Little stars and galaxies sputter around you, the remains of Peckenpaugh's ruined prom night. The same sights are not reflected in the sky. Though the roof is gone, a thick, sickly green-gray blanket of swirling clouds hides the moon from sight, and that tree is still growing, reaching ever upward, because that's the only place it seems it can go.
Up here, it's a jungle, dense and dangerous. The floorboards creak and crack with each step. Vines writhe and foliage rustles and a creeping fear follows your every step. Get what you can from here and leave as soon as possible. The floor seems like it could give away at any moment, and even that feels less threatening than whatever lurks within the leaves.
This place smells of both wet basement and brimstone, which is altogether an awful combination. What doesn't help are the spindly almost-humans stationed at every entrance, their forms not quite right, and the sick feeling they leave in your stomach even worse. A half-dozen aurors are crowded in this basement, and two dozen more are stomping around upstairs. It’s a wonder the ceiling doesn’t give, the way everything’s scorched. Someone else, a middle-aged man wearing green robes, seems to notice, and flings a spell that spreads silver across the blackened boards, mending damage done. Across the room, an auror pulls a pack of cigarettes from his robes and pats it against his leg. Is now really the time? Nearby, another offers a stick of gum to his friend. Everyone is nervous. Everyone restless. The very air is charged with it.
Almost every inch of this dark, dank place is carpeted in bouncy moss. What isn't is the jagged hole in the middle of the floor, though the moss does spill down its sides. A peek into the pit reveals light like a dimly burning ember somewhere at what must be the end of this seemingly bottomless hole. A feeling of vertigo strikes, and the memory owner takes one large step away.
A few bowling balls resting on a shelf escaped coating. The contents of some open cardboard boxes, as well. Small vinyl records, probably meant for a jukebox. Caleb Qualls, Ichabod Kettleburn and Lancelot Purcell are etching glyphs into the floor, cutting through moss to carve symbols into poured cement. They've all been here for hours and hours, but no one is in a rush. When they're done, when they leave, it will be with one fewer than how they entered.
Off to the side, Pocket, here Tinkerbell, watches. Ebenezer Woodrow stands beside her fretting visibly. Zipporah's heart aches when she looks at Tinkerbell. The little creature seems so young, so innocent. She almost forgets that Tinkerbell was Tinkerbell when she was a girl, that this particular magimagicicada might even predate the Revolutionary War. Still, by human standards, just a child. A child who has lost everything, and yet here she stands, looking resolute with the rest of them, dressed in the bright colors she always does, flouncy skirt, countless bracelets and bangles, sporting a pair of sunglasses to hide her missing eye. Her presence is a soothing balm in an otherwise awful atmosphere.
Healer Crockett steps around a crouched Caleb Qualls to speak with the party bug, but before any words come, she freezes.
For once, this isn’t quite jarring. Chanel sort of knows where they are. When they are. She even knows whose head they’re in. Zipporah Crockett has become something of a hero, and Chanel smiles at her softly as she passes. Not as if she’ll ever know. She comes to rest at the mouth of the abyss. “If we have to jump down there, we’re just going home. Enough is enough,” she informs Armani. And yet, she’s almost prepared to do just that, toes curling over the edge, as she wonders if she’d even have the nerve.
Armani sits on his knees and sticks his trident down the pit to try to touch the ember with it. Mostly, he just wants to show off his cool cactus trident.
With just the two of them here and no one to impress, Armani feels less pressed to play the hero and find the linchpin as fast as possible. "Can we check out those spider people before we go?" he asks her.
Chanel holds her breath, but no horror pokes its maw or tentacles out of the depths, just yet. She relaxes for a moment, seeing her brother's new toy. "I love that. But. You and cacti don't have the most friendly history, do you?" She warns, like he didn't know. She could deduce where this linchpin had arisen.
"Oh, the creepers." She'd almost forgotten. Chanel turns away from the ledge and starts walking toward them, instead. "Of course. I should take a picture with them, actually."
Very important to show off to Mary Grace that one of them had successfully done the prom crime they'd actually set out to do. Sort of.
"Where do you learn about this stuff, Burt?" asks a man with a dark brown shag hair cut. In plaid green pants, a green button up and awful, bright yellow ascot, he so immediately dates this memory to mid-1960s America as to be jarring. He is seated in a booth with red cloth upholstery, shuffling through stacks of papers. As Burt joins him, seated opposite, the rest of the room comes into focus.
It's a dive. Dark. A dim orange glow shines from red-shaded pendant lights, but it barely illuminates anything for the thick hazy layer of smoke hanging in the air. The walls are wood paneled, grimy and rank with cigarette tar, decorated with sports memorabilia and neon lights advertising various brands: BUDWEISER, PABST, SCHLITZ. The only smell stronger than the smoke is the cheap beer being served up in tall pint glasses. Burt Bland seats himself in front of a glass so light it looks like dirty water and a basket of overly salt peanuts.
"Can't say, Henry," Burt explains. "There's a whole world we can't even see out there. I know it sounds crazy, but — look at it."
"I don't know, man," replies Henry, shaking his head as he spreads the papers out on the table between them. Text documents, black and white and color photos of people in robes, waving wands, doing magic, one of the shots even moves. A picture of a teenage boy with sandy blonde hair laughs as he sits sidesaddle on a broom, waves at the camera, and then zips off into the air. Henry points at this photo, jabs his finger at it. "That's Carl, ain't it? Your, uh..."
