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Rose was glad that she knew who her mom was and that she was a good person. Rose didn't have to worry about being kidnapped by her parents at least. She smiled over at Red. Then watched as Merlin did the tracking spell. She didn't know much about magic other than the stuff she had read in books and what Merlin said sounded like a bunch of gibberish words. She supposed that was reasonable.

However, Merlin had found where Jack was. They'd have to walk a day to get there, but that wasn't bad. Walking was fine by her, she could hike all day without issue. She figured she might see how much her mom knew about the local flora and fauna and ask questions as they walked. Maybe find out who her dad was too. She supposed there was a possibility that her dad was evil, but she didn't know if Red was the type to date the bad boys. She smiled a bit at the idea of it. And adjusted her bag. "I'm ready. Though, water is a good point. We need supplies for a walk that long."

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Colby pulled out his own deck of cards and handed it to Maddie. "Good idea. Though I'd rather we not get separated." He said honestly. And put Maddies' deck of cards into his bag. "Maybe the spell is already in that book you found." Colby suggested. His face still felt a bit warm from where Maddie's lips had kissed his cheek and he liked the sensation a lot.

For everything that was stupid and annoying about dealing with this stuff at least, he got to do it with Maddie. "It probably helps that we are from the same story, we probably won't get split up." He said, mostly thinking out loud. He sighed and stood up when Merlin said he had Jack's location. He had hoped he'd be able to rest a while longer.

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Megan's eyes darted over to Rose, as Rose attempted to reassure her. She didn't know Rose at all, so it really didn't comfort her that much - but even then, it was a little bit helpful to know that at least one other person wasn't ambivalent about Jack's fate. She gave Rose a slight nod as a response. She was more focused on what Merlin was doing. It wasn't hard to figure out, just based on the maps, Jack's item, and some magic words - it seemed like the magical version of the Find My Friends app. She took in a deep breath as Merlin announced it was a few day's walk from here, before remembering the world they were in. "If Rumplestiltskin can teleport Jack there, then we should be able to do the same, yes? Your magic can do it, right?"

She had no idea how magic worked, but she was willing to bet Merlin was capable of it. He had transported them between realms after all. And if one person had already managed the feat, couldn't another? Besides, she knew that Merlin was supposedly a powerful sorcerer, she was vaguely aware of King Arthur and Merlin and whatnot from the stories. "I'm going. Obviously." She wasn't going to wait here while her brother was in danger.

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Now Jack was a bit at a loss of words on what to do. He started walking down the hallway a little ways, still completely confused as to what to do, when he glanced over and saw a servant or someone waving him over from the staircase. Glancing back towards where he came from for a brief moment, he followed after her before he entered the kitchen area. Well, at least he now knew where to get food from if he wanted some for whatever reason, even though he still technically wasn't very hungry. "Uh, hi there," he said to her with a slight wave.

"Hi there I noticed you were looking for a way to get into the room there is a way for you to kind of eavesdrop on whats going on in there." The servant said.

"That would be helpful... How?"

"There is a dumbwaiter in the closet just behind me." She said as she made her way over towards a nearby supply closet to reveal the dumbwaiter inside.

"So what... I just go in or something like that?"

"Yep, just go in and then press one of the buttons and it'll take you to the floor you want to go to."

"Alright... Thank you," he said to her with a nod, before he entered the room and pushed the button for the second floor. After all, they were currently on the first floor, it made sense for that to technically be the second then. He really hoped that this might work and that he didn't end up getting caught. Cause that would likely not end well if he did get caught. But his dad did technically say that he could do whatever as long as he didn't leave, his argument if he got caught would be he was investigating the dumbwaiter out of boredom.

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She was just sort of tuning out most of what was being said around her, aside of course to the puppy that was starting to nibble at her hands. Rosalia giggled slightly before she reached down and was petting the little dog happily. Her attention was drawn away from the dog for a brief moment by Taylor's question. "Me? I'm fine, just a little bored at this point," she said with a bit of a shrug ass everyone else started blabbing away and talking like crazy.

The one main thing she could discern was that Merlin had located the missing detective (a bit of a weird thing considering she's pretty sure detectives aside from arresting people are meant to help find people) and now everyone was going on about what they'd need to do for the trek that would take about a day or so to get there. Then, there was the voice of reason, the smart person (Meg) who decided to just ask about whether or not they could just teleport there. "Yeah, why can't we just teleport there? Or at the very least get over there closer then here, even taking half a day off of that journey would be better then walking all the way there."

