peckishmods | DROPBOX

DROPBOX

This page is a quick way to get in touch with the mod team. If you have a suggestion for a future event, would like to request NPC interaction, need clarification on something, or have questions about anything Peckenpaugh-related, you can post that here. All comments on this page are screened initially, but threads with valuable information may be made public. You can also contact us via email at peckishmods@gmail.com. We will try to address all questions and requests in a timely manner. If it has been seven days and you have not received a response, we encourage you to bump your comment with an edit or reply.

What sorts of things can I ask about here?

Questions about the setting at large.
Questions about NPCs.
Questions about the application or the character roster.
If you need clarification of the rules, IC or OOC.
If you would like mod assistance, permission or input on an event you'd like to run.
If you want your character to do something, but aren't sure if it's okay to do, or if you'd like to know potential IC consequences before you do something.
Suggestions for pcal slots, events or anything of that nature.
Requests for NPC interactions with staff, townies and any other mod controlled characters roaming the hills.
Requests for a roll if you're out late at night or otherwise doing something that might get you in trouble. What does the roll net you? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Once a month you may request an RNG roll to see if you find anything cool at Spellunking or are successful in acquiring spirits from Elflock Liquor.
If you need to drop a character or leave the game. :(
And, honestly, anything game related!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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This roll of Kodak 100 is originally from the 1980s. Magic seems to have done a decent job preserving it, but the shots still come through a bit corroded once developed. Colors are faded or there are large splotches where light hit a certain portion of the film before it was developed. All in all, it at least creates a kind of interesting, creepy effect on every shot, even the ones taken more recently. Here’s a complete listing of shots from Laszlo’s 24 shot roll of Kodak 100 film:

Shots 1 - 7 : Are all taken from outside of Elflock Falls’s bowling alley. Each photo zooms in a bit closer on the bowling alley, until it’s right at the front door. The baby blue metal door (the Elflock Lanes door these days is black) is scratched and dented, the words “The Bug Club” have been graffitied in sharpie in one corner of the door.

Shot 8 : This photo seems to have been taken outside somewhere, at an evening party or other social gathering. It's packed, wherever it is. In the foreground, more than a dozen people — or, not all people, maybe — are gathered around a campfire. Some of the “people” in the photo are winged with obsidian skin, like Pocket.

Shot 9 : This is the first photo Laszlo took himself, of the large headed thing in the woods. Now developed, the secret is revealed: it’s someone in a ghillie suit carrying a large box labeled “PUDDING.” Must’ve been Mr. Lukashenko.

Shots 10 - 20 : Somehow, from October to January, every single photo Laszlo took managed to catch Ms. Dorkins crying in the background. A few shots also feature those strange purple flowers and ivy that students have been finding across campus, sometimes in places it should not logically be able to reach. The newer the shot, the less likely he is to see those strange plants, though. Also, most of these also contain glimpses of a familiar former Home Mag-Ec teacher who should’ve been gone months ago.

Shots 21 - 24 : Trippy shots of the glitching trees at Thorntrail. How does that even work? Wait is that Mr. Lukashenko in the last one…?

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Adminsitrator Kwan is, as usual, happy to have one of her students stop in, even if it's regarding unpleasant matters. She makes a point of checking on how Imogen is feeling before she's even gotten a chance to ask her question, and while she doesn't have an answer right away, she promises to have a chat with Bub to see what he recalls.

A few hours later, when Imogen returns to her dorm, there's a note waiting from the Administrator. Sure enough, it seems Bub did hear strange whistling, though only faintly. Along with the note is a small jar of pepper imps, which Ms. Kwan promises will keep future lethargy at bay.

In light of the events of today's quidditch game, Ms. Kwan will find Imogen again in a few days and invite her sit down with a representative from the Bureau of Magical Beings to recount what she recalls from the incident and the symptoms she felt, if she'd like. "Mr. Trullinger enthusiastically assured me that you'll be part of an important scientific discovery," Ms. Kwan says with her typical cheeky charm.

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Mr. Potkin seems pleased to see that Harrison is thinking of his former teacher. Even if Mr. Lukashenko left under bad and extremely strange terms, Mr. Potkin holds him no particular ill will. He says he’s personally not sure what Mr. Lukashenko is up to these days, but because Harrison is so responsible, he’ll look into it provided the address doesn’t get around. Lu probably doesn’t need teens playing pranks on him.

A day or so later, Mr. Potkin catches Harrison after Home Mag-Ec class to hand over an address. If Harrison decides to google it, he’ll find the odd number places him in the parking lot of an abandoned Kohl’s. However, given that wizards tend to disguise their places of residence in such bizarre ways, maybe it’s worth sending an owl...

Wyatt and Eddy seem to want to ask Ms. Gunzenhauser something. At least, they keep hovering around, trying to get her alone, without looking too suspicious.

