peckenpaugh | THE LIBRARY TOWER DOOR

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THE LIBRARY TOWER DOOR

something strange on halloween night...

knock knock... It’s close to midnight on this dark, cold, near moonless Halloween night and a Peckenpaugh tradition is about to begin. In pairs of two and three and four, students sneakily ascend the library tower as they do every year. At the top of the stairs, in the cramped corridor, groups of students approach the old oak and iron door as they have done for years and years. Holding their breath, they rap their knuckles on the wood in tandem. The silence that follows is expected, but what’s not is the way it is cut by a sudden change in the air. Before their eyes, the wooden spaces between the door's wrought iron overlay become as glass.

For some, the room beyond seems warm and inviting. For others, the room beyond appears dark and full of shadows. For one, there is only gray light.

SLAM. SLAM. Before anyone has had time to process what’s just happened, the wrought iron knocker on the door rises and falls twice on its own. Someone is knocking.

Each student that answers the call and passes through the door is greeted first by darkness and then by a voice like creeping things whispering: “Trick or treat.” And the next step each student takes is into a strange new locale...

trick-or-treaters!

A COZY COTTAGE

Bijou
Gideon
Felicity
Armani
Jupiter
Aristotle

AN UNFAMILIAR STREET

Scarlett
Skip
Mary Grace
Valkyrie
Gertrude
Holland

SOMEWHERE GRAY

Audrey
x
x
x
x
x

how this works! 🚪 Welcome to Peckenpaugh’s first petition event! This is an experimental minigame meant to hearken back to text-based and point-and-click adventure games. Petition selectees, feel free to poke around, experiment and explore your surroundings. The object is to find cool stuff, whether it's information or trinkets for your kid to take back to campus. We're very excited to share this experience with everyone, and welcome comments and suggestions. We hope to offer more petition-based content in the future using different formats.

🚪 So what happened? Tonight around midnight, a handful of students were able to pass through the weird door in the library tower and were deposited in one of three possible locations: A Cozy Cottage, A Strange and Unfamiliar Street, or Somewhere Gray. Time to explore your surroundings, kids!

🚪 Group threads are always encouraged, but are not necessary to proceed! You are welcome to thread anywhere under your subheaders, and even characters that didn't make it through the door can thread in the At The Door and End of the Night sections. Direct interaction with each set piece is one-on-one between character and mod. As you poke around, you may find interesting items or information, spooks and scares, or just some new friends.

🚪 How Do I Interact With The Set Pieces?

In an effort to let everyone have time to explore this event at their own pace and find something interesting, we are running the actual interactable parts a bit like the halfway point between tabletop dungeon delve and text-based adventure game.

Characters can EXAMINE, SEARCH or otherwise creatively INTERACT (including but not limited to: PICK UP, USE WITH, TALK TO, SMELL, LICK, LISTEN TO, SHOW TO, DRAW ON) with their surroundings to explore, learn and maybe acquire goodies or other interesting items.

You can technically, potentially interact with anything, but in the text adventure tradition, we have CAPITALIZED anything that's worth particular attention.

Respond to the main header, or specific subheader with your command in short, simple language. One action per comment and no narrative prose necessary.
- EX: Jupiter wants to LICK the WALL.
- EX: Mary Grace is going to storm into the ROOM and SHINE A LIGHT at the moving shadow.
- EX: Winter SEARCHES the REFUSE PILE.
Each character gets Four Major Interactions with their subheader. That is, a complete interaction with an object or NPC in the set piece. We will note at the conclusion of an interaction (some interactions may take multiple comments) when an Action has been used up. If the action is incidental, we may not count it as a Major Interaction. We may up this limit later depending on how much ground is getting covered. We’ll let y’all know. It’s a fun experiment!

Please do re-explore items that others have already poked through. For many of the set piece items, each character will get unique responses depending on what they try.

We will respond to set piece interactions through Sunday, November 3rd! Take your time, but keep in mind that the game will continue to move.

🚪 We encourage you to thread in the provided spaces! Through this weekend, we may randomly interact with any player threads that spring up.

🚪 Your character only has on hand what was listed in their petition. We have two exceptions to this rule: (1) You can assume your character has any medical necessities on them (glasses, inhalers, etc.). (2) If you did not list your character as having a journal and would like to participate in any journals that go up, you can go ahead and assume they DID bring their journal.

🚪 Regardless of which location you are in, journals do work, but cellphones do not. For those on the Strange and Unfamiliar Street and Somewhere Gray, phones won’t even turn on. For those in the Cozy Cottage, phones work, but there’s no cell service, and if you try to use your camera everything looks too blurry to come through correctly. Take all the creepy and easily debunked cryptid photos you want kids.