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"He looked kinda weird and creepy honestly." Sierra said to Willow giving a slight shrug as she listened to everyone else as they talked and Merlin managed to locate where Jack was which was a good thing then. Megan had a point why they couldnt simply just teleport over there or something when Merlin answered. "I can get us as closely as I can any closer and someone would detect us easily." Merlin said as he stood up and handed the key back to Megan.

"Those who want to come, let me know now." Merlin said as he started to wave his hands slightly as a small portal appeared revealing more wooded area. And started to step through, Sierra didnt like the idea of having to stay behind and decided to jump through the portal as well to. Sierra stumbled through the other side of the portal and looked at the others on the other side it looked like they were safe for now which was a good thing then.

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Layla smiled and took a sip from the water her sister had given her. "Thank you." Layla said as she watched Merlin using his magic and opened a portal. "I'm going." She said as she got up from where she was sitting and made her way through the portal shortly after Sierra did. "Red, Gretel and I will hold the fort down here then, no sense in leaving the place unguarded." Hansel said to Merlin as he gave them a nod. "Go ahead i'll be alright." Red said to her daughter and smiled towards her giving her a quick hug, before stepping back slightly.

"Yeah this is kinda getting a bit boring." Taylor said she kind of got bored rather quickly and doing nothing wasnt to much fun either, and she usually ended up just stirring trouble a lot of the time. Taylor stood up and stretched slightly she wasnt sure if Rosalia was going to leave the pupper behind or bring her with them. She made her way through the portal now as well to, with some of the others the area didnt seem to be dangerous or any guards really either for that matter.

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Rumple's Hideout:

The dumbwaiter was a little bit cramped for Jack, as the little elevator of sorts started to ascend, on the other end he would be able to hear Rumple talking to Maleficent. "So when can we expect you to get back then?" Rumple asked her as her voice could be heard as well to. "I'll be back from Earth by tomorrow morning. Any news to report on the other children?" Maleficent asked, Rumple was silent for a moment before answering. "They were in Camelot and managed to escape, we will have them by the time you get back." Rumple said, leaving out the fact that Jack was already in his custody. "Make sure that they don't escape again." Maleficent said before there was silence now.

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Cassiopeia wasn’t sure if she was disappointed at not being able to go on a forest day journey or if she was relieved that Merlin was able to open another portal and get them to their destination faster. She imagined they would still be several miles from Merlin's location to avoid detection but hey, the closer the better.
”Well, that was easy. You get it, like the Staples button,” Cassi said and nudged her sister. Cassi pulled an arrow out of her quiver and notched it before walking through the portal. She walked ahead, looking around for signs of life beyond those walking through the portal. Cassiopeia spotted tracks and knelt to inspect them further. She had learned tracking with her foster parents when they would go hunting. It had become an invaluable tool when she became a guide for hunts back home and it was still paying off here.
”This area is well traveled. You can see the footprints and there’s a fresh set of horse tracks as well. If we stay on this path we may be seen but it could be faster,” Cassi noted, looking back at Merlin and Megan. Merlin was the veteran of this land but it was Megan’s brother missing.

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Sierra’s description on Rumpel wasn’t all that surprising. There were many different illustrations of the man and Willow always found him a little disturbing looking. She looked over when Merlin started to open a portal. Willow sighed with relief and stood, thankful that they wouldn’t have to do a day’s worth of walking. Maybe only an hour, that would be wonderful. Willow followed the others through the portal into another forest.
Willow couldn’t tell any differences between this forest and Merlin’s forest but it had to be different if Rumpel’s hideout was a day’s walk away. Willow stuck near to Sierra as she waited for further instruction. One of the twin’s seemed to find tracks that denoted the area being busy and Willow looked around, hoping someone wasn’t about to happen upon them and freak out at the large number of people.

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Maddie gladly grabbed Colby's cards, that way they each had some way to find the other if they ever got lost. He looked towards his bag when Colby mentioned the book he'd grabbed from Merlin's tower. He hadn't really been expecting to learn magic while in this world, though the idea of it did seem rather nice. He began to wonder about whether or not there was certain types of magic within each story, or was it all the same? Did those in Wonderlnad have more fantastical magic? More chaotic magic? Or perhaps there was none at all? Though given the nature of the place it seemed fully likely there was bound to be some magic hidden in Wonderland.

