Young Writers Society

"Oh, good point," Bo finally piped up. "That is, if ya'll know how to use 'em of course. I wouldn't want anyone grabbing something they're uncomfortable fighting with. I don't wann assume everyone's a fighter, ya know."

Hero glanced at his best friend and the few chosen they had between them. All of them were armed in some way; he and Télos could create weapons using their magic, while Lexal and Zalio both had weapons on them. However, armor was always useful, and weapons were an important thing for everyone to have in a situation like this.

"The people from Minecraftia are already armed," Hero informed Bo, "but armor may come in handy."

He started to make his way into the room. After a second passed, Télos went hurrying on in after him, leaving Lexal and Zalio to exchange a look before doing the same.

"Some armor would be of use," Enide said, nodding. "I do hope that I should find something that might fit. Human helmets would not match my features." She gestured to her ears and nose.

Casey stumbled into the room, looking lost and quite uncomfortable. He gazed at the weapons and armor, as if at loss as to where to start. Sevy stepped in after him, Gordon trailing behind, and had a much different reaction.

"Whoa- nice!" he whistled, hurrying forward to excitedly ran his hands over the weapons.

He selected a sword of medium weight, gripping the handle in a familiar way, and turned back to Casey.

"The best thing for you would be that harpoon." he murmured softly, wanting to be helpful, but not wanting to embarrass the boy. "it's automatic, so it shouldn't be too hard to manage."

Casey nodded and carefully picked up the weapon, which only succeeded in making him look even smaller and vulnerable.

Télos was immediately drawn to a suit of armor a short distance away from the armory's entrance. It looked like it was made of obsidian; it had the same, sleek blackness. He wasted no time in taking it off of its stand and throwing it in, reveling in how cool he had to look while wearing it.

A short distance away, Hero was putting on a suit of armor of his own. This one was much like Zalio's - it was just as plain. Even farther away, Lex and Aleks were arguing loudly about the necessity of armor. Aleks thought it would hinder their fighting abilities; Lex wanted the protection.

Télos tried to tune the fighting out. Just for kicks, he searched for a matching sword. He could easily conjure one using his gold magic, but the matching aesthetic would be cool if he could tack some of the gold until an obsidian weapon.

"What are you looking for?" Zalio asked, leaning over the chest he was digging through with a yawn. He removed his helmet, tucking it underneath one arm as he presumably looked at the chest's contents - he was still invisible, so it was hard to tell.

(Télos tried not to think about how much he was like a ghost right now, instead going back to searching for a sword.)

"I'm looking for a sword to match this armor," the god said. "If we're having fun with the armor, I thought I'd try enjoying the weapon aspect, too."


He opened his eyes to darkness.

Darkness and him were well acquainted. He wasn't particularly afraid of it, but it was unsettling to wake up in an unfamiliar room and not know why he was there. He rose to his feet and tried to get a handle on where exactly he was; nothing he saw looked familiar. That was going to be a problem no matter how he looked at it - without a sense of direction, he wouldn't be able to open a gateway to the Underworld.

Well, it was best to figure out what he had on him. He glanced down and studied his outfit. Just like he remembered: the same suit he had worn to his meeting with his brother and his Artifact tucked nicely into his pocket. He unfolded it and draped it over his shoulders. It was comforting enough, but he need a little more - he pulled up the hood to cover his hair, and the magic began. It was a warm, familiar feeling that made him immediately made him feel safer than before.

Now that he had some form of protection, he slipped out into the unfamiliar hallway.

Gordon had been casually stalking around the armory, surveying the weapons with his tail swishing, seemingly with an air of distaste or fear, when he caught the knight-esque person out of the corner of his eye. It was removing its helmet, presumably to try on another one, and...

Gordon's fur immediately rose on end when he realized that the knight didn't have a head.

He didn't give himself time to comprehend it, and neither did his legs. With a loud, spooked yowl, he turned tail and ran out of the room.

Sevy turned at the yowl, in time to see the cat making a speedy exit. He wasn't sure what had scared him, but his brow creased in worry and he took step toward the door.

