Trip to the clearing

[Kahlen Jeanne Nox]

Kahlen waited outside the main doors of the building for the group that agreed to come along on her little adventure. She set down a bag filled with brownies, cookies, water, bug spray, and a flashlight. The bug spray was a necessity, what with the weather being hot and humid.

"Hullo!" She waved as the door opened and as those she was waiting for stepped outside. "I've brought food."

"I also marked out a trail, so let's get to it, eh?" Kahlen shouldered her bag and set off across the lawn in the direction of the woods.

[Mellianne Joss]

Mellianne, not liking the humidity here even though it was the natural summer climate of her home state, immeditately pushed as much of the humidity away from the group as possilbe. She was definitely going to have to figure out how to pull water out of the air. Maybe she could do it to her room at home, or the inside pool at home as well.

"Hey!" she replied in answer to Kahlen's greeting. She followed Kahlen, making sure to watch where she stepped, and the woods as well.

[Kahlen Jeanne Nox]

Kahlen looked around a bit confused. The air felt different- much drier. She looked around again, then decided that she was probably getting affected by the heat.

"How are you?" she said to the group in general.

[Mellianne Joss]

Mellianne stretched. She seemed to be doing that a lot. Not enough time or places to really exercise she guessed, or people to exercise with. "Alright. Trying to figure out how to pull moisture from the air rather than just push it away. And you?"

[Aurora Lumina Robinson]

"Hi!" Aurora skipped up to group, looking her usual chipperness. She made a couple of sniffs and commented, "ooh, I smell brownies."

[Kahlen Jeanne Nox]

"Oh, it was you!" Kahlen said, refering to the change in the air. "Thanks, though. It's a lot less sticky when you push the water away."

Kahlen stopped to quickly tie one of her shoes. "Oh, I'm fine. I wanted to do some more exploring around here."

She took her bag off her shoulder and pulled out a cookie and started munching. "Anyone want one one the way there?" she asked between bites.

[Mellianne Joss]

Mellianne nodded. "Yeah, that was me. I can't stand humidity, which I guess seems odd since I'm from the part of Missouri that's really close to the Mississippi, which makes it really humid there. And that's good."

She turned down the cookie though. "I'll wait. I want to make sure we haven't eaten them all before we even get to the clearing."

[Kahlen Jeanne Nox]

Kahlen's face turned a bit pink. "Yeah... I should probably not eat them all before we get there."

Kahlen hummed a tune as she walked, semi-dancing along with the tune.

[Aurora Lumina Robinson]

"Oh." Aurora had wanted a brownie as they walked but now she'd fell guilty.

[Mellianne Joss]

Mellianne smiled at the other two. "I don't mind if you guys eat some, I just happen like to eat all at once instead of spacing it out, like I would have to on a walk like this." She didn't really want them to feel guilty about wanting a snack before they got to the clearing.

[Kahlen Jeanne Nox]

Kahlen stopped walking, suddenly remembering something about woods. "Uh, guys? Are there bears? Because if there are, I don't want to have all this food... I say, let's eat it quickly and not get mauled or anything."

Kahlen put her bag on the ground and pulled out the sack of goodies. "Have your pick and eat up!"

[Mellianne Joss]

Mellianne winced. "Oh dear. I forgot the groundsman said that there were bears during the first forestry class." She grabbed one of her bottles of water and a water bottle strap and put it on her shoulder, loosely capped. She then grabbed a few brownies.

[Aravind Shiyal]

Aravind had been prowling the woods in all of his spare time, since the day he arrived at the school. He now knew the grounds like the back of his hand, having a preternatural sense of direction and spatial understanding-- and having slept in it every night, generally moving sites every two or three nights. So when the girls headed into his the-- THE forest-- he was aware of them almost before they'd taken two or three steps. The voices, the wildlife scattering, and the general disturbance. He looked up from his position, a hundred yards or so off the trail, and frowned.

What the hell are they doing in here? That's got to be a bunch of students, and that -sounds- like Melliane... and Aurora. I thought at least Melliane would know better-- but any student who gets cocky... well. That won't last.

