Young Writers Society

"I was just talking to-" he started to say, only to let out a long string of swears when the lights suddenly turned on again and temporarily blinded him. A short distance away, Benji's hands shot up to cover his eyes - it was the downside to having such strong senses.

Ollie was the only one who remained relatively unaffected; she squinted a little, but the lights weren't that bad. And Fern didn't even notice, since she was hiding underneath her jacket.


He came to a stop in the midst of the darkness, peering out from within it at the one standing before him. He kept silent; his voice would give away the truth. It was a miracle that he hadn't been discovered yet, but he wasn't going to take any chances.

He pulled out his blaster and promptly fired it at the person higher up on the staircase.

As he - and the person he was carrying - fell to the ground, he quickly hurried on his way and stepped over the two of them before darting back out into the weakening rain.

Taleweaver and Danny weren't blinded by the light but Tammy hissed and a black mist came up around her. Danny began coughing and walked away from her and Tale's colors began fading rapidly.

"What happened?" Thytes said, paws still over his eyes. "Who turned the lights back on? How?"



No no no no no.

It had just been a simple question. The figure could've just answered it, and Zech would've left him alone. Zech wouldn't have picked a fight with an armed person while defenseless, even if he could've thrown Lunis down the stairs (but now Zech had the feeling that Lunis would've noticed that).

But no, the figure decided to just shoot him and be on their way. So, in the space of a flash of light, Zech found himself sprawled out on the floor, Lunis crashing onto him. And he couldn't move a muscle. He couldn't stretch his arms, bend his legs, open his mouth to speak, or even pull his eyes away from the floor. He wasn't out in the rain, thankfully enough, but he didn't know how long this would last. He didn't know if he'd be stuck like this forever, trapped in the shed of an abandoned castle.

Before the tiger could panic any more, his ears picked up on movement. Out of the corner of his eyes, he caught a panther's arm flopping to the ground. Lunis mumbled something incoherent, but it was much to Zech's ears. At least one of them could move.

Bear's skin burned.

It wasn't from the light itself, it was from Bob's reaction to the light. The flash had gone off around the entire castle, exposing the system of vines to the shock, and Bear was now an honorary member of that system. He had agreed to the terms and conditions when Bob planted itself in his shoulder, but he hadn't been expecting this.

Carter stood rigid beside Bear, wearing his sunglasses and a judgemental look. He had felt the humming in the wires coming with the expectation for more of a bang than a flash. Just enough time to slip the glasses on, but not enough time to warn any of the others.

Turning mildly in the direction of Thytes, Carter deadpanned as he said, "I don't know who the particular culprit is in this case, but I would wager a bet that whoever turned the lights on is an asshole."

Bear slowly brought himself to his sense and glared at Carter's joke.
"Was it all of your years as a law enforcement official that brought you to that conclusion?"
He couldn't see Carter's eyes behind the sunglasses but guessed his friend was winking as he answered, "No, it was going to a private Christian school for twelve grades."

Thytes blinked enough of the spots out of his eyes to see where the voice was coming from. And of course Carter had glasses. He probably hadn't been affected at all, had he? The lion did have to admire that, even if he didn't like it.

"That is a given," Thytes said, rubbing and blinking his eyes as he glanced between Carter and Bear. "I would very much like to meet them and thank them, we shall say, for such an act." He paused, focusing on Bear and his vine. "Also, please tell me that I am mistaken, but I appear to see burns on your shoulder, Bear?"

Bear looked down at his shoulder and found that the burning pain from earlier was in fact from burns along the skin. Bob's thoughts connected with his in a flurry of apologies, and he stroked the vine with shushes that the situation was perfectly okay. Once they found a water source on this level of the castle and a few appropriate herbs, Bear would be perfectly alright.

"Yes, I do believe these are burns. Bob and the vine system must have reacted to the shock, and now that I'm connected to them, it impacted me as well."

His eyesight mostly back, Thytes walked over to Bear. "Oh dear," Thytes said, gently tugging at Bear's collar to see the vine and the burns along the man's shoulder. Nothing especially bad, but they were visible. They'd probably turn into blisters quickly enough.

Thytes looked at Bear. "Will it be any substantial problem? I do not believe I have anything on me that would help, unfortunately - we ought to find someone who can heal."

"It's not that bad."

Carter listened to Bear's claim and had to hide the smirk spreading across his face. He managed to ignore the presence of Thytes's hands on Bear's shoulder, instead focusing on what Bear said next.

"If I can get a few similar ingredients to the earthen plants from the castle, then I can take care of the issue with a few simple spells."

He pushed his sunglasses down a touch to shoot a judging glare to Bear. Thytes was turned away to miss this exchange and when Carter came back into the estimated line of vision, he slid the shades up once again.

With a brief cough to clear his throat, Carter decided to act in Bear's best interest and say, "Thytes, while he can manage the spells and probably find the ingredients, he's being a stubborn ass about those injuries. I can feel the energy radiating through the vines from here and that's got to be terribly painful."

