The Forgotten Zodiac

"Starbucks!" Bun proclaimed loudly, raising a finger in the air and giggling. "Not really. I was wondering if you all would come with me. I found something cool near here that I thought I should show you. And meet you at the same time. Two birds with one stone, you know?" She turned on heel and marched in a seemingly random direction, pulling Trin along behind her. "As for what you were saying, Hannah, I try to be as real as possible over the internet. I could fabricate an entire new life for myself, but...I've tried that before. Not all it's cracked up to be."

All five of them were part of a group of friends that commonly met on a website Bun ran. They were all writers; though Bun had the most experience, she didn't consider herself any better than the others. They would always write stories together and whatnot; the group went rather far back. It all started when Bun had met Hannah; from there, Hannah introduced her to Sage, then Sage and Hannah introduced Bun to Trin. Then all four of them had brought up Tasumi; and soon, they all were weaving fantastical stories of friendship and triumph over evil.

And now, out of the blue, Bun had proposed they meet for no reason. Now she was saying she had something to show them? Most curious, indeed...

Tasumi watched Sage as he went up the tree again, and she sighed, mock-frustratedly at his ease when climbing out of trees. She turned and started laughing quiety again at Trin as she whined about leaving Bun. At Bun's silly exclaimation of Starbuck, Tasumi smirked and shook her head, holding back her own exclaimation of "Ew." She instead stood and listened to Bun explain an extra reason for their get-together. "Well then, that sounds good to me." Tasumi said, nodding. She smiled, then looked back up in the tree at Sage. She didn't have to wait long for Sage to come back down from the tree so they could all walk off together.

Hannah smiled and nodded as the coversation went from person to person, content to just listen and suck on the caramel in her mouth. She nearly grimaced as well at the mention of Starbucks - the only coffee she liked had to be in ice cream form - but went right back to her look of intrest as Bun mentioned a suprise. "Well, let's go, then," she said, trotting after Bun. She paused to wait for Tasumi and Sage, but seeing that they were following, hurried after the others.

Sage dropped out of the tree and followed Bun. Unlike all of the others, he hadn't visibly reacted when they started talking about Starbucks. He'd actually never been there, but he didn't feel the need to go. Coffee was disgusting. "See, this is the part where she stabs us all one by one as we come in. If it's a shack, I'm not going in."

Trin frowned at him and said "SHE wouldn't stab you! That's MY job." She trotted along happily, humming with her eyes closed. "I trust Bun. I'm fairly certain she doesn't want to go homicide on us. Besides, if she did, it would be murderlicious~!" She pulled a hair-tie out of her pocket, then bound up her wild curls into an ever-curly, messy ponytail. She definitely seemed to be the most energetic of the group (maybe classified as crazy) as she half-way seemed to be dancing alongside everyone else, still with Bun's hand clutched firmly in hers as she skipped along.

"If you want, Sage, you can go first." Bun giggled, leading them along. The forest gave way to a clearing, which Bun stomped into boldly. She easily found what looked like an old wooden trapdoor, roughly in the middle of the clearing. It looked like it had been hidden in a thick pile of hay, as the thin yellow plants were clustered into two seperate piles beside the trapdoor. "See? I was exploring and I found this trapdoor here. But what's cooler is what it leads to, come on!" Bun dragged the door open, dropping down into the hole. There was a short ladder, but the tunnel was barely deep enough for Bun to fit into without ducking. It widened the further down it went, and it seemed to be at a slope, too.

"Come on! Or are you scaredy-cats? Ew, cats," Bun made a face, shaking her head. "Hurry up! Really, just trust me."

Tasumi quietly walked behind everyone else and listened to what the others said as they followed Bun into the clearing and then to the trapdoor that she opened. "Ooh." Tasumi smiled as Bun hopped down into the hole. "Very cool." She said quietly, moving forward to go down after Bun, though she waited on everyone else to go on down as she prefered to be last. She made no comment but rolled her eyes slightly when Bun made her oppinion of cats known.

Hannah glanced around at the group. She, personally, didn't want to go in to the dark, scary hole in ther ground, where there could be mice, or, worse, spiders. "Do you have a flashlight?" she called after Bun, taking a slight step back to indicate that she didn't want to be second -- although, with Trin already attached so colesly to Bun, she supposed she didn't really have to worry who would go next.

