HE IS HERE

[peckishmods]

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.

but you'll keep going, won't you?

TO ELSEWHERE
| TO OUTSIDE | TO THE UPPER LEVELS | TO THE SORTING PATH |

IN THIS HUB
| ARE YOU THERE? |
| AT THE BASE OF THE TREE | A POCKET OF SAFETY |
| BACKSTAGE | THE DANCE STUDIO |

OOC POSTS
| OOC ACTION HUB | OOC CHATTER - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS |

Comments

MEMORY: Ballpit

[princeofcat]

Oh, a Chuck-E-Cheez-Wiz.See, this is more his speed. This isn't the Boston one where he's spent so many birthday parties as a small child, but it's familiar territory. Tybalt immediately punches Lydia in the shoulder in his excitement. "Bet the high score in Brendan Fraser Mummy pinball isn't good as mine." Is his immediate boast. But the memory plays out, and he wrinkles his nose in distaste when it's through. "Asshole." He declares in a mumble, and strides over to the pit. If no one stops him, he'll jump in to fetch the doll himself, and hopefully die in process.

MEMORY: Ballpit

[tristfully]

This is Viola's first time in a memory or a Chuck-E-Cheez-Wiz, and she is doubly disoriented. It seems odd to her that everyone has so quickly normalized jumping into their peers and teacher's minds but it doesn't feel like the right time to bring it up. She perceives a sense of urgency in Tybalt's immediate jump to action and so she does her best to mirror the mood.

"It's like a puzzle?" she asks. She hates being out of the loop almost as much as she hates being a know-it-all. "Are we meant to play the games?"

MEMORY: Ballpit

[damnnearkilledem]

Never one to interrupt a bit of mayhem, Winter watches Tybalt go like a proud momma watching her child board the bus on his first day of school. Go get 'em champ.

"There's a, mm, point of focus for the memory owner," Winter says to Viola. Feeling herself struggle to properly explain, Winter taps her temple, and then her cheek, just below her eye, gesturing outward. "We're looking for what's most im...portant, to...this." She spares a glance at Ms. Kwan's ?husband?, expression crumpling when she regards him. "He's n-not it."

MEMORY: Ballpit

[filigreed]

Lydia's own face splits into a wide grin at the familiar surroundings. This is a place she can handle. Bright lights and brighter colors and some of the most god-awful carpeting on earth. This is easy to navigate.

"So her kid?" she says, in response to Winter's memory focus explanation. A good mom would be focused on her daughter. "Means we should take out a frozen preteen." She takes a step forward, motion cheerful in a way that bounces her up and onto her toes, and raises her voice after Tybalt: "You're in the clear, Sarge. Fuck him up."

MEMORY: Ballpit

[princeofcat]

"And sometimes there's monsters." He adds in, having heard just enough of this conversation to contribute helpfully. He salutes at Lydia's clearance. It's all he needs. Tybalt, however, is not a monster, and he's not actually gonna punch anybody. Although he wades into the ballpit past kids half his age and size, he just attempts to topple the kid very gently into the balls. Insult over injury.

MEMORY: Ballpit

[peckishmods]

The frozen terror tips easily when Tybalt shoves him, but the kid is wedged well enough in the sea of balls that he stops just a few inches to the right. A leaning tower of pre-tween-za.

With some of the grimy, colorful plastic balls displaced, Tybalt does find a Very Old Teddy Bear in the pit, though.

MEMORY: Ballpit

[tristfully]

And sometimes there’s monsters...

Well, alright.

Viola circles Ms. Kwan and her, presumably, ex-husband, searching for anything ghoulish about them. “And we can just ... move around? And they don’t have seizures or anything?” she asks but, not really. Her voice is low and she clearly isn’t expecting anyone to answer her. She knows Aris, Tybalt, and Winter were just moving around in her memory and beyond the sensation of missing time, she feels perfectly fine. Not even a little seizing.

“I’d hate for anyone to remember me this way,” she frowns, stopping in front of the unfamiliar man. “He looks like he sends dick pics to undergrads.”

MEMORY: Ballpit

[damnnearkilledem]

"Oh yeah. I bet he doesn't tip above t-ten percent," Winter adds, her attention on Ms. Kwan. Her gaze flicks back and forth once, then twice, and then, resolving to act, she climbs into the ball pit behind Tybalt.

Winter wades up to Ms. Kwan's daughter and puts a palm on her head, rather like browsing melons at the grocery store.

MEMORY: Ballpit

[peckishmods]

Yep. That is definitely a kid's noggin.

MEMORY: Ballpit

[filigreed]

The assessment of Mrs. Kwan's (ex-)something-or-other prompts a snort from where Lydia's standing. Real gem of a man, then. There's a totally mystifying break up.

"Kinda glad we don't have to kidnap a weird, glowing version of somebody's child," she concludes when nothing particularly mystical happens after Winter sets her hand onto the girl's head. "But here's hoping we don't have to touch every damn one those balls, huh?"

MEMORY: Ballpit

[princeofcat]

"Oh, he definitely does." Tybalt agrees with Viola's verdict immediately. On a whim, or more realistically, because all these toys are making him regress to childhood, he throws a ball at the frozen professor. And because that was fun, he tosses another one at Lydia. "We're gonna, if you never get in here and help."