If they're able, they plan to ask her whether she knows Pocket/Tink? You know, the party bug?

They also intend to ask Ms. Min, if they can catch her (and whether she was there for/knows about the pony party).

Wyatt & Eddy hit up Ms. G
It’s not too hard to find Ms. G alone, but it is sort of difficult to spot her not in the middle of juggling approximately a dozen things. Eventually, though, between classes, they get a moment of her time in her office on the third floor of Central Classrooms.

“Pocket? Party bug?” she snorts a soft, amused laugh, looking honestly surprised and a little skeptical that two students would come to talk to her about this. “I thought that was the codename you all used for whoever was throwing the next party. We know you all get down to the riverbanks sometimes, you know. Are you trying to tattle on someone?” That smirk she’s wearing fades, though. “Now, Tink is a term I haven’t heard in years...”

Ms. Gunzenhauser sets the papers she’s shuffling through down on her desk after a single tap to settle them all neatly. Her gaze drifts up toward the ceiling, like she’s searching memories she hasn’t probed in years. “That’s... what we called...her…The…” Something in Ms. Gunzenhauser’s voice changes. Higher, softer, and faintly tinged by an unfamiliar accent. Younger and more like the voice she spoke with in Eddy’s vision. “There was...a fairy...who…" Ms. Gunzenhauser sniffles suddenly, and looks perplexed by it. "There were...more fairies living, hm, in the Magnanimous Maple before it withered. Goodness why can't I remember? Tink was...one of them, but they all—she—when—" Ms. Gunzenhauser has to stop, because there are tears streaming down her cheeks. Her brow furrows and she tilts her chin up, but the crying won't stop. "I'm very sorry boys. I'm not sure what's come over me. Tink is…long gone, though. If you'll excuse me, I...think I need a moment..."

Ms. Gunzenhauser gestures toward her office door. "Maybe we can discuss this again later."

Talking to Ms. Min
This is a quick exchange. Ms. Min doesn't know of Tink or Pocket and has never heard of a pony party. When they part, Ms. Min walks a few steps away before stopping and turning back to Wyatt and Eddy, "Yinz ever watch that show WINX Club? Just popped into my head after, gosh, years." She laughs, fond.

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The gardens do look rather lovely today, though maybe not supernaturally so. Plants have begun to return as spring creeps across the campus, the sun peeks out from behind the clouds, and the fountain in the hedge maze looks strangely… inviting? It looks cool, tranquil, and a few flowers have sprung up around the base, including a few purple buds. They could just be regular old morning glories, maybe a few honeysuckles, but they look a little misshapen, crooked. Might be worth keeping a sample, as long as you don’t make any ink out of them.

The graveyard is as it always is, still and silent. Once or twice, you can spot one of the Goodliffes watching from the window of their big purple Victorian, suspicious of what teenagers might be doing in the graveyard. Fresh flowers have been set out on several graves, and pebbles are stacked on the headstones of one or two.

In their wanderings, they find one thing of particular interest: a set of gravestones with fresh flowers set out. The larger of the two reads: CALEB QUALLS father. husband. hero. 1928 - 1989 and MARILYNN QUALLS mother. wife. warrior. 1931 - 1998.

The second gravestone looks as though someone’s made an effort to clean it fairly recently, but lichen still clings to it and it’s largely corroded. In addition to flowers, someone has left a set of small paint brushes. What remains of the headstone reads: “ALLS Dream sweetly, ... world is dim...r for losing y... colors. 1972 - 1989.”

Edited 2020-03-11 03:42 (UTC)

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teratophilia - 2020-03-13 12:07 (UTC) - Expand

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peckishmods - 2020-03-27 22:33 (UTC) - Expand

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There's no immediate change when Eddy buries his shell, but the others stayed there for hours, so he might as well go have fun in the gardens and the graveyard while it rests. In the morning, he heads to the spot where it was buried, and a fresh clump of moss has grown over the little mound of wet earth. As Eddy steps closer, that tiny pile of dirt and moss shifts. From a glance, it’s as though the earth is breathing.

When he bends down to dig the stone up, Eddy finds that the bug is already on its way to meet him, burrowing up. As it surfaces it wails, a loud, buzzing cry, then spreads its wings and takes flight. Aside from the stony gleam and glint of gold, for all intents and purposes, this seems to be a living cicada. It bobs upward, zooming high and dipping low, a little drunk ⁠— that’s just how cicadas fly ⁠— and though for a moment it looks like it might fly away, it returns to Eddy, perching in the palm of his hand.

