The room of frightened CBers was draped in a cloak of silence, a silence that said more than a thousand words. It was because of this silence, most likely, that the earthquake was so startling. The floor shook, and pillows fell from the suspended beds. Joy let out a frightened shriek and dove under a beanbag, thinking that the pillows were debris from the ceiling. Amidst the chaos, Shoshannah heard something. A faint… screaming. There it was again! Definitely a scream. She did a quick headcount of the CBers, with a little wince as she realized they were only twenty-one. Everyone was there. So who was screaming? The staff all seemed too happy to make such a sound. It was an agonized, pained scream. It sent chills down her spine. Suddenly, the earthquake stopped. It was perfectly in time with the abrupt halt of the faint screaming. Kitten pulled the bean bag off Joy, and the other CBers shook themselves, but Shoshannah couldn’t get the noise out of her head.

“Did anyone else hear that?”

“Oh,” said Codesmith. “Did you mean the major earthquake that just shook the entire palace? No, I didn’t hear a thing.”

“No, I meant… never mind.” The others didn’t ask for details, nor give any indication that they had heard the screams as well. But one CBer certainly had.

The murderer had heard the screams, same as Shoshannah, and they had a slight idea where it had come from. They’d have to get away somehow and investigate. And, as if by magic, a perfect opportunity appeared, in the form of a sunshine-and-rainbows palace keeper. Saying they had to go to the bathroom, they left, forming a quick plan in their head.

Goldie waltzed into the room, drop-kicking pillows and straightening picture frames as she went. As she reached the one frame in the room that hadn’t been tilted in the quake, she frowned at it for a moment. Then she grinned and tilted it sideways. She skipped to the center of the room and addressed the CBers.

“Hey guys! Good news- it stopped raining!” The CBers glanced at each other, as if to say,

We just had an earthquake, and she tells us it stopped raining? Really?

“So,” she continued. “I thought we could play a game! I set it up before you all came. Now, here’s how you play-”

“Uh,” interrupted Jaden S. “Are you going to tell us what that was about or what?” A moment of guilt flashed in Goldie’s eyes, too quickly for any of the CBers to catch a glimpse, then she replied,

“What? Oh, that. Don’t worry, happens all the time. It was the, uh, volcano!” They all crowded around the window, and saw for the first time, a large mountain looming on the horizon.

“Cool! I didn’t know there was going to be a volcano!” exclaimed Maple.

“So, with that settled, how about the game?” Most of the CBers were still uneasy, but they agreed. Anything to lift their spirits. Goldie led them all back to the dining room. Going in, they noticed that the slide and debris had been cleared away. She spread out a map of the grounds on one of the long wooden tables. There were different colored dots marked all over the place.

“Okay,” began Goldie. “The activity is a relay race. For CBers and AEs only, I’m afraid, but the CAPTCHAs are more than welcome to be cheerleaders!” From a bag under the table, she produced golden pompoms and distributed them among the CAPTCHAs. They were thrilled, and began playing tag around the room. Goldie explained the race to the rest of the CBers.

“You will get into two teams of six, two teams of seven. Then each team member will pick an event and go to that event’s colored flag. Red for the sprint, purple for the roller blading, blue for the swimming, orange for the climbing, green for the rowing, yellow for the speed-reading, and white for the obstacle course. For the teams of six, the first person from the sprint will head to the obstacle course. Sound good?” The CBers chorused their agreement, but Icy was quickly doing the math in her head.

“Wait, there are only twenty-one of us. How will the team numbers work?” Goldie smiled.

“Glad you asked! That’s my surprise for you. We have a few late arrivals…” Behind them, the wooden doors creaked open. In walked Aspen, Allie, Pizzaboy, Jwyn, and Catsclaw, to a chorus of surprised exclamations. After greetings and room assignments (Catsclaw and Pizzaboy in Amethyst, Aspen and Jwyn in Tourmaline, and Allie in Tanzanite), they separated into teams. In the chaos this involved, the murderer slipped in unnoticed. Goldie stood in front of the teams. All the AEs were in one team of seven, and the rest of the CBers were in teams of six. Goldie addressed the AEs first.

