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

Jupiter Waits in the Zippy Dip (OPEN++)

[gasgiant]

Once things have calmed down, once everyone's been accounted for, once the only thing left is to go home with whichever brother their parents send them, Jupiter swings by the Zippy Dip, and, finding a crowd, slips behind the counter to help old Zippary make shakes. She'd never admit it, but behind the counter serving up treats to exhausted peers is the most soothed she's felt since prom started.

"I want OT for this," she mentions to Zippy as she slings floats and sundaes to anyone who wants one.

With a Zippy Dip t-shirt tucked into her prom cummerbund, Jupiter brandishes her ice cream scoop at anyone who approaches the counter, wiggling her eyebrows. "If you thought last night was bad, let me whip you up an experimental shake."

Jupiter Waits in the Zippy Dip & A DUMB SHADOW

[bigshoulders]

There's probably quite a few hungry adventurers who actually deserve ice cream after their trials and traumas. Atlas didn't survive to fight that long. He's even relatively clean. Which is good for him, because it means he has the energy to elbow a freshman in the face on his way to reach the bar. That kid probably did even less. He plops on a stool right in front of his sister. He doesn't want her out of his sight right now. And he'll profess that by looking her straight in the eyes, taking the dare.

"Give me your worst." He's not even scared of what that is.

Jupiter Waits in the Zippy Dip & A DUMB SHADOW

[gasgiant]

"You gotta promise you won't tell Mom," Jupiter replies, looking down her nose at Atlas. Is she joking? Is she serious? It's not entirely clear as she sets down the glass she was polishing to scoop ice cream into a metal cup.

Of course, tattling is hardly on Jupiter's list of concerns as she prepares the unholy concoction. There's a faint grin on her face as she works, mostly silent, one that stays in place once she finally glances back up to meet her brother's eye. "You get all your stuff back? Wand and whatever?"

Jupiter Waits in the Zippy Dip & A DUMB SHADOW

[bigshoulders]

Atlas, undignified, snorts. "What's Mom gonna do about it." They'll be lucky if she even knows they're coming home early before they show up at the door, and he thinks they both know that. But it's okay. He doesn't need their mom, or anyone. He's fine. His stuff is probably fine. He takes out his wand and waves it around to prove it. "Did you? Did you get hurt? Did they fix you? Did you hold still?"

This is a barrage of questions purposely meant to be annoying, but Atlas is betrayed by the fact that he really doesn't know, and he really does look worried. He just has to yap out all his nervous energy by being aggressive; he is occasionally a chihuahua shaped like a boy. His face falls, a little, with the quieter question he probably should've asked instead of the other ten. "...You're really ok?"

Jupiter Waits in the Zippy Dip & A DUMB SHADOW

[gasgiant]

A half a smile tugs up on one side of Jupiter's lips. Aside from a soft cluck and a one shoulder shrug, it's the only answer Atlas gets at first while she scoops ice cream into the metal cup and sets it to mix.

When she comes back, it's to rest her elbows on the counter, leaning close to confide. "Eh, you know me, indestructible." That much she still believes, despite being tossed and thrown, smacked and pummeled and burnt by who-knows-what. For better or worse, Jupiter Quigley cannot be stopped. Her gaze falls, sweeps the counter, and before she pushes away to grab the milkshake from the mixer, she adds, "Doesn't mean I wasn't scared, though." She pours the (probably disgusting) shake into a tall glass and brings it back to her baby brother with that expression she often gets when she's about to give him a bad time. All the same, she adds, "Knew you were out there, somewhere. Didn't like not knowing where."

Jupiter Waits in the Zippy Dip & A DUMB SHADOW

[bigshoulders]

She is indestructible. And he's always known that. It makes him feel very small, to live with the idea of her having to brave vines and demons and whatever to come find him. He had to rely on her, again. He knows that can't be the case, forever, but for now, all he can manage is gratitude. He'll fight it, later. Be a shit to her, tomorrow.

"You found me, though." He says, for now. Not to dwell too much on that. He doesn't love the idea of his older sister traipsing around in his memory. He loves the idea of her being scared even less. Jupiter wasn't scared, ever. She is someone everything sad and serious bounces off. She's impenetrable and strong and never scared. Except she had been. And he hates that.

"I would've been ok, you know. I would've woken up and fought. Eventually."

It's fundamentally untrue, but. He takes a long sip of the shake, whatever it contains, maintaining eye contact the whole way through. "...But thank you."
He says around the straw, when maybe she'd be sufficiently distracted.

Jupiter Waits in the Zippy Dip & A DUMB SHADOW

[gasgiant]

"Ahhhhh, I know," Jupiter growls back, taking both hands and making a mess of her brother's hair, ostensibly to be annoying, but maybe just to confirm he's still real, as well. "You would'a done the same for me, too, huh?"

The longer the pull of the mildly disgusting ice cream concoction, the wider Jupiter's grin grows. Her baby brother is just as relentless, just as strong as she is. The end results would've been the same regardless of which Quigley had been swept up in vines. There isn't a doubt in her mind that one or the other of them could've outmonster the monster. "Aaaaand you woulda caused just as much chaos on the way. Maybe more. Bet that thing wouldn't've been able to stand your sax playing."

Jupiter Waits in the Zippy Dip & A DUMB SHADOW

[bigshoulders]

His hair is already messy. His sister’s hands running through it now didn’t do a single thing to ruin it any more, but Atlas still does an obligatory whine, reaching up to swat her hands away. It’s a relief from what is now a combination brain freeze and stomachache. The most worthwhile illness he’s ever had. He tries not to look too pleased that she knows he would’ve fought for her. He supposes by now that’s a given.

“Hey excuse you I bet the monster would’ve been goddamn soothed and awed .“ A chaotic smirk, probably genetic, rises to the corners of his mouth. “I think you forgot how good I am. I’ll have to do a concert at home.”

This warning about the inevitable 6am concert is just because he’s still grateful.