peckenpaugh | THE UPPER LEVELS

up into the balconies

you climb The breathing boughs of that nightmare tree crowd into the upper balconies of the ruined auditorium. You have to duck and bend to get by them in places, sometimes through spaces that seem to grow smaller as you press through. These branches are warm to the touch, some of them uncomfortably so, pulsing with something that isn't quite life.

You've climbed these stairs more than once in your time here; to take your place after your sorting, to watch new students find their House, or perhaps just for an assembly. This building always seemed so sturdy, so safe. It was a place to go for shows, for celebrations, and hell, to just get out of class. Now, the floorboards creek precariously, split and splintering where vines have crept through. Benches are broken, overturned and tossed aside to make room for the auditorium's new king: the malignant maple. Up here, the glowing blue seeds hanging from branches are close enough to pluck. Those that have ripened litter the floor and railings, filling the balconies with an eerie blue twinkle.

The air is muggy, clogged by falling ash. It stinks of coal and sulfer. But you keep moving, anyway. Keep opening portals and pushing on. Just a little bit higher, and then maybe you'll be able to plunge into the depths.

and you fight By now there's a plan, and with it, a slowly growing brigade of people, of beings, of bugs, who are gathering to push back against inevitability.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Chanel punches the nearest person to her as soon as she realizes whose memory this is, and what exactly they're seeing. An excited punch. Relatively gentle. It's absurd that the memory doesn't actually do much to clear up the nuances of either of these relationships. She wrinkles her nose. "This family's weird." She proclaims.

"Ow," Eddy says, more out of surprise than anything else. "Pretty sure it went fist bump fist bump, not arm punch." He punches her arm back anyway.

That this family is weird really goes without saying. "Think she's playing the long game for insurance?"

Adrian climbs into this memory with wide-eyed wonder. How strange to go from a nightmare to this. "Well..." he says, head turning this way and that, as he examines their surroundings, unsure of what to do. "At least we're dressed appropriately?"

At this point in the Hell Night Adventure, Armani looks like some sort of Space Prince who barely managed to escape from his war-torn home planet. His wreath of red crystals sits neatly on his head, but he's torn a strip of shimmery burgundy fabric from his cloak to make an eyepatch to cover his black eye.

Survive the Apocalypse, but make it Fashion.

"If my spouse-to-be tried flirting with Chanel like that, I would murder them," he notes casually, already moving in closer to start touching things. He slaps a hand on his head-of-house's spiral-bound planner.

The planner glows warmly under Armani's touch. Looks like he's found the linchpin!

"First try!" he boasts, holding the planner up. He's been touchin' things all night but this is the first time he's got it right the first time.

Edited 2020-06-08 19:02 (UTC)

"Ooh!" Chanel claps, proud. She's leaning into Eddy's punch instead of away from it, as her chest still sort of feels like she was punched by an angry, fiery giant. But she won't complain. "...So now we just find a door." She says, mostly for the benefit of Adrian. "..And we're sure they can't see us, right? I'm not dressed well anymore."

Chanel looks like an extra from Cabaret who walked through a bonfire recently, so unless that's the vibe they were going for here, she's right.

Armani lives for the applause. And now he's going to find the portal first and everyone's going to be super impressed with him and clap, too.

He runs toward the chuppah like they're playing a game of tag and, while not a boy, jumps up to slap the top of it just like one.

... Oh, that's anticlimactic.

"How do we make the scene play??" he demands.

"Wait," Adrian says, still trying to keep up with everything going on. A glowing planner, a frozen memory, feeling the emotions of Mothgarden's head of house?? "Uh." He looks around. Why couldn't they at least be trapped somewhere that had cake or something. "Are we gonna die here?"

"We're not gonna die," he tries to reassure him. "It's just a puzzle we have to solve. And sometimes we have to kill things, but they die easy."

“Sometime soon we might die.” She adds, as it’s good practice to always remind people about that, “But I refuse to at Mr. Berzelius’ wedding rehearsal. Maybe let’s try the handshake?”

She attempts to recreate it at Eddy’s arm if he doesn’t put up a more receptive hand. She remembers a majority of the steps, her future teacher may be pleased to know.

Ah, yes, that must have been it. It was definitely the handshake all along, and the memory kicks forward again.

“Oh, shit, that sounds way easier,” Helen Altizer kids and elbows Alva in the arm. “Like at least half the steps.”

“I’ll tell Jessica, Hel! She hates when you two talk as much as I do,” Clytemnestra calls out again, little sister always ready to tattle. “And I’m keeping the honeymoon.”

“Is she jealous or is she giving us permission?” Helen asks, just loud enough for her sister to hear in the audience.

“Oh, Nes has never been jealous in her life, she’s definitely giving us permission.” Clytemnestra scribbles a little too hard in her planner while her sister and fiance continue to torment her. “Should we finally do it? Run away? Start a new life together?” Alva cocks his head to look at Helen, smirking like the real asshole he is. “Move to Spain and sell seashells by the seashore?”

“Only if we can pick new names—oh, and you can be Mikey Butter, unassuming heir to the butter fortune.”

While Clytemnestra flips the two of them off from the audience, the space below the chuppah falls away and leaves a blue void: a portal back to Peckenpaugh.

[MEMORY COMPLETE! Linchpin acquired. You can continue to thread here or leave through the portal back to Peckenpaugh.]

Armani literally just drops through the fuckin' ground.

Edited (clips thru map) 2020-06-09 18:55 (UTC)

Eddy's the least inclined to choreography here, but he does offer a fist bump, fist bump, double fist bump. The memory thankfully starts up again before he has to remember the rest.

"Guess we're going."

“And you’ve survived your first memory!” Chanel makes sure to praise Adrian too, fist bump fist bump hip checking all the way to the portal, which she jumps through as well.

"Mazel tov?" Adrian asks as he hops into the void.

Adrian, Armani, Chanel and Eddy completed a memory!

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

Alva Berzelius was not freed. He is still trapped somewhere within the nightmare tree. However, elsewhere in the auditorium, bees, a magimagicicada was freed!

Adrian, Armani, Chanel and Eddy each earned 5 Tokens for completing a memory!

They earned 2 Tokens for finding the linchpin before the memory cap!

All of them but Adrian received an additional 1 Token a piece for not leaving their beef boy to die here confused.

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 2020-06-09 20:17 (UTC)

THE UPPER LEVELS

MEMORY: Wedding Bells

MEMORY: Wedding Bells

MEMORY: Wedding Bells

MEMORY: Wedding Bells

MEMORY: Wedding Bells

MEMORY: Wedding Bells

MEMORY: Wedding Bells

MEMORY: Wedding Bells

MEMORY: Wedding Bells

MEMORY: Wedding Bells

MEMORY: Wedding Bells

MEMORY: Wedding Bells

MEMORY: Wedding Bells

MEMORY: Wedding Bells

MEMORY: Wedding Bells

MEMORY: Wedding Bells

MEMORY: Wedding Bells - TOKENS!