[Mondern Fantasy] Things that Bump in the Dark IC [V. 2]

[CraftWork]

It was a beautiful day, one that poets and singers will write about for eons to come. The soft chirp of bird filled the cool summer air and it so peaceful and quiet you can hear the morning dew slip off of a leaf and land on the moist grass. The smell of summer is in the air on this fine day, the sun shone brightly in the sky, over the tree tops- wait tree tops.

"Where am I?" A groggy voice calls out, a man seeming to look in his mid-twenties calls out as he looks up towards the sky. "What happened!?"

His cry goes unanswered however as grabs at his hair, his mind unable to totally accept the situation had just found himself in. Taking a glance around he sees that he is in the middle of a forest clearing. His dress shirt clung to him, wet form the morning dew, a shiver ran down his spine either from the cold or the situation he wasn't quite sure.

Taking a unstable step up, the man winced as he looked upwards only for the sun to attack his eyes. As he raises his hand to protect his sensitive eyes he freezes, on the back of his hand was tattooed was the number "3". What was the oddest part about the tattoo however, aside from the fact that the man had no recollection of getting it at all, was that every once in while it would pulse a bright blue.

The man started at, frozen in shock, and the number began to pulse quicker and quicker. As the pulsing increased the man's panic rose and he began to desperately claw at the tattoo.

"What is this!? WHAT"S GOING ON!?" Screaming at nothing the man began to draw blood from his hand as his scathing grew stronger and stronger. A twig snapped and the man froze. A minute passed before the man let out a deep breath. The tattoo on his hand had returned to a slow pulse. Wiping his forehead with the back of his hand the man smacked himself when he realized he had just rubbed blood all over his forehead.

The man shook his head before smiling wryly, "What am I-" He was cut off however, when he heard a small "TWANG" and suddenly the man looked down towards his chest to see an arrowhead sticking out his chest. "That's not right."

"Ten points!"

"Screw you! That was right through the heart!"

"Then why is he still alive?"

The man turned around to see two small children, one with a bow in hand while the other was writing in a large leather bound book with a feather. The man opened his mouth to speak, but instead of words, blood came pouring out his mouth and onto the floor.

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Banner done by the lovely RocketFox..
OOC Link

Chapter 1: Rude Awakening

I would love to know what's is going on here.

It was a beautiful sunny summer day, one that poets and singers will- are you getting a deju-vu feeling too? Anyways, there were birds and dewdrops and all that jazz, of course none of this really mattered to you when you woke up because well you have no clue where the heck you are. In fact you don't even really remember much of last night either now that you think about it. It's all one giant haze, where bits and pieces and disconnected but you do have one clear memory.

A voice. A voice that told you something. Now this something you've been told you're not quite sure if you want to share, but you do know that it's important. Anyways what's more important is the fact that you've just woken up face on the ground with nine or so other people around you all equally confused.

Well then let's see what you do.

[Imperfectionist]

Griffin’s mind.
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...

...

Ahh!! Where am I!?

Hrm... Where are you? Is it safe? Wait, wait, senses. Cycle through, there’s a pal…

1. Tongue... Bile, dirt. Spit it out. Nasty.

2. Ears… Quiet, but not silent… Birds. Definitely outside. Groans… People, and they’re very close. Safe? Don’t know.

3. Eyes… Wow, okay, it’s bright. Sunlight, not artificial. Shapes around me, dark shapes, those must be the people. Got to be a dozen of them. Safe? Doubt it.

Wait a second, what am I laying on? Phew, just grass. Come on, Griffin, move a hand, wiggle your toes, shake your head. Hmm, alright, no major injuries. At least there’s that. Stand up now, really look around, brush yourself off. No one’s attacking you, you’re safe for the moment… Maybe until they all get up. Who are they?

Facts, but still no knowledge... Where the hell am I? …God, the voice. I remember the voice. Ugh, it was so piercing. I didn’t hear it so much as… feel it. Burned into my head, “Number Seven will end Number Ten.” Mysteries. Fucking mysteries. Okay, okay, take it easy, take a breath. Think about it. What were you doing?

...

Hunting. -sigh- That’s all I’ve been doing for weeks. A weird string of murders, but before we could investigate I got separated from Jonathan… I heard the voice, then I woke up.

...

Wait, that can’t be right... Must be something wrong with my head. Shit, shit, they’re getting up. Remember, man, you’re still hunting. This is like any other hunt. Investigate.
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Griffin shook his head one last time, and checked his body for scratches or changes. Noticing a faint glow through his shirt, he quickly unbuttoned the bottom of it and looked down at his stomach. Instinctually turning away from the group, he puzzled at the orange numeral “5” very clearly placed there. It was pulsing with his heartbeat, meaning at the moment it was basically flashing. He breathed deeply, calmed himself as best he could, and the number slowed. “Very strange,” he muttered to himself. Taking a better look at the others around him, he could see their numbers as well… All in different places, as far as he could tell, some covered up, some not.

