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How Not To Become Lunch: 68 - Say Hello
How did I end up in a place like this? Harry asked himself.
He stood near the crest of a hilltop, in the last few minutes of twilight, staring up at what could most easily be described as a haunted mansion. Except instead of being filled with vengeful spirits, this one was likely filled with very real, and likely very hungry vampires.
He glanced down at the invitation in his hand. He contemplated turning and running, and his instincts urged him to sprint. Then he thought of the vampire girl who’d given him that invitation, and his instincts immediately screamed at him not to stand her up. There had been something in her eyes, something that said ‘if you don’t show up, I will hunt you down’. She knew his name, she knew his face- it would be hard to forget the boy she ran into in the girl’s bathroom- and she probably knew his scent too.
He started walking towards the mansion. Slowly. There was another group in front of him, a pair of humans casually strolling up to knock on the large double-doors of the entryway. The sight of his own kind helped give him some comfort, as he wrestled within his mind.
There were plenty of predators in school who would eat him without much thought, he didn’t need a vampire, of all preds, out there with a reason to hunt him down. This girl- Sarabeth, she’d said her name was- had had all the opportunity and reason to devour him when she’d cornered him in the girls’ room, but instead she’d given him an invite to a party. He wasn’t naive enough to think it was safe- or anywhere near safe- but he was just hopeful enough to think that if he played his cards right, he could get out of this on a predator’s good side, rather than insides, or at the very least not make any enemies.
The front doors opened, and he watched the two humans- a couple of boys a year or two his elders- hand over their invitations and step inside. The entrance closed just as he neared it, and he listened intently for a few tense seconds, half expecting to hear screams. He walked right up to the doors and stood there, waiting for a sound. All he heard were the quiet noises of the approaching night. That gave him some small comfort; at least he could probably expect not to be grabbed and gulped the moment he went in.
He took one more breath, glanced down hesitantly one last time at the invitation in his hand, and finally forced himself to give a timid little:
*knock*
The door swung open silently, and two dapper men stood in the entrance. Harry could tell a predator sometimes by the way they looked at a human, particularly a scared human in way over his head. These faces looked human enough, but their expressions were too practiced and neutral for him to read any intent.
“Invitation, please,” one of the men said, extending his hand.
Harry nervously handed it over, consciously keeping his limb as far from grabbing range as possible. The man simply took it and looked it over briefly before folding it twice and stashing it away.
“Please, come in. Welcome to Beatricia Manor.” The man waved his arm inward in a conservative, elegant gesture. “You may follow the preceding guests to the northern drawing room, third set of doors on the left.”
Harry peered fearfully down the long, dimly-lit hall, the dancing shadows of firelight were enough to give him anxiety even while he was still outside, so he chose to focus on the pair of humans he could see already making their way. He decided it was best to try and catch up with them; the concept of ‘safety in numbers’ felt a lot more real in a place like this. He forced himself to walk quickly inside.
“T-Thank you,” he offered to the one who’d greeted him, then pressed on before he could give his mind a chance to contemplate scrambling back out into the night.
He did his best to steady his breathing as he stepped hastily down the hall, scanning the odd, uneven walls for humanoid shapes hiding in the shifting shadows. His footsteps seemed eerily soft in this place, a fact that made him wonder if he was starting to lose his mind from the stress.
A new sound came to distract him, though: the faint noises of chatter and gentle music. The earlier guests had reached the party before he had reached them; they’d opened the doors and looked inside. Harry watched their faces.
They had been smiling before, happy, maybe even excited. The smiles melted away in the span of a second. They looked at each other uncomfortably, fearfully.
“…What’s wrong?” Harry asked reluctantly as he reached them.
“Dude, there are preds here,” one of the boys said.
“Y-You guys didn’t know?”
“Of course not! Some cute, fancy girl invited us.”
“Yeah, she was a vampire,” Harry told them. He couldn’t blame them too much. Most preds were pretty obvious, with fur or scales or distinctive shapes, but vamps could easily pass for human if you weren’t paying attention.
“Seriously!? We’re at a vampire party!?” the other guy exclaimed, keeping his voice down to avoid drawing attention. “I don’t wanna get shrunk and gurgled tonight!”
