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PART ONE: The Forked Path

"If I see a single ******** portal I'm going home." Rep said with a grin. "I mean it."

At the mention of Jordan his grin softened into a smile. "That just means we like, need to think of some way to surprise him when we get back. Make it up to him. I'm sure if we put our heads together we can think of something~"

He squeezed Harrison's hand playfully and headed into the forest. It was dark, that was almost a given, but it didn't take long till the path branched off in two directions. The glade to their right was almost obscenely pretty and sweet, the darkness giving way to bright light. The cave to the left was dark and smelled musty and dank.

"Risk assessment?" he said. "I'm thinking those flowers look too good to be true."

PART TWO: Brightcove Below

"Aye, I'm always like, for the more obviously sinister of two choices. Like in the movies when they go for the really nice road, and then find out that the shitty road was actually the safest one." Tracey mentally tutted at his careless use of terminology but let it slide for the time being. "Had a bad encounter with flowers today anyway, some crazy bug b***h had a booth with flowers and like went off on one if you touched them. Goldilocks got in trouble."

Decided on their destination, he headed inside, still keeping hold of Harrison's hand. There had been far too many staircases where they'd gotten lost or separated, and his thoughts kept drifting back to the awful forever purgatory of the stairs in the vast tower. He'd thought he would never see Harrison again. Yet here they were. The dragon golem could see in the dark to some extent and was unphased by the claustrophobic stone. The green light in his eyesockets flickered as he watched the not-a-demon beside him. He'd thought he wouldn't get to talk about day to day things again either.

"The cave's a problem to fix man. I don't even think I could swing in there proper. Even if I could, aye, rubble. No shelves. It's shite too, cause its a great wee spot for it."

The further they went the more the walls seemed to glow, colder and colder the further into the earth they went. It was too dark in the middle to see, but it felt like a staircase. There was an odd hiss, like air escaping from a valve.

"You hear that?"

A few steps along the stairway was all it took, light as they both were, the ancient stone couldn't handle it, it gave out, sending them both plummeting into the dark. Rep's pathetic pink buttwings flapped comically to no avail whatsoever. It was unbearably bright down here, impossible to see anything at all.

The sound didn't ease up, simply got closer and closer, a hiss that put him in mind of another dark stony place, a rickety bridge over thousands of -

His grip tensed on Harrison's hand and he moved even closer, the light in his golem's eyes blazingly bright. There was no Tracey to summon, he wasn't even sure if he could have. He was immobilised and torn between two instincts as he simultaneously wrestled with the desire to protect Harrison and the desire to get behind him.

It only became possible to see as the creature stepped into view, its bulk blocking out the light on the walls. It was an enormous pallid looking hydra, every head a twisting hissing serpent their fangs dripping a luminescent venom as it eyed them. Some of the heads drew back into the trademark S shape of a snake giving itself leeway to strike, tongues flicking. There was a scrape of claws on stone as the things bow legged paws - splayed under the weight of the armoured body the heads terminated in - started dragging the beast towards them. Everything about it spoke of momentum, once it got going they were in trouble.

now. RUN.>

Run. Run. RUN. His body screamed at him to do it, but he couldn't. SNAKES. SNAKES. MASSIVE SNAKES. He had no innards but still felt like they had turned to solid ice.

[[ ooc: i am VERY sorry for the delay, i WILL get back to any and everyone shortly, plus hand out all prizes! ;; sorry again! ]]

[ PART THREE: The Bells ]

Was that a garden? It was so bizarre that there was such a pleasant place inside the creepy lightless forest. AJ walked closer to the big tree that caught him immediately. When the wind blew, the bell attached at each end of the vines played a lovely melody. Also, the smell, it was so sweet.

It was lowering defense of creeple. Would it be a fatal sweet dream?

Andrew walked up to X's booth, frowning.

"Mr. X. I delivered your note."

DO THE TRUFFLE SHUFFLE

Mini's SN: phantompanther13
Link to Note post: here
Link to Selene post: here!

Eyeing each booth tentatively, the card was clutched in her hand as she continued trying to find the fox demon. Oh jack, she hoped the card wasn't too much, and-

"Mia, over there."
She turned her head, and caught sight of a familiar-looking robe.

"Ah, Molan!" Hurrying over to the boil, she gave him a stern look. "Where have you been? I've been everywhere looking for you!"

The frown was quickly dropped for a confused look, before she handed the card to him.
"I, um, made a scarentine card for you, for the that time at the maul. Don't look too much into it." A slightly blush might have crept on her face.

... Jackdamnit, she needed to stop doing that.

Sin decided to help X. In fact, he was good at stand against the scary and dark things. He was someone kind of fearless. It was odd that X had wanted to drop the students in the dangerous forest, but anyway, he made up his mind to find notes.

The forest was full of pure dark. The wind blew like calling his name. No, it'd be calling his name. Who was that?

"It's little scary...Hello? Anyone there?"

But there was no response. And made things worst, his voice didn't echo back. Well, I should change my mind. I'd better just coward. It looked so dangerous.

He started to find notes. Then he saw the path, one side was dark the other was bright. Bright? It was super suspected way. He determined to go dark and seemingly deep cave.

As soon as he took a step in a cave, the lights flare around him. He felt warm and relieved. But it disappeared soon. He heard the hissing sound. And the lights became so bright to see anything but dancing spots. He closed his eyes. Hissing grew.