Closed SGRUB

-

Frirtz looked up from his screen, yellow eyes narrowed. It was time to get ready; he'd engaged the portal, and sent each of the other players the file to cause the portal to open for them too. He would see them all soon, then.

The young Troll took up his saw, slipping it into it's holster at his back, before turning to the portal. It was spinning in his open window, a pale blue that matched his noble blood, a foot or so away from the sill. That window overlooked the sea, and he was...not the best swimmer. So if this didn't work, he was done for. A leap of faith... The blueblood laughed, approaching the sill. Pius wound himself into the room, from a deeper chamber of the hive, where the two slept. The snake would be coming with him, of course. He would need at least one person besides Rossel who wasn't a moron around.

Speaking of... Frirtz glanced back at the screen for a moment, where the text still lingered.

-- asclepiaSunder [AS] began pestering twoflueTrident [TT] at 16:27 --
[04:27] AS: well here goeIS
[04:28] AS: I've opened a por+al in+o +he game, le+IS find ou+ where i+ goeIS
[04:29] AS: you ready roISISel?
[04:33] TT: I uh
[04:33] TT: YØu'll shØw up there, right? }D:
[04:33] TT: B-but yeah, ready.
[04:33] AS: i hope ISo
[04:34] TT: Ø-Økay
[04:34] TT: <3
[04:35] AS: <3

The slitherbeast wound around Frirtz's body in a sort of hug (though with more 'squeezing the air out of you' involved), then curled under the window, to serve as a staircase of sorts to the window. Frirtz climbed over the smooth, white scales, and perched on the sill for a moment. A Leap of Faith. He was sure that was a requirement to enter the game, and wondered what the other players would have to do for theirs.

Well, no more stalling. Frirtz crouched on the sill, before launching himself at the swirling blue portal, eyes squeezed shut. There was an exhilarating high, but then--

The sensation of falling. He drew a sharp breath, anticipating the impact with the icy water below and the crushing water around him, but... It never came.

Instead, he hit the ground with a thud, the breath knocked from his lungs as he landed on his back. His eyes snapped open and he was staring at the portal, far above his head and almost impossible to make out against the soft blue sky. Looking around, he saw eleven more, all varying in colour. That must mean they would be here soon.

Frirtz got to his feet and looked around, dimly aware of the soft thud behind him that meant Pius had came too. This place was...familiar.

-

Jayqov swallowed nervously, working quickly to find and move the little makeshift ladder that would let him reach the tiny little hole that was the only way out of his underground hive. He had to get out fast, before his lusus suspected anything. It was now or never.

As he propped the ladder in place, his mind was racing throughout all the new things he'd discovered. Hell, it was still just a wonder he could just pack up and take everything with him through this "Fetch Modus" thing. All the things he's learned, all the people he's met, just in the past few days. He didn't want to let this go just because his lusus happened to not agree that this was right. He was lost in thought for a second, until a rustling sound deeper in the hive forced him to scramble up the ladder, up towards the surface.

He poked his head out of the hole. The stars were still visible, as was the ruined, rotting remains of what had once been a lovely garden, but the first rosy streaks of the sunrise were flaring up on the horizon. Jayqov shuddered; he knew full well the dangers of the blistering Alternian sun. It's a big reason why Patreca never let him out.

If that wasn't bad enough, those said rosy streaks perfectly outlined the gently swirling green portal. Is this what they meant by a "leap of faith," he thought? Risking getting burned and blinded? But if it worked...

By then the sun had risen to form a blinding corona around the portal. Shutting his eyes and feeling the rays lick away at his skin, he stepped forward...

When he next opened his eyes he was relieved to find that he could still see perfectly. But he wasn't where he was before... and there was one other young troll standing there. He recognized him.

"O-oh....dammit."

Or at least he would have said that, if a second later he hadn't been knocked over by something flying out of his portal. As Patreca, the massive digbeast, barrelled into him, she accidentally scraped him with her claws, shedding a bit of green blood. Jayqov flipped over, looking back at her with massive eyes. She clicked angrily at him, trying to drag him back through the portal... until she saw the others standing there, to which she hopped over to them, hissing at them and pawing the ground aggressively.

Jayqov sighed. Guess she's joining him...

Rossel sat, staring at his screen, apprehension bubbling in his gut. So it was game time. The seadweller’s hands shook slightly as he clicked the file to the portal Frirtz was talking about. Time to find out what this could do.

There was a flash from the screen, and Rossel recoiled with a squeak. Then…nothing.