🚪 For in character reference, per the rumors & oddities page the library door has supposedly "never opened for anyone," but the rumor is that the door will teleport you. Details beyond that tend to be sketchy. Some say it teleports you "wherever your heart most desires." Others think it's where you most need to be, or where the door itself most needs you to be. Still other students may find themselves disappointed, because they were promised that this door would spit them out in the parking lot of the Waffle House 45 minutes northeast of Elflock Falls.

🚪 The Rescue header for each subsection does not have anything to explore. Groups can thread under these headers if they desire and we may tag in with NPCs when we can. You can assume that each group was Apparated to just outside campus and crossed the bridge back to Peckenpaugh without incident.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There’s something haunting about the looming brick building on the right side of the road. So dark and so hollow it seems to eat what little light reaches it. A sad black hole, insatiably hungry for life, somehow it feels as though it begs your approach. Each rectangular window is broken, all but a few shards of glass long gone. At the front an ORNATELY CARVED SIGN droops from just one rusted chain, clattering against the brick. The DOOR appears scorched and is missing its handle. Nothing is barring entry for the curious.

There’s no mistaking what this building is (was?) upon entry: a HOST PODIUM stands to the immediate left of the door and beyond that a room full of TABLES, many of them still covered with moth-eaten and yellowing table cloths, plated for dinner with vases of fabric flowers so delicate most disintegrate at human touch. By the looks of things, the last people to be in here left in a real hurry. A few glasses and personal belongings rest on a long COUNTER on the far side of the room. Somehow the BAR is still well stocked.

Wow, what a night!

Trudy is going to head in and get a DRINK from the BAR.

Mary Grace immediately JOINS HER in finding a BOTTLE OF WHISKEY.

Mary Grace doesn't have to look long before she spies a BOTTLE OF JACK in the very center of everything. It looks unopened.

"Ya bish," Mary Grace says and GRABS that BOTTLE OF JACK.

WHISKEY ACQUIRED! And considering no sunlight has touched this bottle in many many years it's probably still damned good. Keep that buzz goin girl.

ONE ACTION USED.

The glasses are all either filthy or broken, so Trudy will have to swig direct from the bottle.

Amidst the mid-ranged liquors, Trudy finds a few things of interest:

a CORKED BOTTLE of Cheat Lake Winery red vintage 1989.
a NEARLY EMPTY BOTTLE of tequila, the worm in the bottom is fat from absorbing so much liquid.
a small sealed OPAQUE BOTTLE.

Anything interest her?

The most curious item catches her attention first. She OPENS the OPAQUE BOTTLE, of course. With her wand lit, she LOOKS inside it , then WAFTS it to see what it smells like.

Uncapped the pungent smell of VINEGAR fills Trudy's nose, mixed with earthy rot. This was probably WINE at one point, but it's not anymore. More curious, though, is the bottle, imprinted on its base. With her wand lit she can see it has been stamped: SWINT'S.

Trudy has used ONE ACTION.

Edited 2019-11-01 02:19 (UTC)

Interesting, but unfortunately not drinkable. She heads to the COUNTER to have a look at what people have left behind.

While there are many items strewn across the BAR COUNTER, one seemingly mundane one stands out to Trudy in particular: an old NAPKIN, faded yellow and flaking, with WRITING.

"Get out tonight.
If you do,
call me."

There is a PHONE NUMBER on the bottom corner of the napkin, but the last number is flaked off.

Trudy has used ONE ACTION.

Oh, she's definitely calling that number as soon as she's out of here. The last digit is missing, but that only leaves ten possibilities, and she'll try them all. She carefully tucks the napkin into her pocket.

That done, she approaches the HOST PODIUM to INSPECT it with her lit wand aloft, looking in particular to see if she can find something like a reservation book with a date on it.

Edited 2019-11-02 15:09 (UTC)

Several MENUS sit atop the HOST PODIUM. Beneath there is, in fact, a RESERVATION BOOK penned in a neat hand. The PAGE the book is opened to is from April of 1989.

Trudy has used ONE ACTION.

Mary Grace holds that bottle of Jack out toward Trudy. Wait. No. She takes a slug of the whiskey first.

"Jesus shit," she coughs out, slamming the bottle back down on the bar. Straight, room temperature Jack is just. Not ideal. "Fuckin'—silky smooth."

Edited 2019-11-01 02:55 (UTC)

"Better than what I found. Wine, but it had turned to vinegar. It said 'Swint's' on the bottom," she replies, watching Mary Grace's suffering before she takes the bottle herself. "Do you think we're in a post apocalyptic future?" She sounds remarkably untroubled by the notion, though she does take a long drag from the bottle. She screws up her face, then shakes her head when she comes up for air. "Woo!" she says, then passes the bottle back.

"Pompel was the only thing keeping the world from ending the whole time."