"Gordon! What's-"

At that precise moment, Casey misfired his harpoon gun. He stumbled back with the kick of the weapon, and there was a crescendo of metal ringing as the harpoon struck a stand of helmets.

~~~

Gordon ran through the dark halls for a distance, until he was able to gain control of his fear (and limbs) again. He slowed, and glanced around the chamber, red eyes glinting.

As he was gathering his wits, he heard movement up ahead, and stopped still, listening hard.

Someone else was out there, in the dark. There was a good chance that it was just another lost being, like all of those who made up the group, but then again...

He pawed forward, whiskers quivering, and then his feline eyes adjusted, and up ahead, he saw something that made his blood run cold.

Tall, spiraling horns, a malicious, grotesque face, leathery skin, a tail... but, it couldn't be, that was impossible.

He let out a low hiss, even more terrified now than he had been in the armory. With this vulnerability, he wished desperately that he could be anything else, that he go back to being how he'd been when everything had been right, when he didn't have to keep to the shadows.

No sooner had he thought than he felt the comfortable, melting feeling of his body changing. A hiss of pain left him- shifting after so long made him sore, but it had worked.

Gordon stood in the hallway, now a tall man with curly dark hair in an old-fashioned suit. He stared down both his fear and the being in the hallway, his jaw set.

"How is this... who are you?" He whispered, his voice hoarse from neglect. "Have you come for me?"

For the first moment after he had heard the hiss, he was convinced that one of the group had let their pet loose - it would certainly explain why he was taken from one place to another. Ares was an especially likely culprit; his wife joining in was debatable, but he knew Hecate would agree to do something like this in a heartbeat.

But then he saw the man.

After being around for as long as he had, he had become good at noticing things that didn't quite make sense. The suit was off, for one thing - it was the wrong time period. But he wasn't a ghost; he didn't get the same feeling when he saw the other deceased. Calling him a god might have been a good guess as well, due to his strangely red eyes, but even that was something that didn't add up. Surely, if he was a god, he would have been able to put the clues together and determine an identity from a single look.

He tried glancing at his soul, but it was unfamiliar, just barely akin to what he would have seen from a demon.

Who - and what - was the man before him?

"I was going to ask you the same question," he said, still failing to come up with any sort of clear answer for what was going on. "And, no, why would I-"

He suddenly remembered what he was wearing.

He let out a sigh.

"I'm not what you see," he carefully said. This man didn't seem all that dangerous; he didn't think he needed the intimidation. It was far more likely that the man was in a similar boat as him. He raised his hands up in mock surrender.

Sevy jumped about a foot in the air at the first round of crashing, and turned around quickly, his eyes wide.

"Okay, ah... okay, buddy. Rule number one for automatic weapons- fingers stay far away from the trigger." He managed to get out as he assessed the damage. "No one is hurt. No harm done."

Casey nodded quickly, and set the harpoon gun down very, very slowly. "Sorry." he mumbled, his head down low.

~~~

He surveyed the man- or demon, whatever he was, and tried to reason his way through what he was seeing. If this being had come for him, he would have been captured already. And, plus, he was making no threatening advances- he was doing just the opposite, actually.

"If you aren't what I see, what are you? And why did you choose to look like this?" he asked carefully, frowning in thought. "Is this... some sort of enchantment?"

He paused for a moment, and took a steadying breath, realizing that he was being rude. The least he could do would be to offer a name, and then address matters of nature.

"My name is G- Damascus." he supplied. "I'm here with a group of people who suddenly appeared in this city- none of them know how or why." he paused, wonder just how cautious he should be, and then went on anyway. "I teleported here due to a mishap."

Enide was starting to lose her confidence in the group. It wasn't the bulky and unwieldy suits of armor they were putting on (though she didn't much like them anyway - she wanted to be fast enough in a battle to make the decisive move first, and 30-40 pounds of iron didn't seem like a good way to do that). It was that automatic harpoon cannon, and it was all of the very human helmets, and it was the one exception getting speared right before Enide could get her paws on it.

How disappointing. Lowering her paws, Enide looked around in time just to see the tiny cat hiss its way out of the room. Gordon, wasn't it? She moved to the door and peered down the hallway as it fled.

For a few seconds, she wondered if she should alert the others, or just go and follow it. The tiny cat was probably important to one of them, and she wasn't exactly in the mood to stay with the group.