“Me neither! Like, let’s get outtah here, Scoob!!” the first boy said. His friend seemed to agree, because they both very quickly turned from the door and walked very quickly back toward the entrance. Harry watched them go, and quickly noticed the two men who’d greeted him at the door step forward.
“Is there a problem?” one of the greeters asked.
“Oh, um, we just- we forgot the gifts, that’s all.”
“Yeah, the gifts,” the other boy repeated.
“Not to worry,” said the other greeter. “The only gift requested for this event is your presence.”
The response made the two boys jump slightly, but Harry wasn’t sure why.
“Sorry, but we, um- We just really need to go.”
“Oh, but you just arrived. It would be terribly rude to depart before even saying hello to your hostess and wishing her a happy birthday.”
“I know, but it’s- it’s urgent. Life or death!” The boy’s desperation was clear in his voice and in his actions. He quickly stepped past the two men as he grabbed his friend by the wrist and reached out with his other hand toward the door.
“Fermare fermo.”
Harry blinked, and suddenly one of the two men had a wand in his hand. He cast his spell so calmly and quietly that the words of the incantation hardly even reached the boy observing from down the hall.
It took Harry a moment to really see what had happened, thanks to the flickering firelight, but it quickly became clear that the two boys were no longer moving. They were standing completely still, frozen in place, one frantic hand inches from the front door.
The other man, the one without a wand, silently walked over to the fleeing pair, opened his mouth, and clamped his jaws around a boy’s exposed neck.
Harry clenched up hard. Now he understood why that man’s response had made his schoolmates jump. They’d seen his fangs. The man was a vampire. Muffled cries reached his ears, the sounds of a pleading boy unable to move his mouth, gradually growing shriller and quieter until Harry finally couldn’t hear him anymore. Within a few seconds, what was once a full-sized teen was now a teeny, miniaturized human, held still-frozen in a predator’s hand.
The vampire walked, calm and collected, over to the second boy. Harry felt glued to the spot, eyes locked on the tiny glinting points that were the predator’s fangs. Until, in another silent motion, they buried themselves out of sight in the neck of another human. Smaller and smaller the final boy shrank, unable to run, unable to move, unable even to scream out. Reduced to the size of a toy, or a bite-sized snack.
The mage lowered his wand. Harry watched the two tiny teens spring to life, one in each vampiric hand. They struggled, powerless in the firm grip, little wiggling prey in the clutches of their predator. He watched the vamp glance from one to the other, and he felt the settling of the predator’s whims like the flip of a fatal coin.
For the first time, the vampire broke his quite composed, matter-of-fact countenance- just slightly. His expression shifted- just a touch for just a moment, barely noticeable- to give an impression akin to a shrug, but without moving his shoulders. A tiny pursing of his lips. A momentary look casually implying the decision, ‘Well, I suppose I could eat this one.’
Harry felt his breathing growing faster, chest a bit tighter, as he watched one hand slowly rise. The grip shifted, releasing the shrunken boy from all but two fingers. His frantic, kicking legs could be seen flailing in the flickering firelight, even as it cast its red glow on the even redder tongue of the hungry predator opening his jaws.
It took only a moment. A single second. Those lips rose up, eclipsing the tiny from below, feet, legs, torso, arms, head. And when the fingers emerged, they were empty. Harry couldn’t hear the swallow; he couldn’t even see the tiny bob in the vampire’s throat. The only thing that told him for sure his fellow human had taken the plunge, was that the tiny still stuck in the predator’s hand suddenly stopped moving, shocked and petrified back into rigid paralysis.
The mage’s movement caught Harry’s attention next. He’d missed how, but the man had produced a small glass jar, lid removed, and presented it to his predatory companion. The vampire neatly reached out and placed the remaining tiny human inside. The last Harry saw of the boy, he was sitting limply against the glass, staring at the pred’s belly, the place he knew his friend had gone.
That’s when the mage turned to face Harry. He didn’t turn as if he had just noticed him, like he was surprised. No. He turned as if he’d known Harry had been standing there staring the whole time, like he had been taking care of some immediate business and now had finally made the time to address him.