The bug is warm and weighty, and Eddy finds himself reclining back in the dirt, overcome with a memory…

He is in a long tunnel, concrete walls, ceiling and floors cracked and ruined. Acrid smoke fills the narrow space, choking him and burning his lungs. Fluorescent lights hanging above flicker and spark while curtains of vines hang over his head. It is hot. Very hot. His wand arm is out but the wand in his hand isn’t his. The hand isn’t his. “Confringo!” Eddy shouts in a voice that isn’t his own. No sooner has a great burst of light erupted from his wand that he’s firing off more spells. “Expelliarmus! Diffindo!”

Something is approaching him, but he can’t make out what it is, hidden by ivy and the light of duelling magic. “Give him back you bastard!” Eddy...no, not Eddy? Ms. Gunzenhauser? Still not exactly right. Zelda, shuts her eyes tight, focusing everything she has on a warm feeling. A game of nothing but gutterballs, mugs of cold root beer on a hot summer night, laughing so hard at Percy’s (who’s Percy?) jokes that she gave herself an asthma attack. “Expecto Patronum!”

A silvery white light bursts from her wand so large it fills the cramped hall. Zelda takes a step back and stumbles, falling hard and when the light of her patronus finally fades, Pocket is standing before her. The Party Bug’s expression is more resolute than Eddy has ever seen it. “I’ll get him back. I promise. Get Wybie and go, Z.” Pocket points back, down the hall, where a teenage boy lies slouched against the wall, unconscious. “Don’t look back.”

“But, Tink,” Zelda protests, “You’re the last⁠—”

Eddy startles, like waking from a falling dream, but that was no dream. It was a memory, so vivid as to have happened minutes ago, so real that his lungs still burn. This memory is his, but it’s not. The sense that he has something that does not belong to him is pervasive, dreadful at first but fading fast. He gets the sense that this is something that should be returned to its original owner.

In his open palm is a shed cicada shell, split open and empty, sparkling gold.

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Oh, he absolutely can! Mr. Trullinger takes the note and explains that without knowing the context his translation may not be perfect. However, he just needs to do a quick preliminary skim before he begins to translate aloud:

“Hello Dear Human Spore,

Many thanks for the face paints. It has made us feel more glowing, and because we are glowing, we are more attractive to the one we are looking at. They speak to us. We speak back. Is good. This happiness we owe to you. In your debt we are now.

Moreover, perhaps again we can be painted?”

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Subjecting the cicada shell to flame seems to change it, but it's hard to say how at first. Most evident is that it seems heavier, as though it has thickened somehow, or hardened, perhaps a defense mechanism of some sort? A closer inspection reveals that the rock appears shinier as well.

Continued exposure to flame causes black crystal growths to sprout from the shell that flake off as soon as it's cool, turning to dust.

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"Oh, yes… that day." Dr. Huang sounds uncomfortable when he thinks about his day in the WizUber, but Dr. Huang often sounds uncomfortable. Just, in general. "I—well, I'm not certain I've ever met her before, to be quite honest. She lives in town I think, that's how they were able to get her in so quick. But I don't think she's a specialist—in Divination, I mean. I, ehm—well, here."

Dr. Huang puts his leather attaché case on the table, pops it open, and removes a slim green folder. "The note she left said, ehm, 'Either your students are brilliant diviners or brilliant bull—ah, bull-ers. I would trust any of them to tell my future, and even more of them to tell my past.'"

He shows the page to Wyatt. It's written in the same handwriting as his scrap of note paper and signed "❤️ Mrs. K".

"Why do you ask?"

Edited 2020-03-17 23:16 (UTC)

After his latest conversation with Viola, Aris will be approaching Mr. Purcell with some questions! Specifically:

Was Mr. Purcell in Elflock Falls in 1988-89? Or does he know of anything that happened there during that time?

Does he know anything about what happened to Mr. Qualls?

Does he know of spells that could cause memory loss/cause people to have a physical reaction when attempting to remember something? His reasons for asking this are pretty transparent, so this may involve references to Mr. Potkin.

With regard to memory spells, he'd also like to know if he knows of any plants (specifically lichens or mosses) that can be tied to such spells?

It's worth noting that Aris thinks Mr. Purcell doesn't like him, so he'll be on his best behavior! ...But also annoyingly persistent. Both because he doesn't want to go back to Viola empty-handed and because he's a little worried. Maybe. But also also, he'll bring a nice dog treat for Queen Guinevere, so that balances it out, right??

How does this go?

Sorry he's a chatterbox, Mr. P.

“‘88, huh?” Mr. Purcell grunts, adjusting Queen G’s bib before she’s allowed her treat. “I was in Japan for most of ‘88. Osaka. Part of ‘89, too. What a damn mess that turned out to be.” He furrows his brow, though, and doesn’t move on quite yet. “I—I popped in, I know I did, but who even knows why—everyone always needs something, don’t they?”

