The Hollow Harvest - Pumpkin Patch

[Crenna]

The First

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.

Stepping out of the maze, a veil of silvery fog stretches as far as you can see. Between the strands of fog, rows of enormous pumpkins sit amongst the vines. Some are carved while others are untouched, some nicked and scratched, while others pristine and perfect. Small lights float amongst them - fireflies, seemingly more interested in some rather then others.

Among the shadows, figures move about attending to the patch. These are the Harvest Hands, a collection of scarecrows entrusted with keeping the ground in order, and helping you in your journey.

"Oy! Visitors! Everyone wake up! Places, places!"

Right at your feet is a glowing Jack-O-Lantern, grinning up at you. "Welcome welcome! This here is the pumpkin patch. Another fun event organized by our lovely mistresses. The rules here are simple. You must select one of the very fine pumpkins that you see to take with you. But you can only take one. So explore to your hearts content! Talk to them, find the one that best speaks to you!"

"Hey! Don't forget about the lanterns!" Another pumpkin yells out.

"Oh right right. I forget you mortals can't see in the dark. There are lanterns at the beginning of the patch, feel free to pick one up to aid in your search."

"Harvest Hands!"

"I am getting to that! Fates, can't you let me do my job without micromanaging me, seed brain." A sniff, "Anyway, there are some very helpful fellows wandering about and can answer questions, solve riddles or even sing a little diddy! Don't be afraid of them. Though, if they get a little clingy, it is just because they are lonely."

Having said their piece, the pumpkin gives a stationary nod. "Good luck! Enjoy your time here!" It then goes quiet as if it never had spoken in the first place.

 

[Heather_the_Writer]

@Heather_the_Writer

The Third

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.

The Third Sister gives a little hum of approval. "Left it is! Oh, how decisive. I do admire a girl who knows her own mind."

She turns on her heel, skirts swishing through the straw, and accompanies you towards the junction ahead. The corn grows quite dense here, the broad leaves overlapping to form an untidy archway overhead. The lanterns are also fewer and farther between, sometimes catching the occasional silvery thread of a spiderweb that is strung between the stalks.

Around the bend where you saw the little girl vanish, there is a long and similarly narrow and overgrown pathway ahead. The sister travels along it with you until you both reach a weathered wooden gate that stands patiently between two cooked fence posts. Beyond it, the warm orange glow of lanterns illuminates clusters of pumpkins, hay bales and the distant outline of a farmhouse. The evening air already feels cooler, carrying the faint scent of woodsmoke and fallen leaves.

The sister approaches the gate and gives it a little push. Its hinges creak, but the gate opens easily. You might catch the sister whisper something that sounds suspiciously like a polite thank you.

"Oh, look at that! We've found our way out, after all."

She turns towards you, clasping her hands together underneath her chin. Her black eyes are sparkling beneath the shadow of her hood, and her smile is positively beaming.

"Thank you for allowing me to accompany you, my dear! I haven't been able to explore the maze in quite some time! Do keep that key safe, won't you? I have a feeling it might come in handy very soon."

She gives you a playful little wink before stepping aside to let you through, and as she closes the gate behind you, you can swear you hear the playful giggle of a little girl behind you from somewhere inside the maze you've left behind.

(Thank you for playing in the corn maze! Your character has successfully completed this section. Once the new section opens, you will be able to continue on your adventure.)

Isabel let out a sigh. The antique key is safely put in her pocket., "I hope I made the right choice. I cannot go home without Ann junior... thank you, my lady. I do not know your name. Might I ask what it is?"

She smiled at the enveloping darkness; silver threads that promised spiders glimmered. Honestly? She felt it was refreshing. Hearing a nearby giggle made Isabel sigh again. Corn stalks made it hard to see anything.

"You're welcome." She automatically replied.

The odd gate went unquestioned. Despite the fog taking over, it was warm. Now, the farmhouse, on the other hand...


....


Pumpkins, as far as she could see. Large, small, medium, everywhere. Isabel felt overwhelmed.

A voice caught her attention. She stepped back in fright. She shut her mouth; then smoothed her skirts. Isabel had heard of many magical families, but never speaking plants. These sisters must be very powerful, indeed. Isabel snapped back to being the perfect lady again.

