Thank you, DK and Leafy, for loyally sticking with my story. *Distant thunking noise*

Please tell me I'm not the only one who noticed that Simul accidentally called the person who spared us for a few days a 'she'. *Inches away from Nihil* -Rogue Wildling

Im really enjoying how your writing me! You’re a very good writer. :)

Aaaaahh! I forgot I joined this! *facepalm* I really need to stop forgetting which Ski Lodges I’m in. Anyway, I just went and read the whole thing and ahhhhh, I love this so much! Your writing style is really cool, Soren, and the suspensssssse! This whole thing is just so mysterious and now I can’t wait to see what’ll happen next. 

The only thing that bothered me is the fact that everything Earth-related is so...dark and ominous, as Rogue put it. I was happy I was in Earth at first, but I’ve always thought of it as a bright, life-filled element, with plant and animal and nature related stuff—more like how you wrote the Life element I guess—and not all about...dirt. But ah well. It’s a good story all the same. 

Well, this part is really short, but I feel bad because I haven't made much progress on this and bleh I think I have writer's block but I'm more persistant with the other novel I'm trying to write at the same time and the other one has a deadline and aaahhhh I don't want to adandon this and I WON'T adondon this (Kyngdon forbid I give up now) and my whole situation is pretty oof-worthy.

Yay

Day three, part three

Mor watched, amused, as her CBer chased Reese around the popcorn room, arms outstretched. It was good to see him active and being himself again after his friend Soren’s death. She smiled and buried her popcorn under a pile of butter.

“Woah! Be careful!” Autumn Artist shouted as Reese slammed into a popcorn machine. Darkking and Reese giggled goofily and continued their chase. By this point, most of the guests had returned to getting their own popcorn instead of watching DK and Reese’s battle, smiling at their shenanigans.  

After five minutes, both Darkking and Reese where bent over, panting, fingers masausing cramps in their sides.

“Oh… okay,”  gasped Darkking, “I… I think… I’m good now.”

“Good… good,” whispered Reese. They shook hands as a peace and got themselves some good popcorn.

While this was happening, Leafy was sitting alone in the air room, her bare lower legs cold against the stone floor, her head on her bedpost. She was grieving over the loss of Hazel and blaming herself for Hazel’s death. How could she let this happen? She should have protected her darling CAPTCHA better once everyone knew that there was a murderer on the loose. Leafy never thought she would miss Hazel’s little voice bleating about tofu and KitKats and being an AE and having a vendetta against HAB.  Leafy nearly smiled at the memory of Hazel saying ‘tofu’, but when she remembered her late CAPTCHA’s fate, she quickly fell back into a state of despair.

There was a soft knock at the door to interrupt Leafy’s thoughts. She jumped a little, nearly hitting her head on the bed, and, too flustered to think, stuttered, “C-come in.”

Leeli pushed open the door slowly, wanting to be subtle.  She smiled sympathetically.

“Hey, Leafy,” she greeted softly. “I brought you caramel popcorn.” Leeli sat on the floor, cross-legged, next to Leafy, who accepted the popcorn quietly. Leafy nibbled on a kernel- it was so perfect, just the right amount of crunch to the popcorn, the caramel gooey and runny but not sticking to the roof of her mouth… it was the impeccable balance between salty and sweet.

“Thanks,” she replied softly, reaching for another piece. What can cheer a person up better than caramel popcorn?

“No problem,” said Leeli, smiling.

“Sorry I’m acting so gloomy,” said Leafy. Leeli wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

“Don’t be,” she told Leafy, “Don’t be sorry.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“Mmor,” asked Boo, “doyu have anny fors?”

“Nnoo,” Mor replied, “Ggoo fish!”

Boo sniffed the pile of playing cards before him as he clawed at the top one with his hoof. He clumsily pushed it off the pile, flipped it over to see that it was a number five, then he promptly sneezed all over it.

“Ewww!” cried Mor. The tremendous sneeze had left the hardwood floor and stack of playing cards covered in Boo’s snot. Mor wrinkled her nose.

“Sory!” whimpered Boo. He hesitantly stuck a hoof in a puddle of boogers.

“Yuck,” was all he could say.

“Lets play some thin else,” suggested Mor.

“Good idea,” replied Boo, surprised at the number of real human words the conversation had allowed to be exchanged. The two CAPTCHAs searched the game room for something easy to play that (hopefully) wouldn’t get covered in snot.

~~~~~~~~~

Gracia sighed heavily and crossed her feet the other way, staring at the forest green ceiling. She could see the ridges and protruding lines that it was a popcorn ceiling underneath. She put her book down across her chest, seeing how the ceiling looked like cirrus clouds on a sunny day, almost. But other bits looked like stegosauruses.  She was pondering this, bored out of her mind, when Night Vision and Caribbean entered the room.

“Hey, Gracia!” Bean greeted cheerily. “Winter, Quill, and Dewy asked us if we wanted to walk through the forest. You wanna come too?”

“Yes, please!” Gracia cried gratefully.

“Great! I just need my water bottle,” Night chimed in. Together, the three guests trooped down the tedious spiral of never-ending stairs. At one point, Devin jumped out from behind a suit of armor, laughing as they jumped back in surprise.

“You can really suck sometimes, Devin,” grumbled Night. Devin’s maniacal laughter followed them down the rest of the stairs.

“Hi, you guys,” Dewy said shyly.

“Hey, Dewy,” replied Bean, much to Dewy’s surprise.

“Come on, I wanna go outside!” Winter said impatiently. Granted, she had been inside all day, hardly doing anything exciting except watching Darkking eat mustard popcorn and then chase her AE all around the room.

“All right, Winter, calm down!” Night sighed. Together, the group exited the castle…

And saw something utterly horrifying.

~~~~~~~~~~

Boo says pine... I think he's already said that. Also, top.