Mary Grace, who has never learned a lesson in her life, tosses back another shot before she remembers she has a wand. Like. To make this colder and more palatable.

She takes another lukewarm gulp anyway, because icing it at this point would be admitting she was wrong in the first place.

"I dunno, something's missing. Doesn't feel like home." She twists her mouth to the side and slides the bottle back toward Trudy. "But that's gotta mean we ain't too far, right?"

"Maybe," she replies, as if this is a reasonable hypothesis they're discussing in class. "Might ask them about it."

"Missing?" Trudy asks, then holds out her hand for the bottle. "like what? Other than, hm, people. And cleanliness."

Mary Grace considers it. She's not sure what it is, it's hard to put her finger on it. Maybe it just doesn't feel like Elflock Falls without the Zippy Dip or the amphitheater. Or—

"Power lines. There's power lines."

"Oh!" Trudy says, then furrows her eyebrows. "Hmmmmmm..." She takes a swig from the bottle of whiskey, and this thought is sufficiently distracting that she doesn't even flinch. "I did find a reservation book, and the last entries were in 1989, so that would suggest that this isn't a post apocalyptic future." She sounds a little bit disappointed about that fact. "Alternate universe, then?" She passes the bottle back.

"Damn, that's like... 30 fucking years ago." To a child like Mary Grace, that's a long time ago. Nearly twice her lifetime. She swirls the hell-aged whiskey in the bottle thoughtfully, trying to figure out just what the fuck that even means.

"Or we're just in some old ass ghost town?" She shrugs and takes a swig. "Gotta be a million of these things in the hills. Ain't no one wants to live out here." Or spend Halloween night out here.

Edited 2019-11-07 14:30 (UTC)

"That is thirty fucking years ago. It would be more coincidental if it was some sort of anniversary or something, but the last entry was in April. Still," Trudy says, drumming short trimmed nails against the the table between them. "Could be that we accidentally got teleported to a ghost town. Maybe it looks like Elflock because it's... a proto town? Odd, though." The expression she wears is engaged, alight, someone who enjoys solving puzzles. Suddenly, she turns to Mary Grace more fully. "Did you go through the door with anyone else?" She furrows her brows, nails still tap-tap-tapping away, thoughtful. "I was there with Jupiter and Audrey, and they're not here now. Could be that they got left behind, sure, but I know you weren't there with me. No one else was, either. But it seemed like we arrived at the same time, in about the same place, right? That's odd."

"April's got a bad aesthetic," Mary Grace says with a shrug. Clearly the door considered this before sending them.

"Ugh," is her response to Trudy's question, and she takes another drink to keep that eloquence flowing. "Yes. I went with Felicity and you know that bitch got waffles." She wants waffles. Or anything to eat right now. Like jerkey. Even ghost jerkey.

Edited 2019-11-07 15:13 (UTC)

"Rainy," Trudy agrees, "Which, ordinarily I don't mind, but it would just liquefy all the grime everywhere."

"I wouldn't doubt that Jupiter also got waffles," Trudy comments, then holds her hand out for the bottle. "I like waffles. The squares all make nice receptacles for even syrup distribution."

With Scarlett's help, Mary Grace is going to STEAL that SIGN.

Whether it's a cheer toss or a good old fasioned giant adult, Mary Grace and Scarlett are able to nab the SIGN. Giving it a solid YANK causes the old rusty CHAIN to snap and the two girls land in a pile on the ground with their NEW WEIRD WOODEN SIGN. In an elegant, curling script the words "LA CHAIR ENCHANTÉE" have been carved into the sign.

Congratulations, girls. This would make a SICK SKATEBOARD if you bolted some wheels to it.

Mary Grace has used ONE ACTION.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

THE LIBRARY TOWER DOOR

LA CHAIR ENCHANTÉE

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LA CHAIR ENCHANTÉE

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LA CHAIR ENCHANTÉE (THREAD): Gettin' A Buzz On

LA CHAIR ENCHANTÉE (THREAD): Gettin' A Buzz On

LA CHAIR ENCHANTÉE (THREAD): Gettin' A Buzz On

LA CHAIR ENCHANTÉE (THREAD): Gettin' A Buzz On

LA CHAIR ENCHANTÉE (THREAD): Gettin' A Buzz On

LA CHAIR ENCHANTÉE (THREAD): Gettin' A Buzz On

LA CHAIR ENCHANTÉE (THREAD): Gettin' A Buzz On

LA CHAIR ENCHANTÉE (THREAD): Gettin' A Buzz On

LA CHAIR ENCHANTÉE (THREAD): Gettin' A Buzz On

LA CHAIR ENCHANTÉE (THREAD): Gettin' A Buzz On

Re: LA CHAIR ENCHANTÉE

Re: LA CHAIR ENCHANTÉE