It's not often that Chanel gets to wander around a muggle space, when she's in school. But that's exactly what this is. A gross Muggle bar that, even if she was old enough, she'd sooner die than spend time in. So this is odd, in the first place. As the memory plays out, her eyebrows wrinkle more tightly together, as she realizes that perhaps how all this started was some man who thought this world, the one she'd found by accident too, held such great promise. She honestly can't even blame him.
She gravitates closer, to see the evidence. It's interesting to know the observations people might've made about their lives. Her life, now. But first things first. She quirks an eyebrow at Eddy. "Want a drink?"
There's a place back home this reminds Eddy of. Mama hangs out there, when she's meeting with less reputable folk. The dust his broom-turned-bo staff passively kicks up is indistinguishable from all the smoke in the air.
A few seconds pass before Eddy's eyes adjust to the lighting, but when they do, an uncomfortable jolt of rage kicks through him. This time Eddy recognizes the man, younger perhaps, less gray, less wrinkles, but this is the man he'd witnessed Pouch hand his heart over to not long ago. The man who had smiled and sweet talked. He doesn't want to see this memory, but he watches.
Eddy's muggle experiences are limited. A couple months in this school or that one in that time between Lubbock and finding family with Wyatt and his mom. He doesn't remember much. Lots of hand held gaming devices and cellphones. The muggle world has changed so much since this memory took place, but he doesn't understand that.
"Pass," he says and knocks the glass over towards Bland. It's childish and his mother would be aghast, but she's not here right now and it makes him feel just an iota better.
The glass doesn't fall, because Burton Bland catches it. He turns his head and smiles a warm, cinnamon smile. "No need to rescue anyone here. Everything's happening just as it should."
Chanel will never admit it later, but she jumps about five feet into the air. Or maybe that's just the fact that the shoes she's wearing are too tall. None of the memories have interacted with them before.
It feels, suddenly, that they've fallen into a horrible trap and all she can summon is every ounce of mean girl energy she's accrued over 17 years, arching one perfect eyebrow even as she rests her hands on her record-swords.
"Didn't you die?" She sounds horribly unimpressed.
Everything is fuzzy. Foggy. There are voices here with him, somewhere, crackling and distorted like a conversation playing out on a blown out speaker. He reaches for them, but his hands are heavy. Leaden. Pain shoots through his whole left side when he moves, and for that moment everything comes into sharp focus.
An infirmary. He's in the school infirmary, by the looks of it. Crisp white sheets. The biting scent of medicinal potions and disinfectant. A softly glowing lamp and a vase of artificial flowers on the bedside table. Purple flowers. Fuck purple flowers.
But as soon as he catches it all, things start to blur once more.
“Is there any chance … the leg … still time to re…”
“No. He—he has it, and…” Snippets of conversation slice through the fog, and he clings to them, dragging his entire self upwards into consciousness.
“Where’s my—m’broom—” he mumbles. “’m—I’m thirsty?”
“Mein Gott, Wybie.” The unmistakable voice of Zelda Gunzenhauser reaches out, throws him a life preserver to keep him afloat. “You’re awake, you’re—” She takes his hand in hers and gives it a squeeze.
“I gotta—we gotta—” Wybie’s head bobs down, then back up, his focus flitting in and out. But he doesn’t stop. “The bugs—bug—where’s—”
“You can worry about all that later, Mr. Youngblood.” The firm voice of Healer Crockett cuts across his slurred speech, sending a bolt of determination down Wybie’s spine. “I honestly don’t even know how you’re awake with all the potions—”
“Where is the—”
“Wybie, please.” Z pushes him back but Wybie is already moving, throwing his body over the edge of the bed. One foot hits the ground, cold tile on his bare sole, and he pushes himself up—
And tips over. Arms windmilling, vision faltering, Wybie’s hand slams into the bedside table and sends its contents flying. The lamp and vase shatter on the floor, flowers and broken ceramic scattering across the floor and under the bed.
Wybie plops back down on the bed. As everything starts to blur and fuzz again, focus slipping until there’s two Zs, two Healer Crocketts, two bedside tables rocking back into place.
But when he looks down at his lap, there’s only one leg. His left thigh ends abruptly just before the knee.
“Z—did He—Z—” Wybie chokes, his breaths coming too fast. Not panicking—Wyborn Youngblood doesn’t panic. This is just a physical reaction to shock and wizmorphine.
“You’re not doing yourself any favors, Youngblood.” Healer Crockett is at his feet (foot) now, coaxing his leg (his only fucking leg) back onto the bed and under the covers. “There’s nothing to do but rest right now, which is what I need you to do.”
“No—no,” Wybie barks out and the words feel like they’re burning as they come out. “Z. Qualls. Tink. Where’s—where's… ?” He can't finish the question. Questions. He just gestures at the space where his leg once was.
Z looks down, lips pursed. “Z?”
“We can’t, Wybie. It’s—some things we can’t get back.” There’s an ache in her throat and it sticks to her words.
“Some things or…” Wybie can feel himself fading fast, fog creeping up and over his vision, but he stares at Z. He needs to find out before he slips away again. He needs to know what reality he’ll be waking up to.