Setting his teeth, he slips closer to the trail, making sure he's downwind-- he's also moving through the trees themselves, not touching the ground, to avoid making any noise. As he gets closer, he begins to come up with a plan, and grins to himself, a bit too widely for comfort. Spying a dead tree, he closes in from behind the group, still about fifteen to twenty feet off the ground.

The tree is about four feet in diameter, well enough to hide him, he notes with satisfaction, and as an added bonus, the branch overhanging the trail (by about twelve feet) is very, very ...branch-ey, and will make an effective roadblock. With quiet precision, he tests his weight, checks to make sure none of the group is looking back, and

CRASH!

slams the dead branch with all his weight at its weakest point, snapping it off the trunk and sending it to the ground with a loud noise, enough to scare anyone who didn't see it coming. As soon as he's touched off the branch, he leaps up to a higher limb, keeping behind the trunk, and watching the shadows on the ground to see where the girls are.

[Kahlen Jeanne Nox]

Kahlen's face paled a bit. "Well, we'll leave the food here if we don't finish it- I'm not taking it into the woods. Mellianne, I hope you remember your survival class, eh?"

Kahlen dusted off her bag, making sure to get rid of any food crumbs. She checked to make sure she had everything. She entered the forest, noting where the trail started and looking ahead to check it out.

Then there was a loud crash behind them. Kahlen screamed- much more high pitched than she had expected. She swirled around to look behind her. There was a broken branch and movement near another tree.

"What was that?" Kahlen said to the others, slightly out of breath.

[Mellianne Joss]

"I hope I remember it too." Mellianne also brushed off the crumbs, even letting the humidity back in for a moment to try and take the smell from their hands, faces, and bags. Then she forced the moisture away from them again and followed Kahlen.

At the crash, she made a sign for the others to be quiet and finished opening her water bottle and drew the water out of it. Now that she had actual water, she could use some of the humidity to make it bigger, which she did.

She pricked her ears for sounds and kept looking all around them, never looking hard and long at one spot, though she focused much more attention to the back of the trail. Noticing the branch, she looked to see where it fell from. At the height, it would be hard for something on the ground to break it, so she looked at that eye level and above, but still made a few sweeps of her eyes around them to make sure nothing else was sneaking up on them.

[Aurora Lumina Robinson]

Aurora's nerves were not made of steel. Well, perhaps literally they were. Was it actually steel? It was probably some type of conductive metal. Regardless, her nerves were metaphorically much less hardy than steel, so when the branch crashed, her own voice was added to Kahlen's in the form of a high pitched shriek.

Aurora was also not particularly brave, and was content to let Mellianne check it out as she stayed back with Kahlen. "Do you see anythign?" she asked shakily. Suddenly the woods were much scarier.

[Kahlen Jeanne Nox]

Kahlen's eyes were still wide as Mellianne went to investigate the noise. "I didn't see anything when I turned around," she said to Aurora. "I don't think it's a bear or anything. We would have seen it and it probably would have attacked us."

Kahlen went to the edge of the trail, making sure to not step off of it. She didn't want to get lost- at least she knew that much about hiking through the woods. She used to go hiking with her family, but her father was the expert and Kahlen regretted not paying attention to anything he tried to teach her.

The birds settled down a bit and Kahlen called over to Mellianne, "Have you found anything yet?"

[Mellianne Joss]

Mellianne turned back to them quickly and when she spoke, it was quietly. "Shh please! I don't have super hearing like some elves do. I'm trying to see if I can hear anything. And nothing yet." She really wasn't trying to be rude, but with her hearing like a normal human's, she was going to need quiet if she wanted to use her ears for anything useful. She quickly turned back towards the tree the fallen branch had come from.

[Kahlen Jeanne Nox]

Kahlen held up a hand in apology and went back to stand with Aurora. She patted Aurora on the shoulder.

As she looked around, Kahlen began to think that her idea for a trip to the clearing wasn't that great. However, she still wanted to explore. She had healing powers, so if she got in a scrape, she wouldn't be hurt. Kahlen was also willing to protect her friends, but she didn't think it would come to that.