"Right. Same story. Hopefully that does mean that we won't get split up. After all, we found each other even before we knew all this, and what are the odds of that?" Maddie said, almost as if to reassure himself moreso than Colby. He wanted to say something corny about how maybe in this realm true love would always find a way. How if they just trusted their hearts and love, that maybe it would lead one back to the other. But that was all fairytales, and not even the ones that they were from. So he couldn't hold out hope for that, he needed to find concrete ways to help them both. "Do you want to stay or go? I'll follow you wherever you want I don't mind. But perhaps we should leave the cat's here if we go, don't want Rumple getting his hands on them." Maddie asked Colby as he looked back towards the portal.

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Right magic. That was a thing here. Rose would have to remind herself that it was real. They had teleported around and had seen enough of it for that to make sense. She smiled and nodded. "I'll go." She said. Rose hugged her mom goodbye real quick.

Her movements copied Cass's as she drew her own arrow and notched it before entering the porta. She had no desire to be caught unaware and unarmed. Thankfully, the woods on the other side were empty, for now. She tilted her head listening and looking for possible riders coming from either direction. "We'll I feel like we can assume Rumpel probably teleported them directly into his home rather than to a waypoint and then rode in." She imagined Jack wouldn't have gone quietly if a ride had been part of the trip.

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Colby watched Taylor jump through the portal and decided at that moment he would stay behind at the tower with Red, Hansel, and Gretel. "Let's stay. I think all the really annoying people are leaving." He whispered to Maddie. In a louder voice so Merlin could hear he said, "We'll stay too." Maybe they could learn something while the rest of the group was off doing the second rescue mission in the day.

It really had only been two days since they had come to Camelot. He shook his head a bit surprised at the thought. Maybe it was the cat in him but he was perfectly happy to continue to lounge in the shade by the tower. If Taylor and Rosalia decided that boredom was what drove them off into the arms of danger then good for them. Those two didn't make sense to him. They weren't willing to risk anything when it mattered but they'd do dume stuff cause they were bored. Alright, sure.

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Megan nodded, although she was a little bit suspicious of Merlin's competency at this point. She didn't trust anyone really when it came to saving her brother. They all had their own priorities and agendas, and from what she could tell, a few of them were clearly emotionally still in high school, if not middle school. Megan didn't hesitate to step through the portal that Merlin had created, emerging into a wooded area. She hoped that they weren't that far off from where they needed to be - she didn't fancy the idea at all of delaying Jack's rescue even more, it already felt like it had been hours.

She bit her lip slightly, hearing what one of the other girls said - Samantha? Megan couldn't really remember everyone's names. She wanted to get to Jack as quickly as they could, but the element of surprise couldn't just be discredited entirely. "...I think the odds are low that Jack's father would travel these roads, given that he uses magic, so I think we'd be okay to press on." The girl with the vibrant red hair clearly agreed with her - what was her name, Ruby? Rebecca?

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Yay for being cramped in a dumbwaiter, but he didn't really have any better options aside from wandering around and doing absolutely nothing potentially productive. What was he supposed to do, just sit around and do nothing all day? Nope, he was going to at least try to investigate a few things while he was stuck here, aside from sit in one room and twiddle his thumbs. Going up in the dumbwaiter, he remained silent as he listened in on the conversation that was occurring in the room that had been blocked off from him.

The conversation was definitely concerning to hear, though there was the one obvious thing that he noticed his father left out of reporting to Maleficent was that he was already there, but that thought left his mind as he realized all hell was going to break loose as Maleficent was coming back by tomorrow morning. Oh that was just fantastic, a great sort of thought. He made the dumbwaiter go back downstairs to the kitchen and stepped back out of it into the kitchen area. "Well that's a bit concerning..." he muttered under his breath.

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"Oh yeah, everything around here is boring, plus there is the idiot who should stay behind because based on past actions would probably get us all caught and killed," she said to Taylor in response with a bit of a giggle, clearly referring to Colby and the skeletons incident from a while ago. Yeah, she was perfectly fine with leaving the walking disaster behind, though now she was wondering about whether or not she should take Lucky with her, or leave him here for the time being since she was guessing that they were going to come back.