MEMORY: Ballpit

[tristfully]

Viola ducks out of the way of Tybalt's projectile and stifles a laugh as it pegs ex-Mr. Melody Kwan in the chest. His lack of reaction to the plastic ball and to the insult to his dignity convinces her that he's probably not a monster, despite his whole 'I think it's the duty of the department to present both sides of the issue' aesthetic.

That ball pit, however, seems like the perfect place for a monster to lurk. "Does anyone have their wand?" she asks, looking around for something remotely stabby shaped.

MEMORY: Ballpit

[damnnearkilledem]

"I...don't," Winter realizes, knee deep in plastic balls. She is reminded of a trash chute scene from a specific sci fi movie, and lifts one leg and peers down into the ball pit looking for any horrors. "We should...hurry?"

She cringes, teeth clenched, and turns her head this way and that looking for monsters or probable linchpins. And then her eyes settle on the bully. "Oh." A click of her tongue. "The doll."

MEMORY: Ballpit

[filigreed]

Lydia ambles up and onto the entrance of the ball pit, sitting cross-legged on the ledge and just bordering on helpful. She lets the ball impact off of her chest with a hollow thunk of sound, already winging one back in Tybalt's direction.

"I guess we could try the doll first," she concedes, but reaches down to run her fingers across the top layer of colorful plastic anyway. Just in case.

MEMORY: Ballpit

[princeofcat]

Tybalt has no great excuse for this. He's seen the aforementioned star battles film, even. But it was a long time ago, and caution has literally never been his strong suit. He grins at Lydia's efforts, and it becomes sunnier with the ball bonking into his head. No, he doesn't have a wand or any usable line of defense. Why should he need that.

"Oh, the doll." he turns that grin to Winter, a genius, and without further thought on consequences, sticks his entire arm in the direction he last saw it go.

MEMORY: Ballpit

[peckishmods]

While doubtlessly gross, the ball pit doesn't seem any different from a standard ball pit. It's even a little sticky from where some baby slobbered on one of the balls earlier. Whatever terrible leviathan surely lurks beneath the surface must be preoccupied elsewhere, though, because nothing surfaces as more of the students come to the edge of the pit.

Tybalt wades toward the spot where the doll disappeared, and finds something fairly quick while groping around. It's... a pacifier. Hm, close but no cigar.

MEMORY: Ballpit

[tristfully]

After the encounter in the bowling alley basement that cost Pouch his wing, Viola learned her lesson about charging in blindly. It's probably best that someone hangs back outside of the ball pit, in case shit hits the fan. Or, in case Tybalt hits shit on his next dive.

"Are any of our teachers happily married?" she muses, as she paces along the edge of the ball pit, searching for the doll.

MEMORY: Ballpit

[damnnearkilledem]

"Dr. Huang is. And... I think..." Winter starts as she gingerly wades through the sea of plastic, stopping to try and decide if she should even finish the thought. She does, the statement raising up high when it ends, "I think Trullinger and Ms. Treetops were...ssssomething?"

She pushes some of the balls aside to help Tybalt search.

MEMORY: Ballpit

[peckishmods]

Winter finds a very old mascot head for some sort of rodent, maybe a vole.

MEMORY: Ballpit

[damnnearkilledem]

Winter puts the mascot head right back where she found it.

MEMORY: Ballpit

[filigreed]

Oh. So, okay, it turns out this isn't going to be an simple and straight-forward claw machine victory. Straight in and straight out, eyes on the prize. It's rigged with a bunch of bad (and vaguely horrifying) options.

"God, I'm out of the loop on teacher gossip." Lydia pulls her feet back underneath her and crouches, readying herself to wade in and help if something worse than a beheaded rodent turns up next time.

MEMORY: Ballpit

[princeofcat]

"What kind of something?" He prompts, because he, too is behind on teacher gossip. Tybalt flicks the pacifier out of the ballpit like it's maybe going to burn him.

"...Wonder what the junk to ball ratio even is here."

He sighs and starts a new method; trawling up items from the depths by kicking his feet around, sending balls flinging to reveal what's beneath.

This probably creates more of a hazard, but they'll be here all day, otherwise.

MEMORY: Ballpit

[peckishmods]

Colorful balls go flying. There's a lot of eclectic stuff down here.

For instance, Tybalt finds a cricket bat. If he touches it, he will find it feels different than anything else here. More solid. More real. If he removes it from the memory, he will still have the cricket bat.

MEMORY: Ballpit

[princeofcat]

He grabs this bat immediately and he will never let it go.
He does the favor of not swinging it at his companions' heads, because he likes them.

MEMORY: Ballpit

[tristfully]

"Of course, Dr. Huang would be the only one capable of avoiding mess," she comments passively as she strolls back and forth in search of the doll. It quickly becomes clear that her vantage point is functionally useless. The appearance of a vole head and a cricket bat in a children's playpen confirms to her that this is a magically altered space which it will require more than just keen eyes to escape.

Sighing, she steps out of her celestial themed pumps and climbs into the ball pit. "Speaking of Ms. Treetops," she muses as she digs through the colorful plastic balls, "Are our teachers still possessed? Or did we solve that one while I was asleep?"