Kahlen turned her head swiftly when she heard the sound of crunching leaves. It was very faint, so it might have been a small, quiet animal.

[Aravind Shiyal]

A rabbit pauses in the bush, eyes wide, and stares at Kahlen for a split second before -bolting- in the opposite direction (of the fallen branch). Of course, it's just running, but it could look very much like an animal running -from- Something.

Aravind raised his hands to his mouth and made a loud screeching noise-- more like a pterodactyl than anything, really, and -utterly- unnerving*, twice, then waits, completely still, for a reaction.

*((I once knew a guy who could make that noise and scatter crowds, in a well-lit, very populated area, in broad daylight.))

[Mellianne Joss]

Mellianne backed towards the others as the noise was creepy as heck, but she really didn't want to make a run for it, cause that was their way home. Also, there was no way she was leaving the trail unless they had absolutely no choice. She turned more of the humidity around them into more water for her to use, while thinking of what she could do with the water into that would be the best to protect them, but wouldn't harm the thing that made that noise if possible either.

[Kahlen Jeanne Nox]

Kahlen jumped as the rabbit appeared and sprinted away. She sighed in relief, pressing her hand to her chest as if to make sure her heart was still beating. There weren't anymore suspicious crunching noises until an ear piercing sound came from the area around the fallen branch.

Kahlen gave a shriek and immediately slapped her hand over her mouth. "Sorry!" she said to the others. "I just seem to keep screaming."

She went over to Mellianne, who backed away from the branch. "I definitely think something is there. It must be smart, or it might've eaten or killed us already."

Kahlen tentatively stepped toward the branch. "What is it?" she whispered. At a normal speaking level, she called out, "Hello? Who's there?"

[Mellianne Joss]

Mellianne nodded at Kahlen's statement, but winced when Kahlen called out to it. Though she supposed it would be better to try and talk if it was smart, hopefully. And she didn't fault anyone for screaming, in fact, if it was something really scary, she might end up screaming as well.

[Aravind Shiyal]

Aravind remained silent, his back against the tree trunk. Inwardly, he wondered if it was going too far to just let the utter silence of the woods around them sink in-- he didn't want his students to be afraid of the forest, just... aware of how incredibly... uh, wait. So, healthy respect. Right. Why, then, had he done that?

"Sorry! I just seem to keep screaming."

Oh, right! Because it was -hilarious-. He felt mildly guilty about waiting for their nerves to snap, but it was so interesting...

((I hear Kahlen's voice in my head as coming out utterly -hysterically-, like when someone tries to insert a little bit of normalcy into a terrifying situation, in a movie, and their voice just leaps an octave? ...Yeah, I might be a pretty terrible person too.))

[Aurora Lumina Robinson]

The others seemed to be taking the whole thing very well. Aurora wasn't. When Kahlen turned back to look at her, she was gone, sprinting through the woods.

Well, sprinting wasn't the right word, since she had picked the nearest opening in the forest, which wasn't the path. She was stumbling through heavy overgrowth. On the bright side, she wasn't getting too scratched up since the majority of her was either made of metal or covered in metal fiber. She wouldn't be too hard to find with the screaming though.

Of course, it wouldn't just be the others who could hear her.

[Mellianne Joss]

Mellianne turned towards Aurora as she ran off the path. Starting to mutter oaths, Mellianne had no idea at what to do. She really didn't want everyone to go off the path, nor did she want to leave Kahlen there by herself.

She turned back to Kahlen. "Do you know anyone's cell phone number that would be useful in helping us out? Either for tracking or for getting that branch out of the way, preferably both." She was really starting to wish she had a few of the teacher's numbers on her. Professor Shiyal's for one would be nice. However, she tended to forget about her cell phone most of the time and never really bothered to get many numbers.

"We really should have gotten more people together for this. Two 15-year-olds and a 12-year-old was not a good idea. Specially when the 12-year-old just ran away." She was desperately trying to stay calm, but now that Aurora was likely going to get lost in the forest, Mellianne was getting very panicky.