He brushes off any further questions about Elflock Falls in the late 80s, assuring Aristotle that his brief pop-ins didn’t seem to overlap with anything important going on. Don’t you think he’d remember that? He would definitely remember that.

As for Qualls… “Rumors, rumors, that’s all anyone ever tells me.” Mr. Purcell crosses his arms with a huff. “Mr. Qualls gave his life for a very good cause. Anything anyone else tries to tell you is…” There’s a brief pause, which Queen G helpfully fills with a quiet fart. “Muddy. It’s all just a bunch of mud.”

Now when it comes to spells, that’s where Mr. Purcell can really help, and he perks up almost perceptibly. Obliviating is obviously the biggest and most well known memory altering spell, he says, and there are some binding curses that can forbid or punish people for speaking about something. “But preventing them from remembering? Ohh, that gets into the territory of very complex, very dangerous magic, and I hope you’re not asking for experience.”

Plants are not his expertise—“Berzelius or Greatheart or Treetops mess with plants, I just know what’s been put there to hurt you,”—but Mr. Purcell knows there are some flora and molds that can cause memory loss and other bad symptoms if inhaled in large quantities. “You didn’t inhale anything nasty, did you?” He looks Aristotle up and down, assessing him. “It won’t change your grade if magic made you forget the answers, but I’ll take you to the infirmary so you don’t die.” This is probably not purely motivated by a desire to keep his job. He does prefer to keep his students alive.

On the Thursday of Spring Break, Viola Warbeck returns to campus with the sole purpose of trying to hospitalize one of her teachers in the name of Good Detective Work.

Originally, she had hoped to hunt down Mr. Trullinger and pepper him with questions about Paw Paw but the lucky bastard snuck off campus unscathed. Not to be deterred, Viola stands at the top of the hill leading up to Peckenpaugh, under the arc of a massive black umbrella with her stolen yearbooks hugged tightly to her chest, looking like an absolute fucking Grim. Or the Babadook, more accurately.

It's really just bad luck that Mr. Crockett happens to be the first familiar face that she spots. Honestly, she had been hoping it was Mr. Other Crockett because she does not like him very much, but alas. Out of respect for her WizardLit teacher, she refrains from sprinting up to him shouting, 'TRY TO REMEMBER HOW MR. QUALL'S DIED!!!!' Instead, she takes a subtler yet equally firm tact.

Viola says her pleasantries, asks if Mr. Crockett has a moment to chat, and then stares directly into his eyes and asks, "Would it bother you to know that your memory has been permanently meddled with?"

From there, she confronts him with the EVIDENCE, splaying out the yearbooks in front of her teacher and pointing out all the suspicious lichen. "This stuff is growing in your brain," she tells him, "And it's keeping you from remembering his name." Viola flips to a picture of Li... Qualls and Mr. Potkins with the deftness of someone who has definitely flipped to this page many times, probably in a weird way.

She is far more animated than she normally is during class (she drank a very large Americano while roaming) and appears to be tensely waiting for something terrible to happen throughout the whole exchange. She even closes her eyes when she asks, "Isn't it strange that you can't remember how Mr. Quall's died?"

Mr. Crockett is is, as always, gentle and soft spoken, and his immediate response to Viola’s first question is an almost imperceptible tightening of his features. He works his jaw, not wanting to answer at first, but as Viola starts to rifle through everything she’s brought, he admits, “If this is because of that ludicrous puppet lesson, there’s a much simpler explanation…”

But that’s not what Viola’s here about, is it? Mr. Crockett looks over her books, and seeing familiar faces smiles faintly, reminiscing. “I promise, Viola, there’s more stuff growing in my brain than plaque.” His blue eyes flick from the books to his student and there’s a keen focus in his gaze. “What we gave up, we gave up willingly. You need to know that. Some of us...needed…” he pauses, drawing in a deep, steadying breath “Less help forgetting than others. Because we were...preoccupied. He was one of my best friends and I hardly recall his face, but I don’t recall a lot of my youth, anymore.”

There’s light in those sad blue eyes, though. Even as Monty Crockett tells a young student looking to solve a mystery no, Viola gets the sense that a part of him desperately wants to help. “If you’re hellbent on snooping, I just ask that you leave Mr. Potkin alone, and Mr. Youngblood, too. They’ve been through enough. Now, Georgie Trullinger, though...ask him about the BoMB’s Unclassified Creature system. You might get an interesting answer…”

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Wyatt horfs impressively, vomiting up things he doesn't even remember eating.

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Time...continues to be a mystery... Sorry for the delay!! Feel free to backdate or forwarddate or just play with dates to make this work!

When Merlin and Armani return to the scene, they find some flowers still remaining. Not nearly as many as earlier, but scattered clumps of purple flowers are still there, dotting Armani's path across campus. A robust looking tuft near Central Classrooms seems like a good one to experiment with. Hopefully they don't catch anything (or anyone) on fire!