Thinking about it, she decided to keep the puppy with her. She wasn't going to leave the dog behind here with the others if Colby and Matt were staying behind. Rosalia didn't trust them at all, and knew that they didn't see any sort of wrong that the other did, which was annoying. She was happy they weren't going, and she followed after the others through the portal into the wooded area, and now the others were talking about the best way forward, with someone (she didn't pay attention to many people's names) said that the area seemed well traveled or something like that (she was half listening), and the others were just wanting to get moving. She just waited for the others to get moving so that she could follow after them.

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"They might be Rumple's men patrolling the area, so just be really careful. I do agree he would have teleported to his hideout rather than taking him by foot." Merlin said towards Cassi and Megan as he started to walk along the trail seeing the tracks and followed them rather closely. Sierra gave a slight nod as she continued to follow shortly behind Merlin while ocasionally looking over at Willow and gave her a friendly smile as she put her hands into the pockets in the pants that she had. Just as she started to feel some raindrops hitting her on the head and looked up.

Then there was a loud clash of thunder, as Sierra shuddered a bit she didnt really like the idea of getting wet at all really as she continued to follow Merlin. There was what looked to be a nearby cave, she had a feeling that Megan wanted to get there as soon as possible and continued to move forward.

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Layla looked at Cassi and shook her head slightly and smirked just as she started to feel some rain coming down and then not to long after that there was a flash of lightening and then some thunder just as the rain started to pour down harder. She didnt really mind the rain at all. Though sometimes it did end up destroying any kind of trail that someone or something had made making it harder for people to see, she noticed the cave to.

She wasnt sure if it was Rumple's doing trying to slow them down, or if it was something natural. "We should just keep going, but thats just me, the sooner we find Jack the quicker we can get back." Layla suggested looking at Megan for a moment it was he call after all since it was her brother who had gotten himself kidnapped after all.

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Rumple's Hideout:

"What did you find out?" The servant asked seeing Jack coming out of the dumbwaiter as she continued to do a little bit of cooking while looking over at Jack. It looked like she was making some kind of large dinner of sorts, just as Rumple came down the stairs and entered the kitchen and smiled at Jack. The servant quickly looking down and going quiet as she continued to make whatever food that she was tasked with creating. "Is she causing you any trouble Jack?" Rumple asked giving his son a mischievous look and smirked at the servant once more as if hoping that she was doing something she wasnt suppose to do.

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Merlin's Tower:

"I heard that!" Taylor said yelling out to Matthew as she found a rock and then threw it back through the portal just as it closed managing to hit Colby in the head, though it wasnt hard enough to bleed or cause a bruise or anything really. Rose laughed slightly and shook her head slightly as she stood up. "Well i'm going to go outside and keep watch for anything." Red said as she went and headed out of the tower closing the door behind her, just leaving Hansel and Gretel there with both Matt and Colby. Hansel had decided to try and search through somethings, most likely beer or something alcoholic.

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Matthew placed one hand on his knee, attempting to stand up when suddenly a Grey blur whizzed past him and bit Colby in the head. He immediately turned towards where the rock was thrown, only to see the portal closing behind Taylor and leaving the rest behind. He'd finished getting up, stomping a foot on the ground in annoyance before turning to look at Colby. "You're right, all the annoying people did leave." He said, annoyance lacing his words as the latter half of his sentence was said loud enough that he hoped Taylor and the rest who left could somehow hear him. His frustration shifting into concern and he looked towards the rock and then Colbys forehead. Kneeling down to inspect the wound, Maddie moved a stray hair behind Colbys ear, concern in his eyes.

"Are you OK? Luckily You're not bleeding." Matthew's voice was soft, caring, and tender as he looked over Colby. He offered him a smile. "I don't understand these people. I thought having a common thread would help to bring us together but...I'm starting to think the stories are too different, too separate for there to be any real cohesion. None of them seem able to see further than their own nose, and others feel like they've got no real sense for...well...anything really." He stayed kneeling, shifting his weight a little in order to adjust himself to a more comfortable sitting position.

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Cassiopeia was glad she put her hood up as it started to rain. It was a little disappointing since they would likely lose the tracks she had just found of them but all seemed quiet around them so far. Cassiopeia smiled at her sister, nudging her affectionately before looking at Megan.
”Ready when you are.” Cassiopeia usually was the one leading the people but she wasn’t so confident as to not be able to follow someone else’s lead and watch their backs. Merlin seemed confident in them following the path so what other choice did they really have.