“Is there a problem?” the man asked, just as composed and polite as when he had welcomed Harry- and the other two boys- into the house. “Do you need any assistance locating the festivities?”
“U-Uh…” the syllables caught in Harry’s throat. “Uh, no, that’s alright. I know where to go,” he replied.
“Very good,” the mage acknowledged. There was nothing at all threatening in his voice, which somehow made it even more threatening.
Harry finally forced himself to look away, turning to face the doorway those poor, doomed boys had opened a moment ago. As nervous and uncertain as he was about how this night might end, he now knew one thing for sure. He was not leaving until the party was over. He took a deep, shaky breath, and pushed open the door, walking into the room.
Light chatter and the gentle sounds of live music filled his ears the moment the passage opened. He glanced around, quickly making sure there were no predators standing just inside, before awkwardly stepping through, like a kid showing up late to class. Actually, a lot like a kid showing up late to class, particularly one worried about getting eaten by the teacher.
As he let the door shut behind him, leaving the sight of the two men guarding the front entrance, he did his best to take in the scene, while inconspicuously wandering toward a less noticeable bit of the room. The place was huge! If he weren’t fearing for his life, he would have been stoked! But he didn’t have time to marvel at the mansion, not if he wanted to make it past dinner. He did his best to ignore the fancy, intricate architecture and focus on the people in attendance.
Looks like there are a lot of humans here. Good. …Those are humans, right? It was a bit hard to tell. For all he knew half of them could be vampires, but he could spot a good number of wands, and several un-bat-like ears. That was a major relief. Until he’d seen those two boys at the front door, rest in peace, he was worried he might have been the only human there; that he’d have that vampire girl’s full, undivided attention, bearing the full weight of her hungry eyes. But now it looked like he was just one of many potential meals for the night. Statistically, that meant he had a good shot! …Assuming they didn’t all end up in jars…
He scanned the room further, looking to see if there was a group of kids forming he might be able to get in with. Hopefully he could find someone to watch his back, or at least a crowd to blend in with.
That’s when he started to spot the non-human guests. He noticed a neko, and his momentary relief waned. He found a frog, and a little chill ran down his spine; the room was big enough to keep his distance, but he knew that tongue had quite a long grabbing range. And then he saw-
“No.” He was so shocked that his thought leaked out loud. No. No no no! It can’t- There’s no way. He felt his heart sinking into his stomach, like a terrified meal slipping into the belly of a predator- but with all the terror of the prey and none of the satisfaction. He stared with frozen, terrified eyes for a long moment.
There, reclining lazily on a couch, sat a large, black-and-white furred panda girl, in a tie-dye shirt and red-tinted sunglasses.
It’s her… he finally admitted to himself. He couldn’t believe it. What were the odds? Out of all the preds in school, she was at this party. The panda that had already succeeded once at swallowing him alive. The panda whose guts he’d struggled in, begging for relief, waiting for digestive death. It had been some kind of miracle that he’d made it out alive. But now here she was again. It felt like fate; and Harry didn’t like the destiny being implied.
“Oh geeze. Oh geeze,” he breathed, memories flooding back, leaking from the depths of his mind like gastric juices rising to claim him. He pressed himself into a shadowed crevasse between two columns and tried to calm himself down. Ironically, being in tight spaces usually helped him to calm down- when those spaces weren’t alive and inclined to dissolve him into goop.
Somewhere amidst his ragged breathing, his eyes ended up settling on a particular group of kids. It took him a few seconds to notice, and then another second or two before he suddenly realized one of the kids was the vampire who had invited him! Sarabeth was standing with two others: a werewolf, and a boy who was probably another vamp. No, wait, he had a wand. And his ears looked human enough.
Are they deciding who’s going to eat him? He felt a pang of sympathy, but couldn’t deny that he would feel a lot better knowing that Sarabeth’s belly would be occupied by someone else for the night. The more he looked, though, the less that seemed to be the case. The conversation actually seemed to be between the werewolf and the human, and she didn’t seem to be threatening toward him any more than he seemed to be scared of her.
