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

Aris doesn't know much about Nifflers, but he's nearly positive that isn't standard Niffler behavior and he's entirely positive that the thing just played him. He throws the pizza box back into the creature's face as hard as he can (it won't hurt, but hey, it's an inconvenience, right?) and rushes back to join the others, putting himself between the girl holding the raccoon and the dumpster.

"What the heck is that?" And, more importantly, what're they supposed to do about it without their wands?

"Weee!" Felicity squeaks as she's pulled out of the dumpster, two muggle baseballs clutched in her paws.

She offers them to Aris and Maisy.

While Aris is reluctant to take his eyes off the dumpster, Felicity's squeaking is enough to get him to glance around. He blinks, then nods, and take the baseball. Better watch out, not-Niffler! He turns back to the dumpster and waits, watching to see what the thing is doing or becoming.

The Niffler continues to melt, beady eyes wide. "Don't throw it! Heeeelp meeee! Saaave meeee!" it squeaks before its face disappears.

The Niffler is asking the wrong person for help. Felicity doesn't have a wand, and even if she did have one, she's not sure what she would do with it. She slept through the lecture on melting Nifflers.

She suspects what they need (and maybe the Niffler needs) lies somewhere in the dumpster. She wriggles out of Maisy's grasp and dives back in, in search of something shiny.

Edited (getting a tag in before work) 2020-06-05 17:24 (UTC)

Maisy's pretty sure this isn't a real niffler for a few reasons. The main tip-offs are that it talks and that it's turning into gooey muck. This is really the level of suspicious activity she needs to come to the conclusion. But once she does, she's PRETTY sure she has to kill it.

While Felicity roves around the dumpster for the linchpin, Maisy also hoists herself in. She picks up the nearest sharp-looking piece of garbage and starts stabbing at the niffler. "Just touch everything!" she advises Felicity.

[ROLLED 2] The melting Niffler bends as Maisy stabs at it, but holds together. Meanwhile, light glints off the pile of foul-smelling tuna cans, making them appear to shine.

Giving up on his previous reluctance, Aris follows after Felicity and Maisy. He pulls himself up onto the edge of the dumpster and takes the plunge, throwing the baseball he'd been given as hard as he can at the melting mass while jumping feet-first into the mess.

It's as immediately unpleasant as he thought it might be, full of rot and trash and awful smells, but all of that's a less immediate concern than the slimy not-Niffler. And finding the linchpin. And avoiding stepping on the frozen past-Kirby. "Yeah!" he calls in agreement, already following Maisy's lead and scanning the mess for another weapon, "What she said!" If Felicity can handle that, they can handle this.

Edited 2020-06-05 21:58 (UTC)

Maisy said to "Just touch everything!" and Felicity does just that. She takes special care to grab the shiny tuna cans and give the frozen Kirby a reassuring pat on the top of the head (with her cleanest paw).

As Felicity grabs them, the pile of tuna cans tumbles over, revealing a water bottle, a plastic toy lightsaber, and a broken pair of purple star-shaped fake glasses.

It takes a lot for Felicity to abandon those sweet smelling tuna cans, but something tells her the lightsaber holds a little more meaning for Kirby.

She grabs for it.

When Felicity grabs the lightsaber, it shines gold and another one remains in the trash next to Kirby. She has found the linchpin!

The Niffler hisses and pounces forward at the other players, flexing what's left of its front claws.

Unlike Maisy, Aris didn't find a convenient makeshift weapon among the garbage. Not quickly enough, anyway. When the not-Niffler lunges forward, he jumps back with a small yelp and does the only thing he can think to do: he kicks it, starting low to catch it under the chin and continuing through a full high kick.

Who says cheerleading has no real-world applications?

Edited 2020-06-06 15:08 (UTC)

Stunned by Aris's kick, the not-Niffler gives one last hiss and then evaporates.

Kirby scrambles out of the dumpster, clutching the lightsaber, and hops onto the ground. As he brushes pieces of trash off his clothes, he notes that the playground is empty. Crap, he’s going to be late for class.

He trudges across the playground, hanging his head. Then he remembers something—he’s a wizard, and they’re not. He imagines coming back to the school and turning the bully into a beetle. As unrealistic as this fantasy is, it cheers him up just to think about the possibilities the future holds.

Back in the dumpster, all the rummaging around has left a hole that seems to stretch into the ground. It’s big enough for people to slide through, if they can stand to.

[MEMORY COMPLETE!]

Felicicoon pops out of the dumpster, scurries back under her clothes, and suddenly reappears as herself. Except her dress is on backwards. But that's a problem for later. Right now they gotta get back to school and give Kirby his lightsaber.

Before she jumps into the dumpster again, she turns to the others. "If anyone asks, we got PECK on the first try. Right?"

"I still don't get it," Maisy complains before she hoists her skirts up and slides down the garbage shoot.

Aristotle, Felicity and Maisy completed the memory "Dumpster Dive"!

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

On the second floor, Kirby Sparrowgrove was freed! Elsewhere in the auditorium, shrub, a magimagicicada was freed!

Aristotle, Felicity and Maisy each received 7 Tokens for completing the memory!

They each received 3 Tokens for completing an encounter and 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!

Edited 2020-06-06 19:37 (UTC)

HE IS HERE

MEMORY: Dumpster Dive

MEMORY: Dumpster Dive

MEMORY: Dumpster Dive

MEMORY: Dumpster Dive

MEMORY: Dumpster Dive

MEMORY: Dumpster Dive

MEMORY: Dumpster Dive

MEMORY: Dumpster Dive

MEMORY: Dumpster Dive

MEMORY: Dumpster Dive

MEMORY: Dumpster Dive

MEMORY: Dumpster Dive

MEMORY: Dumpster Dive

MEMORY: Dumpster Dive

MEMORY: Dumpster Dive

MEMORY: Dumpster Dive

MEMORY: Dumpster Dive - COMPLETE & TOKENS!