The Beginning | Tasks: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | The EndThe Game
The door opened. Sage Date came in with several videos from the rental store. The Ronins, Warlords, Mia, and Kayura crowded around, anxious to see what he had salvaged from the store racks. Sage put in the first one, his personal favorite about a cartoon deer. The other's groaned as the childish previews played.
The feature presentation began and Sage hushed all further groans. The movie progressed. Though all else was quiet in the mansion, it was obvious that something odd was just aching to happen. The very fabrics of space and time seemed to ripple, sending strange images to those minds that were most in tune.
"I want popcorn," mumbled Kento, but he was immediately hushed. Cye left the room silently to fix Kento's popcorn.
20 minutes went by and Cye had not returned. Neither light nor sound came from the kitchen. Kento wanted his popcorn.
"I'm going to see what happened to him...but I'm going to the bathroom first," Kento headed upstairs.
40 minutes passed. Neither Cye nor Kento had returned.
'This is childish," muttered Kale, the other warlords nodded and mumbled in agreement. Dais mentioned a place they could go. The warlords headed upstairs to get ready to leave.
An hour passed, the young deer was now a prince. The warlords never came back down the stairs. Cye and Kento were still missing. There were only 5 people left in the room.
"I'm going to study, then go to bed," yawned Rowen. He headed toward the library. He never turned on the light.
Sage put in the next movie. It was something about some angels and a guy named Charlie. Mia and Kayura left to do some work on Mia's computer. No computer sounds could be heard, no familiar glow of a screen or click of a mouse was observed.
Sage and Ryo watched the movie intently. Ryo nodded off. Sage, taking no notice of Ryo, continued to watch the movie. Sage looked at the spot where Ryo should have been. It was empty.
"Must have gone to bed," Sage muttered to himself as he turned the TV off.
"I guess I'll go too," Sage said aloud. The words had barely escaped his lips when he heard a noise come from the basement. Sage headed toward the sound.
Sage opened the creaking basement door. He turned on the flickering yellow light bulb and made his way carefully down the dimly lit steps. The flickering of the light increased. Suddenly, with a sharp cracking sound, the light went out. Sage muttered a profane Japanese word and felt his way down the rest of the steps.
When he reached the basement floor his eyes caught the glow of a blue-silver light. By the way the light smoothly pierced the darkness, Sage could tell that the light came from a small but powerful source. He made his way toward the light.
As he walked slowly his hand wandered toward his pocket. He felt something small, cold, and round but full of power. He fingered his Kanji-ball and the orb rolled into his hand. I hope I don't need this, he thought to himself.
He went closer to the light source. He found that it was a sphere, somewhat like a crystal ball.
"Hello Halo." Sage jumped at the somewhat voice. For the first time he noticed a figure cloaked in darkness. It was female by the sound but that's all that he could tell.
"Sit Halo, I have something to tell you," Sage sat. No words came to his lips. He didn't know if he could trust this person, but his curiosity got the best of him.
The cloaked figure had a red book in her hand. The book had a golden seal and golden characters that Sage could not make out As the person opened the book Sage could see that sections of the book also had golden seals, 9 seals in all. There were also 3 section with seals.
"Halo, this must be a very strange event to occur on your birthday," as the figure spoke and turned the pages, colored mist swirled inside the crystal ball. Memories from earlier that day came to Sage's mind. The prank package of hair products from Kento, the goldfish from Cye, the science book from Rowen and Mia, the inflatable woman from the warlords. Ryo and Kayura were the only ones close to serious. Ryo had given him a blade polishing kit for his sword collection while Kayura had given him a gift certificate for free movie rentals. He noted that Anubis had not given him a present.
"Yeah, this is strange. What is this all about?" asked Sage, making no effort to hide his suspicion.
"You distrust me Halo, not a wise choice. Before this evening is through you won't know who you can trust," though Sage couldn't see her face, he was positive that the figure grinned.
Sage began to make a sarcastic remark but thought better of it. " What happened to my friends? How do I know that I can really trust you?"
The figure was silent for a moment. A shuffling sound was heard. A nervous movement, "Halo, you have good reason not to trust me but you must believe me when I say that I can help you find your friends. They need your help to return here safely. I can tell you what to do. As for trust, if I wanted to hurt you I would have done it by now." Once again the figure grinned.
Sage thought for a moment. Could he really turn his back on an opportunity to help his friends? He decided to trust his instincts, and this figure. Besides, if anything went wrong, he could take care of himself. "Well, what do I do?"
"This situation, or game, is a strange one. It is a twisted mixture of Ouiji and a 'Choose Your Own Adventure' story. The way you play is by finding many letters of the alphabet, all different colors, to create a message. In order to find these letters you must look around this house, meeting different people. Some you may recognize, some you may not. There are 12 letters in all, and one punctuation. Each person that you meet will give you a task or will be related to your task in some way. You must complete the tasks to earn letters. The object of the game is to get all of the letters, make it through alive, and finish the game before sunrise. Any questions?"
"Just one. Is that all?" said Sage.
"Yes".
"That doesn't sound so hard."
"It doesn't? Well, we'll soon see," the figure grinned once again. "We do not need this at the moment," the figure said and the crystal ball vanished. "The game begins, NOW!"
The Beginning | Tasks:1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | The End