"I, thank you. Yes, one lantern please. Thank you. Harvest Hands, talking scarecrows, of course. I think the maze was wonderful. And so is this pumpkin patch. Everything looks well taken care of. The highest praise, yes, indeed."
She took a small, cute blue lamp. It felt adorable. Other adventurers were spotted. Maybe one of them saw Ann? As she walked over to the closest person, she eyed the pumpkins.

... There were too many ....

 

[Rimechapel]

GEORGE

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.

@Heather_the_Writer
"Pssss!"

Then a pause, for probably too long to not be creepy. Was there anyone there? Just pumpkins - perhaps the nonverbal variety, and a scarecrow. However it wasn't moving. Was it? And it didn't have a mouth. Did it?

"Pspspspspspspspspsps. Hey. Pspspsps."

It was definitely moving now, rubbing its big old cornhusk fingers together in a way that demonstrated both profound dexterity and an utter lack of understanding that most decent people would find such a motion offputting. It was like five raspy paper knives, all rubbing together at once, and the scarecrow was wiggling his head just a little with the effort of making the "pspsps" noise. The scarecrow wore a nice jacket, a red shirt, blue jeans, and a dapper hat. If Edward Scissorhands were a scarecrow but nowhere near as charming as Johnny Depp... that might be this scarecrow.

"Oh. You're not a cat. Well no wonder you didn't come running! Hey. Hey, c'mere. I got something to share with you."

All at once the scarecrow was frightfully close and wiggled its cornhusk fingers in your face!

"Ahh! Got'cher nose!"

Given the apparent lack of pain or anything else that might be expected upon the literal removal of a body part as noticeable as a nose, the legitimacy of this statement could be questioned. But... would you check? What if the scarecrow had in fact somehow gotten your nose? After all, you'd just come through a very strange corn maze with very unusual women who led you to talking pumpkins and a scarecrow that was evidently talking with you.

"Hah! Oh man, and it's a cute one, too! Wow!" The scarecrow rustled its big rustly fingers together. Whether it held something as small as a nose within them was quite difficult to perceive. "Okay. Okay okay. I'll give your cute lil sniffer back. Soon. Real soon! I'm not stalling, I promise, I just, err... gotta think of... something. Oh, hi, by the way. I'm George. What's your name? It's a fair trade - a name for a name. Don't worry, I'll give it back later, too! See? I'm nice! I'm so nice! I'm the nicest crow-scarer of pumpkinlandia! At least since the gerrymandering, anyway. Now that other chap doesn't get a say. Heh! Heheh."

"Well well well anyway, I got a cool story! I got a real cool story. It's so cool. Just wait. When I tell you how cool it is, you'll... you'll um... uh..." he scratched the back of his head with his cornhusk fingers. "... Wanna hear a joke? Okay, great, I love jokes! I love them so much that if you guess it right I'll give you back your nose! Maybe something else, too! Okay. Okay okay. Ready? Here's the joke."

"How do you get a turtle with no arms and no legs to cross the freeway? I'll give you a hint; you take the F out of free, and you take the F out of way."

 

[AmphitriteSea]

If there was ever an ‘oh shit’ moment in Amphitrite’s life, it would have been the moment those cute little fiery orbs had led her to the three sisters. She had genuinely thought she was being sent to the underworld.

Those wide, frantic siren eyes blinked as the reality set in.

Even worse, she had run into and now, with her hands literally tied and nowhere to go, she was stuck by her arch-nemesis, which seemed punishment enough in itself.

And if she could in that moment, she would have apologized to the dragon. Poor guy was just trying to find his way back to a woman he presumably loved, and she had dragged him along into the mess. That part had weighed on her conscience the heaviest. She had made her choices and reaped the consequences, and well, he was innocent in all of this.

————

Her heart had been pounding in her chest. She thought that was it. She was stuck there for eternity. No more siren songs. No more frolicking in the fields. No more blue tides and bubbly lullabies.

But then the next thing she knew, she had landed in a pumpkin patch. No longer tied down, Amphi let out a breath of relief, clasped her hands together, and looked up. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! I promise, for real this time, I’ll listen. I pinky swear!” But as her head tipped back, she nearly lost her balance.