Sage, after realizing no one else was going to step forward, did so himself. "Ordinarily I would say you all should go first; but, since you clearly aren't going to, I'll do it myself." He dropped through the trapdoor, swung his legs slightly, then dropped to the floor. "Where are we going from here?"

Trin let go of Bun's hand and stared down into the dark hole after Sage, then put her legs through and allowed herself to slip down into the darkness. "My element!" she said, though really, she wished she had a light. Once her eyes adjusted to the darkness, however, she seemed fine. She glanced up and said "Whoever's next, come down." She held her hand up, ready to help anyone down.

"Come on, slow pokes!" Bun chided at Hannah and Tasumi. She turned to Sage, her eyes already adjusted to the dark. "Just straight down this tunnel. There aren't any other passages to worry about, so you can go on ahead if you want. Just don't go too far, I want us all to see the surprise at once." She beamed at him, ruffling his hair.

"Go on, I'll be right behind you." Tasumi insisted, smiling at Hannah. She really simply prefered to be last. She could better observe everyone else that way. "It'll be fun, I'm sure." She added, absently fiddling with one of her braids.  She listened to Bun when she told Sage about which direction they were going, and smiled. This sounded simple, but exciting too, as Bun said more and more about surprises. Tasumi liked surprises.

"Oh, all right," Hannah sighed, dropping down into the tunnel. "Does anyone have a flashlight?" she asked, quietly waiting as someone taller moved to go in front of her. The tallest person, of course, had to go first - they'd clean out all the spider webs that could be walked in to.

((Seriously guys, can 'I' propose to Bun soon? Pwease?))

"I'm no help there," Sage replied. He had pulled out his cellphone and tried to use the light; but, after having it out for only a few seconds, he realized it would merely kill their night vision. He placed the phone back in his pocket and kept going, turning back to see if any of the other girls had the required light. "On the other hand, it's a fairly flat tunnel. I'd expect more roots down here, really. Any hints as to our destination, Bun?"

Trin stood nearby, staring blankly at a wall in thought, then suddenly said "Ooo, I have my laser!" She pulled a small, handheld laser pointer out of her pocket and shone the tiny red dot of a beam all around, then centered it on Sage's forehead. She smiled at him, then turned the beam, careful not to shine it in anyone's eyes. She then trotted ahead of them, flaring the laser in crazed circles around her.

((Later, Sage.))

"That's not really much of a flashlight, but it doesn't matter." Bun giggled. "We're leaving without you, Tasumi!" She turned on heel and started marching through the tunnel, using the walls to guide her. It didn't take much walking before they arrived at what appeared to be a thick and very old wooden door. "Here we are. I've never seen anything like this. I did some research online, and rumor has it that it leads to some mines that were abandoned a long time ago. Kind of reminds me of Minecraft; Abandoned Mineshafts. Let's just hope there are no creepers down there!" She giggled, making a reference to the popular indie game and the green, four-legged creatures that exploded on contact.

((I absolutely refuse to be your child.))

Tasumi rolled her eyes at Bun, as she had come down the moment Hannah had stepped forward with everyone else. Unless she was extremely giddy they was she had been upon spying Bun, she liked to stay quiet, though if she had something important so say it would be said. So as they walked on, Tasumi stayed absolutely silent, prefering to listen to everyone else talk instead of be the one talking. Unless they looked back, as far as they could tell they had moved on without Tasumi. 

"I still don't get the reference," Hannah said with a small smile - she was quite possibly the only one here who didn't play minecraft. She paused as they reached the door, and turned and looked back, to make sure Tasumi was still following them. "Seriously, though, what do you think is in there?" she voiced, not so much for Bun to answer, but to hear anybody's guess.

"Green, exploding, snake-giraffes that would kill us all unless we blunged them away from us. It'd be a fast way to go. If you didn't partially get away and bleed to death, or starve in a collapsed tunnel." Sage said all of this in what was nearly a monotone, not really finding the conversation morbid. It probably was, but he had conversations like this all the time. "How far till we're there?"

"Open the door!" Trin shrieked, moving forward and grabbing the edge of the door, where she proceeded to tug hard on it. "I can't wait any longer. You all don't have epic door skills like I do." She pulled harder, then finally managed to yank the door open. Though I suppose 'off' would've been the better word. The old door collapsed off of its hinges and clattered to the ground, causing them all to jump. Trin stood there for a moment, staring at the downed door, then said "Well. That wasn't part of my skills. Or...was it?" She smiled, then centered her pocket laser on Sage's forehead again. Merely because she could.