What is the First Rule... Slytherin Event

Adonis continued to watch as all of his fellow housemates seemed to get branded with numbers on the arms, a small bit of fiery spirit boiling up inside of him at the sight. He didn't like the look of it one bit and just like a good amount of other Slytherin students, Adonis felt rather suspicious of the whole thing. It made him question just what exactly had he signed himself up for upon giving the mysterious man the invitation he had received. He was glad to at least have Percival and Hanako with him, not being alone in his wandering thoughts.

His hazel eyes wandered off in the direction of two of his other dormmates and Opeila. "Come. Let's go over to the others and ask them about all of this." Adonis said to Percival and Hanako, gesturing for them to follow him over to the other group of three. He made quick haste of getting over to them with his long strides and a very visible concerned look on his face while making his way over to them.

"Is it just me or is this all making you guys feel off a bit as well? I don't like how we're being branded with numbers and how he spoke of some 'ring' in the 'basement'. How the hell are we supposed to know what that means?" He asked Jack, Opeila, and Flash, his last sentence was more so of a rhetorical question as it was just him expressing his frustration and concern over the whole situation. It made him feel uncomfortable but also ready for whatever was to come as much as he didn't want to face it.

Interacting with @Jack Burnett, @Opeila Seilun, @Flash Holmwood, @Hanako Tone, @Percival Rainwood

Stamina: 6 | Evasion: 3 | Strength: 2 | Wisdom: 9 | Arcane Power: 7 | Accuracy: 8
Ability: Prodigal DADA Learner

Interacts with: @Opeila Seilun @Flash Holmwood @Jack Burnett
Mentions: The Gobshite Behind the Table.

Abilities: Keen Eye. Evasive Maneuvers.
Stats: STAMINA: 8 EVASION: 9 STRENGTH: 2 WISDOM: 8 ARCANE POWER: 6 ACCURACY: 8

As he stepped off to the side, Søren caught sight of a familiar face waving to him. It was Dealla, a kind girl he met while making origami. Waving back, he saw her being pulled away by a familiar Slytherin face who he had not met. A few moments later, the pair were approached by a boy who looked to be quite athletic. Sizing up the trio, Søren decided it was time to make some new friends. He didn’t want to head into the dragon’s den alone, much less without someone to look out for him if things went awry.

Sidling up to them, Søren gave a smile of recognition to Dealla and nodded at the other two. “Hey guys, I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Søren Silverwood,” he had a habit of dropping his last name in the case that someone could recognize his family’s stature, but from his time at Hogwarts hearing other people do the same, he realised this was probably not the best lead in. “Erik, was it?” he asked the boy, overhearing him earlier. “And you are?” he turned to the girl who had pulled Dealla away. If she did give him her name, he would smile kindly and continue. “I guess none of you know why we’re here. Any guesses? It feels like we’re going to see some kind of fighting match or maybe an auction…? This branding thing worries me, though,” he said with a shiver, instinctively grabbing his sweather-clad arm over the numbered sear.

Interacting with
@Dealla Prince @Ileen Knight @Erik Tharaldson

Ability: Charmer
Stamina: 6 | Evasion: 8 | Strength: 7 | Wisdom: 6 | ArcPower: 2 | Accuracy: 6

Interacting with: @Dealla Prince @Erik Tharaldson @Søren Silverwood

Ileen smiled tensely. Her best friend seemed unconcerned, as usual, and that at least calmed her down a bit. “I got the invitation, too, but I have a bad feeling about it.” She turned to let her gaze wander over her classmates and sighed. The more familiar faces she saw around her, the more worried she became. “I thought it was a mistake at first, to be honest. And I have no idea - if it’s something like a Slytherin Party, I wasn’t invited to it. Not that that would surprise me. I hardly know most of them.” She shrugged and bit her lower lip. “But this is just weird. Even for our standards.” She pulled down her pullover to show Dee the number on her skin. “And yep. I got one as well. He said something about the ‘ring’. Sounds like a secret fight club or so.”

She gave Erik a little smile, when he walked towards them, and stepped on Dee’s foot, flushing about her comments about Erik. “Pst. Never say something like this in his presence. His ego would just explode.”
Honestly, she was a bit concerned. Dealing with Erik was a bit like flipping a coin - he could be charming and nice, but if he was in a bad mood… well, she intended to stay friends with both of them.
When he used her nickname again, a little smile escaped her. “Hi Erik. I got a mysterious invitation and just followed everyone else here, as it seems.” She made a vague gesture to the others who stood beside them. “And you?”
She was relieved that he was here. Sort of. And she was even more relieved when he spoke kindly to Dee. She rolled her eyes and grinned mockingly at him when he used his full name and ‘title’, as always. “Wow. So that’s what it looks like when you use your good manners. Good to know. Dee, you are a lucky one.”