Harry watched, distracted from his terror, as Sarabeth walked off, and the two remaining kids looked after her with hints of concern. The pair continued to talk for a moment. The wolf gave a very obvious ‘I’ve got my eyes on you’, gesture, which should have been very unnerving for the boy, given the predator’s flat, empty stomach, but he actually smiled in response.
Is this guy a mage-pred maybe? Harry thought.
The canine walked off after the vampire, and the human boy nervously glanced around the room, like a little kid who’d been separated in a shopping mall.
Something about his eyes told Harry the answer was ‘no’. He knew better than to stake his life on it, but his gut told him that that human hadn’t developed the guts to devour others whole- physically or figuratively. But if he wasn’t a pred… how was he getting along so well with the other preds? He seemed to handle that werewolf like she was nothing, and apparently he even had it in well with Sarabeth.
Who was this kid?
Jack scanned the crowd sheepishly, Fiona’s words weighing on him: ‘Why don’t you go say hi to some of the humans? If you make any friends, come introduce them to me.’ Kids his age were scattered about the room in little clusters. He looked them over, knowing he should just pick one and approach, but he couldn’t help hesitating. Difficult questions came to mind; ones he didn’t want to answer.
His life was so dangerous, recent events had proven that; did he really want to involve some random kid he happened to be looking at in his mess? Was it right? Would anyone even want him around once they found out he was marked? Most humans didn’t- unless they practiced predatory magic themselves. And what about when they found out his best friend was a werewolf?
He found himself nervously drifting around, avoiding getting too close to anyone, like a bead of oil floating on water. He’d been so anxious about the ‘predator’ part of ‘predator party’, that he’d completely overlooked his normal teen anxiety when it came to the normal ‘party’ bit. It wasn’t like he had much experience. He’d spent most of his recent life shut up in a house with his aunt!
He was just starting to consider finding a quiet corner with a couch to sit on, when he noticed someone heading his way. It was another boy, about his age. He had a wand at his side, glasses on his face, and judging by his expression he was even more freaked out than Jack himself- by a fair margin. They made eye contact as the spectacled boy approached, scuttering over quickly as if he were scared to be walking through the room alone- a feeling the marked teen could relate to.
Jack and Harry met face to face in a moment of awkward silence.
“…Um, hi,” Harry said. His expression made it clear there was more he wanted to say, but his tone made it clear he was uncomfortable about saying it, and was trying to be polite.
“Hi,” Jack replied, putting on a smile to cover his own awkwardness.
But those cookie cutter greetings weren’t enough to break the silence, only to disturb it for a moment. Another handful of seconds passed as both fidgeted and neither spoke, until the social discomfort mounted to the point where someone had to say something.
“So…” Jack started, only to be clumsily interrupted.
“So, um-” Harry’s mortal fear finally overtook his social anxiety and he let it all out in a quick, frantic burst. “That panda over on the couch ate me yesterday but spat me back up and I’m scared she’s gonna try to finish the job! You seem like you’re good with handling preds, do you think you could help me? Please?” He clasped his hands together pleadingly.
“Oh! Um-” Jack stammered.
He certainly hadn’t been expecting that! Good with handling preds? He nearly became lunch on an almost daily basis! What made this kid think he could help? Just cause he had one good friend who was a predator? Well, two friends: Sarabeth had invited him here, after all. …Maybe three. Or four? Did Sissy count? Probably not. Anyway, the point was that having a few preds around who didn’t want to render him into human soup didn’t exactly make him an expert.
“She… she actually gulped you down? But coughed you back up?” Jack echoed sympathetically. It was an ordeal he could definitely relate to. He glanced inconspicuously at the panda girl Harry had indicated, noticing her brightly colored attire. “Wait… Oh man, I remember that. I saw her catch you in the hall.”
He remembered a lot more than that; the spine-chilling image of a double-stuffed, wriggling belly was still burned into his mind. Jack almost asked what had happened to the girl he’d been swallowed with, but looking at the kid’s face, the answer wasn’t hard to guess. The marked boy felt terrible for his schoolmate; even he hadn’t had to endure the hardly imaginable trauma of being stuffed into a belly with another human. But if anyone could imagine it, it would be Jack.
“…I’m sorry you had to go through that,” Jack consoled. “I know what it’s like to get eaten… to be in a predator’s stomach… Even if you get out, it takes something from you.”
