Darkvine’s Intro, Day 0, 9:13 AM:

Darkvine quickly scribbled off the last line and gave the scroll to Chia, her dragonfly. Chia proceeded to eat the scroll. Darkvine stared at the dragonfly for a sec, and then shrugged. She had gotten over the weirdness. Funny how that tends to happen when a dragonfly burps up a scroll that explodes with glitter.

A few minutes later, Chia buzzed around Darkvine’s head as she chucked her things into her black and neon green duffel bag. Darkvine thought she could feel an urgency to Chia’s buzzing.

“Yes, yes, Chia. I’m coming.”

Finally she threw in the last item (her ancient Wii), and zippered up her bag and slung it over her shoulder. Chia flew off down a tunnel, looking back to make sure Darkvine was following. Darkvine shrugged and hurried after her, down the tunnel–abandoned by Nightwings ever since the volcano explosion. Luckily Darkvine had been at Camp Half-Blood when it happened, and was safe from it. She now resided in the Lost City of Night, which was an even better home now that she didn’t have dragons around to make jokes about eating her. The dragons came back to visit her sometimes, but never stayed for long. Sometimes she missed them.

Chia picked up speed, Darkvine racing after her. They arrived at the edge of the island in no time, and Chia took off over the water. Darkvine decided it was better not to question, and flew after her. Chia circled back and rested on Darkvine’s shoulder as she flew. Strangely, the ocean seemed to zip by much faster than she was flying, and soon the color of the water changed, and not much after that, they arrived at another land mass. But it wasn’t Pantala…

Chia lifted off of Darkvine’s shoulder, and led the way again, coming down towards land. Darkvine paused in midair.

“Are you sure about this, Chia?”

But Chia only buzzed more insistently and flew in an impatient circle.

“Fine then.” Darkvine tucked her wings and freefell towards land, snapping them out at the last second and coming down to a gentle landing.

She glanced at Chia for further instruction, but Chia seemed content to perch on a branch. Welp, here was as good a place as any to sit down and play some ancient Mario games.

But before she pulled out her Wii, she couldn’t help but think about two things:

One, they had come across the ocean incredibly fast. Darkvine had been ignoring that up until now, but she couldn’t anymore. Magic was obviously involved. Magic was sticky business. She would need to be on her guard. And B, there was an increased amount of local wildlife. Bugs buzzed about, snakes slithered, jumping spiders jumped, although they all kept mostly to themselves. The plants were also lush and green, with towering trees of many different types, most of which she was pretty sure didn’t grow together most of the time.

Speaking of wildlife, Darkvine noticed a Spotted Lanternfly egg mass (heh heh, when you hear the words “egg mass” you know nothing good is coming) on a nearby tree. Being ecologically aware, Darkvine knew that Spotted Lanternflies (commonly abbreviated to SLF–I mean, who wants to type all that out?) were an invasive species. She also knew what to do about an egg mass. She snapped a few photos of it from different angles with her iPad, then fished around in her pockets until she found an old sandwich baggie, then used her magic pocketknife to scrape the egg mass into the bag. She stuck the bag into her pocket and hoped she didn’t forget about it. It would be rather obnoxious to find invasive insects hatching in a bag in her pocket in a few months. She would give the bag to the host of the Scuttling Place, who, now that she thought about it, had never mentioned their name in the letter.

Huh. How curious. They must have forgotten.

Anyways, after one more glance around for any other egg masses, or adult SLF, of which she saw none of either, she settled down to play her ancient Mario games.

It's starting, it's starting!

And now that I think of it, perhaps I should have packed bug spray. 

Skutlz is how I abbreviate my name when I have to tag somebody. Heh.

Anyways, some notes:

@Sterling: the wings and antlers can be real, if you wish. Other people have similar things, and, to quote Dev from the Level Up solo write: "rules are more like guidlelines"

@Eirian: Please submit your form soon

@Everyone: Progress report - Darkvine's intro posted, Sterling's under way.

Sterling’s Intro, Day 0, 9:05 AM
Sterling eyed the parchment warily. They still hadn’t touched it since it had exploded in glitter, and it still lay in a pile of the very same glitter on the floor. They glanced out the window at the still-rising sun, looking out over the bustling Rennasiance-era city (Scuttles doesn’t know how to spell Renaysonce). They had been in the very top floor of their tower, enjoying the sunrise when the dragonfly had zipped through the window. Would they fill out the form? It wasn’t like they had anything better to do. But it was very suspicious, being burped out of a dragonfly’s mouth and all that. They eyed the form, reading through the questions. They had already named the dragonfly Freddie, after Freddie Mercury, so that part would be easy enough to fill out. After contemplating it for a few more moments, they decided why not. So they picked up the form and quickly jotted down all the answers, and gave it to Freddie, who slurped it up like a noodle.