“I don’t know yet, Wybie.” Z closes her eyes. “Go to sleep. I can’t—please.”
Behind her, Healer Crockett pulls a bottle of clear liquid from a potions cabinet, leaving the door wide open. If you get those shelves full of medicinal potions out of the way, there’s a gap just big enough for a few average-sized teens to crawl through in back.
You are suddenly, exquisitely aware of just how disgusting human skin is, conceptually. Soft and rubbery (except where it isn't) and full of holes. It's a layer of chewy sponge covering meat and water. Not even enough hair to be pleasantly furry, except in seemingly random places.
This being, living this memory, sees you as a meat and water sausage in a spongy casing, and, wow, it is impressed. You have managed to make art, to make music, to take flight, to build marvels that scrape the sky and plumb the depths of your (not nearly thick enough) seas, to touch the moon and split atoms. All while being not much more than water and meat. Admirable.
"Please, one more time," says a man in long black robes sitting across from you — from the memory's owner, rather.
You, the human, can recognize this as an interrogation room: plain gray walls, a few uncomfortable folding chairs surrounding a rectangular metal table. On the far wall is a window which is actually a two-way mirror, but you can see through clearly with these strange inhuman eyes. A gaggle of men and women in similar robes to the man in front of you stand huddled together peering in. You also catch a glimpse of the memory owner's reflection, human, but not quite right. And hard to say how.
In front of you on the table, a manilla folder, many papers and photos, and a single lump of coal. In front of the man in the dark robes, his hands, clenched to fists from nerves. And in one of those clenched hands, a pen, white and gold, which he clicks incessantly.
"I… … … do not … eat...the rock," the memory owner struggles to say in a voice like gravel scraping together.
The man hums. "I'm very sorry. Is there anything we can get you?"
A long stretch of silence follows. The memory owner thinks.
"Coffee," they reply finally after a great deal of pondering through the English words they know.
"O-oh," says the robed man. He looks embarrassed. Then turns and nods to the people behind the window. One of them runs off, assumedly to grab a coffee.
"The... hunger. The… … … what is word? One who eats all." Painfully slow, the memory's owner tries once more to explain why they are here. "Freed from our land. Inviteed to ... yours. Have watched. Do not want suffering anymore. Weeeee have come here to offer. We know how to contain. Can watch the gates as they heal. If you push him back."
The man in the dark robes sits in stunned silence for a long time. In fact, everything is completely still. Quiet. It takes a moment to realize that the memory has frozen.
Jupiter watches the scene, waiting to see if it'll start moving again. She's used to the freezing, but this time it catches her off guard.
"Hm. Weird," she announces once she's sure it is, in fact, frozen, and then she crosses the room and hops up onto the table. It's a much needed break from running around all night in heels, even if this room isn't exactly cozy or accommodating. She knocks her head to the side to look at the strange not-quite-human, trying to figure out what it is about them that feels so odd.
"Not from around here, whatever they are," Jupiter says, head bobbling as she glances at the reflection in the two-way mirror and back again. She pokes at the lump of coal with one finger, knowing better than to handle it with ungloved hands and no wand to easily clean up with.
Any puzzle that requires more than brute force to solve is not generally one that Jupiter will waste her time on, but she considers her tongue for a moment. "At the seance, whatever we talked to said these folks were 'all gone', but then we found one on that kayaking trip," she observes, tipping her head to watch Trudy for a reaction. Trudy is a great deal more clever about these things than she is. "Wonder if they made the plant monster."
[MODERATED] [CRITERIA: Defeat the NPCs] [METAPLOT]
"Peter, it's truly an honor to have you join us," says the man in the tweed jacket with warm bend to his words. That smile is comforting, but the kindness it shows was achieved with repetitious practice, perhaps in front of a mirror. He even gives a little bow of his head, speaking to the tall, dark trees that surround him, to the warm night air, to the stones that spring up from the ground, and the fairy ring of toadstools he stands before.
The man in tweed isn't sure where Peter is. He thinks Peter could be all of this, and in a way he isn't wrong. Humans are often like this, particularly the ones who can't use magic. All weird reverence, sweeping bows and formal language while they show no love for one another, let alone the living thing they call home. Peter — Pouch — finds it fascinating in a sad sort of way. This one, this man, though perhaps a little overconfident, does seem to have good intentions. He wants to help.
It’s with this thought that the view of the memory contracts, not an all-around experience of a dark clearing within the forest north of Peckenpaugh, but a singular point of reference, coalesced from the moisture in the air and solidifying into cold. Rather than watching the fourteen cloaked figures standing guard around the clearing from above, the view stares at just half of them now.
Pouch, here Peter, puts on his laziest grin and finally speaks, "So you really think it'll help?"
"My boy, let me tell you," starts the man, Burton Bland, with a giddy buzz in his tone. "Once I thought that we were simply dissolving that wall between magic and mundane to make a better world, but I have seen what we're tapping into. This goes far, far beyond mere spellwork. We'll achieve true harmony. No more war. No more needless consumption. No more destruction."
He certainly seems to believe it, himself. And of all the things that walk upon him, humans have always been most captivating to Pouch; the easiest to believe in, to rally behind, the most enjoyable to support. But, humans are as fallible as they are fantastic—that is part of why Pouch likes them so much, but here he knows it’s reason to be careful. He is charmed, but doubt hangs in his mind. "What about the other ritual steps?"
