*smiles excitedly*

Next part coming soon (soon as in tomorrow!) I just need to revise it :D

Top!

This week, I set a goal to finish the next part, since I’m on winter break and actually have the time to write! Hence…the story continues!!!

Thank you all so much for your positive comments! <3 They mean a lot to me.

@Silver Crystal, tysm for clarifying about Onyx’s pronouns! I’m not sure how to use fae/faer pronouns, so what you wrote was helpful and not nitpicky or judgey at all! And speaking of pronouns, I noticed that in your form you wrote that Onyx’s pronouns were they/fae, but in the Holiday Hunger Games thread, you wrote that Onyx’s pronouns were he/fae. Do you want me to update faer pronouns?

@Nyxie, thanks for filling out your form! :D You will be staying on the Autumn floor (the third floor), with pangolin, Arum Lily, Cloud Bunny, and Opal.

Day 1, part 2: Evening

There was a bit of a wait for the elevators (okay, not really “a bit”; they were the smallest and slowest elevators the CBers had ever seen, and basically defeated the purpose of an elevator) but eventually Celine and Feiya were able to have their turn. There weren’t any stairs for an emergency exit or an emergency call button on the elevators, oddly enough, so Celine crossed her fingers and hoped there wouldn’t be any emergencies at the Vault.

And then the elevator doors slid open, they entered the Summer floor, and Celine completely forgot about the line.

For one thing, the floor of the hallway was the exact color of the sky outside—the color the sunset had painted it. And so were the walls. And so was the ceiling.

Several paper birds dangled from above her, and nodded back and forth, like they were flying. Or maybe that was just because of the air conditioning.

Celine reached out to touch the painted clouds that were actually drifting by her, in that careless way that real clouds do, but their hand felt solid wall.

She was flying, but not flying, at the same time.

At that moment, Feiya scampered out of the Summer Lounge (she’d vanished the minute Celine wasn’t looking) and ruined the illusion by dripping water all over the sky. They’d discovered the swimming pool.

“CANOE!!” she announced, looking at her CBer with big, pleading eyes.

“Do you mean pool?” asked Amethyst, who had just come in with her AE and was looking very longingly in the direction of the library, which was stunning, even without the sunlight. It was hard to believe that they were all standing inside a cave.

“No, Feiya,” Celine said. “What if you caught a cold??”

In response, Feiya sneezed (resulting in more, smaller paper birds magically joining the others) so Celine started rummaging through their luggage to find the towel they had brought, which reminded everyone to unpack. Finally, they all went back downstairs (figuratively).

Dinner had a modern, familiar feel to it—a wooden table with chairs, cloud-white walls, tiled floor—and hamburgers (and cheese or veggie burgers) with soft, air-inflated buns which everyone found delicious.

One thing, however, was out of place: a gigantic popcorn machine made of glass and metal so shiny you could see a rather stretched-out version of your reflection in it and squishy, bouncy rubber the color of a pencil eraser and long, tangled tubes and equally tangled wires and really, who-knows-what-else? It was not, by any means, a normal popcorn machine. This was sprawled out in a corner next to a table with cups stacked in a tall, wobbly pile for the popcorn.

Oddly enough, it looked like it had never been used.

Celine remembered that in the invitation to the Vault, Illusion had written about free popcorn and went to grab a chocolate-covered cup of it before a long line formed.

She was entirely right about the line. 

After several people had gotten their popcorn, Mira, who was next in line, stood by the machine and jabbed impatiently at the button which was supposed to make strawberry-flavored popcorn, but made a loud beeping noise each time.

Illusion, who was talking with the guests on the Spring floor about the spells keeping mold from growing in the Rainfall Library, winced at the noise and called over her shoulder, “Mira dear, that button is broken.”

Mira evidently couldn’t hear over the beeping, because she kept on pressing the button.

“MIRA!” shouted Rora, who’d already gotten her popcorn, “ILLUSION SAYS THE BUTTON IS BROKEN.”

“| I can take care of that, |” Arum said calmly to Rora, who unfortunately also couldn’t hear. And with that, she dumped several cups of regular-flavored popcorn on Mira’s head.

Mira shrieked and charged towards Arum with more cups, and for a moment there was a steady exchange of popcorn. Several CBers had to laugh, but the majority of them (including Rora) were dismayed that they had to get popcorn all over again, because the cups Arum and Mira had thrown belonged to them.

Illusion looked at the two AEs fixedly from across the room. “I believe that I’ll establish a strict no-playing-with-food rule.”

“Something tells me that rule’s not gonna work,” Onyx muttered.

“Anyway,” Illusion continued, “I planned a scavenger hunt of magical objects if none of you are tired yet. It’s a more…useful way to use your energy instead of pouring popcorn on  people. Is anyone interested?”

“| I prefer the popcorn, |” Arum huffed.

“well, I don’t,” said pangolin. She moved towards Illusion. “actually, I love scavenger hunts. how many objects are we finding?”