“Team name?” she asked. They huddled for a moment, then Mysterious said,

“Green Astro-Pickles With Spicy Mustard.” Goldie nodded seriously and jotted the name down on a notepad. She moved onto the next team, Elementgirl, Vyolette, Aspen, Winterbranch, Icy, and Pizzaboy. Their team name was the Turtles. The next team, the Fanfictioners, were Shoshannah, Allie, Autumn Artist, Kitten, Watchgirl, and Codesmith. And, last but not least, were Admin’s Little Helpers, Clockwork Sparrow, Unsuspectingstrytllr, MelodicAuthor, OrangeandTealMermaid, Jwyn, Jaden S., and Catsclaw.

All the CBers were standing ready by their colored flags. Shoshannah had agreed to run the sprint and the obstacle course for her team. She stood ready, watching Goldie for the whistle that meant they could start. Goldie raised the whistle to her lips, then blew. It sounded like jingle bells. Shoshannah took off like a shot sprinting as fast as she could. She glanced to her right at Cass, Elementgirl, and Clockwork Sparrow, who were each running for their teams. She put on a burst of speed and tagged Allie just as Elementgirl tagged Vyolette. Mysterious and Unsuspecting were right behind. Mysterious pulled ahead for a moment, then tripped over their own rollerblades. Vyolette gained the lead, and tagged Aspen. Unsuspecting whizzed past Allie and tagged MelodicAuthor, Allie tagged AutumnArtist a second later, and a few moments after everyone else, Anna darted off as well. They sliced through the water like sharks… or, lets say angelfish. Best not to talk about hungry aquatic predators while swimming in a lake. At the last minute, as the CBers were wading into the cold, murky water, Goldie threw a curveball.

“Contestants- backstroke!”