The people in robes — none of them magic folks, Pouch can tell — start to shift. Discomfort fills the air, but Burton Bland the Tweed Man rushes in to reassure, "Heart of the land, blood of man. We've got it all taken care of...once we have what you can give us. Don't worry."
An end to pointless destruction. An end to fighting and killing and burning. It's worth it. It has to be worth it. "Alrighty," Pouch says, chipper. He touches his chest and then extends his hand, palm open. In the center of his palm is a winged seed, one half of the paired fruit of a maple tree.
Burton Bland reaches out, and his hand freezes in mid-air.
Despite all the giddy optimism crackling through this memory, Eddy feels a creeping sense of dread while watching it unfold. He doesn't need to recognize this man to guess what's happening here. When the words heart of the land are uttered, that confirms it and he watches with rapt curiosity when Pouch touches his chest.
It's so small. Eddy steps closer to the pair to get a better look, and one hand slips out of his NASA hoodie (a far more comforting alternative to his prom wear) to reach for the maple key but he hesitates, in awe of the little thing. "One of them helicopters," he says quietly to the others. "Well, half of one."
Even though he knows this is a memory, Lionel has the urge to intervene. Knock Mr. Bland's hand away. Stop the exchange from ever taking place. But he doesn't. They can't stop this from happening. It's done. The blood of man has already been spilled.
A chill goes down Lionel's spine. They're not in Xenia's memory anymore. No more picturesque fields. No more fireworks. No more selfies with his roommates. He's scared, unsettled. Thoughts lingering on rescuing Xenia, on the four of them being reunited, Lionel says a quiet, "Expecto Patronum." A warmth returns to him in the presence of the spectral octopus.
Eddy brushes a finger tip lightly against the maple key at Lionel's prompting. It feels invasive, touching someone's heart, but then all of this does. Best to keep pressing through and reverse what damage they still can.
Sunlight filters in through a grimy window, dappling the floor of a room in utter disarray. Boxes dot the floor, half-filled and catawampus, sharpied labels rendered illegible by the fog of memory. It feels like there can’t possibly be anything left to rip off these walls, but there’s still so much to pack.
From the bed, stripped of its sheets and cluttered with unsorted clothes, the young man runs a hand through his hair, fingers catching on that mess of blond curls. Everything here in this bedroom turns his stomach, kicking up emotions he’s too young to manage and too scared to face. His wand on the dresser, his Walkman on the floor, the no-maj coins in a mason jar — all reminders of things they’d done, places they’d gone, and where they were going now.
Footsteps on the landing outside catch the young man’s attention. He sits up straight and swipes an arm across his face before the door can creak open.
“Hey Bryce, sweetie.” Bryce Qualls doesn’t look up quite yet, his throat aching at the prospect of looking his mother in the eye right now. “Bruno said he can take a load up right now if you’ve got any boxes ready.”
“Oh, um, hang on a second.” Bryce grabs a pile of clothes off the bed, unfolded and probably dirty, and tosses them in the nearest box. “If you wanna take this one, I’ve got like three or four more I can bring down in a minute.”
Marilynn Qualls, a soft, sweet, blonde woman, pushes the door open the rest of the way and enters. There’s a wand in the pocket of her apron, but she doesn’t use it. Instead, she drops to her knees without a word, picks up the tape gun and stretches it across the cardboard lid.
“Mom, don’t worry about it, I can just—” Marilynn puts a hand up, not forceful in any way, and Bryce’s words stop in their tracks. His mother might technically be a muggle, but she always seemed to work her own form of magic with her boys.
“Just a little more effort and I think this works just fine,” she answers over the groan of the tape gun. “It’s kind of nice to do things with your own hands sometimes, you know? And depending on how long we stay in this new place, you might have to get used to it.”
Bryce nods, and he looks away from his mother again. “How far away is it again?”
“Not that far, rea—” The rest of Marilynn’s words are drowned out by the sound of a car horn, blaring through Bryce’s bedroom window. Bryce jumps and reaches for the curtain, and everything stops what it’s doing — including, thankfully, the car horn.
"This is," Winter isn't so well versed in Peckenpaugh lore that she knows what she's stepped into right off the bat, but she can guess. The name Bryce, the familiar blonde curls, that face that vaguely matches the Muggle Studies teacher, all puzzle pieces that fit loosely together.
She'd left her own home once, though she'd done it because, well, her little family had just fallen apart. Not in the way the Quallses had, though. She moves through the room, stopping to touch the tape dispenser on her way to the window to peek outside. "This is one of Mr. Qualls's kids, right?"
"And his wife." Thus far, Presley has only felt discomfort over being in the memories of someone he knows well. Hypocrisy, maybe, but he doesn't know Bryce Qualls and his mother, and they don't know him, so these invasive peeks can just be forgotten forever once they find the linchpin.
Although, hasn't part of the problem been "forgetting forever"? "If his memory is here, does that mean he's also...?" Presley lets the question hang in the air, and turns to check the objects on the dresser. Touching Bryce's wand reminds Presley of his own, still lost god-knows-where. That wand was the last thing that Presley's father had left him. Of course, his father isn't dead. Probably. Who knows. Who cares.