Before she could answer Eriks question, they were interrupted by another guy from Slytherin. He, on the other hand, seemed to know Dee and gave her a smile. She rummaged in her memory where she might have seen him the other day. Maybe at the party? Probably. She couldn’t tell, because she had been... well, distracted.
“Hi Søren. I’m Ileen.” She gave him an uneasy smile and then looked around visibly worried. “Yes, I’m pretty worried, too. Something just doesn’t feel right.”
Her eyes met first Dee’s, then Erik’s. On one hand, she was happy to have her closest friends around her, but on the other, they were now all definitely involved - in whatever was coming.

Ability: Sixth Sense
Stats: Sta:5 | Ev:7 | Str:3 | Wis:7 | Arc:6 | Acc:7

Mentions @Ileen Knight @Erik Tharaldson @Søren Silverwood

Dee shrugged. Ileen was right, something was strange, even discounting the brands and the weird boy at the entrance, but Dealla couldn't really put her finger on it. Hogwarts events did seem to have a way of going horrifically wrong, so it was best to keep their eyes open, either way. Still - this was promising to be memorable, at the very least.
"If it was a Slytherin thing, why would I have gotten an invitation?" she reasoned. "I'm sure it can't be worse than that time half of Ravenclaw wandered into the Forbidden Forest. That was an adventure." She shuddered. Even if they had made it out, Dealla wasn't likely to forget that day any time soon.

The little Ravenclaw burst out laughing at Ileen's warning about Erik, and was still laughing when the boy reached the two of them, vibrant and tinkling. With all that Ileen complained about her first Slytherin friend, it was clear that he meant a lot to her.
"Hi Erik!" she replied to his introduction, and tried very hard to not roll her eyes at the fact that he seemed to think that being the last living heir of a pureblood line was relevant information for a first impression. She wasn't completely sure how well she succeeded, but she was proud of the effort.
It wasn't like Dee hadn't known to expect that. Ileen's rants still rang clear in her ears. For all that she knew, she thought, she might be the last living heir of the Creek family - although she wasn't a pureblood, and didn't carry the name. Maybe the Creeks were dead, then, if there wasn't some cousin she didn't know about.
Still, she shook Erik's hand and gave him a brilliant smile. "I'm Dee, and I have heard a lot about you. Not all of it good, though."
She cocked her head to one side at Ileen's comment about Erik's manners, and grinned. "I do deserve good manners, don't you think?" she asked. "But yes, I feel so honoured."

She didn't get around to answering Erik's question, or make further teasing comments, before there was another addition to their little group: Søren had obviously also spotted her in the queue earlier, and now stepped in next to her. "Hi Søren!" she greeted him brightly, then frowned slightly as his words brought back a bit of the spine-chilling atmosphere that had made its home around the whole group of students. "Well, if it is an auction, I don't have any money to buy anything," she said lightly and then, trying to joke, "As long as it's not us being auctioned off, right?"

--------------- Stamina --------- 4 ------------- Evasion --------- 7 Strength 3 Wisdom 8 Arcane Power 6 Accuracy 7

--------------------------------- Abilities Evasive Maneuvers

Many times throughout her first year at Hogwarts, Maria always wondered how she got into certain situations. Today, the situation involved standing in a queue in the London Quidditch Stadium with several others students. In her hand she nervously flipped over the invitation that mysteriously appeared one day, a wave of unease moving through her. Her initial plan to only check out the address on the invitation changed when the line started to grow. Looking at the students who were already there, she didn’t recognize many of them, and she definitely hadn’t met them yet. Maybe she’d seen a few of them around the castle? But she was sure several of them were frrom the House of Slytherin.

A badger in a snake pit. What could go wrong?

Everything. Everything could go wrong.

Maybe it was a mistake for her to have come today, maybe it wasn’t too late to back out?

Before she could act on her unease and leave, the invitation was quickly snatched out of her hand and a burning pain was on her uppper arm (a feeling that she was rather familiar with now). A panicked expression was on her face as she quickly pushed her jumper a little bit off her shoulder to get a closer look. The number twenty-eight (28) was seared into her arm now.

She walked forward, not wanting to get in the next person’s way. This was definitely a bad idea.

After exiting the line, Bridget hung off to the side. Watching. Waiting. Trying to figure out what was going on. There were an awful lot of Hogwarts students here, almost exclusively Slytherins. So maybe this was where their House would be staying to see Hufflepuff face off against Durmstrang? If it was, though, wouldn't Professor Jensen be here? It didn't make sense for them to not have any adult supervision to speak of.