Well, she could do both. Pulling out her sword and tapping it against the ground to signal the others, Enide walked down the hallway, nose twitching as it caught the cat's path.

Télos, decked out in his new armor, peeked his head out of the room and watched as Enide walked down the hallway. After a moment passed, he glanced back at the others and shouted, "I'm going with Enide!" before darting out of the room as well. She must have been following after that cool cat. He didn't know why she would care so much about Sevy's cat, but it seemed like a nice thing to do.

Besides, it would give him a better idea of the layout of this place.

"Hey," he said with a wave, slowing down beside her. He hadn't managed to find a matching sword, but he could always make one out of gold if the needed arose.


"I guess you can say it's an enchantment," he replied. One of the hands he was holding up carefully moved downwards; he didn't seem like he was going to attack him now, but he just wanted to play things safe. "I don't know if you can see it right now, but I'm wearing a cloak. When I have the hood up, I appear as a person's perception of death. It's different for every person."

He pushed the hood back.

The sight that Damascus saw would have suddenly faded, replaced by a man who could only be in his late twenties at the latest. His eyes were a dark shade of brown, so dark they were almost black, and his black hair easily went past his shoulders. He was dressed in a professional, plain black suit, tie and handkerchief included. The only things that likely stood out were the silver tie pin that was in the shape of a skull and the old black cloak draped over his shoulders.

He thought long and hard on if he should go by his actual name or not, and ultimately decided that there could be no more harm in it - he had already shown that he possessed an Artifact, even if Damascus didn't know what that was.

"My name is Hades," he said, lowering both of his hands to his side. "I don't know how I ended up here - I woke up in the room behind me."

Sevy glanced up as Télos and Enide took off- pressumably after Gordon. He sunk a little in relief and turned back, now fully able to focus on both the mess Casey had made and making sure he didn't accidentally shoot himself.

~~~

Damascus blinked as Hades pulled back his hood, and physically rubbed his eyes when he revealed his name.

"Ah, Hades, did you say?" He attempted to confirm. "Like the god?"

He paused, and shook his head briefly. Of course. It made sense that Hades was connected to some of the gods- there was something off about him, if the cloak itself was any indication.

Once again, he decided that he wouldn't press it. He glanced back toward the other end of the hallway, hearing a couple of the group members approach.

"Well, it seems you're in the same boat as everyone else." He tried for a friendly smile. "Would you like to join us?"

He could tell that Damascus was struggling with the smile, but he didn't comment on it - he was sure he was still frightened by whatever he had seen when looking at him with the hood to his cloak up. Speaking of which, he really need to put it away again; even if he wasn't a fan of wearing a suit, the cloak just didn't look right with it.

He gave Damascus a friendly smile of his own and did exactly that. "I'd love to," he pleasantly replied. He could feel his phone in his pocket, but something that this place - wherever it was - wouldn't have service. He would either have to figure out what was going on or wait until one of the group realized he was gone.

"Alright, wonderful. I think the armory was just down this hallway..." he glanced over his shoulder, suddenly realizing that he had fled much further than he had intended. "Well, somewhere down there. We'll probably hear them if we head that way."

He turned and started up at a casual pace, using the time he had to think hard about what to do when he was reunited with the others. Especially Sevy. What would he tell him?

In time since Enide and Télos had left, Hero had been through the majority of the weapons in the room. He had rarely picked any of them up - there hadn't been a need to. But it was a good way to pass the time while the others completed their individual searches, and some of the weapons were especially interesting.

"Maybe you shouldn't start with a harpoon gun," Zalio suddenly suggested from nearby; Hero turned to see him standing beside Casey and Sevy. For one moment, the only visible parts of him were his armor. Then his head - and presumably the rest of his body became visible, his shoulder-length green hair framing a green-tinted face.


Hades fell into step beside him, his hand absentmindedly lingering over the pocket he had put his Artifact in. It was a blessing and a curse; it was a quick source of comfort, but one that would frighten other people if he wanted to use it to its full abilities. He wished he could wrap himself up in its magical warmth again - he doubted it would help him solve the mystery of how he had ended up here, but it would make his growing knot of worry lessen.