THE SORTING PATH

[peckishmods]

the sorting path

you have found him

A burst of hot steam stymies any immediate charge down the stairs into the Sorting Path, but with each second that ticks by, the white cloud thins and the temperature drops. Unbearable becomes nearly tolerable, and so long as you can stand it, you must press forward.

The Sorting Path is not silent. Hot, wet air moves in and out like the wheezing breaths of some wounded creature. Water evaporated when the Path's falls were boiled away by the nightmare tree's birth now drips from ceiling to floor where it pools in two inch deep puddles, making the trek somewhat more precarious than usual.

You have arrived in the belly of the beast. Keep pushing, keep fighting, no matter how hard it gets.

he is everywhere

Here, the walls are overgrown with vines, purple flowers bloom mere inches from your face, ready to shake their sickening pollen with the merest brush. The chirping of birds and the buzzing of strange bugs makes talking at anything quieter than a yell almost pointless.

You've only been here once, but even so it's unrecognizable. Murals destroyed, magic gone, replaced with something deeply sinister. The last time you walked this path, it was to find your place within Peckenpaugh. This time, you walk it to make sure Peckenpaugh is still a place once you leave.

Chin up. Be brave. Let's get this sorted.

but he is not infinite

TO ELSEWHERE
| TO OUTSIDE | TO THE BASE OF THE TREE | TO THE UPPER LEVELS |

IN THIS HUB
| THE SUMMER ROOM | THE AUTUMN ROOM |
| THE WINTER ROOM | THE SPRING ROOM |
| THE ROOTS |


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

Comments

THE SUMMER ROOM

[peckishmods]

Vines criss-cross the floor, wrap up the walls and writhe overhead, trying to blot out the enchanted ceiling of the summer room. That magic midday sun just keeps on shining, though, peeking through gaps in brief moments, like light spilling down on a cloudy day. Those aren't clouds, though. They're something horrible.

The once gentle warmth of the summer room is almost intolerable here now, the smells of fresh cut grass and chlorine replaced with the stink of burning sulfur. The murals are hidden, defaced by gray gunk, and the water gathered on the floor rises again as steam.

The only thing untouched by this infestation is the Wildgulch door, its blue and yellow paint still flaking the same way it always does, sea glass and shells glittering when they catch the light.

[All WILDGULCH STUDENTS who fight in this room will receive a +1 Bonus to all rolls.]

MEMORY: Neoprene Robes

[peckishmods]

[MODERATED]
[CRITERIA: Minimum 3 Players, Defeat the NPCs, Find the Linchpin]
[METAPLOT - SORTING PATH]

This looks a bit like a church basement. Big, windowless open room, evenly placed metal pillars, drop ceiling and laminate tile floor. Fluorescent lights hum overhead and illuminate the space with an unflatteringly harsh glow. Even with a muggle mother, living half his life in a magicless world, El Qualls has never quite managed to learn how to tune out that electrical buzz. His squints, presses his tongue to his teeth, and focuses instead on what's going on at the front of the room.

More than a dozen people in black robes don masks with mouths in the shape of keyholes upon a small stage. Black neoprene — the sort of stuff Perce is always saying itches like hell — that's what half this muggle cult is wearing, and it's hard to take them seriously when they're dressed in costumes they grabbed from Murphy's department store last October.

The rest of the people crowded in here are in normal clothes, sweaters, jackets, blue jeans. No masks. They sit in metal folding chairs, stand against pillars or mill about in the middle of the room. A few of them seem more interested in snacks than unlocking the secrets of the universe, drinking beer and soda, munching on chips and dip or cauliflower and baby carrots. El half expects them to wheel out the bingo spinner soon.

But then there's Burton Bland, stepping up to the stage, front and center, in his tweed jacket, tufts of white hair especially prominent today.

It's utterly ridiculous, and the fact that Monty and Perce and Georgie thought he'd need back up for this is almost insulting. All of these people are old, anyway. And none of them can use magic. El's fine. He's safe. Everyone else was just worrying needlessly.

He keeps telling himself that as Burton Bland begins to speak.

"Tonight is the night," he says, raising his hands as if giving benediction. "We have our ingredients, and by the full moon, we will burn away the walls that stop us from realizing our full potential. We will welcome infinity tonight!"

"Infinity!" echoes the gathered congregation, some mumbled, others ecstatic.

El crosses and uncrosses his arms. Shoves his hands into his pockets. Rolls his wand between his fingers.

Burton Bland pulls a cowled mask from his jacket. The same sort of face covering the other cultists. "We have the heart."

"The heart," they echo.

"We have a leyline."