That was odd. He floated out of his hive, peeking over the small cliff where his home sat. Yellow eyes squinted, trying to make out whatever was hiding in that soft glow…

And there it was. A soft pinkish portal. And of course, it had to sit at the very bottom, dark and deep and with pressures he’s sure his gills couldn’t take. Just his luck. He was pretty sure his leap of faith wasn't supposed to be so literal. The seadweller shivered some, going back. He had to pack if he was going somewhere, and with a sinking heart, he realized Ao was definitely out. If he had to lay underground in the muddy bottom of his hive, he sure couldn’t fit into that tiny portal. Maybe he could try…

Scratching at the ground, he eventually found the shellbeast’s blank eyes. It wasn’t often he was awake.

“Ao? Up and at ‘em. We’re going somewhere.” He gave an affectionate scratch, right behind the eyes. He could feel the massive shellbeast squirm and move to the end of the muddy place, burrowing out and peeking into the window. With a chuckle, Rossel started to gather. Bubblypoon, check, glubtop, check, Ao? Very much a check. Seeing that there was nothing else of importance, he gulped and stepped out, letting himself drop into the icy depths below.

The pressure hurt more than anything. His face-gills tingled hard, but his lungs, those burned. He gasped and panted as he fell down, Ao right behind him, feeling like he was on fire-

His lungs emptied, but he wasn’t in water anymore. The air always felt foreign on his skin after being under so long, and he shivered. Blinking open his eyes he saw his own portal and a wide blue sky.

This was…new.

Well speaking of new, there was some massive furrybeast growling and Rossel really, really wished he could move right now.

"Uh--"

Luckily, Ao made for a very good, sleeping shield.

Beep.

Vercin looked up from his keyboard, and in the corner of his screen, he saw a little message telling him the game that Frirtz had sent him was ready. Vercin licked his lips, and double clicked on the message.

Rowanoak, a short treant, located himself next to Vercin just as a flash of light flew across the screen.

Vercin fell.

However, instead of landing on the floor of his hive, he was in... sand, and his lusus next to him.

"Well," he said, "I guess we wont have to look for the portal leading into the game, heh." He then quickly captchalogued his desk chair, and helped his little tree man up.

Menatt gazed at the screen of his laptop. The game was starting, or so Frirtz had said. He had also mentioned that there would be a leap of faith involved with getting into it. He sighed dramatically. There wasn't much he could leap of faith into around his hive, so this would probably take some searching.

He stood up and captchalogued a few things, including his TOUCHKEY LAPTOP, a SWORD, and a PURPLE PHOENIX PLUSHIE. He also placed upon his eyes his INSECTCAUSINGNOTTOGETINYOUREYESGLASSES, to INSECTCAUSENOTTOGETINHISEYES. He leaped off of the platform of his hive he was currently on and spread his wings wide, looking around to see where his portal was. He sighed. No luck so far. He swooped around for a while, searching. Eventually he happened upon an area thick with clouds, and glided through to get to the other side...

Which was a desert. He dug his face out of the ground, sputtering and spitting out sand, and noticed Frirtz, Jayqov, Rossel and Vercin already there. He heard the swooping, cawing, incinerating noise that could only be his lusus, probably on the other side of the portal. He groaned. Now he was going to have to clean glass off her.

Virlet closed his Pesterchum temporarily, and opened his email, which he had not touched for months. He'd been too busy with equations, and stuff, so that he'd been barely able to even communicate with anyone. But he was so close to making a breakthrough. At least, he thought.

"Back to the game, Virlet.", he thought to himself.

He opened the email from...Frirtz, was it? From talking to Vercin, Virlet vaguely knew that Frirtz was the troll who wanted to start the whole game. After reading (a.k.a. scrolling through) the message thing, Virlet found a link, which he was apparently supposed to double-click to start the game.

Upon doing so, the screen flashed brightly, and then dimmed. Nothing seemed different. Virlet stood up from his computer and captchalouged a few things: his two hookswords, a book of math equations he had wrote and perfected, his laptop, and a portable music player full of troll punk rock music. He then stepped outside of his room and began to descend lower into his hive, towards the exit.

His lusus, Euclid, found him as he walked down a set of stairs and began to follow him. Virlet's hive was built into a volcanic mountain. It's only exit was near the base, and the lava sometimes boiled over and blocked the exit.

This is partially why Virlet didn't get out much.

As he neared the hive's exit, Virlet noticed a strange ring floating above one of the lava pools. It was the same color as his blood. After a few minutes of staring at it, Virlet knew it was the portal into the game. Though, he didn't know why it had such a life-threatening entrance...

Deciding to put the matter to rest, Virlet ran towards the pit and jumped in, making a leap of faith. Rather than being incinerated, Virlet hit sandy ground. Standing and looking around, Virlet saw about 5 other trolls, at least one of which he thought he recognized. His lusus followed him through the portal shortly after.

"Well, this should be interesting," Virlet thought to himself while readjusting his senses.