Playing With Fire: It takes a second. At first, it just seems like they're a couple troublemaking teens burning flowers for no reason, but then something happens. The flowers don't burn, and they don't repel the fire. Instead, they seem to consume the fire. The mass of flora pulses and the ground looks like it's taking one long deep breath in... and then it stops. The ground exhales, the fire sinks into a smolder. When the flames eventually die down, it seems as though a few new buds have sprouted up around the clump of flowers, but maybe that's just their imaginations? Hmm.

Playing With Ice: This does not take a second. A blast of icy air hits the plants and they shrink back, some swinging their stems out of the way of the offending air. But the ice does its work, spreading out to envelope the whole clump. In mere minutes, the flowers begin to retreat; some seem to have slipped right back into the ground, while others lay wilted in the grass.

Trudy stops by to ask Ms. Altizer to help her double check her math, since what she got doesn't seem to make any sense.

(SORRY THIS REPLY TOOK SO LONG)

Together, Trudy and Ms. Altizer review her equation and the results it produced. One thing sticks out, in particular: that second instance of the word storm is ambiguous. It could mean 'storm' in the literal sense, but — as prophecies, even numerical ones, are often apt to do — it could mean assault, or turmoil, or plague, or ill omen, or swarm.

Ms. Altizer seems reasonably sure that Trudy's prediction is saying that a literal storm will protect "them" from something worse than the weather.

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peckishmods - 2020-04-19 04:30 (UTC) - Expand

After class, Viola waits patiently for her peers to filter out of the Cryptozoology & Magizoology classroom. It would be easy for Mr. Trullinger to forget she's there. That is... until she suddenly appears at the corner of his desk with two, old yearbooks clutched to her chest. She looks tired and almost put out, the way students sometimes do when they come in for help with work that they really wish would just be excused. "May I speak with you about something?" she asks, "Well, several somethings..."

On Mr. Crockett's advice, Viola asks about the BoMB’s Unclassified Creature system. She's not coy about why she is asking. "A lot of people who went to school with you can't remember what happened to Mr. Qualls or his ... son," she says, "Mr. Crockett told me to ask you about the BoMB Unclassified Creature system when I asked him about ... forgetting."

Viola gives him space to respond. She knows he has a tendency to be ... verbose. As he speaks, she lays out the 1987-'88 and '88-'89 yearbooks on his desk and points out evidence of this 'forgetting.' Since Mr. Crockett didn't die and he sent her to Mr. Trullinger, she doesn't seem worried about giving her C&M teacher a seizure. Before closing the yearbooks, she points out the young Mr. Trullinger with a soft smile and taps her finger on the 'ELFLOCK FALLS & PAW PAW, Muggle Outreach Initiative!' banner over his head. "Do you know what happened to Paw Paw?"

Not so fast! After closing the yearbooks, she describes the spider women the cheerleaders saw and asks if he has ever heard of creatures like that before. It might seem an odd question but she adds, "Do you know if they're ... good guys or bad guys?"

Lastly, she asks if he knows what all those eyes Aris saw in the rain might have been...

(This is A LOT of questions, so feel free to not answer something and we can just say that Viola didn't ask that. Also, please don't feel pressure to answer in prose! You're the best <3)

Mr. Trullinger seems perplexed by Viola's words. Naturally, he doesn't remember forgetting things, though now that she mentions it, he can't remember anything about Mr. Qualls's death when he tries. He remembers Bryce Qualls, a few years younger than him, but...was there another one?

He is immediately distracted by the mention of the BoMB's Unclassified Creature system, telling Viola to wait a moment while he disappears into his office. He returns later with a thick old book with worn and tattered edges, Knowing the Unknowable: The Bureau of Magical Being's Unclassification System. Trullinger proudly notes that "This is one of only two copies of this text available outside of the BoMB's Division of Unclassified Beings. And no one knows where the other is." Unfortunately (but unsurprisingly?), his copy is a little damaged, but that doesn't stop him from waxing poetic about how hard (and dangerous) it was to obtain, how this edition is technically out of date but contains more classified information than more recent versions. The more he talks, the younger he seems, until Mr. Trullinger's eyes shine more brightly than they've ever shone — and that's saying something. At once, he's not just Mister Trullinger, but someone else, the same, but different: Georgie Trullinger.

The old book opens naturally to the parts covered in lichen plaque, and that elicits a furrowed frown from the Magizoology teacher as he squints at the page. "This was my favorite section. On Peckenpaugh," he says, scratching at the mold crusted over the page with an irritated huff. "Ah, hell, I don't need the book for that, anyway."