"The leyline," says the crowd.

"And tonight," says Burton Bland, raising the cowl to his face and pulling it on. The expression carved into it is different from the others, keyhole upside down, eyes contorted in delightful grimace. It's grotesque. El rolls his eyes. "We have the blood of a man who straddles the wall that we are about to burn down."

What? Lionel blinks, panic rockets up his spine. The whole crowd turns, bodily, and looks directly at him.

Everything freezes.

Well, not everything. Two of the fourteen cultists approach.

ENCOUNTER: The Summer Room

[peckishbeings]

You need to keep moving, but vines and bugs block your path. While your friends hop into the single memory in the center of this room, you need to keep pushing forward!

Three vines and two bugs crowd the way to the Summer Door, and they are aggressive! Defend yourselves!

<b>NAME:</b> <B>TARGET:</b> There are three VINES (left, right, center) and two BUGS (left and right), tell us what your'e attacking! <b>WHAT DO YOU DO?:</b> How are you fighting?

[Any character not in the Summer Room memory can fight in this encounter. Every five attacks, the creatures will strike back at everyone who posted in that window. You may attack a second time in the next 5 comment window.]

THE AUTUMN ROOM

[peckishmods]

The once iconic fall smell of fallen leaves and turned earth in the Autumn Room is rank now. The crunch of twigs and mulch is now an unpleasant squishing and squelching, the floor damp and soft in a way that feels like it might swallow you up if you don't move quickly. The magical murals of trees climbing up the cavern walls are hidden behind thick vines and exposed roots, that same sick pulse that moved through them in the upper branches is down here, as well.

The only saving grace of this awful room is that it is cooler here than the last one, but the twilight mist hangs so thick its difficult to see more than a few inches ahead of you. What could be lurking in the shadows?

The only thing untouched by rot and decay is the Thorntrail door, wood still sturdy, and carvings shimmering slightly as though inlaid with glitter.

[All THORNTRAIL STUDENTS who fight in this room will receive a +1 Bonus to all rolls.]

MEMORY: An Eye for An Eye

[peckishmods]

[MODERATED]
[CRITERIA: Find The Linchpin, Defeat NPC]
[METAPLOT - SORTING PATH]

It feels like the heart of a bonfire here, and maybe that's exactly what it is. A vortex of red and orange and nothing else, scalding hot, but not burning. Not yet, at least. An acrid, sulfuric smell fills the air and above, muffled and distant, the sound of crashing and thunder and screams.

From somewhere beyond the spinning flames comes the voice of the man in the tweed jacket — Burton Bland. And for the first time that any Peckenpaugh student has heard, it's strung tight with raw panic. "Something's not right."

"HEART." bellows something that isn't a voice. More like a thunderclap, rattling through bones. "THE WHOLE HEART."

"W—we gave you the heart of the land," Burton Bland pleads.

"ONLY HALF," says that booming thing. "GIVE ME ALL."

Beyond the orange vortex, you think you can see it. Vague impressions of shadows moving, whipping fast. A crash, a thud, then shouts and screams. Someone's wails go distant, as though they're being dragged far away at incredible speed.

Then, a hand, obsidian black and flecked with gold reaches through, grasps and pulls. The flame licks all around as you pass through, but somehow, it doesn't burn.

The bindings around El Qualls's legs and wrists are cut with a flick of Pocket's fingers. She is lovely bathed in the flickering light of the ritual fire. She is the night sky, two beautiful burning red comets for eyes. The bangles on her wrists shine as she reaches out to help him to his feet. One of them is the bracelet he gave her, hex nuts strung up on a leather strap. She is a hero, a goddess. Literally. And she's wearing something he made.

"You gotta go, dude," she says at the gaping L.Q.

Everything freezes.

Lionel has been pulled from a vortex of fire spewing out of the cracked floor of the Paw Paw bowling alley. It looks like any basement, really, except for the hell breaking loose all around. Even ignoring the brilliant vortex of fire at the center of the room, there's too much going on. Dancing shadows hang frozen in the air, tendrils throwing boxes, tipping shelves, pulling cultists off their feet. They cast darkness on the gray walls behind them, creep across the poured cement floor. A stack of papers is frozen just over El Qualls's head, one page crumpled, the rest scattering through the air. Just about the only thing untouched is a pinball machine nearby.

In the corner by the stairs, Burton Bland cowers, hands over his head, and at least three bowling balls are stuck mid-bounce in their roll down the stairs.