They eyeballed the dragonfly suspiciously for a few more seconds then got about to packing.

A few minutes later, they slung their backpack over their shoulders and turned to face Freddie. Freddie turned and zipped through an open doorway and down the stairs, pausing only a moment to see if they were following. Freddie seemed to like zipping about, and barely ever flew slowly.

After going around and around and around the spiral staircase, pausing occasionally for Sterling to catch up, Freddie stopped at the front door and did a loop-de-loop around the doorknob, which Sterling unlocked and opened. After they stepped outside, Freddie loop-de-looped around the outer doorknob, which Sterling interpreted as “lock it,” which Freddie seemed satisfied with when they did so. Freddie then zipped over to a fencepost for tying up horses to which Sterling’s bike was locked, and did yet another loop-de-loop next to the bike. Freddie seemed to like loop-de-loops almost as much as zipping about.

“My bike?” asked Sterling, but Freddie just did another loop-de-loop, so Sterling unlocked their bike and hopped on, but not before stomping on a Spotted Lanternfly (because Sterling, like Darkvine, was ecologically aware (still not sure if “ecologically” is a word)).

If Sterling had thought a little more about it, they would have realized that there shouldn’t be any Spotted Lanternflies where Sterling was, because it was the Rennazaunce (still can’t spell it) and Spotted Lanternflies weren’t invasive yet. But they didn’t think about it, and hopped on their bike, and pedaled off after Freddie, who was already zipping ahead.

That last paragraph was definitely not foreshadowing.

Sterling focused on pumping their pedals as fast as they could, trying to keep up with Freddie, who never slowed down, only sped up more as soon as Sterling caught up. Sterling started using their wings, flapping hard to push themself forwards, moving so fast they were cutting through the wind, their surroundings all a blur, Freddie always just a little too far ahead. Then Sterling began to slowly lift off the ground, moving so quickly that their wings caught the air and lifted them up whether they liked it or not. They gave up trying to bike and just flew, clutching the bike beneath them, their wings gripping the air, their backpack compressed against their back. This was the fastest they had ever flown, and they were still going faster, despite the fact that they were not flapping, just soaring. Their speed was out of their control now, and whose control it was Sterling didn’t know. Perhaps it was Freddie, perhaps it was somebody else. Perhaps Sterling never should have trusted Freddie. But despite all that, they couldn’t help enjoying it. They were going so fast that their eyes watered, tears leaking from them. They had exited the city long ago, entering the countryside, but now the countryside was just a smear of color.

Aaannnddd… all of a sudden Freddie abruptly halted. Their surroundings snapped into focus, lush trees filled with wildlife. They shouldn’t have been able to stop as quickly or as smoothly as they did, but somehow they came to an abrupt stop as well, but where trying to stop that quickly would have usually sheared their wings off, it just felt gentle. They landed on the floor, flexing their wings experimentally, glad to have their speed back under their own control again.

All of a sudden, Freddie burst into an agitated loop-de-loop, zipping around Sterling, buzzing worriedly.

“What are you trying to tell me, Freddie?”

And then they heard a far-off scream, getting steadily louder. And louder. And louder. So loud that it almost seemed like–

And then it all went black.

~~~

Heh heh, don't worry, Sterling, you aren't dead. None of the murders will be happening until at least Day 1, and it's still Day 0.

Theories, anyone? What do you think happened to Sterling?

Our next part, Rose's (Sterling's AE), probably won't be out until at least Tuesday, but maybe longer. I might be able to get it out by Monday but it's unlikely.

Oh, also, @Sterling, I meant to ask--how are Rose's pronouns used? Does Rose prefer he, or they, or prefer to have them switched between, or something else?

PS I was just looking at the forms again, and I realized that Friendo's (Jay's AE) dragonfly has the same name as my CAPTCHA, Snorkle. It shouldn't be a problem, though, my CAPTCHA isn't going to be a part of the Ski Lodge. :)

Ah, yes. I would like some bug spray Scuttles, thank you very much!

Hum! There isn't much to work on about Sterling, I daresay. Just a scream. Perhaps it became too high in frequency and knocked her out? Like ultrasound? Can dragonflies detect ultrasound? I have no idea, my mind is running away at this point.