Georgie Trullinger grins, pointing out several obscured sections across multiple pages. This one's about Bub and what BoMB thinks he is. This is about the creatures living on the reserve northwest of Peckenpaugh. Georgie Trullinger has a hard time remembering much about that section, except that BoMB definitely knows that they aren't "of this Earth" — but not aliens, because extraterrestrials have their own classification system. He almost gets distracted with a rant about that.

And then, Georgie Trullinger's finger lands on a section that's totally illegible, and begins to recite it from memory, "The hive entity referred to as magimagicicada because of its predilection for manifesting as a variant of the mundane genus magicicada is endemic to the Greentooth River Valley. This remarkable creature shows human-like awareness at the individual level, and a great, but alien, intelligence as a whole. Attempts to classify this entity as fairy, as spirit and as being have failed. Historically the magimagicicada has been worshipped by muggles, wizards and other magical beings in the area as a guardian, a god, a creator entity, and even the very spirit of the land, itself. The last recorded sighting of the magimagicicada hive entity was in the summer of 1989. They are believed to have disappeared..."

That trips him up, and he looks up from the ruined page to meet Viola's eye. "They didn't disappear, they were eaten. We tried to stop it. Y'know, that's how Wybie—" Mr. Trullinger clears his throat, winces and shuts the book. That clarity of vision seems to be quickly waning, and Georgie's next words come hurriedly, rushing over one another as he tries to get it all out, "We didn't just forget, we gave it up—didn't have a choice. We spent so long fighting that thing the locals in Paw Paw called up, you know, even though staff told us to leave it all alone. Adults like that can't get anything done, though. Too afraid of risk. Anyway, Tink — it's a shame you never got to meet Tink — was so sure we had to confront the thing to stop it. Then one day, she comes to us and says that the only way to stop it was to look away. Or...is that how it happened? Wasn't there something more? With the Quallses..." Mr. Trullinger seems to get twisted up in his head trying to remember, and then suddenly, he's out of breath. The youthful light is gone from his eyes and he taps the cover of the old book saying, "Anyway, it's real interesting for being a reference volume. I can make some photocopies of the pages that are still good for you, if you'd like."

Any further attempts at getting Georgie Trullinger back today are, unfortunately, fruitless. Mr. Trullinger seems unusually tired, a little grumpy, even, and apologizes, saying that he's come down with a sudden migraine.

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Lir does have a weird habit, but it’s pretty innocuous. He hums when he walks. A short, tuneless "hmm hmm hmm hmm." If asked about it, he refuses to acknowledge anything.

Mr. Youngblood is at the bowling alley constantly, he and Lir appear to be good friends. Or, Lir appears to tolerate Youngblood. And sometimes Youngblood even makes him laugh. Or exhale slightly louder than normal, at least.

Like any boss, he responds positively to doing things without needing to be told to do them. Wiping down counters, putting away bowling balls, emptying the ancient popcorn machine, thoroughly cleaning the iced tea keg. If you're a diligent employee, he takes a shine to you very quickly, and is quite warm in his own, strange way.

Lir is ?happy? to share the history of the bowling alley. It was built in the 1920s by his grandfather, and has been in the Liu family for three generations now. It’s got all the history you’d expect from a ninety year old building, prohibition era moonshine running, brawls, wand duels, fires, foiled robberies, at least one gunfight, an unfortunate experiment with sentient bowling balls in the 1970s. Part of the building caught fire in the 80s ⁠— that’s the most recent bit of trouble ⁠— and was remodeled soon after, but he lanes themselves are all still original, preserved with magic and a lot of dedicated elbow grease. He tells Trudy that the bowling alley was built on the site of the town’s original graveyard, but that is almost certainly just Lir being Lir, making deadpan jokes.

It was only natural that Lir take over from his father when he retired. He can’t really imagine doing anything else.

The strangest thing is probably that whenever Trudy brings up the kidnappings, Lir needs to be reminded of them, like they’re a memory from far longer ago than just a few months.

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A few days later, a thick, purple envelope comes for Trudy in the morning post.

Dear Ms. McGilliguddy:

Thank you for your dope letter. Snoop Crupp looks forward to reading it as soon as he gets back from his latest tour and wants each and every one of his fans to know he couldn't do all this shit without your support. 

Snoop Crupp will try to answer your letter in the order it was received, but if no response ever reaches you then there's a chance someone around here needed a rolling paper. Don't despair, that just means he likes it the most.

See you in Naples bitches.
- Snoop Crupp & co

Snoop Crupp's autograph is stamped just under the last line, and it kind of smells like CBD oil.

(screened comment)

Merlin does recognize this girl as the one from the beginning of the year. He fetches the kite and returns to the spot he’d watched her appear where he winds up waiting for a very long time, but she does finally show up, walking out from the denser trees, looking curious.

