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

Presley snaps out the command and Des puts his hands up like someone on the way into custody. He isn't touching anything. Got no reason to touch anything. But he's stepping into place on the other side of Patrice all the same, humming along with in the sort of absent agreement of people familiar with bullshitting their way around not knowing something.

It's blood-pictures. Why can't we just call 'em what they are.

"You don't got to do it all yourself," Des interjects, when it looks like nothing's happening. "I got plenty." He knocks Patrice's shoulder and shoves the sleeve of his jacket up a bit. "Go 'head, then. Cut me open a little."

Presley rolls his eyes. "Why is everyone in this school so eager to bleed for other people? I'm already dripping, we might as well just—let me—" He leans in to dangle his hand over the envelope, letting his blood drip down. Just incredibly unsanitary, all of this.

"This doesn't necessarily have anything to do with your mother," Presley adds, as he watches the red drops hit the paper. He doesn't look at Patrice. "These memories are a... twisted game. Messing with people's heads."

"'Got plenty'? Seriously?" Patrice mutters, halfhearted in his tone but appreciative enough of the other boy's jostle to return it. The casualness that he'd felt earlier has slipped away entirely as he looks at his parents, frozen, and then Presley speaks and his eyes dart over to his other roommate.

Patrice's shoulders sink at his later words, unsure if he feels comforted by the other boy knowing his concerns so well or not. He mostly just feels sad, suddenly. Tired, too.

"Yeah. It's not real."

The paper greedily soaks up Presley's blood, a blotted form almost coming into view. It maybe looks like an owl. But it's incomplete.

There are probably good words to say here, but Desmond keeps his mouth shut. Patrice has been here before, Patrice has obviously been here before. He hasn't. Probably isn't his place. And sometimes it's good to know when not to talk.

He tilts his head down at the slowly coalescing image instead - and, well, that don't seem quite done, does it?

"Fuckin' told you," he says, followed immediately by a quiet "Sorry, ma'am," his chin dipping sheepishly. Then one shoulder ticks upward and he reaches forward for a corner of the envelope. "Eager's when you want to. Practical's when it makes sense."

As Desmond's hand nears the envelope it practically vibrates, and when he touches it, it slices open his finger just as it had sliced open Patrice's. Blood wells up, drawn to the page on the table much more than his companions' blood had been. Apparently his blood belongs there too, with his friends'. It slowly seeps into the paper, forming the completed shape of an owl, murky, not sharp like the rest of the things in this household. Slowly, everything begins again.

Before she steps away from the table, the woman remembers the fountain pen is still clutched in her hand - she sets it down, and soon after the man picks it up and pulls a few sheets of paper towards him. He begins to write while the woman drifts away from him, a smile, weak but real, starting at the corner of her lips as another soft 'Mama' is called out. She opens a door, smiling into what should be another room in the home but here opens up back to Peckenpaugh.

"You're so impatient, Patrice," she softly scolds.

[YOU HAVE SOLVES THE PUZZLE AND COMPLETED THE MEMORY! You found the linchpin. You may continue to scene here or leave through the bedroom door.]

Presley steps back from the table as the memory starts up again, feeling once again like an intruder. Leota Tang was never anything but kind to him, even as a crystal ball. There's no reason for them to be here witnessing these intimate moments with Patrice's family, except that some nightmarish force wanted them to be, and it all fills Presley's head with... static. He knows he should be angry or sad or guilty or afraid, but it's all too much. There's still people who need to be found.

"There's the pen," Presley says. "Let's go." He not-so-subtly grabs Des by the elbow and pulls him towards the exit, in case Patrice wants an extra moment.

Edited (a million years later) 2020-06-10 18:42 (UTC)

Patrice reaches to take the pen, now in his father's hand, and a glowing version of it comes away easily. Hearing his own childish voice again, hearing his mother speak to him, is hard, but the whole thing has been, so maybe it's not any worse than it was moments earlier. Whatever the case, his mind is slowly emptying out. Later he'll try to remember to thank Presley and Des for being respectful, but he hasn't got it in him right now. Instead he just watches his father for a few moments, quickly reaches to touch his hand one last time, and then goes to follow his friends, brushing past his mother as he goes.

Presley, Desmond and Patrice have completed the memory "Writing Notes"!

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

Elsewhere on campus, the spirit of Leota Tang was freed, and supposedly returned to her crystal ball if that's what she wants.

Presley, Desmond and Patrice each earned 5 Tokens for completing the memory!

They each also receive 1 Token for finding the linchpin, and another 2 Tokens for the power of friendship (and bleeding).

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: Writing Notes

MEMORY: Writing Notes

MEMORY: Writing Notes

MEMORY: Writing Notes

MEMORY: Writing Notes

MEMORY: Writing Notes

MEMORY: Writing Notes

MEMORY: Writing Notes

MEMORY: Writing Notes - TOKENS!