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

Hey, so that was terrible and she maybe yelped in a very undignified fashion. Or maybe not so much undignified. Considering the fact that she most definitely almost fell.

"Great," she calls back, sounding very much like she is not in any way great. Maybe even a little it like she swallowed sandpaper. "Doing just peachy."

Lydia takes a few moments to stand very still and hope shit doesn't start moving again before chancing another glance upward.

"Do I still have to get that?"

"Remember, if you die we're taking your stuff," Patrice calls out by way of encouragement, even as his concern slips into his tone.

"You're already up there - might as well, right? Just a little bit more climbing and then we can get the hell out of here. That kid busted a hole through the clouds back to school."

"You might as well get it, you're already up there!" Trudy calls out with her hands cupped around her mouth. She's not actually planning on trying to climb again herself.

Despite the fact that she's several feet in the air and the gesture is ultimately pointless, Lydia flips off the general vicinity - which, sure, amounts to several balloons and a stray cloud. But the point still stands.

Then she makes one last awkward hop, pinwheeling her arms and getting her hair in her face with a muttered: "Can't believe I'm gonna die before my brother." Then she leans up on her toes to reach for the string of the gold, ghost-balloon.

Lydia grasps the golden balloon and she knows, immediately, that she has the linchpin!

Nowhere left to go but down.

"Good job!" Trudy cheers from the ground (relatively). "Now come back down!"

Edited (helpful) 2020-06-05 02:33 (UTC)

"And be careful!" Patrice adds, equally helpful.

"Yeah, no shit," Lydia replies, once again under her breath in a manner that really doesn't matter given the relative distance between herself and her classmates.

Then, louder and more belligerent as she contemplates the advantages of jumping to the next balloon versus crouching and attempting to slide herself over: "Cushioning charm would be real cool right about now."

"Sorry, no wand!" Trudy calls out. "But it's all cloud. Just don't land in the door!"

"I wouldn't trust my wandless magic with it, either." Patrice wrinkles his nose a little. "It'll be fine!"

This is a terrible idea.

"Yeah, sure." Lydia closes her hand tight around the balloon. "Fuck it." And jumps.

Falling from great height isn't probably so unfamiliar for a junior Quidditch beater. This is a familiar feeling: the deafening sound of air whipping by, the clouds receding quickly, ears popping on the way down.

When Lydia hits the cloud, it's a half-second of being embraced in a cool, misty hug before she's launched right back up into the air, again. Five, ten, fifteen feet before she arcs and comes back down.

Down and up. Down and up. Until finally, she's slowed down enough that she can stop herself with her own two feet.

The moment Lydia's on the ground, stable, Patrice reaches for her hand. "Let's get out of this stupid place - not like we can get anything fun, anyway. And don't forget your shit."

"Don't forget your shit," Trudy agrees, picking it up to pass it to the other girl, some sort of approximation of polite. Then she walks over to the person shaped hole in the cloud and jumps through.

Lydia, Patrice & Trudy completed the memory "I Can Go Twice As High"!

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

Elsewhere in the auditorium, Thorntrail Freshman Eric and summer, a magimagicicada were freed.

Lydia, Patrice & Trudy earned 5 Tokens for completing the memory. +2 Tokens for going beyond the required replies. (7 Total)

They each earned 1 Token for finding the linchpin.

Lydia earned an additional 3 Tokens for saying fuck it and jumping.

You can check your token totals in Pouch's shop here, and maybe see if there's anything worth grabbing while you're there!

Edited 2020-06-05 15:06 (UTC)

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MEMORY: I Can Go Twice As High

MEMORY: I Can Go Twice As High

MEMORY: I Can Go Twice As High

MEMORY: I Can Go Twice As High

MEMORY: I Can Go Twice As High

MEMORY: I Can Go Twice As High

MEMORY: I Can Go Twice As High

MEMORY: I Can Go Twice As High

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MEMORY: I Can Go Twice As High

MEMORY: I Can Go Twice As High

MEMORY: I Can Go Twice As High

MEMORY: I Can Go Twice As High

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