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Willow wasn’t sure if she was relieved or sad to see some people staying behind, like Matthew and Colby. It was true that they had caused them some problems so far but it was to be expected really. She didn’t think the group would be free of problems as they traveled into unknown woods and who would be blamed for the mistakes made then?
It started to rain then and Willow blinked her eyes as she looked up at the sky. Hopefully it didn’t rain too hard but a nice light rain was nice to walk in. It would freshen everything up and give that feeling of being clean. Willow glanced at Sierra only to find her looking and Willow blushed. She didn’t understand why she was blushing and the embarrassment of blushing for no reason only made her face turn more red.

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The smell of rain on the air caught Rose's attention first. Then the first few drops started to fall, and lighting cracked. She smiled. Their approach would be harder to notice. The storm would cover their smells and sounds. It was an inconvenience from the getting wet standpoint, but that was mild compared to how useful it would be for them.

"This will actually be helpful. It should cover our approach." They'd have to rely on Merlin to tell them about what to expect, but honestly, they were going to have to anyway. She didn't like having to rely on him so much, but it seemed like the resistance already had before they had come back.

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"Ow!" Colby exclaimed and put his hand over where the rock had hit him. That was it. He was done with the pair of them. He had been playing before. Being silly more than really caring about them. Now he wanted revenge. One thing that differed with him between cats was he could hold a grudge for longer than sixteen hours. "I'll be fine. Physically. But that was the worst." He hadn't really been fighting with Taylor but it had been clear she was going to side with Rosalia so he wasn't surprised.

"We have to get back at them." He was frowning and thinking. He wasn't actually a malicious person. He liked pranks and being silly but he wasn't the type to throw rocks at someone. His playful smile was gone now. He was making plans. His mind went over everything he knew about the two of them. Taylor was fairly unknown. Annoying but more of an attachment to Rosalia. Something caught his attention of what had been happening.

Her reaction to the suggestion of fire. She hadn't been trying to protect anything she had just been freaked out by the idea of it. He paused. She made more sense to him suddenly. "Hey, remember when we were talking about the fire? Do you think you could create a really good illusion of fire?" He didn't want to actually put anyone in danger, but he wanted to make her suffer.

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Megan frowned - of course Rumplestiltskin had men patrolling the area. Every villain with wealth had to have their own private army of mercenaries. It couldn't just be as simple as fighting a man with untold magical powers, they had to deal with the grunts as well. Nothing could ever be simple or straightforward, especially in this land of fairytale characters. It did make her wonder how Maleficent and the others had risen to power in the first place - so many of the Disney movies involved the protagonists with magical powers, how had they been defeated? The thunderclap broke up her thoughts for a moment.

At least the storm would make it easier for them to cover up any noise - but it also presented its own challenges she was sure. Once again, it seemed that she was of the same mind with the ginger haired girl. As much as she was focused on getting to her brother, she felt like she owed the only other competent person there the decency of learning their name. "What's your name, again?" Megan asked, looking directly at the ginger. She was pressing onwards as always, just itching to get her brother away from his kidnapper and off to safety.

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Jack looked at the servant when she asked what did he overhear, and his brain was partially trying to still wrap his head around what he had heard. Maleficent was going to be back in Camelot or whatever by tomorrow, and his father was saying that he was going to catch the others from the group and be ready to just hand them over to Maleficent. That was concerning, and he was trying to figure out what he could possibly do about his current situation. It was obvious that he couldn't just run and get the hell out of the building, at least not easily, but he was having a hard time thinking about a way to escape.

He was about to answer her, when his father decided to head downstairs and into the kitchen where they were, so obviously he wasn't going to just admit to eavesdropping or something on the conversation upstairs. "Uh no, just having a conversation, kind of got bored so thought I'd find at least someone to talk to while here," he said with a bit of a shrug. That wasn't really lying, they had been just having a bit of a conversation, and he had been getting a little bored with regards to things, and talking to someone wasn't the worst option.

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She wasn't too sure how things were going to play out, since from what she could tell, odds were that Rumple wasn't going to just hand his son over without a fuss, so they likely were going to have to fight their way out of dealing with the guy. Merlin was saying they needed to be careful about Rumple's guards or whatever, but what about when they actually reached the house? They didn't know the layout of the place, so for all they knew, it could be just a giant maze inside and they could just get lost and locked in or something.