“Pawpaw’s a fruit,” she says in a heavy West Virginia twang. The little girl squints, tugs on one of her pigtails. “Or d’you mean that muggle mining town? Muggles ain’t s’posed to settle near here, but they let ‘em, anyways. My pap says it’s bad news lettin’ em get so close to us. Says there’ll be hunts again if we ain’t careful. He thinks there’s a con… conni… connsi… whole lotta money changin’ hands, he says.”

The little girl knows nothing about Paw Paw being destroyed, wrinkling her nose at Merlin’s questions, “They only just built the dry goods store! There ain’t even nothing to destroy yet!” She doesn’t seem particularly moved by his insistence that she not be such a crybaby, and when he offers to teach her how to climb, she tells him quite plainly, “I can’t do what got me here.”

Interacting seems to tax her, and before skipping back off into the woods, she tells Merlin he should keep the kite and tail.

(screened comment)

For a moment, there's nothing. Just silence and the steady drip of a faucet that could easily be fixed with magic. No one is there. Was anyone ever really there?

Then—a sound. A quiet crinkle of static pulses over the speaker, even like a heartbeat or a breath. It clings to Laszlo's ears as the volume builds, expanding to fill the empty bathroom, shifting from a staticky hum to a screech, like metal scraping against metal.

Then—a voice. A young woman with a strange accent. European? Could be German, maybe Swiss.

"15... 14... 13... 12..." The woman says, seemingly deaf to the noise all around her as she counts down. "11... 10... 9..."

This isn't the first time someone's picked up some weirdo AM muggle radio station around here, but there's something else. ("8... 7... 6...") Something about the voice that nags at the back of Laszlo's head. Like he's heard it before. Like he hears it all the time. ("5... 4...")

And maybe this time she won't stop before zero. Maybe she's actually counting down to something.

"3... 2... 1..."

She stops. The sound stops. Everything goes silent once more, the unspoken conclusion hanging in the air for one long, breathless second. Then—

"Are you still there? We have to hurry." It's the same woman. Her words sound bumpy, off-kilter, like puzzle pieces that don't fit quite right. "We shouldn't have hidden the key. We shouldn't have hidden him, but she convinced us. The only way. It wasn't—it's not, we need to find it, we need to hur—"

The rest of the woman's words are drowned in static. The radio goes dead. The faucet continues to drip.

(screened comment)

That’s actually fairly easy to track down. Through most of the 1980s, the Heads of House were all the same:

Mothgarden was headed by Caleb Qualls. He was a great deal less translucent in the 80s. He was then, as he is now, the Muggle Studies teacher, and it seems as though he offered several small elective courses surrounding Muggle technology, culture and history. A busy man.

Deeplurk by Ebenezer Woodrow, who in photos seems to be a very soft, emotional sort in his late 50s. Armani would almost certainly recognize Mr. Woodrow ⁠— as he knew him, Mr. Woodrow was the eccentric and absolutely ancient hand puppet-loving Transfiguration teacher during Armani’s freshman year. What Armani can recall of Mr. Woodrow is that he really loved those damned puppets, was highly knowledgeable, but also seemed to delight in the fact that 2017 - 18 was his last academic year before retirement. He had some serious senioritis.

Wildgulch’s Head of House for decades was Ichabod Kettleburn, who looked a bit like a Lord of the Rings dwarf, with an impressively full, braided and adorned beard and big, bushy eyebrows. He taught Music and Artificing. In every picture, he’s scowling. Seniors and locals may remember him. Dr. Ranui took over for him as Wildgulch’s Head of House and Madam Beridze inherited his Music teacher position when he retired just four years ago.

Thorntrail was headed by Healer Zipporah Crockett, an elegant and very 80s woman with a sharp-eyed stare. It seems that in addition to serving as head of Thorntrail and primary Healer at Peckenpaugh in the 1980s, she also taught both Pre-Healer Studies and a veterinary elective course in the Care of Magical Creatures department. Busy, busy, busy—fitting for a Thorntrailer.

In the 90 - 91 school year, Mr. Qualls was replaced as head of Mothgarden by a young Potions teacher named Abigail Spoon.

Hello!!

As promised, Zadie and Patrice go to talk to Dr. Ranui and 1) make sure he's aware of the weirdness that was Ms. Gunzenhauser's voice shift today in class (they give him all the deets he asks for), and 2) ask after the whole Ms. Treetops saga. They wonder what they're doing to look for her (has anyone outside of the school been notified? are they just searching for her themselves?), if they have any leads, and also if they have any suspicions about what's going on.

Dr. Ranui hums at this news about Ms. Gunzenhauser, looking thoughtful. "I trust you kids to know if something's amiss. Thank you for coming to me. It's probably just that she's been under a lot of personal stress, but we do take this seriously. I promise I'll speak with her."

