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.

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Pocket and Pouch did what they could to protect as many students as possible in The Thing's first assault on campus. Walls of ice and blankets of (now wilting) moss cover the far corners of the room. With the danger temporarily pulled to heel, there is nothing to do now but emerge from these safe spaces.

Outside the soft comfort of the party bugs' barriers, the air is heavy with awful feeling, sharp and voracious and wrong. In the center of it all stands that nightmare tree.

Find your friends, gather and regroup, and figure out a way to save everything.

[This subheader is for threads that occur at the start of the night. Think of it as a What's Up? But you're in Hell.]

Fallen prom decor, personal effects and parts of the auditorium, itself make the once flat, clear auditorium floor difficult terrain. All over seeds from the horrible tree are scattered. Memories to be opened. People to be freed.

Where the dance floor was, there is now a tree. Something like a tree. An awful imitation that seems to struggle against its new, solid form. It wants so badly to move, to lurch forward, lash out and eat and eat and eat. You can feel that hunger, that greed, in the marrow of your bones. But something is holding it back. Something holds it in place. Something is making sure that you have time.

Don't waste it.

It's a little chilly in this alcove, though not uncomfortable. On the
contrary, it is the one place to find a bit of relief. Pouch's magic has pushed the vines and branches back, though they still block the stairs up to the second and third floors. This landing is a small haven, a place to rest, to bandage wounds.

Some students stand by here, ready with the few scavenged healing potions, poultices, and maybe some wands, to tend to wounds their friends have suffered through the journey.

[No encounters will drop in this section, but Pre-Healer Studies students may reply to check ins under this header to heal one (1) injury per comment on an injured player.]

Edited 2020-06-04 03:25 (UTC)

Backstage is a mess of toppled shelves, broken props and performing arts club supplies. It is dark, and few seeds have grown here to illuminate the area. Vines rip up through the floor here, flowers mere buds. A bass drum hangs off a branch like a head on a pike, both its sides pierced by the jagged living wood. Despite the ruin, it seems like you may be able to scavenge items from here.

Edited 2020-06-02 13:05 (UTC)

Pushing through the foul foliage takes you into the dance studio, which is surprisingly pristine though one of the wall mirrors is shattered. A single branch, heavy with blue seeds, pokes in through the dance studio's open door. The spring floor is unrolled, putting a slight bounce in your step that doesn't quite feel right given the circumstances. A few vines creep up the walls, but the lack of damage to this room makes everything outside of it feel all the worse.

Your friends are in here. You can feel them.

Edited 2020-06-02 13:06 (UTC)

Earlier, for the briefest of moments, Felicity had thought the rumbling of the room and shaking of the floor had been an elaborate, magical astroid simulation. Their very own, charming extinction scenario. But the buzzing of her cactus cat needle necklace tells her otherwise. Maybe it still is an extinction event. Just not school sanctioned.

Once the dust (moss? ash?) has settled, Felicity stands, brushes off her dress, and takes stock. She's still got her soda can corsage from Wyatt (this, but pink), her cactus cat needle necklace, and her heels. Oh, and her journal. But, as far as she can tell, no wand and no--

"Where is my tote??" she exclaims, realizing it's gone. "Am I supposed to save people while holding everything with my hands??"

Edited 2020-06-01 16:27 (UTC)

Mary Grace kicks at a plastic cup on the ground with the toe of her cowboy boot. Yeah, she ain't cleaning this shit up.

"Goddamn I know how to put on a memorable ass prom," she says. Then she grabs her dress at the top of the slit and rips the skirt unevenly across, gathering the fabric up in her hand. "Fuck a long dress anyhow."

Some may recall witnessing an extremely pissed-off Imogen Rainwater, hiking up her dress as she clomps across the hellscape in tiny boots. There's a little cut under her eye already and her hair has taken the opportunity to come completely undone.

Twin sense: she somehow knows immediately that Elijah isn't here, even without really looking for him. Instead, for a moment or two she appears to be scanning the collection of leftovers for other faces. Orchid. Her roommates. ... And Merlin.

Edited 2020-06-01 17:17 (UTC)

Dazed students are still wandering the wrecked prom dance floor when the branches overhead begin to rustle, crack, snap and pop. The air feels dense, heavy with the weight of something horrible. Above, it seems there is only that writhing mass of not-quite-tree. But no. Look close. There's something there. Something not like the rest.