Domestic scenes seem particularly intrusive to Ramona, although all the non-Muscheron memories she's walked through today have seemed to her to be suffused with sadness. It doesn't seem right to linger in them longer than she needs to.
"Let's just find the linchpin and go," she suggests instead of answering Presley's half-asked question. Her attention is more immediately drawn to the tape gun, and she carefully crosses the room to take it from Marilynn's hand.
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peckenpaugh2020-06-01 11:18 am
THE THIRD FLOOR
Up here, it's a jungle, dense and dangerous. The floorboards creak and crack with each step. Vines writhe and foliage rustles and a creeping fear follows your every step. Get what you can from here and leave as soon as possible. The floor seems like it could give away at any moment, and even that feels less threatening than whatever lurks within the leaves.
MEMORY: Caleb Leapt
[CRITERIA: Minimum 13 Tags]
[METAPLOT]
This place smells of both wet basement and brimstone, which is altogether an awful combination. What doesn't help are the spindly almost-humans stationed at every entrance, their forms not quite right, and the sick feeling they leave in your stomach even worse. A half-dozen aurors are crowded in this basement, and two dozen more are stomping around upstairs. It’s a wonder the ceiling doesn’t give, the way everything’s scorched. Someone else, a middle-aged man wearing green robes, seems to notice, and flings a spell that spreads silver across the blackened boards, mending damage done. Across the room, an auror pulls a pack of cigarettes from his robes and pats it against his leg. Is now really the time? Nearby, another offers a stick of gum to his friend. Everyone is nervous. Everyone restless. The very air is charged with it.
Almost every inch of this dark, dank place is carpeted in bouncy moss. What isn't is the jagged hole in the middle of the floor, though the moss does spill down its sides. A peek into the pit reveals light like a dimly burning ember somewhere at what must be the end of this seemingly bottomless hole. A feeling of vertigo strikes, and the memory owner takes one large step away.
A few bowling balls resting on a shelf escaped coating. The contents of some open cardboard boxes, as well. Small vinyl records, probably meant for a jukebox. Caleb Qualls, Ichabod Kettleburn and Lancelot Purcell are etching glyphs into the floor, cutting through moss to carve symbols into poured cement. They've all been here for hours and hours, but no one is in a rush. When they're done, when they leave, it will be with one fewer than how they entered.
Off to the side, Pocket, here Tinkerbell, watches. Ebenezer Woodrow stands beside her fretting visibly. Zipporah's heart aches when she looks at Tinkerbell. The little creature seems so young, so innocent. She almost forgets that Tinkerbell was Tinkerbell when she was a girl, that this particular magimagicicada might even predate the Revolutionary War. Still, by human standards, just a child. A child who has lost everything, and yet here she stands, looking resolute with the rest of them, dressed in the bright colors she always does, flouncy skirt, countless bracelets and bangles, sporting a pair of sunglasses to hide her missing eye. Her presence is a soothing balm in an otherwise awful atmosphere.
Healer Crockett steps around a crouched Caleb Qualls to speak with the party bug, but before any words come, she freezes.
MEMORY: Caleb Leapt
MEMORY: Caleb Leapt
With just the two of them here and no one to impress, Armani feels less pressed to play the hero and find the linchpin as fast as possible. "Can we check out those spider people before we go?" he asks her.
MEMORY: Caleb Leapt
"Oh, the creepers." She'd almost forgotten. Chanel turns away from the ledge and starts walking toward them, instead. "Of course. I should take a picture with them, actually."
Very important to show off to Mary Grace that one of them had successfully done the prom crime they'd actually set out to do. Sort of.
MEMORY: Caleb Leapt
MEMORY: Caleb Leapt
MEMORY: Caleb Leapt
MEMORY: Caleb Leapt
MEMORY: Caleb Leapt
MEMORY: Caleb Leapt
MEMORY: Caleb Leapt
MEMORY: Caleb Leapt
MEMORY: Planting A Seed
[CRITERIA: Defeat the NPC]
[METAPLOT]
"Where do you learn about this stuff, Burt?" asks a man with a dark brown shag hair cut. In plaid green pants, a green button up and awful, bright yellow ascot, he so immediately dates this memory to mid-1960s America as to be jarring. He is seated in a booth with red cloth upholstery, shuffling through stacks of papers. As Burt joins him, seated opposite, the rest of the room comes into focus.
It's a dive. Dark. A dim orange glow shines from red-shaded pendant lights, but it barely illuminates anything for the thick hazy layer of smoke hanging in the air. The walls are wood paneled, grimy and rank with cigarette tar, decorated with sports memorabilia and neon lights advertising various brands: BUDWEISER, PABST, SCHLITZ. The only smell stronger than the smoke is the cheap beer being served up in tall pint glasses. Burt Bland seats himself in front of a glass so light it looks like dirty water and a basket of overly salt peanuts.
"Can't say, Henry," Burt explains. "There's a whole world we can't even see out there. I know it sounds crazy, but — look at it."
"I don't know, man," replies Henry, shaking his head as he spreads the papers out on the table between them. Text documents, black and white and color photos of people in robes, waving wands, doing magic, one of the shots even moves. A picture of a teenage boy with sandy blonde hair laughs as he sits sidesaddle on a broom, waves at the camera, and then zips off into the air. Henry points at this photo, jabs his finger at it. "That's Carl, ain't it? Your, uh..."
Everything freezes.