Luckily his reflexes were quick enough to miss the book Bear chucked at his head with the slightly less bad arm.

"I am aware," Thytes said, frowning at Bear as the latter threw a book at Carter. "I am rather used to determining the severity of injuries in all kinds of occasions, battles or otherwise, and dealing with individuals who are being dishonest about their pain. Which is all to say that these burns simply do not look comfortable."

Keep a paw on Bear's shirt to leave the burns exposed, Thytes started rummaging through his robes with his other paw. "I should have some ointment," he said. "I have no clue if it would help, but I believe it is worth a try."

Tale was unable to move and was feeling very intense pain as the dark mist was still there. They also lost all of their color and became a silver color and Tammy was pissed off and her skin is now a red color like a sunburn. Danny moved light away from Tammy so her burn wouldn't get worse. "Tammy, you're going to kill Tale."

She stopped and apologised but she didn't really sound like she meant it. They didn't respond. "I think I may have killed them." Tammy said flatly.

The moment Taleweaver's color began to change, Fern quickly darted across Ollie's skin and clothes to create the same form as before. No discussion was needed to make the choice - it was instinctual. Ollie rushed them over to Taleweaver's side. She had no idea if this was normal for them, or if they had gotten to a point of no return. But the mist seemed to be causing the problem, and she had to at least try to help them.


As the mist spread and Tammy declared that someone may have been killed by said mist, a low growl left Daniel's lips. It was just beginning to distort his vision, but that wasn't the real reason for the noise - he was downright disturbed by the nonchalance Tammy had for what happened, and that feeling made certain instincts he usually kept in check arise.

Benji, meanwhile, was trying to make himself look as small as physically possible. His beanie was further pulled down, and his scarf was covering up a little past his nose.

"If you would be so kind to not murder each other," Thytes growled, still patting his robes, "I would very much appreciate that." He didn't want to look back to see what all the ruckus was about. He was stressed enough as it was, and he certainly didn't want to do something he'd regret.

Tale was silent for a few more moments then without moving at all they spoke. Their voice was weak "I am okay...Olivia ... I do not have enough energy to move... and I will not have it for a while... Tamara... I would not have minded at all... if you had killed me... I would have finally been free..."

"Yeah yeah, your silly 'I have terrible bosses and the only way I can escape them is by having my soul obliterated because the only person willing to help me that is powerful enough to get the goddesses to leave me alone is doing it the long way' speech." Tammy said.

Danny looked at everyone else. "Sorry, Tammy was angered by the light. The shadow mist shouldn't hurt any of you but your eyes might get a bit weird. It should also fade away in a minute because she isn't keeping it up."

Cathal was distracted by all the conversation and the lights suddenly coming back on, and then there was some concern over Bear and his plant-friend being hurt. He turned to study the man, and then approached him slowly. Cathal pulled his healing device out of one of his hidden pockets and held it up so everyone could see.

"I could try with this?" he offered, not sure how else to phrase it. "Although, like with Arryn, I don't know how it will react with your physiology or....magic, I guess it is?"

* * *

Arryn grimaced as the lights come back up, but kept his face in his hands. He didn't want to move just yet, mostly because he still ached all over thanks to the stupid bracelets. Nastiest thing a mage could ever invent, he decided. When he returned to his king, he was going to have a chat with him about having every single anti-mage device they could find destroyed, and then maybe find as many plans and blueprints as possible, and destroy those, too. But he wasn't sure what to do about those who made them.

He sighed and lifted his head to take in the much brighter room, blinking slowly. Trust him to forever to notice the difference. "Wait, wasn't the room really dark a moment ago?"

Thytes had already pulled out the ointment, but Cathal seemed like he (sort of) knew what he was doing, so the lion stepped out of the way. Between Taleweaver being 'dead' (but he wasn't going to look back to check), Daniel growling, and Arryn being slow on the uptake, the lion was tempted to crawl under the table and join Jaron.

As it was, the most Thytes could do was nod at Cathal, turn to Arryn, and say, "Someone appears to have turned them back on. Who, or why, I am not sure."



Ugh, Zech was heavy.

Lunis dragged him across the garden, the tiger's foot paws resting over his shoulders. With the rain having turned into a gentle drizzle, Zech about a minute or two away from regaining feeling in his limbs, and Lunis wearing his pants again, the panther didn't feel like he was in a hurry. Sure, when Zech got back to normal, he'd be a little bit irritated about his back having gone over gravel paths, flowers, and tree roots. But Lunis hadn't trusted that shed or the stairs that he'd been sure hadn't been there before he'd been knocked out.

The panther stopped at an intersection. Mist and leaves blocked his view of any of the paths. Great. "Anyone here?" Lunis called, briefly letting go of a foot paw to reach for one of his daggers. Better safe than sorry.