And what were the numbers for? Despite reading as many books on the wizarding world as she could, she'd never come across anything detailing the procedure for getting seats at a Quidditch Stadium. Was branding the usual tactic? Maybe these were just numbers that would fade once they found their seats. Still, that didn't make sense. A huge stadium like the one the Quidditch Match would be played in would have seats identified by more than a single digit--didn't normal seat numbers have letters and numbers? Or was that just a Muggle thing? Did wizards just count up super high? That was the downside of being a Muggleborn--you didn't know what was standard procedure. And in this case, knowing what was normal would have been really helpful.

Try as she might to assure herself things were okay, Bridget didn't believe for a moment the numbers were seat numbers. Especially considering all the other tents already up, there was no way she was only the fifth person to check in. What had the boy said to her? "The ring is in the basement. We start in an hour." How did a tent have a basement? Maybe that was another thing magical tents just usually did. And what was this ring? Other students were suggesting some sort of fighting match or auction, neither of which were great possibilities. Her only reassurance was the wand tucked into the self-made holster around her waist, although since it was in such an observable location it could easily be confiscated. But she didn't thing this 'ring' was either of those. No, this was something more sinister...

Stats:
5 Stamina | 9 Evasion | 3 Strength | 9 Wisdom | 7 Arcane Power | 8 Accuracy
Race/Abilities:
Full Human | Sixth Sense | Evasive Maneuvers

What Nick was doing right now might be considered out of character for most people, but for Nick this was a completely normal thing to see him doing. Nick was standing in a queue to a line he didn't know would take him.

He took the invitation he had received mysteriously out of his pocket and looked around curiously at the line in front and behind him. What was this event and why were so many people invited to it? Of course, some of these people may just be here out of curiosity of the tent. It was a sort of simplistic yet elegant look that drew people in before people would get more curious when they saw a young cloaked man sitting behind a desk.

Walking up to the desk the boy asked for invitation which Nick silently handed over, it already being in his hands. He watched entranced as it burned for a couple of seconds before his right arm flailed feeling pain. Looking at the source of the pain he discovered a 29 pressed into his arm like a fresh tattoo. He hoped it wasn't permanent because if his mother saw it she would find some sort of way to connecting it to the devil.

Quickly following the boy's directions, he walked towards the tent. It was curious, the whole situation, but at least he could already chalk it up to be interesting even if all they did in the basement was sing songs or something, though he doubted that would be the case.

Special Race= Seer
Strength = 3 | Evasion = 8 | Wisdom = 4 | Arcane Power = 4 | Accuracy = 7 | Stamina = 4

Though Jack had rolled up his sleeve to thoroughly investigate his number, he glanced over at Opeila's and Flash's numbers as they, too, exposed the new burn marks to the light. He smiled wryly at the Slytherin girl's question of whether they might have been assigned seats.

"If only that was the case," he answered with a light laugh, trying to keep spirits up despite the peculiarity of the situation and the apparent suspicion of all the Slytherin students involved. "I think we're all pretty sure it's something else, though..."

Jack continued to watch and listen as he saw a few more of his dorm mates give their tickets and get their own numbers in exchange. He found it ironic that many of them thanked the young man who had taken their tickets as if they felt obligated out of politeness. This was, of course, despite the fact that they were likely not pleased about having just had a mark painfully burned into their arm without their being warned or asked.

It reminded Jack again of the binding marks he had been researching due to the ones that Thomas and Marion had on their skin. These, however, were uniform in that they were all numbers - if each different - and that they were all on the same place. They couldn't be binding marks, then, could they...? Especially since binding marks had to be given with the consent of the one being marked, but...did handing over the invitation count?

The invitations were presumably given to the Slytherin students as a prize for winning the House Cup for the month of May, but Jack wasn't so sure. After the stunt they'd pulled regarding the party and the two professors who had caught them at it, who knew if this event was a prize or a punishment? It seemed unfair to punish everyone, since not everyone had attended the party, but...the thing about team and group dynamics was that if one person suffered, everyone did. It supposedly made them all 'closer' and want to look out for each other more. That, or pressure the weakest link into improving.

Not minding in the least when Flash touched the '3' on his arm, Jack was so pleased to know that the brunet had become comfortable enough to do that with him so naturally that he almost commented on it. However, recognizing that such a comment - especially in public - would probably just make the taller boy self-conscious, he decided to keep his trap shut on the matter. He pulled his sleeve back down his arm instead; the better to hide the scars that matched another Slytherin's and the burns that were similar to a certain Gryffindor's as Jack focused on what Flash had to say next.

