TAKE ME HOME COUNTRY ROADS

[peckishmods]

the place i belong

what's up?

The sun spills gold over the hills of the holler and a light mist sweeps into the valley basin. For a few moments, there is peace, but there’s only enough time to catch your breath before everything’s moving again. There are lost friends to track down, wounds to attend to, and an entire campus to clean up, after all.

Between Healers Greatheart and Crockett, Berzelius and BoMB Agents, and even several magimagicicada, healing injuries is a breeze. The students don’t need to worry about clean up. Once patched up, they’re all taken to Elflock Falls, where storefronts and homes have opened their doors to teens who need a bite to eat or a few moments’ rest.

Within the first two hours after the disaster breaks, more MACUSA agents arrive on campus until the grounds are swarming with aurors and BoMB Agents (and a few sneaky journalists). While the staff works tirelessly to get every student to the safety of their home, it becomes increasingly apparent just how close they were to disaster.

how this works!

⬥ Thanks to your efforts, the nightmare tree was purged just before dawn, and what’s been left behind is a new sentient maple, a new heart for the holler, a new home for the magimagicicada (and muscheron).

⬥ Your clothes may still need some mending, but between Healers Greatheart and Crockett, Mr. Berzelius and MACUSA healers, all students have their injuries tended to. Aches and pains and bruises may still persist, but it seems like you’re all making it out of this okay.

⬥ Students are evacuated from campus as soon as possible, taken to Elflock Falls’ city hall ⁠— which is covered in the dead remains of the nightmare tree’s vines. As locals return to their homes and storefronts, they open their doors to help students find food, rest, and comfortable clothes.

• Students are not allowed to return to their dorms at this time, their possessions will be delivered to their homes untouched.


• The one exception to this is wands. Pouch and several magimagicicada show up in front of City Hall by 8:30AM with bouquets of wands. He spends the rest of the morning making sure everyone gets the wand that belongs to them if it was lost.


• Clothes are provided from wherever they can be gotten: Kyle puts out racks and racks of Spellunking oddities, June Morgenstern provides some more fashionable options, the ZippyDip and Pizza Pi(e)rates both have ample t-shirts, and the magimagicicada gather up what they can find to help out, though … you know how party bugs are.


• Ms. Kwan encourages students only to speak to the media or MACUSA if they are truly comfortable doing so, and staff in general does their best to shield kids from reporters desperate for a first hand account of what happened from a minor.


• The MACUSA does try to get statements from students, but Peckenpaugh’s teachers, though exhausted, are fiercely determined to not let kids who don’t want to speak be bullied into talking.

⬥ Parents and guardians are called to pick up their children. Those who are residents of Elflock Falls are permitted to return to their homes and arrangements are made in town for students who can’t leave immediately.

⬥ Students have access to the news via wizard wireless and wifi. Reporting on the disaster began at around 9PM, and it quickly becomes apparent just how far the nightmare tree’s reach was. Vines stretched as far north as Pittsburgh, into Ohio and Maryland, too, with the epicenter ⁠— Peckenpaugh and Elflock Falls ⁠— totally inaccessible by any form of magic until 6AM on June 2nd, when all reported roots and vines died abruptly.

⬥ Campus is closed for two weeks while thorough investigations are done, and it’s honestly kind of hard to get around Elflock Falls without bumping into some MACUSA official checking for vines. As the weeks go on, more news trickles out via official statement and gossip:

• Al Falco is under investigation for the initial decision to implement memory erasure in Elflock Falls.


• Officials are asking for information on the whereabouts of Ludwig Lukashenko in an unrelated matter, but no one so far has been willing to speak up. Or has a clue.


• No new vines ever spring up, though the MACUSA will reportedly have its work cut out for it for years to come dealing with muggles who witnessed the infestation. It’s predicted that this may have a heavy impact on the increasingly controversial International Statute of Secrecy.


• The magimagicicada continue to resist classification or cooperation with the MACUSA while eagerly assisting in the reconstruction of Peckenpaugh


• The remaining Coalseam Creepers, now called Coalseam Gatekeepers, are given ample support in turning the ruined town of Paw Paw into a true home, and diplomatic relations are opened in earnest, finally.


• In a statement issued by Peckenpaugh, it is confirmed that Caleb Qualls (and his son, Lionel) have moved on.

⬥ Graduation is held at the end of June, during which time all students are honored for their heroism. The Quallses are immortalized with a statue erected in place of the Surly Stump, designed by Percival Potkin. Bryce Qualls and Richard Swint are both on hand for the unveiling.

⬥ By the end of July, it’s announced that Peckenpaugh will reopen for the following academic year.

⬥ You may continue to thread in any end game threads! We’ll be capping unclaimed mod-made threads later today.

locations!

⬦ AT THE FOOT OF THE MAGNIFICENT MAPLE: Well, the auditorium looks like shit but that tree sure is pretty. Anyway, you’ve done it! You’ve saved your friends, you’ve saved the holler. Sunlight filters through the green and silver leaves of the Magnificent Maple and you can already tell it’s going to be a hot one today. Find your friends, take a breath, you’ve earned a break.

⬦ ELFLOCK FALLS: Elflock Falls’s looks a bit like it’s just gotten done with one of its rowdier celebrations. Dead vines, withered flowers, and the remains of the horrible nightmare creatures are being cleaned up by MACUSA representatives and locals by the time the first students are dropped off at City Hall. Every storefront is thrown open and people provide anything they can ⁠— food, clothes, a hug ⁠— to the students who saved their lives.

⬦ HOME: You leave Peckenpaugh still in need of answers, still unsure if you’ll have a school to come back to in September. Give it time. You’ll come to know. But for now, it’s time to go home.

⬦ OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

Comments

Two Small Reunions

[andpoke]

"You'll be back."

Audrey says, like she knows. She leans back on to the tree, careful to move slowly because of her little passenger. It soaks her in, and vice versa. Although no one's said anything about the school staying open, that's not something she's worried about. Peckenpaugh didn't bend for infinity. It certainly won't let itself get closed because of it. This place has stronger bones than that. Especially now.

"More than okay." She sounds just as assured as if she knows. Audrey has a habit of that, a little. Talking about the future like she's really peered ahead. She hasn't. Not this time. But she can feel it. The intuition, even without any other signs, really must mean something too. "They're together again. Whole, again. Thanks to you. And they have a home." She beckons upward. "They're safe, now."

Two Small Reunions

[quidditched]

Audrey's confidence in the future is one that Eddy has a harder time getting on board with, but maybe she really is privy to something the rest of them can't see. Either way, in this moment, that seems like the better place to be. Calm. Sure. He tries to soak in some of her confidence. "Yeah," he agrees softly. "Can't not be." Even without the school reopening, he'd find his way back. Somehow.

He forces his hands apart and ignores the immediate itching to resume fidgeting. Especially when the praise comes. A deep breath in, and then exhaled. "Whole holler," he says, and Audrey is not forced to divine what he means by those two words when he clarifies further, "To thank. Protecting their home." He'd found Pouch's heart without meaning to. Just dumb luck, one seed in what seemed like millions. Even then it was just a small piece of a greater war.

"Saved her. Believed in her." He nods his chin slightly to the moss running along her shoulder. "That's the heart it really wanted." This time he doesn't clarify, because explaining that a half-man-half-anemone told him seems like a story for another day.