Soccer ball, volleyball, yellow dodgeball, snitch, snutch, quod, their hands bounce off each of them.

Until Trudy hits the red dodgeball. The one the Quidditch captain was holding with that dangerous smirk on his face.

It glows gold under Trudy's touch, and she's immediately divebombed by a bird for her trouble.

Jupiter tries to punch the bird before it can get Trudy.

She's way bigger so this is a super good idea.

Jupiter (ROLLED 9) manages to sock that bird right out of the air, but there's more. There's a whole flock of them shooting down from the sky and slamming into the back of her head. One of them gets stuck in her hair, another tries to peck at Trudy's glasses, and they're all fucking loud.

Edited (trudy also rolled a 9 or jup would have punched her too) 2020-06-05 15:54 (UTC)

What kind of asshole birds go for a girl's glasses? Now, Trudy is really getting angry. She keeps her legs locked around the ball between her thighs, and casts, "Reducto!" towards the swarm.

HE IS HERE

MEMORY: Sports Ball

MEMORY: Sports Ball

MEMORY: Sports Ball

MEMORY: Sports Ball

MEMORY: Sports Ball

MEMORY: Sports Ball

MEMORY: Sports Ball

MEMORY: Sports Ball

MEMORY: Sports Ball

MEMORY: Sports Ball

MEMORY: Sports Ball

MEMORY: Sports Ball

MEMORY: Sports Ball

MEMORY: Sports Ball

MEMORY: Sports Ball

MEMORY: Sports Ball

MEMORY: Sports Ball

MEMORY: Sports Ball

MEMORY: Sports Ball

MEMORY: Sports Ball

MEMORY: Sports Ball

MEMORY: Sports Ball

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MEMORY: Sports Ball

MEMORY: Sports Ball

MEMORY: Sports Ball

MEMORY: Sports Ball

MEMORY: Sports Ball

MEMORY: Sports Ball

MEMORY: Sports Ball

MEMORY: Sports Ball

MEMORY: Sports Ball

MEMORY: Sports Ball

MEMORY: Sports Ball

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