Then again, she was starting to wonder if that was what Rumple was hoping for, that they'd literally go walking into his home to try and find the detective and just get locked in and trapped. They literally were walking into a trap now that she thought about it. Oh well, nothing she could do about it, they were already on their way and hey, maybe their luck would hold out and they wouldn't have to worry about that. Wait, what luck? They actually have had the worse luck possible when it came to things, so in order to stay optimistic maybe she should really be thinking about how their luck would hopefully improve as opposed to holding out. That would be a better thought.

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"So whats up?" Sierra asked Willow as she continued to walk along the makeshift trail of sorts that was now getting covered in mud and rain, she wasnt really paying attention until it was to late as she yelped loudly and fell into a small ditch of sorts with a splash. She landed in a ditch filled with water, there was a small flash of light as her legs were replaced with a mermaid tail. Which she started to freak out as she had a hard time to get up and tried to grab for a nearby root that looked like it was heavy enough to help support her weight but it was to high for her to reach.

Sierra was panicking a bit as she looked around. "I need help!" Sierra yelled as Merlin quickly went over and stopped at the edge seeing the fish tail where her legs were. "You'll be alright." Merlin said as he used some of his magic and summoned a rope and held it down for Sierra to grab as she started to slowly climb up.

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Layla smirked and then shoved Cassi a bit playfully again. "Just ask her out." Layla whispered to her sister and gestured towards Rose as she continued to walk when she noticed that Sierra had ended up falling. She quickly went over to help with Merlin when she stopped she noticed that Sierra's legs were replaced with a mermaid tail. "Well wasnt expecting to see a fish girl." Layla said teasingly as she helped Merlin slowly pulling her back up.

Layla was having a hard time as the mud started to get harder to get traction, when she paused and could hear what sounded like horses in the distance. They werent alone right now by the looks of it, and started to wonder if it was some of Rumple's men passing through or something. She couldnt see the number yet but they could possible have more people coming through, as she looked at the others they might need to hide somewhere to soon.

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Rumple's Hideout:

"Oh i'm sorry I didnt give you anything to do to keep you entertained." Rumple said as he wrapped an arm around Jack's shoulder and smiled towards him some more. "I had somethings to attend to, now you have my full attention." Rumple said with a grin as he gestured his son to follow him. "C'mon my boy I have something you can do." He said as he left the kitchen and headed to a flight of stairs that looked like they led down to a basement. It looked like it was a wine cellar at one point, but there were some bars in it contained three other people behind bars. "So, these servants here or one of them has been caught stealing if you can interrogate them find out what they have done with my things that would be great." Rumple said giving Jack an evil grin.

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Merlin's Tower:

Gretel looked over at Colby and Matt for a moment overhearing what they were talking about and sighed shaking her head slightly as she went and sat down at a nearby table and waved the two of them over. "Listen I don't know what the two of you have done to make the girl so pissed at you, but I honestly don't think that would be a good idea at all. I'm not your parents or whatever but getting back at them is a bit childish and it's a great way to make an enemy to and we all have to work together to." Gretel said sighing a bit as Hansel found some booze and opened it taking a sniff of it and winced at the strong scent of it and went over and sat down.

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Matthew looked at Colby, concern filling his eyes as he said he was alright physically. He didn't know what exactly was going through his mind, and in all honesty he was afraid to ask. When he was finally asked about the potential to create illusions, Maddie tilted his head, changing his sitting position so that he was now criss-cross with Merlin's book splayed across his lap. He eyed the pages, quickly flicking through at first, in the event something jumped out at him. But he didn't seem to find anything.

He poured through it slower this time, reading what he could and skimming the passages until he finally found something promising. Maddie looked up at Colby with a nod, smiling at him as he pointed towards a page in the book. "It's certainly possible. Whether or not I'm any good at it will be a different matter entirely." He looked back at the page, re-reading the words again, this time more carefully to try and make sense of them before finally turning his attention to Gretel. His smile dropped and became more deadpan. He had no reason to dislike her, but she didn't know the full story.

"They've d-disliked us since we met for no r-real apparent reason. Hated Colby even more just because he made a m-mmistake, and they seem rather content with blaming him and by proxy me for all of their m-misgivings. She attacked him first, then d-did so again, and was psychotic enough to try and cut off her own hand. What's more Taylor just physically attacked him. We are past the after school special bullshit Gretel. They chose us as their enemies and now they can d-deal with what that means."