THE WINTER ROOM

[peckishmods]

The blue-green and purple glow of the winter room's enchanted aurora flickers like a dying lightbulb, sputtering and strobing uselessly. The ice here has all but melted, hanging in the air as steam, pooling inches deep at your feet. Whatever bumps against your ankles is hopefully debris, but who knows, it's impossible to see. Down here, it's muggy. Hard to breathe, hard to see, hard to think. But there's not much further. You can't give up.

Frost still coats the Deeplurk door, a glimmering beacon to guide you on. You're almost there. Carve a path through the dark. Never give up.

[All DEEPLURK STUDENTS who fight in this room will receive a +1 Bonus to all rolls.]

MEMORY: They've Got Him, Mr. Qualls

[peckishmods]

This memory is damaged beyond repair. It blurs in places, colors and details running like drops of water on a chalk drawing. Ashes rain down from a swirling gray-green sky, that much is clear. Fire dances from windows and doors as something attacks, crashing into buildings, ripping holes in the streets, grabbing people and dragging them into tears and crevices in the ground. It skips and stutters, details changing every so slightly each time they repeat.

There are people all around. More than people — the beings the kids call Gatekeepers, and the magimagicicada, too. Everyone is fighting that darkness, clashing with awful, creeping things, shadowy tendrils dotted with purple flowers.

It is chaos, even without the glitches of this memory torn to pieces.

"They've got him, Mr. Qualls! They're gonna kill him." Percy Potkin on Caleb's left doesn't say that right now. But he had, a bit ago. A moment before, or maybe an hour?

Now it echoes in his head, all around. They're gonna kill him. They're gonna kill him. They're gonna kill him. A church bell signaling the hour. How many minutes until the end of the world?

The scene splits and shakes and tears, like one too many whacks from Pocket's spirit stick.

You're at the far side of Paw Paw, flanked by Percy Potkin and Georgie Trullinger, watching mayhem unfold. Where is Lionel?

You're in front of a bowling alley, the doors standing open. How did they get him? Why didn't Lionel listen?

You're at breakfast with your — with Caleb Qualls's — family. Where is Marilynn? Where is Bryce?

You're in the middle of the street, glass raining down from either side as buildings burn. People are screaming, the magimagicicadas are being snatched right from the air, and each time they disappear the very earth shakes in despair. You have to stop. You have to help them. But, no, no, no, no. They've got him, Mr. Qualls. They're gonna kill him.

The memory stabilizes—almost. Half-frozen, half-moving. Caleb Qualls stands with his wand out, surrounded by your students: Georgie and Percy, Zed Crockett and Gilda Santos. A stout magimagicicada is snatched away. Gilda turns and shrieks the round bug's name, but you don't hear it, because that, too, has been taken from Mr. Qualls one too many times.

At the far end of the lane, separated from you by yards and yards of writhing vines and creeping shadows, Monty Crockett forces his way into the bowling alley and disappears.

Caleb knows exactly what Monty Crockett is doing, "Get to the bowling alley. That must be where they have him!"

The teens and their teacher freeze.

But all around things are still moving. Not just horrors, but people. Familiar people.

ENCOUNTER: Noisy Fog

[peckishbeings]

It's hard to see anything for all the fog, but perhaps you don't need to see at all. The buzzing sound is deafening, not just one cloud of Bugs, but a whole Swarm swirls around in the mists trying to push students back out of the Winter room. Don't let them! Get swinging!

<b>NAME:</b> <B>WHAT DO YOU DO?:</b> How are you attacking?

THE SPRING ROOM

[peckishmods]

"WHERE DO YOU WANT TO GROW?" asks the sign that hangs above four doors at the far side of the spring room, the end of the path.

WE WILL FIND A WAY. Says the plaque above the Wildgulch door.
WE WILL STAND OUR GROUND. Say Thorntrail's plaque.
WE WILL FIGHT TO OUR DYING BREATH. Say the sign hanging over Deeplurk.
WE WILL WIN. Says Mothgarden, in simple clear script.

It's raining in the spring room, and the drops that fall are salty sweet, cool and comforting in this scalding heat. No. Wait. This is not rain. It's tears. Her tears. She is here. She is here and she knows that you have come to save her. To save them. All of them. Your friends and yourselves.

In the center of the room, surrounded by green, a golden maple seed rests, two parts making a winged heart. It pulses with life, pushing back against encroaching vines, but every beat of that heart grows dimmer, the light fainter. You're almost out of time.

The nightmare tree begins to writhe and move. It is breaking free. It is making it's final assault. Above you hear birds and bugs and screaming, awful things. Above, your friends, your teachers, your neighbors fight.

This is it.

[All MOTHGARDEN STUDENTS who fight in this room will receive a +1 Bonus to all rolls.]