None of them had been prepared for this, and it was near comical to watch. Anna veered to the side and bumped into MelodicAuthor, Aspen ran into a log, and AutumnArtist stopped to help. In the chaos, they all agreed to help each other get out of the water. They managed to so without drowning or getting eaten by sha- er, nipped by angelfish. Once they were on dry land and had caught their breath, they tagged their teammates. Thanks to that, it was an even playing field once again. At the climbing station, there were four knotted ropes hanging from the top of a cliff. Seems easy enough, right? But there was also the added danger of the giant spinning blades that appeared at random along the cliff face. Still seem easy? What if I told you that every thirty seconds, the whole cliff shook? Exactly. The climbing wall was probably, with the exception of the obstacle course, the most dangerous and difficult part of the race. Maple, Winterbranch, Kitten, and OrangeandTealMermaid took their places at the bottom of the ropes, then began to climb. Winterbranch attempted to climb the rope using only the knots as handholds and footholds, and she was unsuccessful. The other three braced their feet against the wall and walked up. After thirty seconds, the cliff shook, as promised. Kitten lost her grip and fell back to the ground, which was admittedly on a few feet, but still a few feet she’d need to climb again. Time was of the essence. Maple and OrangeandTealMermaid managed to hold on until the cliff stopped shaking, then continued. As Kitten began the ascent once more, Winterbranch finally got it and walked up the wall too. They went on that way, stopping and holding on as tight as they could whenever the cliff shook. Every once in a while, one of them would slip a few feet, but no one fell all the way again. About halfway up the wall, they had their first encounter with the spinning blades. They’d been designed not to cut the ropes above where the CBers were hanging, but they came dangerously close. Right next to Maple, a blade cut out of the cliff vertically, just missing her. She let out a small cry of surprise and fear, and clung tighter to the rope. After that, the climb was much more challenging. They all had to lean to the side or pull their feet up whenever a blade popped out to avoid losing a limb. There was almost no advance warning, for the blades never came out of the same place twice. They seemed to cut out of the cliff- there were no pre-cut slits for them to come out of. Maple was the first over the wall, followed soon after by OrangeandTealMermaid. Kitten and Winterbranch came afterward, at the same time. The lake was at the bottom of the cliff, along with the rest of the events, so in the order they got to the top of the cliff, the CBers pressed a small colored button, which raised a colored flag down by the lake, where the rowboats were. Joy’s flag shot up, and she pushed away from the dock, which was really just a few rotting boards balancing on rocks. She heaved harder on the oars when she saw Jaden S. begin as well. Icy’s flag went up a fraction of a second before Watchgirl’s. She sped off, with Watchgirl in hot pursuit, determined to get her team in the lead. She turned out to be a very strong rower, and soon passed Icy. Joy and Jaden S. were neck and neck, and as Watchgirl passed them, she waved, giggling at their looks of playful outrage. She hopped out of the rowboat and tagged Codesmith, who opened Harry Potter and started to read Chapter One as fast as he could. For speed reading, you had to read Chapter One of Harry Potter as quick as you could, then write a ten line summary. Jaden S. and Joy leapt out of their boats to tag Catsclaw and Cecily. Icy’s oar had gotten stuck on some stray seaweed, so she was last to reach the shore. She tagged Pizzaboy, hoping against hope he could restore their lost lead. He buried his nose in the book. Codesmith finished first, jumped up, and ran over to the summary writing table. Catsclaw finished moments afterward. Pizzaboy and Cecily read at double speed, but Cecily dropped her book. Kicking herself, she snatched it back up, but it had given the Turtles a lead, if a small one. He snapped the book shut and hurried to begin the summary. Cecily finished as well, and soon they were all huddled over slips of paper, clutching golf pencils. The whole course became silent to let the contestants concentrate, so all that could be heard was the scratching of pencils. Icy, standing off to the side, watching, found this odd. But she couldn’t pinpoint why, so she pushed the matter to the back of her mind for the time being. Codesmith was the first done, and Pizzaboy was next. Catsclaw finished next, then Cecily. By the white flags, Blaiyre, Elementgirl, Shoshannah, and Clockwork Sparrow were waiting. Shoshannah was tagged first, then Elementgirl, then Clockwork Sparrow, then Blaiyre. The obstacle course was comprised of seven obstacles, each more difficult than the last. First, they all swung across wooden monkey bars. Swinging off the last one, Clockwork Sparrow’s hand slipped. He landed on the balls of his feet arms swinging wildly to stop from falling off the platform. He regained his balance, and moved on to the next obstacle: a stretch of poles topped with giant balloon-shaped thingies. You had to jump on top of them, stay on, then hop to the next one. It was very difficult, which didn’t bode well for the next obstacles. They all made it across without falling, but the next obstacle, where you had to attempt to press your hands and feet against glass panels on either side of you and keep yourself suspended while moving forward, brought about Elementgirl’s downfall- literally. Her left foot slipped, and in trying to right herself, her other foot slipped, and she couldn’t hold herself up with just her arms. She fell resignedly, landing softly on the mats below her. There was a loud groan from the Turtles. Everyone else managed to get across alright. The next obstacle was a line of four wooden towers, one for each of them (though one wouldn’t be used), with climbing rocks protruding from the side. The three began to climb their respective towers. It was fairly easy compared to the past few obstacles, but some of the rocks were loose, and jiggled, but some snapped clean off when you put weight on them. No one was eliminated in this obstacle. At the top, a nymph was waiting with a harness. They helped the contestants into the harnesses, then hooked them up to the next obstacle. It was a zipline, but with a catch. On the sides, there were blunt spikes placed in strategic places, so when you went down, you had to swing yourself from side to side to avoid them. Shoshannah’s nymph clipped her to the line, but before going down, she turned her head and sneezed. This act probably saved her life. She sent herself down a few seconds after Blaiyre and Clockwork Sparrow, and watched in what seemed like slow motion to her. As Clockwork Sparrow’s feet touched the platform, the wood flexed, then snapped, sending Clockwork Sparrow and Blaiyre, who landed right after, falling down in a cloud of dust and flying splinters. Shoshannah shot her arms out to the side and managed to catch herself on a spike. She grunted, knowing that she’d have a large bruise later, but thankful nonetheless. A few wind nymphs hurried up to her, unclipped her, then flew her down to the ground beside the platform. Goldie and the others were crowded around the wreckage, and she pushed her way to the front. Her eyes filled with tears at what she saw. Under the platform, someone had set up the extra blunt spikes from the zipline, except with the tips sharpened to a point. Clockwork Sparrow was lying between two spikes, unconscious and being tended to by a few wood nymphs, and next to him, a bloody Blaiyre, clearly dead.

Oh, poor, poor Blaiyre! I see whatcha mean about a long piece, Goldie. Wow. 

The Murderer Strikes Again.....

(dundundunnnnnnnn....) 

Ellie:rpmb

Yeah, maybe an rp would be safer......