Something was off; something felt strange.

“Huh?” She moved her head and had swayed forward. Her head... it felt heavier?

A moment passed and Amphi raised her hands to her head, feeling strange vertical grooves and a smooth surface, but not like skin—at least, not skin that belonged to her human form.

She raised her hands higher and higher up the rounded sides of her face. She didn’t feel her ears or her long pink hair, and instead felt… bald!? That was her second-worst nightmare. In it’s place, she felt a stump.

“Oh no… oh no, no, no,” Amphi started muttering, having a panic attack followed by a scream.

She was a jack-o’-lantern. And at her feet was another one, much smaller. It kindly spoke to her and this time:

She heard the rules. She would remember them. This time, she would listen.

Amphi cautiously approached a lantern, plucking it into her fingers. “Ha… um, don’t mind me.” She gave a sheepish smile and cleared her throat. “I’ll only pick one teeney-tiny, little pumpkin.”

There were so many to choose from. It was nearly overwhelming, and well now, Amphi looked like she belonged in it, but she held up the lantern, descended deeper into the patch, and listened to her gut feeling for whichever pumpkin called out to her.

 

[WriteAngry]

The First

.

.

Stepping out of the maze, a veil of silvery fog stretches as far as you can see. Between the strands of fog, rows of enormous pumpkins sit amongst the vines. Some are carved while others are untouched, some nicked and scratched, while others pristine and perfect. Small lights float amongst them - fireflies, seemingly more interested in some rather then others.

Among the shadows, figures move about attending to the patch. These are the Harvest Hands, a collection of scarecrows entrusted with keeping the ground in order, and helping you in your journey.

"Oy! Visitors! Everyone wake up! Places, places!"

Right at your feet is a glowing Jack-O-Lantern, grinning up at you. "Welcome welcome! This here is the pumpkin patch. Another fun event organized by our lovely mistresses. The rules here are simple. You must select one of the very fine pumpkins that you see to take with you. But you can only take one. So explore to your hearts content! Talk to them, find the one that best speaks to you!"

"Hey! Don't forget about the lanterns!" Another pumpkin yells out.

"Oh right right. I forget you mortals can't see in the dark. There are lanterns at the beginning of the patch, feel free to pick one up to aid in your search."

"Harvest Hands!"

"I am getting to that! Fates, can't you let me do my job without micromanaging me, seed brain." A sniff, "Anyway, there are some very helpful fellows wandering about and can answer questions, solve riddles or even sing a little diddy! Don't be afraid of them. Though, if they get a little clingy, it is just because they are lonely."

Having said their piece, the pumpkin gives a stationary nod. "Good luck! Enjoy your time here!" It then goes quiet as if it never had spoken in the first place./div]

"Insane?", I asked with an insulted pout. "I prefer imaginative. Good day."

"Good riddance" called the other characters, but I wasn't sure if I felt the same leaving Apathy behind.

The weight of the flat coin didn't quite fill the hole it had left. It was a strange feeling, like a missing tooth: I knew it was supposed to be there and I couldn't stop feeling the cavity, and I couldn't help myself probing at the hole.

Well, I was sure it would find a way to return. It always did, crawled out from some crevasse I had previously stuffed him at. Nobody really liked him, but nobody could really live without him. He would fill up the hole he had left like rainwater a pothole, and I felt my feet striding lighter.

I rolled the coin between my fingers, and definitely not so nimbly as proper male protagonists did in fine movies, and soon I just rolled my thumb around its flat. Follow the magical fog. I did not look back at the Vendor Stalls, or at the strange witch that had read her book upside down, and I had the feeling that neither did they look how I strode.

---

Hardly ever entering the maze left me wonder if it still had served its purpose: everybody who goes in the maze leaves something behind, right? I never did enter the maze and still managed to leave something behind - only to find something else in front of me.

I pick up a lantern, and check at my coinpass if it points a way or not. I roll the coin on my palm and my thumb finds a notch in the rim. Maybe it was stupid to believe such magic, maybe not, but I'm talking with Witches and Vocal Vegetables here. Anyway, I act as if the notch was a needle pointing the way, and oh boy, there's around a thousand pumpkins that-a-way. I shrug and follow the lucky coin, and point with the lantern.