“Seventeen,” Illusion replied, taking four papers (the same kind as all the CBers had found in their writing notebook, and the same over-flourished handwriting) from a shelf that materialized out of the wall, to Celine’s shock. One CBer from each floor took one. “And the first team to find all of them gets a working replica of one of these objects, to share.” She grinned. “How’s that for a prize?”

“Does that exclude the poison apple and the sword?” asked Cloud Bunny, examining the list. “This is a Ski Lodge, and giving out dangerous, magical items during a Ski Lodge is not a good idea.”

“We all know enough not to eat poisoned apples,” Illusion said, “And nobody can die here anyway, so if you do eat it, you’ll just have a slight malady. Besides,” she added brightly, “We’re all friends here!”

The CBers glanced sideways at Mira and Arum, who were glaring at each other in a completely un-amiable way. 

Celine read the list silently to themself.

“Riptide (Percy Jackson)

Dream visitor (Wings of Fire)

Invisibility cap (Percy Jackson)

Snitch (Harry Potter)

Dragon scale (Random)

Purple potion (Random)

Wand (Harry Potter)

Eye of the Onyx (Wings of Fire)

A scrying device (The Girl Who Drank the Moon)

The first complete sentence on page 13 of any book (Random)

One pair of seven league boots (Random)

Poison apple (Self-explanatory)

Spindle on a spinning wheel (Also self-explanatory)

The White Witch’s wand (The Chronicles of Narnia)

One pair of silver slippers (The Wizard of Oz)

A magic book (Ella Enchanted)

A scarecrow with a turnip head (Howl’s Moving Castle)

“There are signs at every turn that point back to this room and an exclamation point sticker next to all of the objects, so don’t worry about getting lost or finding the wrong items,” Illusion told the teams. She pulled a timer off of the shelf. “We’re starting about…now.”

There was a crash, and suddenly where one of the walls had been was a long tunnel, lit with softly glowing lanterns. Several CBers jumped slightly, then quickly recovered.

Celine made a mental note to ask Illusion how she caused a shelf—and apparently also a giant tunnel—to suddenly appear.

“Wait, there’s a timer?” somebody asked, but everyone had already run down the tunnel and Illusion herself was sweeping up the popcorn on the floor and humming to herself.

***

There were no less than five different passages, each branching off of the main tunnel, and leading, eventually, to darkness. “Exhibits,” said a sign beside the first, very simply. “Worlds,” said the next, with a wood burning carving next to it that depicted a globe. “Antiques,” was written in such a fancy script (not in Illusion’s handwriting, strangely enough) that it was difficult to read it at first. Beside that were two other signs: “Magical Tools” and “Magical Creatures.”

The teams gathered to confer.

WiLdSoNg, on the Spring team, spoke first. “Do you think it would be a good idea to split up and look for the items, since there are so many?”

“There’s only one list,” Hawkstar pointed out. “We would have to keep referencing it.”

“Tear it into four sections then,” Onyx suggested. “Everyone can get four objects to find, and one person can find five objects.”

Silver Crystal, who was holding the paper, folded it, then carefully tore it into four pieces. “Dibs on the first five,” she told the others, seeing that there were two Percy Jackson objects at the top of the list. “We’ll decide what object replica we want later.”

“That’s only if we win,” sighed Hawkstar, picking a scrap of paper randomly.

“We will win,” Silver replied, her eyes gleaming. “I’m determined to.”

When each team member had gotten their list, they went off in separate directions.

“The Spring team seems prepared,” Opal mused. “They just left.”

“I think we’re prepared as well,” Nyxie responded. Since the Autumn team was the only team with five people in it, they had decided to each explore one of the passages. That way, they’d get more coverage of the Vault. She’d chosen the “Magical Creatures” passage. Cloud Bunny had wanted “Magical Tools”, pangolin had decided on “Worlds”, Opal had claimed “Antiques”, and Arum had been stuck with “Exhibits”, which they weren’t very happy about (they weren’t a museum person).

That left the Winter and Summer teams.

“-We should go to ‘Magical Tools’ first,-” Lyra declared. She had lost most of her shyness by this time. “-Basically all of the items we need to find fit that description.-”

“~This is boring,~” Mira complained.

“Shhhhh!” Rora said. She was still irritated about the “popcorn battle” earlier.

“That’s actually a good idea,” Moon Wolf told her AE, ignoring Mira. “Come on.”

The Summer team followed Moon Wolf, Lyra, Rora, and Mira as they left.

“Oh, do you have the same plan as us?” asked Rora, turning around and seeing them.

“Maybe,” Celine said. “What’s your plan?”

Lyra explained how the Winter team wanted to group similar objects together while they were searching, because those objects would likely be in the same place, and Ibis nodded.

“~Yes, that’s what we were thinking~,” she said. “~Do you mind if we join your team, since we both have the same chance at finding the objects?~”

None of them objected to combining forces (Illusion didn’t either, when Moon Wolf ran back to ask her) and so the Summer and Winter teams set off together.

And the timer sitting on the shelf in the dining room read 57:11.

***

I had writer’s block on that second half for ages, and it still feels slightly incomplete…*sighs* Oh well. I tried.