DAY UNO PART DOS~

~~~~~~~~~

Secret shuffled around awkwardly along with all the other CBers, trying to figure out which way would lead to her living quarters. They all wanted to figure out where to go, but none of them wanted to climb a mysterious staircase. Finally, Reese decided to go up a promising marble stairway. There, she found a signpost with the directions to all the different element housings.

“Guys!” she called, “It’s got all the directions here!” there was a scuffle as people fought over to see where to go. Air and Water were directed to continue up that stairway, Fire and Earth were assigned to go through a door on the left side of the hallway, and Life had to go up the ladder.

Rouge had taken the lead of the Air and Water group, so Secret and the rest followed her.

“Me. In air,” huffed Agent Winter. Sea Glass, who was following Autumn Artist down a passageway, was secretly think the same thing- why was xe, lover of the beach and sea, in fire? Still, xe wasn’t complaining- xe did have magic, after all.

Secret didn’t speak, but she was bubbling with excitement on the inside. She couldn’t wait to discover what she could do with her magic! And if there was anything to do with Percy Jackson. That exited her too.  

The stairs never seemed to end. They zigzagged, spiraled, and at one point were so steep they almost climbed straight up.  Just when Secret was going to throw her hands in the air and stop climbing, Rouge called from somewhere above her, “It splits here!” The whole group sighed with relief.

There was a sign hanging on the wall at the top pointing Air to the right and water to the left. Somehow, Fire and Earth hit a place where they split at the same time; Earth was to go right and Fire to the left. Precisely at the same second,  Life’s ladder came to a halt and they could walk on a landing. This was, of course, on purpose- Simul Stoicheo made sure it would be that way. She thought it was creative and intriguing. The CBers thought it was weird. The AEs thought it was random and quirky, and some of them liked it. The CAPTCHAs didn’t give a button for the whole matter. Except for Nihil, who was very observant and thought it was a trap or something dramatic.

After the splitting of paths, the groups took complicated turns according to The signs, which were decorated with the strangest things- an Easter Bunny, a meme made of stick figures, one collage of comics cut from newspapers (which included Peanuts, Big Nate, Garfield, and Pearls Before Swine), and even one with several swear words (Rouge covered Nihil’s eyes). Then, at the exact same moment, all of the elements reached their assigned rooms at the same time. The rooms were all the same size, with wood flooring and six to seven beds, but they all had different features.  The Fire room was painted pure black, with red curtains covering the windows, making it so that those on the room could barely see their hands in front of their faces. Most everything in the room was covered in some plastic-like material to fireproof it all. Devin bumped into Wendy.

“Oh, sorry,” He said. Wendy didn’t move- she hadn’t even noticed anyone bumping into her in the first place.  Mor had the sense to open the windows.

In Air, the walls where white hinted with a very light sky blue. The windows, which showed them an excellent view of the forest below, were wide open and letting in a clod draft. Boo closed the windows, but the room was still filled with a gust of wind spiraling around the edges, which was rather annoying, but made sense. There were windchimes and various objects hanging from the ceiling.

Earth’s room was painted a brown that looked like someone had taken dirt and rubbed it on the walls (which Catsclaw didn’t really put past Simul Stoicheio). The grimy-looking grey curtains hung limply at the windows that gave them a boring view of a mound of mulch and soil, and the floor seemed to be covered with a layer of dirt. Levana made a mental note to find a broom later and do a cleanup.

Life’s room was painted to look like a jungle- bright, wild colors popped out through the dense green foliage. A few stray leaves were strewn on the floor, and the emerald curtains parted to reveal a rather thick part of the forest below. Flower pots in varying sizes were sitting on bedside tables and window sills.

Water’s room had a pleasant shade of blue for the walls, and they were swirled with different hues. The ceiling was painted blue as well, so it looked like they were under water. The sea creature stickers on the windows added to the effect too. Empty water bottles and a few fish tanks were thrown haphazardly on some of the nightstands.

“Well, this’ll certainly be an interesting vacation,” commented Wren.

“You said it,” Muttered Quill.

As everyone argued over beds and tried unpacking, Secret realized something strange about what Simul Stoicheio had said earlier.

“Hey, guys? Miss Stoicheio said we would be having lunch, but it was, like, four o’clock when I got my letter,” Secret said.

“Huh, that is pretty strange,” commented Wren. Voila? Checked her watch- 12:14.

“Odd,” she said. Everyone else with a watch checked theirs as well- they all said 12:14, even though they had come from different time zones and no one had changed their own. The group concluded that Simul Stoicheio had made it so all the watches would change automatically when they were being transported to the castle. With that cleared up, they decided to head down to lunch- their stomachs were growling.

Ten minutes later, they stood at the foot of the giant staircase, panting.

“There- has got- to be- a shortcut,” gasped Far.

“Let’s hope so,” groaned Secret.

They entered the dining room, a splendid, huge room made of stone bricks with high ceilings, a grand chandelier, and a highly polished wood table running down the length of the room, where the other guests were already sitting and talking. The new arrivals split to their own groups. Secret slid into an open spot with Artimerrx, Reese, and Boo.

“Hey guys! Sooo… how ya doin’?” She asked. Artimerrx opened his mouth, but his answer was drowned out by a large shout of ‘WAKANDA FOREVER!’ from down the table where Darkking, Soren, Mor, Rouge, and Winter were sitting. They were all roaring with laughter. Darkking and Soren high-fived each other. Reese snorted.

“I’m good. Busy, ‘cause it’s Christmas time, but yeah,” replied Artimerrx, smiling. “I’m hungry, though- where’s the food?” That, indeed, was a good question- in front of Secret were about half a dozen forks with different patterns and sizes, a spoon that looked more like an ice cream scooper, and a large knife that would be good for cutting up raw meat, and a shiny, embroidered, empty plate.

Simul banged through a door to the right that Secret hadn’t noticed before. She had her eyes closed and was sort of dancing and spinning around on her nonexistent feet, not giving a flying shoe that all of her guests were watching her with shock/disgust/amusement/judgement. Once she finished her jig, she opened her eyes and saw them all looking at her, them the empty plates.

“Oh yeah. I suppose y’all need some food. Whoopsie.” She waved her hand dismissively, and a feast appeared before the Cbers, AEs, and CAPTCHAs.

“Like in Harry Potter,” commented Soren, who quickly got embarrassed after realizing nobody was listening to her.

As Simul danced back out of the room, the guests helped themselves to chicken, soups, sandwiches, strawberries, and various other delicacies, though, as Caspian noted, no vegetables. Secret could hear snatches of conversation floating in the air before they disappeared- ‘Nmec!’ ‘Dude, did you fart?’ ‘that shirt is hilarious.’ ‘My element instructor is so hot!’ ‘I lost my gel pens so long ago, it’s terrible!’

“Cvel?” asked Boo.

“Uhm, yes! Of course!” Replied Secret. She raised her eyebrows at Artimerrx and Reese, who smiled. Leafpool chanced a sidelong glance at the far end of the table where Wendy and Nymph sat, not talking to each other. She felt like she should maybe go talk to them, but was quickly distracted by Catsclaw shouting “That is NOT a polar bear!” from next to her. She laughed along with Leeli and Autumn Artist, her table companions.

“Don’t you guys think Simul Stiocheio is weird?” asked Leafpool.

“Yes!” replied Leeli. “Doesn’t she, like, seem kind of morbid to you guys?”

Autumn Artist nodded. “Yeah, I have a feeling this is going to be a weird

Vacation…”

“How so?” asked Catsclaw. “Simul whoever, the elements, or the polar bear?” as the group laughed, a scream came up from the other end of the table.