Suddenly realizing that one of them might be injured, he spoke out, forcing himself to smile as he did so. “Hello, everyone,” he said. “I doubt any of us know where we are, but it’ll be best if we all stay calm, and if you’re injured, please tell the rest of us, and we’ll see what we can do to help…” He paused for a moment, then cleared his throat and corrected himself, his smile a little weaker: “Um, I will, anyway.”

[Malicon]

Alex rolled onto her side, cuddling in closely with her… that wasn't her pillow. It was a lot harder and a lot colder. Slowly she opened her eyes and found herself holding a… a rock? Alex sat up quickly and instantly regretted it as her head began to pound. Another headache, just what she needed. For some reason, the word headache seemed to continue ringing through her head. It rang and rang until it morphed into a different word. Eight. Eight? Her eyes went wide as she remembered the voice that had whispered to her. Number Eight if left will die. Eight… what did that mean? And how could a number die? Deciding to take initiative, Alex looked to the right, then dragged her head over to the left. People… she was surrounded by people she didn't know. And she wasn't in bed! Alex scrambled back and, as she moved, a red light moved with her. She looked down at her right arm there was a sort of odd light coming from under her shirt. She lifted her sleeve to reveal a large six branded on her upper arm, pulsing dark red. The light began to pulse, not necessarily faster, but unnaturally as Alex began to feel sick. She needed to calm down. She took long deep breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth, and she slowly began to calm. The dark red pulse on her arm slowed toll it was a bit slower than the heartbeat of the average human… her heartbeat. Alex got into a position where she could see and observe everyone else, then curled her legs into her chest, hugging her knees.

She heard one of the men speak, something about injuries, she really didn't care. But he sounded natural, so she decided to go with it. "Where… where are we? Who are you?"

Damn you, Alex, she thought to herself. You're never this jittery. They're just people. She cleared her throat and raised her voice. "Uh… hi. Where are we?"

[Imperfectionist]

An answer came almost immediately, off to Griffin's right. It was a surprisingly beautiful girl, a red head, clutching her knees on the ground. He had to think about the best way to answer. Putting up one finger, telling her to give him a moment, he started really analyzing where they all were.

"Well, the best I can tell, we seem to be in a forest, temperate, deciduous. We have no knowledge of how we got here. Very likely, something put us here, just like it gave us these numbers," he said. Looking down at the girl, and extending his hand to help her up, he continued:

"My name is Griffin O'Hara, and, well, I'm a hunter. I'm relatively new to the job, but we track down, try to learn about and kill all manner of nasty beasts and beings. There are legions of things out there that feed on humans, kill us, play with us, etc. Sometimes they aren't even alive anymore. Ghosts, poltergeists, I think you get the picture. This, though, is nothing like what I've seen or heard about... Based on these weird numbers we all seem to have, and the fact that most of us can't remember where we were when we were taken, or by whom, I'm thinking it was something magical... A coven of witches, maybe? There would have to be a lot of them, and these numbers are like no spell I've ever heard of, but it's possible... What was the motive, though?"

He furrowed his brow for a few minutes, thinking hard about every scrap of magical lore he had read, magical markings, forest dwelling creatures... "That's it!"

Suddenly, he had it, and he slapped his hand to his forehead in disbelief. "Fuck, why didn't I think about it before? Faeries! The fucking Fae! Whatever you want to call them. They're known for abductions, right? And they are certainly forest dwelling, AND magical. Haha! It checks out! A genius am I, don't you think?" Speaking again to the red-head, now smiling, he said "Well, now I know where we are, and probably what we're up against, and you know who I am, so it's your turn. Who are you?"

[Molach]

The air felt damp, and the sun shine warmed Mathew's face.
Something was off about his wake up routine, but at this time, he was still to close to sleep to realize that anything was amiss.
Thinking he was at his house and lying in his bed. He reached for his nightstand to find his glasses without opening his eyes.
He always left them in the same spot, and usually he had no problem finding them, even while still halve asleep, but something felt different today, but what?
His glasses weren't there for one, instead his hands where rubbing over something moist that felt like cold, thick hair. It almost reminded him of grass.
letting his arm reach out further thinking that maybe he just misplaced them his hands found a different substance.
After letting his hands rub over it for a second or two, he discovered it was something much larger than the pair of glasses he had been searching for.