Except Burton Bland. He nods. "Nephew. Yes."
MEMORY: Planting A Seed
She gravitates closer, to see the evidence. It's interesting to know the observations people might've made about their lives. Her life, now. But first things first. She quirks an eyebrow at Eddy. "Want a drink?"
Suddenly, she could use one.
MEMORY: Planting A Seed
A few seconds pass before Eddy's eyes adjust to the lighting, but when they do, an uncomfortable jolt of rage kicks through him. This time Eddy recognizes the man, younger perhaps, less gray, less wrinkles, but this is the man he'd witnessed Pouch hand his heart over to not long ago. The man who had smiled and sweet talked. He doesn't want to see this memory, but he watches.
Eddy's muggle experiences are limited. A couple months in this school or that one in that time between Lubbock and finding family with Wyatt and his mom. He doesn't remember much. Lots of hand held gaming devices and cellphones. The muggle world has changed so much since this memory took place, but he doesn't understand that.
"Pass," he says and knocks the glass over towards Bland. It's childish and his mother would be aghast, but she's not here right now and it makes him feel just an iota better.
"Who're we rescuing here?"
MEMORY: Planting A Seed
MEMORY: Planting A Seed
It feels, suddenly, that they've fallen into a horrible trap and all she can summon is every ounce of mean girl energy she's accrued over 17 years, arching one perfect eyebrow even as she rests her hands on her record-swords.
"Didn't you die?" She sounds horribly unimpressed.
MEMORY: Planting A Seed
MEMORY: Planting A Seed
MEMORY: Planting A Seed
MEMORY: Planting A Seed
MEMORY: Planting A Seed
MEMORY: Planting A Seed
MEMORY: Planting A Seed
MEMORY: Planting A Seed
MEMORY: Planting A Seed
MEMORY: Planting A Seed
MEMORY: Planting A Seed
MEMORY: Planting A Seed
MEMORY: So Much Promise
[CRITERIA: Minimum 10 Replies]
[METAPLOT]
Everything is fuzzy. Foggy. There are voices here with him, somewhere, crackling and distorted like a conversation playing out on a blown out speaker. He reaches for them, but his hands are heavy. Leaden. Pain shoots through his whole left side when he moves, and for that moment everything comes into sharp focus.
An infirmary. He's in the school infirmary, by the looks of it. Crisp white sheets. The biting scent of medicinal potions and disinfectant. A softly glowing lamp and a vase of artificial flowers on the bedside table. Purple flowers. Fuck purple flowers.
But as soon as he catches it all, things start to blur once more.
“Is there any chance … the leg … still time to re…”
“No. He—he has it, and…” Snippets of conversation slice through the fog, and he clings to them, dragging his entire self upwards into consciousness.
“Where’s my—m’broom—” he mumbles. “’m—I’m thirsty?”
“Mein Gott, Wybie.” The unmistakable voice of Zelda Gunzenhauser reaches out, throws him a life preserver to keep him afloat. “You’re awake, you’re—” She takes his hand in hers and gives it a squeeze.
“I gotta—we gotta—” Wybie’s head bobs down, then back up, his focus flitting in and out. But he doesn’t stop. “The bugs—bug—where’s—”
“You can worry about all that later, Mr. Youngblood.” The firm voice of Healer Crockett cuts across his slurred speech, sending a bolt of determination down Wybie’s spine. “I honestly don’t even know how you’re awake with all the potions—”
“Where is the—”
“Wybie, please.” Z pushes him back but Wybie is already moving, throwing his body over the edge of the bed. One foot hits the ground, cold tile on his bare sole, and he pushes himself up—
And tips over. Arms windmilling, vision faltering, Wybie’s hand slams into the bedside table and sends its contents flying. The lamp and vase shatter on the floor, flowers and broken ceramic scattering across the floor and under the bed.
Wybie plops back down on the bed. As everything starts to blur and fuzz again, focus slipping until there’s two Zs, two Healer Crocketts, two bedside tables rocking back into place.
But when he looks down at his lap, there’s only one leg. His left thigh ends abruptly just before the knee.
“Z—did He—Z—” Wybie chokes, his breaths coming too fast. Not panicking—Wyborn Youngblood doesn’t panic. This is just a physical reaction to shock and wizmorphine.
“You’re not doing yourself any favors, Youngblood.” Healer Crockett is at his feet (foot) now, coaxing his leg (his only fucking leg) back onto the bed and under the covers. “There’s nothing to do but rest right now, which is what I need you to do.”
MEMORY: So Much Promise
Z looks down, lips pursed. “Z?”
“We can’t, Wybie. It’s—some things we can’t get back.” There’s an ache in her throat and it sticks to her words.
“Some things or…” Wybie can feel himself fading fast, fog creeping up and over his vision, but he stares at Z. He needs to find out before he slips away again. He needs to know what reality he’ll be waking up to.
“I don’t know yet, Wybie.” Z closes her eyes. “Go to sleep. I can’t—please.”
Behind her, Healer Crockett pulls a bottle of clear liquid from a potions cabinet, leaving the door wide open. If you get those shelves full of medicinal potions out of the way, there’s a gap just big enough for a few average-sized teens to crawl through in back.