Tyrisi sat back in the chair in front of her computer, reading over Frirtz's message. Sure, he seemed like a jerk who was obsessed with this whole blood caste crap, but she couldn't deny that this game seemed like a hell of a lot of fun. Maybe she would just ignore him and focus on the other guys. They seemed cool, at least.

A leap of faith, huh? Sounds scary. And yet awesome. Why can't more games be awesome like this? Bring it on, she thought as she clicked the link... and when nothing happened, she clicked again. And again.

"Huh? He gave me a broken link? What a ripoff!" It was only the gentle tapping of her lusus's antler to the far wall, beside the window, that drew her out of her pouting. She got to her feet and trotted over.

It was a bit of work to spot it. After all, her hive hung over a cliff. A very steep, very misty cliff. She smiled a bit as a small rainbow arced between the clouds, caught by a few slivers of the Alternian sun. It was pretty but then she frowned as she thought more. A rainbow? Really? She was honestly expecting something a little more badass than a rainbow.

Elaryn rapped at the wall a little harder, pawing his hoof on the floor. A few of the clouds blew out of the way, revealing the dark purpley-red portal. Tyrisi had to squint to see it. It was... far out there. Really far out there.

And there was nothing between it and the ground, save some pointy, quite-definitely-fatal-if-hit rocks.

Okay, now this was more like it. But there was no way in hell she was gonna reach it by herself. She was gonna need a little bit of help. She grinned and turned to her lusus.

"Ready for a jump, buddy?"

Outside, the wind swept roughly around the two, tousling Tyrisi's ponytail every which-way. She could just barely see the portal out there... even with her super-fast and awesome lusus, it was gonna be a stretch. She climbed up on Elaryn's back, smiling huge.

"Ready... Set... GO!" The lusus shot forward, ducking his head as Tyrisi clung tightly to his back. He reached the end of the cliff and kicked off the edge, hard enough for his hooves to leave a large chip in the cliffside. They seemed to hang in the air for a moment... and barely, just barely, the two of them slip into the portal... and barrel right into the growling furrybeast.

Poor Patreca seems stunned by what just happened, while Jayqov just stares, wide-eyed. Well... that saves him the trouble of trying to drag her away.

Tyrisi, however, simply hops cooly off the back of her own lusus, smiling wide at the group.

"Hi!"

Menatt stared at her in a mix of awe, fear, and confusion. "Umm. Hi?" He said, blinking as if he was blinking. "You're... Who are..." He squinted, trying to put what he saw and what he knew about the other trolls together.

Let's see... That looked like... A deer? Which of the other trolls had deer? And what was with the horns... Wait a minute didn't "Tyrisi? Nice... To meet you in person, I guess. Not that I've talked to you all that much because the last time I was talking to you you were busy or something, and you were on Trollian a while ago but I was busy and didn't troll you, and also you aren't on Trollian that much which is I'm blabbering aren't I I'll stop." He offered his hand to be shook.

Zreiga was busy ingesting copious amounts of sopor slime when she heard her computer beep. He knew that sound-- the little bloop that her computer made whenever someone sent him an e-mail. Zreiga lurched over to her computer and checked it out.

"Aaaaaaah.... sssso... Frirtz ssssent me a..., link...?" A brief glance at the email explained the purpose of the link was to create a portal; the players would have to make a leap of faith to reach the gateway and begin the game. Zreiga read the email with a look of bewilderment on his face; this looked as if it was going to require effort...

Regardless, she clicked on the link. Zreiga waited patiently for a portal to show up somewhere, when all of a sudden his computer spontaneously combusted. The burning metal fell all over the floor, lighting the dead leaves on the ground on fire.

Zreiga stared in bewilderment as her hive slowly transformed into a blazing inferno. Looking out the window, he could see a large blue portal had generated twenty feet away from his soon-to-be funeral pyre of a house.

Zreiga quickly captchalogued his most precious belongings; her headphones, her Junior Sopor Brewing Kit, her garden clippers, and Jim.

Zreiga opened up the door and looked at the portal; it wasn't close enough for her to jump it, and if she didn't make it he'd fall into a pit of ravenous troll-eating plants. Not to mention that it was windy...

Zreiga suddenly had an idea. A while ago, he had ordered a poster featuring the cover art for My Trolly Matesprit's seminal '91 album Redromless and hammered it to the wall. Luckily for her, it had not been consumed by the flames, and therefore was usable as a parachute.

Holding the poster as a parachute, Zreiga jumped through the door and rode the wind towards her portal. With a blinding flash of light, she found herself teleported to a mysterious desert, surrounded by her grey-skinned companions. He smiled awkwardly.

"Hey guyssss.... anyone got a.... laptop...?"