It falls.

Thunk, crack, thud, splat.

The Horror splayed out on the floor before you looks a bit like someone's dropped a plate of spaghetti bolognese from fifty foot up—and by the smell, two week old bolognese. The pile of meat is still, just a moment, then it twitches. Tremors from the middle to its disgusting wormy ends, until it rears up, tendrils unfurled, looking for something to eat.

THIS CREATURE IS AGGRESSIVE. DEFEND YOURSELF:

[Please be sure to check in with your inventory before participating in this first encounter. Thank you!]

Edited 2020-06-01 18:00 (UTC)

NAME: Imogen Rainwater
WHAT DO THEY DO?: She's taking mega-beater swings with a floorboard at any nearing tendrils.

NAME: Mary Grace O'Malley
WHAT DO THEY DO?: Mary Grace takes the shredded strip of her formal skirt and tries to trap as many of these stank ass meat tendrils with it as possible. If rooming with Wyatt Webberley has taught her one thing, it's how to handle food smell.

These disgusting tentacles sure are quick! (ROLLED 6) But Imogen manages to smash a few beneath her improvised weapon. They split and squish with a satisfying squelching sound, leaving smears of tar on the floor.

The Horror seems to keep tendrils in endless supply, however. It whips at Imogen (ROLLED 6) but manages only to snap her shoulder like a rattailed towel.

This is a cowgirl who knows her way around a rope, and she manages to hogtie a whole bunch of tendrils (ROLLED 10), momentarily preventing the Horror from retaliating.

Aris had come to prom with a lot of what ifs cluttering up his thoughts (from the what if we missed something important? variety to the what if I'd just asked her? variety) and it had kept him from ever fully losing himself in the festivities. Now...he wishes he'd trusted his instincts. Dressed all in tailored white, his suit is quickly becoming stained with the falling ash and he looks stricken as he glances from classmate to classmate in dumb shock.

The number of absent faces clearly doesn't help and he looks down at the ground, hooking his hands behind is neck and uttering a low, miserable, "No, come on..."

There's a collapsed table at Felicity's feet, a snapped plastic tiara and nicked crown thrown to the ground. An envelope, mostly untarnished, rests on top of it, a piece of paper sticking out.

PROM COURT
KING: Harrison Hartshorn
QUEEN: Audrey Poke

PRINCE: Adrian Gildersleeves
PRINCESS: Felicity Deverill

DUKE: Kirby Sparrowgrove
DUCHESS: Willow Quackenbush

Ah, that explains it. It's a Quackenbush's fault. Might as well grab a tiara Princess!

Shit fuck.

Eddy's mind reels as he surveys the destruction. He'd pushed away apprehensions (both of mortal perils and social ones) to come tonight. But this was all well beyond the imaginings of even his most anxious moments.

It's clear who had a hand in dressing him tonight. In the end he'd opted for neither dinosaur or slut, instead going a far more predictable route. The fitted black blazer and slacks feature white pearl beading and embroidery that evoke star clusters in the nighttime sky, and from his waist hang a series of thin metal beaded chains (like this, but more apparently asteroid-y). It's a vast step-up from the twenty dollar WizMart suit he'd be sporting without the twins' intervention. It's also not at all what he would have worn if he'd known Hell was gonna break loose.

He grabs a handful of the wilting moss as he moves away from his cocoon, remembering an earlier conversation with Audrey. He looks for her in the chaos that far too many people he cares about are noticeably missing from. Wyatt. Chanel. Winter. Adrian and the other roommates he'd come with.

Find the roots. There's a shit fuck ton of roots everywhere.

Fuck fuck fuck.

She's taken worse licks in quidditch. A bludger to the back of the head is way worse than a styrofoam asteroid, and yet still, tonight, they feel like they packed the same punch.

Jupiter shoves a carpet of dying moss off of her prone body and sits up, head spinning once her eyes finally focus on the scene. Once the ruin's computed, her gaze darts around. For her friends, for her roommates, for her team, for her brother. Where is Atlas?

