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How to get lost: a wanderers guide
The trouble with hats is they get a very high opinion of themselves, 'cause they are always on top

The trouble with hats is they get a very high opinion of themselves, 'cause they are always on top

Hello again. Everything is awful.

Other than that, things are good.

I have absolutely no evidence to back this up, but I think Fen was responsible.

Who else would set up such an elaborate prank? While we were sleeping someone snuck several pieces of Julius' hoard out from under his sleeping form, and stashed them in our slumbering arms. Fen himself was resting upon a particularily shiny silver bowl.

I can only assume he was playing the victim to hide his culpability.

If that was it than maybe it would have been fine, but Lenas long hair, unbraided and brushed before bed, was tied to a half dozen bowls filled with either feathers, sticky glowing goo from the walls, itching powder, or pepper.

Where did he even get feathers?! Or itching powder fo that matter?

And then there was Onica. An elaborate series of ropes had been arrayed around her, tied very gently to her limbs and connected to a series of crude bells and other various noise makers. Hard to identify them now that they've been reduced to shreds and scraps.

As for me. A rope had been tied around my left ankle, and tied to a catapult. Yes, a catapult. So many questions! Another rope connected Lenas hair to the trigger for the catapult.

It all went off, when Julius woke up. He always wakes up first, don't know how or why.

Anyway, he wakes up, and immediately notices he is missing some treasures. His search is as frantic as it is short. Finding his friends cuddling with his preciouses drove him into a frothy fury. Exhibited in a furious firey bolt of crimson fur crashing into us. Kicking up a fuss and uproar, as well as just kicking us.

Which caused all hell to break loose.

Onica shot up first. Blocking and dodging the kicks with a grace and cooleness that evaporated like dew in the desert when the ringing and clattering of the noisemakers tied to her cause her sleep addled mind to panic. she shot away, trying to escape and get some space in a crescendo of clashing wood and metal.

Lena jerked out of a sound sleep and shot to her feet, just in time to get a Julius kick in the tummy. She flew, causing a deluge of feathers, sticky glowing goo, itching powder, and pepper to fill the air. Onica was still bolting wildly, bouncing off the ceiling and walls in the cabin we all slept in, throwing the detritus in all directions and triggering a sneezing coughing, scratching fit for us all.

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When Lena had gone fly she had triggered the catapult. Which grabbed me by the foot and launched me into the air. Surprised and sleep addled myself I do what I do anytime I get shocked. I burst into flame. 

Didn't work out well this time.

My flames hit the dust in the air about the same time my flying body hit the panicked Onica. The mixed dust ignites in an explosion, and the smell of burning feathers and hair fills the air along a burning itching smoke. Breathing moved from difficult to impossible as the choking cloud of irritant smoke filled the cabin.

We were all blinded, sneezing, coughing, and covered in multicolored gunk and feathers. Except Fen, he just had the feathers and gunk.

Onica was busily pounding her fists into my face when we hit the floor and fell on top of the more pissed than ever Julius. Who was not amused. He sends us both, Onica now clawing me in the neck, flying once again in a blast of fire. We hit the very dirty clump of smouldering feathers that is Fen, and become intimately familiar with the sensation of heavens wrath. Or lightning, whichever.

Then Fen blew the smoke out of the cabin. At last we could all see blurrily through tearing eyes, and breathe through rasping itchy throats. 

One heck of a wake up I'll tell ya.

End result: I am bleeding from every hole in my face. I have a bruised everything, and am covered in feathers and gunk. My foot was dislocated by the catapult, and I have new scars on my neck courtesy on Onica.

Julius is filthy and hopping mad. He came out alright because he is a very small target.

Lena, poor Lena, had her precious hair burnt when the powder trapped in her locks ignited. Onica trimmed the burnt edges as best as she could, but she is no barber and our little lamb is pretty much shorn. 

Onica is a bit burnt, nothing we couldn't heal, thankfully. Her pride is badly bruised, but I am sure it'll make a full recovery.

Fen is fine. A bit dusty, but the real damage is that everyone is giving him the stink eye. He still says he didn't do it...

I want to believe him, but who else would have?

Still, no proof. So I will just consider this a badly planned, overly elaborate practical joke. The real bad part is he is lying about not doing it. Trust and honesty is of the utmost importance in a group like ours. And right now I don't trust him to be honest.

With that setting the tone of the day it's no wonder things went so badly for the rest of it.

Everyone was nursing battered feelings all day. Conversation was stilted and unpleasant. Lena pretty much just locked herself inside her Mirage all day. I couldn't even lure her out with her favorite foods for dinner. Onica is even touchier than usual. I tried to make a joke about scaredy-cats...

If looks could kill, I would have been locked up for forty years, beaten, starved, blinded, tortured, and then drawn and quartered. It was that kind of look.

Julius has reclaimed his treasures and has been polishing them and glaring at us since this morning. Rabbits have a very cold glare.

Fen has spent the whole day trying to convince someone that he didn't do it. By lunch everyone was pretty much sick of it, and we have been ignoring him since then.

I feel bad, but he really needs to learn better, and I don't know what to do to punish a hat.

So I am going with the punishment for a brat. Ignore and then ignore some more. Brats thrive off of attention.

It has been a very long day. Still no fresh air or signs of an exit.

I am so sick of the same boring thing day after day! Sure, some of the caves are beautiful, and the tunnels do have wonderful, if subtle, color variations. But for some reason I am unable to enjoy myself as I normally do.

Something about this place just kind of... sucks.

Goodnight.