~~~~~~~

Well, this is pretty bad but I gotta go now *types CAPTCHA*  

LOL I forgot I joined this! Amazing job Sor- I mean Simul!

Yeah... great *murmurs over a book* 

Elli says pbnf 

Sooooo I guess NF likes peanut butter? How would you know? 

TIPPITY TOPPITY TOP!

Ack, I'm sorry about this! I was super busy with the writing contest I mentioned before- I had to spend hours upon end staring at my new Chromebook to finish it on time, and I didn't get too much of this written.  

WAKANDA FOREVER!

I can't wait for Avengers: Endgame and Captain Marvel to come out, they're gonna be so cool!

tivr

No Mor I did not get you a tiger for Christmas, you already opened your presents.

Tap? No.

Tip? No.

Tup? No.

Tep? No. 

Typ? No.

TOP???

Whoop de do, you finally got it.

TOPTOPTOPTOPTOP!!!!!!! 

Here--TOP!

Yayy. 

Day One, part three

Soren screamed, then swore. The table fell nearly silent and looked at her with disturbed expressions.

“OH MY GOSH!” she shouted. “YOU ARE SO DISGUSTING AND COOL!”

Most of the other guests merely rolled their eyes at her- she had scared them all out of their skins, after all.

Lunch continued normally after that. Levana spilled a bowl of soup and was so embarrassed she excused herself and didn’t return. Nymph and Caspian got into a heated debate about movies, but Caspian quickly got tired of arguing and left Nymph to celebrate her triumph (she grew several feet taller, made her skin gold and shiny, and procured an ornate crown and trophy from her arms, making sure to flash them around so all could see).  Sea Glass and Far had timidly talked about fantasy novels. Viola?, Quill, Dewy, and Caribbean discussed a fandom they shared.