[William Jason Fredericks]

_{"Bloody kids...whole damn campus....traipsing around the forest...screaming...almost scared away the...oh but I got 'im!"}

Fredericks looked up as he heard what sounded like someone crashing through the forest. Just his luck, it sounded like they were heading right for the small break he was standing in! He sighed and then grunted as the badger he had pinned to the tree truck by the neck nipped at his forearm.

"Eh! Let's not git testy now!" He seemed to be looking the badger right in the eyes.

"..."

Fredericks shrugged. "Nothin' personal." With a swift thrust at a slight upward angle he put his knife through the badger's neck, right below his pinning hand, and then released both hands. The knife kept the animal pinned to the tree and blood began to drip down the blade to the crossguard, where it paused for a second before falling to the forest floor. He quickly grabbed a rough clay bowl and put it under the stream to collect the fallilng drops.

Whoever was stumbling though the forest was almost on top of him by now. He turned towards where he thought they would enter the break in the forest and tried to keep his body between them and his handiwork.

[Kahlen Jeanne Nox]

Kahlen was startled as Aurora made a run for it. "Aurora!" she yelled at the running figure. "Oh crap, Mellianne. What'll we do? I didn't think anything like this would happen, honest!"

After a minute or so of freaking out, Kahlen was able to respond to Mellianne's question about the cell numbers. "I don't know anyone's cell, but I suppose we could call emergency services? What's the number in the states? -Will we even get service?-"

Kahlen stopped to take a breath. "I wish I knew Professor Shiyal's number, too. I don't know if we should run after her. We'll probably get in more trouble if we -all- get lost."

Small animals and birds made noise as they were disturbed. Kahlen wildly looked around for help, but made sure to stay on the path.

"I suppose my idea was rather silly, eh? But in all honesty, I didn't think anything would happen and I've already said that, oh what'll we do?" Kahlen's voice seemed to have risen another octave, sounding more like a squeak than anything else.

[Mellianne Joss]

Mellianne quickly took a little water from her ball and splashed Kahlen's face, trying to get her to calm down, cause if Kahlen started freaking out, Mellianne was going to probably follow soon after. "Sorry, but we can't start freaking out about this, it could make it worse than if we got lost in there with her."

She thought for a moment about the emergency services question "Well, unfortunately, I don't know if 911 works here, I heard it's only for city areas. Plus, I don't think it would be wise to call the cops into a forest. And I don't know what other phone number. And you're right, running after her would not be a wise decision when we don't know the woods, and we don't have a way of making sure we get back."

Mellianne was trying to think of what she could do, while trying to continue calming Kahlen down. "Also, I know. I didn't think anything would go wrong and it would have been a fun idea, but we should have seen if we could have gotten more people, specially ones good at tracking. Next time we know. Now, we need to calm down and try and think this through."

Mellianne ran a hand through her hair, the water following the movement. Looking at it, she had an idea. Taking a small bit of water out, she sent it into the forest, seeing if she could use it to find Aurora. While concentrating on the water, she could sorta see/hear things but it was a little distorted. She brought it back and turned to Kahlen.

"I'm going to use most of the water as a shield and send the rest after Aurora. If you need to, you can walk through the shield, but nothing else can move through it. If someone comes, let me know, but I'll be concentrating on looking for Aurora, alright?"

Not really waiting for a response, Mellianne did just that, and sent the small ball of water down the little break that Aurora went.

[Aurora Lumina Robinson]

Aurora tripped over a large branch, stumbling into the small break where the groundskeeper was. She was having trouble breathing at this point, and a few particularly nasty branches had managed to tear the metal fibers of her dress, leaving smash gashes in her skin that she would notice later. Her hair was full of twigs and leaves, and wildly disarrayed, and the lights spread around the frame of her face were flashing red.

She looked up from the spot she had fallen and spotted the groundskeeper, letting out a small scream before she could stop herself. When she recognized his face, she calmed down a bit, although she was still hyperventilating. She hadn't quite recalled how creepy he was.

"Help! Something is chasing us!" Then she recalled that she had left the other two behind, and tears started freely welling up in her eyes.