"Okay, lantern. I need a very fine pumpkin. Mind showing which one in that direction?"

I can feel the three of them staring through my eyes, and I feel all of them more or less unsatisfied on my choices. I choose not to listen to them.

 

[jahdeen]

Every failure came with a lesson. Today's lesson: the Three Sisters were not lenient, but they weren't brutal in their punishment, either. Echo didn't exactly enjoy being scorned, but he didn't mind the restraints too much. At least the phantom hands were softer than metal chains, and he wasn't being experimented on or tortured.

All things considered, he could live with a Jack-o-Lantern for a temporary head.

After listening to the talking pumpkin-head, Echo tried to rub his chin in thought, but his fingers only found the rubbery surface of gourd. He felt along the carved shape of his new face. From what he could tell, he'd been given triangular eyeholes and a thin line for a mouth; quite a grumpy-looking expression. Stranger still was the back of his head. His finger traced along the thin carved lines: two long hooked curves mirrored one another, intersecting in the middle and trailing outward at the bottom.

In other words, a butt.

He found that strangely endearing.

Echo could see the glow of the candle inside his head, but the pumpkin field was dreadfully dark. He fumbled for the first lantern he touched, and as luck would have it, he picked one with an extinguished wick. He frowned--or tried to. He could choose another lantern, but after the first trial, he hesitated to make a decision that might disrespect the environment around him.

Oh, right!

Echo felt for the stem of his head. He tugged, lifting up the carved top, then took out the lantern's candle and touched it to his internal flicker. Fire licked at his fingertips to no effect. Once he sensed the drip of wax, he stuck the now-lit candle back in his lantern. Perfect.

He didn't wander too far into the patch. He spied Amphi's (@AmphitriteSea ) pumpkin-head further ahead, but decided to leave her be for now. She seemed a bit upset and uneasy--perhaps space would be best until she found her choice of pumpkin. Echo weaved carefully around the pumpkin vines at his feet. If any of these were indeed living and speaking specimens like the one that gave him instructions, he wouldn't want to hurt the poor things.

Before long, he spotted a yellowish pumpkin with a bumpy top, about the size of a basketball. Echo knelt and picked it up, inspecting it with care. The thing was sort of ugly, with a large indent on its side that marred its spherical shape. Yet Echo felt a strange connection to it. Maybe it was the yellow, or maybe it was the imperfections. But it felt like his. Still, a suspicion pricked the back of his mind.

"How do I know it's the right one?" he wondered aloud to no one in particular.

 

[Mikki]

Darla smiled at the display of the patch, the bright orange against a dark ground, more scarecrows, and... a talking pumpkin! Cute! She crouched down close to listen to the pumpkin and smiled as it finished. Spying the teeniest tiniest white flower in the weeds, she plucked it, and set it down on top of the now quiet pumpkin.

"Thank you~," muttered softly before she began meandering through. Again, that fiddlesome tic. She opened and closed the lighter with a metallic clink, clink, clink.

Darla seemed unbothered overall, eying the pumpkins and travelling further into the patch. Attempting to get away from whatever others there might be, and in search, mostly, for something a little.... unorthodox but charming.

Her smile pulled down at the scarring that had sworled her right eye shut, leaving a lopsided eye that still fluttered it's lashes when she looked around. To her, it was just skin. Nothing fancy. Black hair framed her pale face, while a sickly pale pink set of lips curled into a wry smile.

Still, she walked, unafraid of the shadowy bits. Feeling a little more at home in the dark edges of the patch. Lanterns reflected off of the lense in her good eye as she turned.

Darla was quite glad she had decided to wear the sneakers. They were probably better suited to her walking about. Though, underneath her skin, the urge to run barefoot was ever present. For now, though. Human would do.

"Hmmmm how does one choose a pumpkin? Or maybe one will choose me? Let's see... let's see..." She pursed her lips in thought.

"Oh well don't you have character." She crouched down near-to a pumpkin that had bumps over it's surface, and appeared to have dried out skin to one side.

"What do you think? Is it the pumpkin or the person who chooses?" She unwrapped another caramel and popped it into her mouth.

"Or does it matter?"