MEMOR(IES): The Garden Looks Very Nice Today

[peckishmods]

This isn't just one memory, but a dozen at the same time, each overlaid on the other to create a perfect replica of that dark, dusty bowling alley basement. With precision, though, comes optical illusion. It splits and spins, a mirror maze of different perspectives all telling the same story. Disorienting, like trying to watch a show through a faceted crystal. Light refracting, the image different depending on the angle you look through.

Here, it's Z and Wybie, seventeen, covered and grime and ash, forcing their way up a vine-filled tunnel, freezing everything they can in their path. Turn your head, and they aren't teenagers, but adults, as you know them now, looking ragged and worn, but still pushing forward, making their way into the Paw Paw bowling alley basement.

From another angle, two Crocketts, Gilda Santos, Georgie Trullinger and Percy Potkin descend dark stairs with Caleb Qualls. But each time they take a stair, their forms flicker, not teenagers hellbent on saving the day, but adults, grimly aware that they couldn't stop what had already started. Down into the basement they go.

And at the heart of the memory, there is Lionel Qualls, taking a dark gold-speckled hand and pull, pull, pulling with all his might. The scene darkens for a few seconds, a slow, lingering blink, and the watching eyes settle weakly on the wild blonde curls, the rayban sunglasses pushing them back out of a dirt-smeared face. "I...told you to go."

As each person arrives in the Paw Paw Lanes basement, the memory consolidates, disparate parts folding together into one scene. Green vines climb across the floor and up the ceiling, pulsing like veins. A heavy haze hangs in the air. In the center of the room, where that jagged maw should be is a massive purple flower, each petal part of a beak protecting a horrible, tooth-filled maw. (Maisy's sigil is glowing like crazy right now.)

Pocket's weakened form lies limp and wrapped in vines, but Lionel Qualls won't let the weed take her. Wandless, but unwilling to give up, he braces his feet, black raybans pushed up into his hair. Pocket stirs, and struggles, too, but it's a blast from Zelda Gunzenhauser's wand that finally frees her. Lionel and Pocket go reeling back, away from the monstrous bloom.

"El!" shouts Mr. Potkin, in his seventeen-year-old voice.

"No, no, no. I—I can't do this again," young Monty Crockett despairs, in the same voice he uses to read to his students now.

The memory stutters, starts and stops, the adult versions of the Bug Club leave their young counterparts still stuck in time. The flower in the center of the room fights being frozen, moving like some clockwork automaton all brief and rigid little jumps. It lifts itself up to lurch forward, roots exposed, and stops in the air.

THE ROOTS

[peckishmods]

Each memory that closes, each vine cut and bug squashed, prompts a shuddering roar from the nightmare tree, and each cry that issues from the bowels of the sorting path is a little smaller than the last. A million voices, then hundreds of thousands, dwindling each time, hundreds, then dozens, then just one. But that one is still awful, and the tree is not done yet.

The auditorium shakes as from the depths, the tree rises once more. Roots rip up from below, as the tree climbs, up, up, up, you can see the roots. You can see him. All of him. He has an end, and he can be defeated.

Today, let's make sure that garden looks nice.

<b>NAME:</b> Tell us your name? <B>HOUSE:</b> Where did you decide to grow? <b>HOW ARE YOU SAVING THE WORLD?:</b> You've only got one chance, give it all you've got.

[EACH CHARACTER IN THE GAME MAY CHECK IN ONCE.]

THE ROOTS

[crowhop]

NAME: Mary Grace O'Malley
HOUSE: 🔥 Wildgulch 🔥
HOW ARE YOU SAVING THE WORLD?: Mary Grace pounds a Wideye Potion 'n' vodka (gross), her five remaining WizaRed Bulls (probably should have saved the vodka for one of them), then swings her rope-and-textbook meteor hammer as hard and as recklessly as she goddamn can.

THE ROOTS

[arisahn]

NAME: Aristotle Ahn
HOUSE: Deeplurk
HOW ARE YOU SAVING THE WORLD?: Aris begins to cast Glacius with his burner wand but he can immediately tell that something's...off. The wand is getting warm in his hand and he can see bright fractures appearing in its surface. Magical overload, maybe? Unsure what's about to happen, he hopes this will end badly and chucks the overused wand at the roots.

THE ROOTS

[girl_in_the_moon]

NAME: Fiona Moon
HOUSE: Thorntrail
HOW ARE YOU SAVING THE WORLD?: Fiona saws at the roots with her pocket knife.

THE ROOTS

[ohwormhole]

NAME: Fred Adler
HOUSE: Deeplurk
HOW ARE YOU SAVING THE WORLD?: Fred attaches her dingle-bob to the Cheddarkram to make the deadliest bug slaying device known to wizardkind (maybe) and channels her inner warrior princess, shrieking all the way!