What's that feeling? Her head is swimming. Brain tossed in a stormy sea. This is ridiculous. Whatever this is, there's no time for it. No time to drown. Jupiter stands before she's ready, wobbles unsteadily on pointed heels and smooths the wrinkles out of her tux.

She searches. For something. For anything. But all she finds is a bow tie. This dumbass bow tie. Plucked from the ground, she puts it in her breast pocket, right next to her heart.

One second, two seconds pass. That water in her head just keeps rising. Can't think.

She scoops up a glass of punch and flings it at the tree. "Fuck you!"

Tony thinks it's probably something a little more than luck that had him dancing with a five-foot-nothing freshman when the floor started cracking beneath his feet and the roof started caving in. Surely, she would have been squashed dead if he hadn't been there to—literally—shoulder the falling debris. But that's not what Tony tells the girl when the ash settles, "Don't you worry. This'll all turn out just fine."

And for a moment, he believes that. He can hear his sister hollerin' about a tote bag. His shoulder smarts a bit but it's hardly worse than a blow from a bludger. A quick patdown proves his tuxedo pockets are still filled and he's still got his testicles, spectacles, wallet, and watch.

Oh snap! But his wand is missing. And upon further survey ... Pax, Merlin, Holland...

Well, shit on a shingle. That just won't do. Tony jumps to action, raising his good arm above his head and twirling a finger around in a, "Everyone round up!" motion. "A'right, folks, let's get movin'."

She cries out when Pocket disappears, stretches out a useless hand. The word explodes around her. And then there’s a gasp of rest, and she’s standing. She’s standing, but Pocket is gone, along with so many others. Audrey clasps a hand over her mouth, feeling with the other into her hair as a first impulse. The pendant is still there. So that’s a start. She’s dressed in a soft green dress, comfortable brown boots that she meant to be kind of Jurassic Park but may end up useful after all. She looks around for someone. Anyone. It’s time to cut down a tree.

NAME: Tony De Witt
WHAT DO THEY DO?: Tony takes a flimsy, wooden chair from what was once the refreshments area and mercilessly beats this especially UNrefreshing meat wad with all of his brute beater strength.

NAME: Eddy
WHAT DO THEY DO?: Eddy grabs a dinosaur head that looks suspiciously like Barney's (not historically accurate!) and swings with, uh, athletic noodle strength. Anything near his feet get stomped on hard.

With the Horror partially bound by Mary Grace's roping skills, Tony goes ham on the monster's core (ROLLED 8). The Big Man beats the thing until each swing flings flecks of foul-smelling black tar back, but the Horror's insides just roll on itself. It seems this thing is endless!

(ROLLED 9) Eddy's swinging and stomping bats away several tendrils, but the Horror (ROLLED 2) gets Eddy right in the gut with a swirling braid of wormy appendages. That's going to leave a bruise.

This seems to embolden the thing, if it can feel anything at all, because it puffs up suddenly, bursting out of the restraints and lurching forward with a disgusting splort.

NAME: Audrey
WHAT DO THEY DO?: Blind with a rare fury, she picks up and flings whatever even sort of sharp debris she can find. Glass shards. Plastic forks and knives. Her queen tiara, probably.

With impressive force and focus Audrey (ROLLED 9) Moon Tiara Actions the prom queen crown and a wad of glass and splinters right into the heart of the horrible thing. It quivers and belches unstable, but just won't stop.

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HE IS HERE

ARE YOU THERE? CAN YOU MOVE? IT'S TIME TO COME OUT.

AT THE BASE OF THE TREE

A POCKET OF SAFETY

BACKSTAGE

THE DANCE STUDIO

START OF THE NIGHT: Felicity

START OF THE NIGHT: Mary Grace

START OF THE NIGHT: Imogen Rainwater

ENCOUNTER: From Above

ENCOUNTER: From Above

ENCOUNTER: From Above

ENCOUNTER: From Above

ENCOUNTER: From Above

START OF THE NIGHT: Aris

Re: START OF THE NIGHT: Felicity

START OF THE NIGHT: Eddy

START OF THE NIGHT: Jupiter

START OF THE NIGHT: Tony

START OF THE NIGHT: Audrey

ENCOUNTER: From Above

ENCOUNTER: From Above

ENCOUNTER: From Above

ENCOUNTER: From Above

ENCOUNTER: From Above

ENCOUNTER: From Above