As for Ms. Treetops, he seems a great deal more light. "Oh, missing!" He laughs. "No, no, she had a family emergency. We were quite worried, as well, after a student reported that she was gone, but she got in touch with us a few hours later. She should be back this week."

HELLO I DON'T KNOW HOW BEST TO DO THIS SO I'M JUST DROPBOXING.
Audrey and pals (she is approved to drag along Maisy and Trudy wanted to go and also Winter who one of you plays, hello,) would love to camp out by the falls in an attempt to catch Pocket? If they don't, Audrey's leaving a small bundle of really cute jewelry and stuff (including the best pair of sunglasses she can find) and a note that reads

"Hello.
It's Audrey Poke.
We're helping you.
Please just tell us how.
Anytime. You know where we live."

She's sooooo good with words guys.
But also she will stay for a very long time in an effort to tell Pocket this herself, which she would, even if the others didn't stay? It's her senior year she can skip some classes?

It seems like the holler conspires against the girls this evening. A large shrub that's not usually there blocks the main path to the caves behind the falls, but undaunted they push on, finding a different route through the brush. They arrive at the caves and find them empty, which isn't entirely unusual.

Pocket does not respond to calls, even mentions of parties, and though the quartet certainly feels a sense of safety within the yawning cavern, the light feeling that usually accompanies it is absent. Instead, the cave feels strange. Confused. Empty, but crowded. It's a difficult feeling to explain, but it settles over each of the cave's visitors all the same.

They're stubbornly here for a reason, though, and they've brought camping supplies, so they set up, making themselves comfortable on the damp, mossy rocks, and they wait.

And they wait.

And they wait.

For a time, a cold, unwelcome wind blows through the cave, spraying mists from the Falls at the quartet of concerned students, but after a while, that lets up. The wind calms, the cave warms, even dries out a little.

And they wait a little more.

A little longer.

It's well past curfew, well past midnight, nearly on to morning when Pocket finally appears, the sound of her climbing up from the very earth waking anyone who has dozed off. She looks embarrassed and strangely tired.

"Heeyyyyy guys," she says, a little sheepish. "So, you need, like, something, huh?"

[We'll let each of the four characters mentioned in the original comment have one interaction with Pocket here. So if you've got something you want to tell her or need to ask her, go ahead! We're limiting it to one each for the sake of time. Also, just so it doesn't get hung up, the girls are caught on their way back from the cave, each loses 10 points for their house and receives a detention to be served on Saturday afternoon. Bad Girls Do It Right, as they say.]

CAMPING TRIP?

damnnearkilledem - 2020-05-06 16:08 (UTC) - Expand

CAMPING TRIP?

andpoke - 2020-05-06 16:41 (UTC) - Expand

CAMPING TRIP?

peckishmods - 2020-05-06 23:55 (UTC) - Expand

Re: CAMPING TRIP?

andpoke - 2020-05-07 00:24 (UTC) - Expand

CAMPING TRIP?

themurderbird - 2020-05-07 18:15 (UTC) - Expand

CAMPING TRIP?

peckishmods - 2020-05-07 21:56 (UTC) - Expand

Eddy's pretty sure he done fucked up. He also conveniently stalked a bug recently, so he's pretty sure he has a good idea where Pouch might be hanging out. He'll hike out to the old stables again and assuming they're still feeling chilly, will awkwardly skulk around a bit before addressing the air.

"Uhhhh. Sorry about your. Tree. Bet it was.. cool." He let's that hang in the air a few moments before pressing on. "Was wondering if you know anything about.. bug rocks with.. memories in 'em?"

Eddy fidgets with the empty golden cicada shell in his jacket pocket. If Pouch appears and he doesn't get the sense that he wants to confiscate the shells like Pocket does, he'll show it to Pouch.

(Hi, I want to help tell your story however I can so continue to assume Eddy will give the damn thing to Ms G finally when it works for you, but I'm also earnestly curious about what Pouch has to say about the bug rocks, if anything.)

Students don't often make trips to the old stables, so it's hard to say if Eddy's ever been here before to tell whether it's always been like this, but the moment he sets foot out of the woods and into the clearing where the old building rests, he gets the sense that he isn't alone. The air here is cooler, but the flowers bloom regardless, plants lush and happy reclaiming the rotted old building.

His question does go unanswered for a long time. Long enough that perhaps he should just head back. Maybe Pouch isn't here. Maybe he just doesn't want to talk.

But the moment Eddy turns, he sees the young man with the messy hair, sitting on the remains of a wooden fence post, cupping his chin in his hand thoughtfully. He watches Eddy with bright red-orange eyes, curious. "You shouldn't be able to find them things. That's, um, whatchacallit, y'know, our magic. You just seen one? Or you got one?"

Given extra practice, both Chanel and Armani were able to manifest full corporeal patronuses!

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