THE ROOTS

[andpoke]

NAME: Audrey Poke
HOUSE: Mothgarden
HOW ARE YOU SAVING THE WORLD?: Weeds don't like moss. She has one of those things. Time to protect everyone, this time. Maybe. She hopes. Audrey places her moss brooch from Pocket on the nearest root she can reach, and rests her hand on it. She closes her eyes and hopes.

THE ROOTS

[quidditched]

NAME: Eddy Waxweiler
HOUSE: Thorntrail
HOW ARE YOU SAVING THE WORLD?: Eddy has a whole ass arsenal of shit to throw so he's gonna do just that. 1 roller blade, 1 History textbook, 4 apples, 5 bouncy balls and 1 mystery sigil all get chucked at the tree. Then he channels his inner teenage mutant ninja turtle and goes with to town with his Clean Sweep, hanging near Pouch in the chaos. FUCK YEAH.

Re: THE ROOTS

[necrodanseuse]

NAME: Chanel Addams
HOUSE: Thorntrail
HOW ARE YOU SAVING THE WORLD?: One chance? Better make this the best damn and possibly first and also last combat ballet routine the school has ever seen. She takes a long moment to fix her hair. She brushes off her corset and clears bug juice or blood or whatever viscera happens to be on her face. And then she starts high kicking with her stilettos, sending deadly sharp punches and kicks both at the roots, all to a tune no one else can hear.

THE ROOTS

[bigbruise]

NAME: Imogen Rainwater
HOUSE: Deeplurk
HOW ARE YOU SAVING THE WORLD?: Fuckin' whaling on whatever she can reach with the Swoopernova. These beater muscles are the best she has to offer. Also, patronuses & random acts of diffindo to cut vines in twain.

THE ROOTS

[teratophilia]

NAME: Armani
HOUSE: Thorntrail
HOW ARE YOU SAVING THE WORLD?: Like his sister, Armani takes a few moments to freshen up. He refreshes his makeup and twists some star sproingies into his hair; all of the ones on his face have since fallen off.

He sticks close to Chanel. Bugs, vines, and birds are always hit with ice spells but he enjoys stabbing bigger things with his Cactrident. If the opportunity presents itself, he finds sick pleasure in ripping the masks off Cultists and "setting them free".

THE ROOTS

[themurderbird]

NAME: Trudy
HOUSE: Mothgarden
HOW ARE YOU SAVING THE WORLD?: Trudy has a plan:
• Slam back that mini Absolut vodka
• Chase it with that electrolyte replenishing potion
• Cast her patronus
• Slam this tree with Benjammin' Funklin's Glass Harmaulnica

THE ROOTS

[nublada]

NAME: Claudia
HOUSE: 🌲 Thorntrail 🌲
HOW ARE YOU SAVING THE WORLD?: She's hucking that ball and catching it every time it comes back to her, feeling like she's pulling off some Captain America ass shit here. If Claudia ever went to see superhero movies. She's also pointing out every cosmetic flaw in the Roots' appearance as she does it.

THE ROOTS

[bratsquatch]

NAME: Felicity Deverill
HOUSE: Wildgulch
HOW ARE YOU SAVING THE WORLD?: Felicity does a bit of WizMacGyvering. She takes apart her aluminum corsage and inserts the metal pieces into her apples. She puts the apples back into their plastic bag, hops onto Tony's shoulders, and swings the bag around like a morningstar. Take that.

Also, she activates her sigil, inviting a plant to fight on their side (or at least wiggle supportively or something). Also also, she plays the accordion any chance she gets. She's a bard. Plus+1s to everybody!!!

THE ROOTS

[lionellovelace]

NAME: Lionel Lovelace
HOUSE: Thorntrail
HOW ARE YOU SAVING THE WORLD?: Lionel holds his worm on a string in one hand, aiming to draw the attention of attackers. And whenever they get close, he strikes them with his Peanut Buster Sword Parfait, which he wields in his other.

He might even let out a small war cry.

THE ROOTS

[fratsquatch]

NAME: Tony De Witt
HOUSE: 🌸 MOTHGARDEN 🌸
HOW ARE YOU SAVING THE WORLD?: Tony gives one little sippy of bourbon to Felicity, downs the rest, and then hoists that little maniac onto his shoulders. He assumes she is acting the upper boughs of this hideous tree but he can't be sure. Is that accordion music?

Down below, he tries to choke out vines with his bare hands and smash roots apart with his supersized beater bat.