Maddie stood up, holding the book in one hand and snapping it closed with a loud THUD before making his way towards the front door. He opened it up and looked at the lawn before him before turning back to see Colby. "I'm gonna see what I c-can do.". Maddie stepped outside the door and walked a few feet away, trying to remember what the book had said. His hands moved, fingers curling and dancing to what he believed the book had said. Before him he saw a cute white rabbit, but as it looked up at him he could see the piercing red eyes and blood on its mouth. Illusion or not it got Maddie scared. He turned around and ran towards the front door, bunny pursuing behind him, as soon as he went in he slammed it shut, his back against the wooden planks and breathing rather hard.

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Cassiopeia started to follow Megan’s lead. Her arrow remained notched to her bow string as she walked with her sister. Cassi smirked when Layla teased her and she shrugged, watching Rose walking. ”Maybe if we survive this. Besides, flirting is half the fun.” She continued walking until she heard a scream and turned around, holding her bow up.
Layla was already running over to the source of the scream so Cassi stayed behind, surveying their surroundings while Merlin, Willow and her sister attended to Sierra. It was a good thing she did because she could hear the sound of horses and it was getting nearer.
”We best get off the road. Megan, Rose, there’s a group of bushes there or some boulders here. I suggest we get off the road.” Cassi turned and saw Merlin helping to get Sierra out. ”Hurry! People are coming.” Cassi turned back to face the sound of oncoming horses and readied herself to fire. Hopefully, they were just wild horses and riderless.

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Willow smiled at Sierra and her effort at making small conversation. ”Just trying to adjust to all of this. I’ll admit it’s weird not having my phone going off all the time. How are you doing?” Willow looked at Sierra but she had disappeared. Willow looked frantically around until she heard Sierra’s cry and looked to find her in the ditch. Clean shoes and clothes be damned, Willow slid into the ditch near Sierra, feeling her shoes fill with water and the hem of her dress grow heavy as it continued to absorb the water.
”Sierra! Are you okay?” Willow looked frantically around to find a stump or root to pull themselves out when she saw the mermaid tail. Willow’s eyes widened with a mixture of awe and fear. As if this place couldn’t get any stranger. Merlin arrived shortly after and conjured a rope. Willow helped Sierra up as best she could, hoping the tail would disappear once she was out of the water.

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Uh, Rose Buckner." Rose was a little confused. She had met Megan in the park when all the drama had started. But she smiled at her. "I guess nice to officially meet you." She said. When Sierra fell Rose rushed forward worried about her friend. She paused seeing the mermaid tail.

"Is that normal or first time?" She asked grinning. Merlin and the others were getting her out of the hole okay. Now they had to worry about the horses headed in their direction. She drew and nocked an arrow. She ducked into a bush and prepared to fire if it looked like the horses had riders that were going to discover them. Their muddy tracks would be a dead give-a-way. The rain that she had hoped would give them cover would be their downfall.

"Merlin, our tracks, can you make them disappear?" She asked, hoping that he'd be able to. She hated they were relying so much on magic.

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Colby did his level best to not roll his eyes. He did notice something though. Maddie didn't stutter when talking to him, but he seemed to stutter for everyone else. That was interesting. He remembered that Maddie used to stutter for him so badly there would be times Colby wanted to shake the words out of him. "She literally just threw a rock at me. I don't plan on physically hurting them. Just making them pay a little for being jerks."

He watched as Maddie set about trying his hand at illusion magic. "What the heck was that?" He asked, having only caught a glimpse of the bunny. "Also isn't Red out there? And shouldn't that be an illusion? Why are you afraid of an illusion of a bunny?" Colby asked his questions in quick succession looking wildly confused.

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Megan's eyes flashed in anger, hearing someone in their group scream loudly. However, the anger turned into fascination as she saw an actual mermaid in the ditch. She had so many questions about mermaid biology. She wanted to know how exactly their internal organs functioned. Did they have body farms in this land? If so, she wanted to know how mermaids decomposed as compared to humans. If there weren't body farms here, then perhaps she'd have to start one.... Megan then caught her thoughts for a moment, a bit surprised at herself. She hadn't had any intention on staying here. At least, not consciously.

She'd have to ask Merlin later if body farms existed here. They had a mission that she needed to remain focused on - her brother was counting on her. Her anxiety and adrenaline were ebbing and flowing, like waves crashing up against the shore. One of the others present - the girl with the bow and arrow - announced that people were coming. Megan nodded, quickly hiding herself behind the bushes so that way she could not be seen. A portion of her wondered if it would have been better to face whoever was coming, kill them, and use their clothes as disguises.