MEMORY: Coffee
[CRITERIA: Minimum 8 Tags]
[METAPLOT]
You are suddenly, exquisitely aware of just how disgusting human skin is, conceptually. Soft and rubbery (except where it isn't) and full of holes. It's a layer of chewy sponge covering meat and water. Not even enough hair to be pleasantly furry, except in seemingly random places.
This being, living this memory, sees you as a meat and water sausage in a spongy casing, and, wow, it is impressed. You have managed to make art, to make music, to take flight, to build marvels that scrape the sky and plumb the depths of your (not nearly thick enough) seas, to touch the moon and split atoms. All while being not much more than water and meat. Admirable.
"Please, one more time," says a man in long black robes sitting across from you — from the memory's owner, rather.
You, the human, can recognize this as an interrogation room: plain gray walls, a few uncomfortable folding chairs surrounding a rectangular metal table. On the far wall is a window which is actually a two-way mirror, but you can see through clearly with these strange inhuman eyes. A gaggle of men and women in similar robes to the man in front of you stand huddled together peering in. You also catch a glimpse of the memory owner's reflection, human, but not quite right. And hard to say how.
In front of you on the table, a manilla folder, many papers and photos, and a single lump of coal. In front of the man in the dark robes, his hands, clenched to fists from nerves. And in one of those clenched hands, a pen, white and gold, which he clicks incessantly.
"I… … … do not … eat...the rock," the memory owner struggles to say in a voice like gravel scraping together.
The man hums. "I'm very sorry. Is there anything we can get you?"
A long stretch of silence follows. The memory owner thinks.
"Coffee," they reply finally after a great deal of pondering through the English words they know.
"O-oh," says the robed man. He looks embarrassed. Then turns and nods to the people behind the window. One of them runs off, assumedly to grab a coffee.
"The... hunger. The… … … what is word? One who eats all." Painfully slow, the memory's owner tries once more to explain why they are here. "Freed from our land. Inviteed to ... yours. Have watched. Do not want suffering anymore. Weeeee have come here to offer. We know how to contain. Can watch the gates as they heal. If you push him back."
The man in the dark robes sits in stunned silence for a long time. In fact, everything is completely still. Quiet. It takes a moment to realize that the memory has frozen.
MEMORY: Coffee
"Hm. Weird," she announces once she's sure it is, in fact, frozen, and then she crosses the room and hops up onto the table. It's a much needed break from running around all night in heels, even if this room isn't exactly cozy or accommodating. She knocks her head to the side to look at the strange not-quite-human, trying to figure out what it is about them that feels so odd.
MEMORY: Coffee
MEMORY: Coffee
Any puzzle that requires more than brute force to solve is not generally one that Jupiter will waste her time on, but she considers her tongue for a moment. "At the seance, whatever we talked to said these folks were 'all gone', but then we found one on that kayaking trip," she observes, tipping her head to watch Trudy for a reaction. Trudy is a great deal more clever about these things than she is. "Wonder if they made the plant monster."
MEMORY: Coffee
MEMORY: Have A Heart
[CRITERIA: Defeat the NPCs]
[METAPLOT]
"Peter, it's truly an honor to have you join us," says the man in the tweed jacket with warm bend to his words. That smile is comforting, but the kindness it shows was achieved with repetitious practice, perhaps in front of a mirror. He even gives a little bow of his head, speaking to the tall, dark trees that surround him, to the warm night air, to the stones that spring up from the ground, and the fairy ring of toadstools he stands before.
The man in tweed isn't sure where Peter is. He thinks Peter could be all of this, and in a way he isn't wrong. Humans are often like this, particularly the ones who can't use magic. All weird reverence, sweeping bows and formal language while they show no love for one another, let alone the living thing they call home. Peter — Pouch — finds it fascinating in a sad sort of way. This one, this man, though perhaps a little overconfident, does seem to have good intentions. He wants to help.
It’s with this thought that the view of the memory contracts, not an all-around experience of a dark clearing within the forest north of Peckenpaugh, but a singular point of reference, coalesced from the moisture in the air and solidifying into cold. Rather than watching the fourteen cloaked figures standing guard around the clearing from above, the view stares at just half of them now.
Pouch, here Peter, puts on his laziest grin and finally speaks, "So you really think it'll help?"
"My boy, let me tell you," starts the man, Burton Bland, with a giddy buzz in his tone. "Once I thought that we were simply dissolving that wall between magic and mundane to make a better world, but I have seen what we're tapping into. This goes far, far beyond mere spellwork. We'll achieve true harmony. No more war. No more needless consumption. No more destruction."
He certainly seems to believe it, himself. And of all the things that walk upon him, humans have always been most captivating to Pouch; the easiest to believe in, to rally behind, the most enjoyable to support. But, humans are as fallible as they are fantastic—that is part of why Pouch likes them so much, but here he knows it’s reason to be careful. He is charmed, but doubt hangs in his mind. "What about the other ritual steps?"
The people in robes — none of them magic folks, Pouch can tell — start to shift. Discomfort fills the air, but Burton Bland the Tweed Man rushes in to reassure, "Heart of the land, blood of man. We've got it all taken care of...once we have what you can give us. Don't worry."
An end to pointless destruction. An end to fighting and killing and burning. It's worth it. It has to be worth it. "Alrighty," Pouch says, chipper. He touches his chest and then extends his hand, palm open. In the center of his palm is a winged seed, one half of the paired fruit of a maple tree.