By now Matt was far enough awake to start becoming confused so he opened his eyes.
Maybe it was the shock of this unexpected sight, but instantly his eyes adjusted to the light.
As Mathew had examined what he was rubbing earlier he let out a not so masculine scream.

"AAAAAAAH!"

There was a guy right next to him (a guy he would later know as James.) which means, what he was just rubbing... was someones leg?

A little bit panicked, Mathew got up and stumbled backwards in an attempt to get away from this other person as quickly as he could.... But he failed miserably.
He had not checked where he was going, and before he realized it he had stumbled over a tree root and fell back to the ground.
Somehow this calmed him down a little bit though. Atleased clamed him down far enough to start forming rational thoughts once more.

Slowly he got himself off the ground and looked around, he wasn't alone. that must had already become obvious,
but only now did he see that there where more people here than just him and the poor guy he unintentionally groped.
Mathew's face turned red out of shame. He was embarrassed about his load and ungraceful reaction just now in front of all these people.
He smiled awkwardly at any and all the possible stares that his commotion had caused and introduced himself as if it was all part of a comedy act.

"hi, my name is Mathew, but you can call me Matt."

[Malicon]

Alex allowed the guy to help her up and wrapped her arms around herself. She had no idea who these people were and she wasn't about to give them her name. For all she knew, they could have kidnapped her themselves. And then the guy in front of her, Griffin, mentioned the Fae. Alex immediately stiffened and looked around, searching for any of the tell-tale signs she had read about. "Fae?"

Her face turned a little paler than normal. "Oh no. Fae are bad. I mean really bad." She began pacing, tapping her head and trying to concentrate on what she knew about Fae. Maybe she knew what kind this was. And then her mind connected the most obvious piece of all. "Wait! Maybe my sister is here! The Fae took her a long time ago, maybe we can find her."

She looked up at Griffin hopefully and then realized how rude she was being. "Oh, I'm sorry, my name is Alex."
Right about then Matthew shrieked and Alex jumped, body tensing in preparation. But it was just one of the other guys. When he introduced himself, she gave a tentative little wave. "Alex…"

[Heyitsjiwon]

"Three shall lead you to glory."

James' eyes then opened quickly as he heard someone yell. He was able to tell that it wasn't early morning meaning...well fuck. He overslept and was late or going to be late for work. He quickly got up and he became even more confused. He wasn't in his apartment. In fact, he had no clue where he was. It was some forest or something, but he sure as hell was not close to his apartment. Then he also realized that he was wearing his suit and didn't change from last night. The first thing that came to his mind was "Did I get mugged or something? Why can't I remember anything?" He then looked at his watch and it read 8:37. He knew that there were other people around him based on what he saw in his peripherals, but he needed to figure out what was happening right now. He reached into his pockets and found nothing. He muttered "Damn it. Someone took my phone and wallet." James then stood up and started to wipe off the leaves and dirt off his suit and make himself a bit more presentable. He began to walk to a small group of people who were talking to each other and said "Hello ladies and gentlemen. Would anyone mind telling me where I am and maybe even tell me what happened? I don't remember exactly what happened last night."

However, as he said that he noticed that a few people had some pulsating number on their hands. He took a quick look at his and saw nothing. It was then he remembered the voice. James thought "Three, huh? The one number that has like fifty million different meanings and special things about it in religion, math, and cultures", but to his disappointment none of the people he saw had a three. It was then that James thought "Maybe who ever has the number three knows what the hell is going on."

[CraftWork]

The group member began to slowly wake from their unconscious states. Both introductions and a natural pecking order were being made, by the small group with a few members of the ten quickly began to exert dominance.

A man wearing a bright purple suit let out a loud sigh as he rubbed his head and pulled on the collar of his equally purple dress shirt. "Yes, yes. Let's all introduce ourselves and get chummy why don't we." The man drawled as he brushed grass off his purple dress pants, a cane held loosely in his right hand. The number ten was clearly branded on the back of his hand.

"Well I think what they're doing is fine!" An angry voice from behind the man caused him to turn around. A large woman wearing sweatpants and a sweater glared at the man as she clicked her tongue. She turned to face the rest of the group before giving a large smile with lots of teeth. "I'm Clara. Nice to meet you all!"

"I don't give a shit for who you are." The man raised his cane, the number on his hand glowed a bright pink. "I want to know what the hell is going on!?"

"So do all of them!" She gestured towards the rest of the group. "Now I don't like your attitude very much mister!"

"Woah there! We should stay calm." Another voice called out, a boy by the looks of it, around the age of sixteen or seventeen. He was still on the ground, and he looked up towards the arguing adults with a look a severity. The number seven was clearly viable as it was positioned on his forehead and was pulsing a rapid white. In his hand was a small joint and he brought it up to his mouth, in his other hand he brought up a lighter to light the joint.