"Nice of them to tell us what we've been entered into," the Welsh boy remarked sarcastically in response. "At the very least, I'd like to think it isn't a Quidditch match due to the fact that it's being held in a basement." As much as Jack disliked the sport, though, he wasn't sure that was necessarily a good thing. Who was to say it wouldn't be...well, worse?

Percival Gray had come over to their trio, mentioning that they were 'branding them like cattle', which caused Jack to nod slowly as he got a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach when he realized how true it seemed. The idea of branding reminded him of poor Selim and he instinctively looked over to see where the Japanese boy was in the line of Slytherins. As it so happened, the noiret had just had his own ticket burned. Presumably the sensation on his skin provoked him into spinning around with one hand on what Jack was sure he probably shouldn't have had on him. Fortunately, however, he didn't appear to actually lash out or...go into one of his...'panic attacks'...as the redhead feared might have been the case.

"Heeey...you doin' alright, Fangs?" Jack asked, offering his companion a small smile as the other boy tapped his arm in a non-verbal greeting. After a moment of thought, he raised said arm to drape across Selim's shoulders, pulling him closer so that he didn't feel so apart from their quickly-growing group. His smile faded a bit when he heard the now-familiar monotone of Selim's voice, but then he tried to smile harder than ever, determined not to lower his spirits just then. It wasn't until the assassin-in-training leaned over to get in a private word that a real grin split the Welsh boy's face.

"I don't think there's anyone here who doesn't find this suspicious, Fangs" he whispered back, trying not to laugh. "I might have thought this was just another wizard or Quidditch thing that mudbloods like me would know nothing about, but...if everyone here is this skittish, I think it's safe to say something's up."

Before he knew it, they were soon joined by the trio of Adonis, Percival Rainwood, and Hanako. Jack appreciated that everyone was sticking together, enjoying the camaraderie that their dormitory had granted them without even realizing it. Even if none of them knew what was going on, at least they all seemed to be equally clueless.

Furthermore, whatever happened to one of them would likely be the fate of the rest unless the others did something to stop it, and why wouldn't they look out for one another after all they'd been through together throughout the school year? As much as Jack disliked groups and teamwork, even he couldn't deny that one's chances of survival greatly increased with greater numbers. It couldn't have been that it was nice to know that other people cared for each other's well-being, no; that was just crazy talk among a house that valued self-preservation and selfishness.

"No, it's not just you. Something's definitely off," Jack responded to Adonis. "Especially if even purebloods like you are getting suspicious. I'm guessing we're not supposed to know what it means yet, but...that doesn't really make me feel any better."

The gravity of the matter only seemed get heavier as Dan Palmer himself, Captain of the Quidditch Team and definite hater of Jack's guts, also walked over to join their little discussion. The fact that he had approached to talk to them regardless of the Welsh boy's presence and without seeming to want to pick a fight simply made it evident to Jack just how serious the situation was. Dan's words only served to support the notion - that they were all worried to some degree and they had every right to be.

"Hmm...I wonder if...this has something to do with the consequences of a certain House Cup win," Jack mentioned, putting a knuckle up to his chin as he considered what everyone had brought up so far. "...Or perhaps the consequences of a certain party celebrating that win that took place past curfew..." He glanced Opeila's way, but with a smirk and a playful smile, hoping to communicate he was only teasing. Then his features grew more stern as he turned back to the others.

"Regardless...I was also wondering about that kid who was taking our tickets," he spoke up, his gaze hardening. "I know his eyes are green and...his face looks...pretty distinctive, but...does he seem...familiar to anyone else somehow?"

With a slight frown, he glanced the kid's way. "I'm tempted to go up to talk to him...but maybe I shouldn't. Especially with all the people he has left in line to 'brand'."

When Jack turned his head to get another glimpse of the fellow with the strangely artificial-looking face, his attention was caught instead by a head of tell-tale blonde hair that he knew quite well by then. Rather than linger around to wait or discuss with her housemates, however, the girl had gone on ahead further into the two-story tent. What is she...? Was she eager to get to the bottom of the mystery? Excited about the prospect of the enigmatic match that had been mentioned? Or was she simply hoping to get away from the rest of her fellow Slytherin as soon as possible?

The last notion caused him to exhale through his nose sharply in a bit of amusement, but he did not go after her just then. There would be time to catch up with Persephone later...maybe after they did a bit more investigating on the ticket-admitter.

Ability: Prodigial Charms Learner
Stats: Sta: 5 || Eva: 7 || Str: 3 || Wis: 8 || AP: 6 || Acc: 6

Interacting with: @Opeila Seilun, @Flash Holmwood, @Selim Faust, @Percival Gray, @Adonis Thorn, @Hanako Tone, @Percival Rainwood, @Dan Palmer, & @Persephone Barret