Burton Bland reaches out, and his hand freezes in mid-air.
MEMORY: Have A Heart
Despite all the giddy optimism crackling through this memory, Eddy feels a creeping sense of dread while watching it unfold. He doesn't need to recognize this man to guess what's happening here. When the words heart of the land are uttered, that confirms it and he watches with rapt curiosity when Pouch touches his chest.
It's so small. Eddy steps closer to the pair to get a better look, and one hand slips out of his NASA hoodie (a far more comforting alternative to his prom wear) to reach for the maple key but he hesitates, in awe of the little thing. "One of them helicopters," he says quietly to the others. "Well, half of one."
MEMORY: Have A Heart
A chill goes down Lionel's spine. They're not in Xenia's memory anymore. No more picturesque fields. No more fireworks. No more selfies with his roommates. He's scared, unsettled. Thoughts lingering on rescuing Xenia, on the four of them being reunited, Lionel says a quiet, "Expecto Patronum." A warmth returns to him in the presence of the spectral octopus.
"Is that the linchpin," he asks Eddy.
MEMORY: Have A Heart
MEMORY: Have A Heart
MEMORY: Have A Heart
MEMORY: Have A Heart
MEMORY: Have A Heart
MEMORY: Have A Heart
MEMORY: Have A Heart
MEMORY: Have A Heart
MEMORY: Have A Heart
MEMORY: Have A Heart
MEMORY: Have A Heart
MEMORY: Have A Heart
MEMORY: Have A Heart
MEMORY: Have A Heart
MEMORY: Have A Heart
MEMORY: Have A Heart
MEMORY: Have A Heart
MEMORY: Have A Heart
MEMORY: Have A Heart
MEMORY: Have A Heart
MEMORY: Have A Heart
MEMORY: Have A Heart
MEMORY: Have A Heart
MEMORY: Have A Heart
MEMORY: Have A Heart
MEMORY: Have A Heart - TOKENS & A HEART!
MEMORY: Moving Out But Not On
[CRITERIA: Defeat NPC]
[METAPLOT]
Sunlight filters in through a grimy window, dappling the floor of a room in utter disarray. Boxes dot the floor, half-filled and catawampus, sharpied labels rendered illegible by the fog of memory. It feels like there can’t possibly be anything left to rip off these walls, but there’s still so much to pack.
From the bed, stripped of its sheets and cluttered with unsorted clothes, the young man runs a hand through his hair, fingers catching on that mess of blond curls. Everything here in this bedroom turns his stomach, kicking up emotions he’s too young to manage and too scared to face. His wand on the dresser, his Walkman on the floor, the no-maj coins in a mason jar — all reminders of things they’d done, places they’d gone, and where they were going now.
Footsteps on the landing outside catch the young man’s attention. He sits up straight and swipes an arm across his face before the door can creak open.
“Hey Bryce, sweetie.” Bryce Qualls doesn’t look up quite yet, his throat aching at the prospect of looking his mother in the eye right now. “Bruno said he can take a load up right now if you’ve got any boxes ready.”
“Oh, um, hang on a second.” Bryce grabs a pile of clothes off the bed, unfolded and probably dirty, and tosses them in the nearest box. “If you wanna take this one, I’ve got like three or four more I can bring down in a minute.”
Marilynn Qualls, a soft, sweet, blonde woman, pushes the door open the rest of the way and enters. There’s a wand in the pocket of her apron, but she doesn’t use it. Instead, she drops to her knees without a word, picks up the tape gun and stretches it across the cardboard lid.
“Mom, don’t worry about it, I can just—” Marilynn puts a hand up, not forceful in any way, and Bryce’s words stop in their tracks. His mother might technically be a muggle, but she always seemed to work her own form of magic with her boys.
“Just a little more effort and I think this works just fine,” she answers over the groan of the tape gun. “It’s kind of nice to do things with your own hands sometimes, you know? And depending on how long we stay in this new place, you might have to get used to it.”
Bryce nods, and he looks away from his mother again. “How far away is it again?”
“Not that far, rea—” The rest of Marilynn’s words are drowned out by the sound of a car horn, blaring through Bryce’s bedroom window. Bryce jumps and reaches for the curtain, and everything stops what it’s doing — including, thankfully, the car horn.
MEMORY: Moving Out But Not On
She'd left her own home once, though she'd done it because, well, her little family had just fallen apart. Not in the way the Quallses had, though. She moves through the room, stopping to touch the tape dispenser on her way to the window to peek outside. "This is one of Mr. Qualls's kids, right?"
MEMORY: Moving Out But Not On
Although, hasn't part of the problem been "forgetting forever"? "If his memory is here, does that mean he's also...?" Presley lets the question hang in the air, and turns to check the objects on the dresser. Touching Bryce's wand reminds Presley of his own, still lost god-knows-where. That wand was the last thing that Presley's father had left him. Of course, his father isn't dead. Probably. Who knows. Who cares.
MEMORY: Moving Out But Not On
"Let's just find the linchpin and go," she suggests instead of answering Presley's half-asked question. Her attention is more immediately drawn to the tape gun, and she carefully crosses the room to take it from Marilynn's hand.
MEMORY: Moving Out But Not On
MEMORY: Moving Out But Not On
MEMORY: Moving Out But Not On
MEMORY: Moving Out But Not On