I know this should have been posted yesterday but this week has been midterms for me. I suppose I won’t be posting the rest of this week because I’ll be preparing for a debate tournament. Wish me luck? ^^

So I’ll leave you all on a rather excruciating cliffhanger, if I may say so myself!

The gang has just found out that our dear nekkid Fayl is going to be “terminated,” more or less.

Navigation: 1, 2, 3 …

Absence Stunt, 3: Sneaky Sneaky!

Someone behind Eirii gasped, and someone standing on the ground below Luuz emitted a scream. Eirii felt faint, unsteady. Though but a mere shadow of its antecedent, the scream’s echo still tore the air. Pivoting—a little shakily—to face Luuz, she saw that her brother was evidently pale. Eirii suddenly noticed how much he resembled Fayl, except Luuz had clothes. The two made eye contact for a brief moment before kicking off their flying contraptions and bolting south to the third highest floating island above Pumpkin town.

Luuz sped on his broom next to Eirii. “Find Fayl, Laik, and Fyal. I’ll contact Ryuu, Kae, and Kit.” Eirii nodded and tried to focus.

Fayl was easy to focus on. He was, after all, the doomed one. Fayl, listen, she stammered. Come to the island NOW.

… Um?

You’ll see. Eirii sighed, rubbing her eyes tiredly. Poor Fayl.

Fyal, as expected, was not responding. Laik agreed to come immediately.

Sitting in a circle again with the exception of the M.I.A. Fyal, the white-faced Luuz quickly spilled the news. Eirii didn’t feel like talking. She glanced at the silent, unclothed Fayl, and felt a little sick. Luuz draped his coral-colored guild cloak over his otherwise-naked brother.

“I’m… I’m…” Fayl seemed to be having trouble speaking. “I’m going to be… terminated? Tomorrow?”

Kaerin didn’t waste a moment. “Did the announcer say any more? What’s our side going to do about it?”

Luuz swallowed and shook his head. “What could they possibly do about it anyway?” He put his head in his hands. “The GM’s aren’t so stupid after all. They know our most experienced characters in the Stunt are the deleted ones.”

Kitou had something else on his mind. He stood up and began pacing. “Guys, Fyal is up to something.” Before anyone could say anything, he went on. “I know you all know she’s missing, but I saw her today in the Garden of Rhsis.”

An island uninhabited by humans, the Garden of Rhsis was only accessible by flight. Ryuuki peered at him. “The Garden? At level two? She must have hitched a ride from someone.”

Kitou shook his head. “I don’t know, but when we noticed each other, she took one look at me, and poof! Disappeared. I think she knows something we don’t.”

“That’s not important right now,” argued Laik. “Let’s pull Fayl back from the brink of extinction first, shall we?” He glanced at the Mage in mention, who was currently staring quietly into the distance, looking at nothing in particular. He didn’t seem to notice Luuz’s cloak draped about him, which hung awkwardly off his bony shoulders.

“Maybe if we get someone to recreate Fayl…” murmured Kaerin.

Laik looked dubious. “Uh, too bad that can’t be done.”

Kaerin insisted. “But we just have to meddle with the old name records, without terminating his whole record, so some user can create Fayl again.”

“Great,” Fayl croaked. “Now we’re getting the game to forget I ever existed, too?”

“No,” said Laik firmly. “Gods know we can’t get in to headquarters, much less find the archives. And that’s not considering that they’ll probably be heavily guarded since the GM’s are planning on destroying them first thing tomorrow morning.”

Ryuuki stood up. “It’s just a lot of sneaking around, y’know. We’ve just got to organize it really well.” She began to use a Blink Wing to teleport to Darken, followed immediately by Luuz and Eirii. Laik used his reluctantly.

Kaerin hesitated and exchanged glances with Kitou. Both of them looked over at Fayl. The siblings nodded to each other, before hoisting the apathetic, dazed Mage onto the back of Kaerin’s broom, preparing to fly to town and do whatever they could there.

When the others Blink Winged to town in Darkon, a crowd from Darkon’s recent assembly was still dispersing, miscellaneous characters comforting each other, some crying, some cursing. Losing no time, Ryuuki summoned her flying board and kicked off heading west. Luuz pulled her back for a moment. “Ryuu, some people here can help.”

Ryuuki looked back at the congregation of mourners and shook her head. “If they’re still hanging around weeping,” she voiced with distaste, “then they’ve already come to accept something that hasn’t happened yet.” She accelerated forward. Luuz sighed, took one more look into the crowd, and trailed behind her.

The bossiest in the group, Ryuuki explained the party’s organization. “We’ll move in pairs. No talking; we’ll use troop messaging. Proceed with caution! Don’t try anything heroic. No one is allowed to start whining or complaining or we’ll forget about you and you’re on your own.”