When they had all finished and their stomachs could accept no more, a group consisting of Dewy, Soren, Caribbean, Secret, Nymph, Hazel, Autumn, Nihil, Devin, Wren, Darkking, Mor, Rouge, Marigold, Winter, Leafpool, Catsclaw, Reese, Night, Leeli, Jwyn, Quill, Viola?, and Boo set off together for the woods.  Artimerrx stayed behind to find the popcorn machine, and he wasn’t disappointed. He found it through a secret passageway off of the kitchen, where he entered into a giant, drafty room completely empty aside from a huge line of twenty or so popcorn machines all sitting against the far wall. On the end was a table with an insane amount of toppings- butter, salt, pepper, cheese, carmel, chocolate, this weird spicy thing, and strange ones like ketchup and pickles. He was so dumbfounded that he almost forgot to get some.

“What should we do?” asked Marigold.

“How ‘bout capture the flag?” Suggested Wren.

“Where would we get our flag?” Pointed out Night Vision.

“Tag?” said Quill.

“That sounds fun,” Replied Autumn, “but who should be It?”

“Mmee!” Cried Hazel.

“No, it should be me!” Argued Devin.

“Aww, I wanna be It!” complained Catsclaw.

“What if we’re all It?” Rouge commented quietly.  Those who weren’t arguing spun around to look at her.

“How would that work?” Leeli asked incredulously.

“We can all be It,” Rouge repeated, “So anyone can tag anybody. It would be mass chaos.” She had a strange sort of twinkle in her eye as she said it.

“That… sounds fun,” said Soren, rubbing her hands together.

“Okay, but what happens if you’re tagged?” asked Viola?.

“...Maybe we should… well, if you’re tagged, maybe you should go back to the entrance of the castle,” Suggested Marigold.

“Hey, that works,” Said Devin. “Now, could we get started?” He was very eager- he had wings, giving him an advantage. Plus, it sounded fun to run around the property of a crazy lady’s castle unsupervised.

“Yes, yes, we’ll get started,” Sighed Leeli tiredly. “Should we all start at the base of the hill?” There was a murmur of assent, and everyone meandered back to the base of the hill. Those with wings positioned themselves to take flight (Nymph had already transformed into a small winged creature), and the rest positioned their feet forward, hands in fists with their arms angled, faces set. Some, like Secret and Autumn, were faking it to run when everyone else had gone, so they wouldn’t be caught as quickly in the scramble to the paths in the woods.

“Alright, everyone,” Boomed Catsclaw, “ON YOUR MARKS-”

“Who put you in charge?” Yelled Devin angrily.

“GET SET-” Catsclaw continued, ignoring the audacious AE, “GOOOOOOOOO!”

~~~

Meanwhile, Caspian procured a small red rose from nowhere, twirling it saintily around his fingers, interweaving it so precisely that the thorns never made contact with his skin.

“I must say, your cleaning skills have really made this room much cozier,” He complimented Levana, who picked up a book after sweeping, dusting, and wiping the windows of Earth’s dormitory and became so immersed she hadn’t troubled herself with leaving.

“Don’t mention it,” She mumbled, separating two pages with her fingertip. Caspian dug his camera out, and they sat in silence as she read and he fiddled meaninglessly. Caspian quickly became bored, so he got up and stretched, leaving Levana to read alone.

He meandered along the hallways, only passing by Sea Glass, who was searching for the place where water elementals practiced, hoping to find the peace of the sea, and Gracia, who was trying to find Vita and ask him a question. Caspian decided to tour the castle by himself. He guided himself back to the entrance hall, then took one of the staircases that had remained unexplored by the guests up until then. This set varied from being very narrow and straight and being very wide and loopy. He passed down short hallways in between, through sets of heavy doors that were staged one after the other, and went down a trapdoor before he took a hallway that lead him to new and exiting rooms.

One hallway was full of rusted sets of armor that looked as if they would collapse if he laid a finger on them, one had giant paintings covering the whole walls, one’s floor was completely covered in pillows and cushions, and one had nothing in it except a chandelier and lots and lots of doors, all sitting next to each other along the four stone brick walls.

One room that had a large quantity of windows had a mysterious trap door with no indication of where it might lead. Caspian studied it, glanced around the room as though he might see a signpost telling him what was down there. No such signpost, however, was in existence, leaving Caspian to guess what it could be.  His imagination provided him with no guesses, so he did the only logical thing- he hestitantly crouched down, inched his hand forward, and slowly opened it. It was very dark, but he could tell it was another set of stairs. He glanced around once more, but the magic sign had yet to appear, so he started to make his decent.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

That was short.  

Toppy tippy top.

Tah tippity toppity top

Tah toppy tah tee, tah toppy tah toe

Tah tippity toppity top.

Nudge, poke, top, ascend, rise, push forward, leap, upsurge, spring up, climb, and al the rest. 

(Ivan)

No, child, your name is not ivan. Is there somehing I must know about Ivan? Are you saying that I'm a van? What is this strange magic?

Oh, wait, he wasn't saying ivan afterall. Nevermind.