"We should all just stay calm." Before the boy could light the joint however the Clara marched over and snatched it out of his mouth. "Hey, what's the big deal?"

The boy lazily asked the woman who's only reply was to glare back at him, "You will not be smoking these as long as we're working together! We are not in Washington!" Stuffing the joint into one of her pockets the woman huffed before turning back around to face the rest of the group. The boy shrugged before lying back down on the ground.

"I agree with the boy!" A higher voice squeaked out, and attention was quickly diverted to petite girl leaning on a tree. She blushed when every one looked at her and burrowed into the neck of her large turtle neck sweater. "I mean we shouldn't fight..."

"I agree as well!" Another girl looking to be the either the same age or older than the smaller girl nodded her head. "We have to work together, if what Alex and Griffin are saying is true. I mean Fae are no joke. Who knows why they've taken us." She smiled at the smaller girl before showing the palm of her hand.

"I'm number nine by the way. You can call me Kat though." She gave a small bow when she introduced herself.

The man in the purple suit sighed once more before shaking his head, "Whatever."

[Malicon]

Alex looked around in confusion. However, she realized that these people might not know as much about Fae as she did. Well… the girl seemed to know…*and Griffin seemed to know, but she wanted to be clear, just to make sure. She raised her voice, growing more confident. "Okay, well listen, guys, if this is the work of Fae then wen need to get a few things straight. First off, we have to stay together. No matter what happens, we should always stay in at least groups of three. Secondly, if you encounter any Fae, you need to take everything that they say literally. For instance, if a Fae asks you 'can I have your name?' say no. If you tell them what your name is in response to that question, you will actually be giving them your name. Third, no matter how hungry or thirsty you get, don't eat or drink anything the Fae give you." She hesitated, looking around quickly. "Mind you, this is all for safety reasons. I don't know what types of Fae are around or if there are any around, but these are just basic rules." She glanced at the boy on the ground. "We have to treat all our actions, including smoking, with caution. If we offend any of the Fae, we can probably forget about ever going home."

Alex stopped talking and looked over everyone in the group. No…*Allie wasn't among them. Of course not. "And if anyone sees a girl who looks just like me, only a little younger and with paler hair, let me know right away. Okay, lastly…*Fae like to play games. Deadly games. These numbers probably relate to a game that they are playing right now. So… everyone take the time to figure out what your number is and let everyone else know," she glanced up at Griffin for reassurance, hoping she was helping and not hindering.

[Imperfectionist]

Griffin, for his part, grinned again. Someone might think he was enjoying this terrible situation just a bit too much, but the truth was, he was already resigned to any fate he had to accept. His mission was to save as many of these people as he could, with or without a guarantee of his own safety. Thankfully, he already had assistance on that end, in the form of Alex. She had given them all very important and useful advice, and he had very little to add.

"Now, you don't know me," he said, "or Alex here, and in truth we don't know each other, but it seems that the two of us and Kat over there truly know the gravity of our situation. In short, it's bad. The Fae are manipulative, magical tricksters, and they have no respect for life beyond their forests. If we haven't been killed already, it's because, as Alex said, we're probably part of a game. It may turn out that the only way to escape will be to play along with the game, but I doubt it. Odds are, whoever survives ours will just be put into a different one. No, we need to play along just enough that we can keep gaining information, and when we see a chance to escape, we take it. In the end, I say the best way to handle these bastards is to take them out before they do the same to us. That means we have to be smart, and we have to stay calm... Oh, and remember what Alex said about their literal speech. They will definitely attempt to trick you in any way they can. When talking to a Faerie, stay silent until you have thought about exactly what it said."

During this speech, Griffin made sure everyone had woken up, everyone had heard the warnings about the strange and unusual logic of the creatures, and set himself to taskmaking. In truth, he wasn't feeling very confident about their chances, and definitely didn't want to die out in the woods at the hands of some fucking elf, but he sent those thoughts to the back of his mind, focusing on the task at hand.

The numbers were still perplexing. It seemed that most of the group had one, but other than identification, they served little purpose...

Wait a second, what about the voice? Maybe the others heard a message as well... As everyone in the group became more acquainted, and started to really make sense of what was going on, Griffin looked between them, deep in thought, especially about Number 7 and Number 10, the kid and the purple man. He debated with himself whether to tell the rest about his message, and decided eventually that it might not be a good idea just yet. Instead, he reasoned that he might not have been the only one to hear a message like that, so he called out again over the crowd: "Hey! Did anyone else hear a voice telling you about certain numbers before you woke up? They're probably important to the game, so if you did, please come over and tell me. I'm trying to compile everything we know while there aren't any Fae around."