“Hasn’t anyone been in here before?” asked Eirii. No one answered.

Ryuuki continued with the orders. “Luuz is with Laik. We’ll all take different entrances.” Ryuuki lifted her baton-like stick and twirled it in front of each character in succession, casting temporary buffs that increased, at least a little bit, the chance of survival. It didn’t make much of a difference in the long run, especially if they really did meet up with a Game Master or got caught off-guard by a giant, but it was better than nothing. As she did this, Eirii felt a bond form between each member of the group, one character at a time, until a troop was formed. It was Kitou, back in Sain City, creating the troop.

“Troop communication starts…” Now. Ryuuki’s lips stopped moving. Even as Luuz and Laik pulled away, their troop’s bond remained intact. From then until Kitou broke it, messaging would be possible between all members of the group at once.

Before long, Ryuuki was pointing at something on the ground. From up in the air, it could barely be seen: a tiny dark opening behind a rock. There’s our entrance, she explained. I think they meant to make this one of their main entrances, back when the Stunt Game Masters were friendly some kabillionjillion years ago and they wanted the headquarters to be grand and nice. That never really happened and this entrance is mostly unused. Careful; this one doesn’t look guarded but the other side is crowded with angry Muffrins. We’re going to speed through them. Get ready. She began to gradually pick up speed. Eirii crouched over and pulled her knees in, head down, trying to reduce wind resistance. The entrance loomed closer, closer—and swallowed them up.

The darkness lasted but a split second, and before Eirii’s eyes could dilate, a heavy cleaver jounced off her shield. Another hit the wooden knuckle covering her right forearm. Her vision was completely blocked by a hoard of enormous, ugly green goblins wearing chef hats—more commonly known as Muffrins. One got knocked aside by Eirii’s board as she hurtled through the mob. In the meantime, Ryuuki was no where to be seen. As Eirii clumsily fended off cleavers with her shield, she blinked ahead searching for the end of the horde and praying to the Gods of Lais to let her fly faster.

Turn right, here! Ryuuki shouted. Eirii veered right into an empty hallway, the Muffrins trailing behind. Eirii felt a sting on her left arm. The cleavers had sliced through her shield and left four gashes, one of them already dripping blood. She pulled out a piece of barbecued meat and ate it quickly. One of the gashes healed over. As she consumed more food, Ryuuki began to decelerate in front of her. The Ringmaster was wolfing down what looked like a leg of chicken. Eirii, maneuvering her board and chewing her third barbecue, opened a carton of milk.

Not in there, Luuz, voiced Laik. That’s just a straight passage that leads to Eirii and Ryuu. Turn left instead.

Luuz’s voice joined in. I think we found something, he called. A switch just tripped, and now there’s a set of stairs going down here.

Where are you? asked Ryuuki immediately.

Directly east of you guys by a couple hallways, if you came from the west entrance.

But don’t bother coming, said Laik. The passage between us is closed. We passed it on the way here.

Can you see what’s down there? asked Eirii.

Luuz let out a snort. It’s pitch black, of course, what else? What’s the fun in a secret staircase you can see the bottom of? I’m heading in.

A long silence ensued. Eirii and Ryuuki could do nothing but keep flying down their empty hallway, waiting for a response.

For crying out loud, how long is that staircase anyway? growled Ryuuki.

But the girls paid no attention to the response because around the next corner was an angry Queen Popcrank blocking progress. Eirii was the first to turn her board around and blast off in the other direction.

As she sped away, she looked behind her and saw nothing there. Ryuuki? Whoa, did you go the other way?

Yeah, I did, butted in an irritated Ryuuki. Now I see a particularly mysterious door here but the Popcrank is still on my tail. Would you take a look at it please?

So she did. Slowing to a stop in front of the small metal door—looked a bit like a locker—she pulled the door open.
A sharp pain shot through her head as a bright explosion of stars erupted in her eyes; a leaden weight had collided into the side of her head. Dumbstruck, the Assist swayed and fell to the ground. A Blade shot past her on a board and was out of sight before Eirii even hit the cold, hard earth.

Having finally thrown the Popcrank off her tail, Ryuuki had looped around and was heading back. Well? prodded Ryuuki. What’s inside? She turned the corner expecting to see Eirii still trying to open the door. Instead, flying full speed from the other direction was a Blade she’d never seen before who promptly swung both hilts of his swords into the side of her head.

The Blade turned around just in time to see the Ringmaster crumple to the floor. He chuckled. “Pathetic.”
Outside, the sun began its descent.

Nonono, all is not lost! Don’t give up hope yet! I didn’t realize until after I read this through how I picked a really bad place to cut off. This cut-off makes it look like it’s all over and Fayl’s doomed for sure.

But that’s not true.

So plz staytuned k~

Iluall, see you next week! <33