“Y-You’ve been eaten before too?” That was almost as surprising to Harry as having seen the kid casually chatting with a werewolf. The fragile line between human and food usually got crossed somewhere near the back of the throat. It was pretty rare to meet anyone who’d actually taken the plunge and hadn’t wound up pudge.
“More than once,” Jack admitted.
“You’ve been eaten by a predator twice!?” Harry asked in alarm. “Like- all the way down?” Jack paused; no, it was more than that. He thought for a moment.
“…Four times,” he recalled uncomfortably.
“YOU-” Harry had to stop himself from shouting. “You’ve been inside a predator’s stomach four times!? I- u- h-how are you alive?”
“I, um… I wonder that myself sometimes, honestly. Mostly I think it’s thanks to Fi.”
“Fi? Who’s that? Some kind of epic wizard?” Harry asked, trying to imagine a person capable of repeatedly tearing a doomed human from deep within the clutches of death.
“No, Fiona’s-” Jack faltered, his train of thought totally derailed by an incoming memory. This… this wasn’t the first time he’d tried to tell someone about her, and then they’d assumed she was a powerful mage. “…she’s…” But what was he going to do? Lie? No, he was proud of his relationship with Fiona, and he wasn’t going to lie about it, and he wasn’t going to hide it. “…she’s a werewolf,” Jack finally finished.
“Oh, was she the one you were talking to a minute ago?” Harry thought back to the exchange he’d watched. “Do you have some kind of a deal with her? Must be a good one if she saved you from getting gurgled four times.”
“Oh, she’s saved me way more times than that. Those were just the worst ones. No, she’s…” He briefly tried to think of the right words to say; a phrase that could adequately describe what she meant to him, but not risk boggling this boy’s mind. In the end, all he could say was, “She’s my friend. My best friend. We’ve known each other ever since we were little.”
“Whoa, really?” Harry asked.
It was an unexpected turn, but not completely alien. His mom worked pretty closely with a puma at the shoe store. They had what he would call a pretty strong truce, to the point where she’d even brought him over to meet the neko on several occasions. They’d never seemed particularly chummy, but they did seem to get along well enough. But…
“Best friend?” he echoed. The concept came out of his mouth like two puzzle pieces that didn’t seem like they should fit together. But his tone indicated he wasn’t so much put-off by the idea as much as just curiously surprised, like he could only somewhat imagine it and the remaining missing pieces left him intrigued.
“She still eats like a pred,” Jack said, preemptively answering a question he knew from experience was likely to come up. “But she does her best to keep me and my friends safe.” He glanced away for a moment as the word ‘friends’ left his lips.
“Huh… So, when you got roped into this party, she came along to make sure you would be okay?” Harry reasoned. “That’s pretty cool of her.”
“Not exactly. I think it’s more like ‘I’m here with her’ than ‘she’s here with me’,” Jack explained, considering how she was much more excited to spend the night in the spooky, belly-filled mansion than he was. “She’s good friends with Sarabeth.”
“And you’re okay tagging along with her to a vampire party? Wow, you must really trust her.”
“Yeah…” Jack said. A couple weeks ago, he might have given a stronger, more immediate affirmation. The concept had some weight to it now; some baggage. But even so, after a moment of contemplation he couldn’t help starting to smile. “I do,” Jack concluded firmly. Then he thought about the choice of words the other kid had used. “Did you get, um, ‘roped in’ to this party?” he asked.
“Pretty much. Sarabeth found me cornered and gave me an invite. I knew she was a vampire, but something told me that if I didn’t show up, I’d regret it.”
“Probably a good call. She’s not the kind of person that would take kindly to being stood up on her birthday. I was kinda wondering how she got all these humans to show up here, guess she’s got enough of a reputation that no one wants to chance being rude to her.”
“She’s got a reputation for that? Man, I’m really glad I didn’t back out, then. I don’t know if that’s why everyone’s here, though. I saw these two kids on the way in who didn’t even know this was a pred party. They peeked into the room, saw all the preds and tried to leave. It… um… didn’t end well.”
Jack thought back to the vampire who’d greeted him at the door. “Guess that explains why no one is trying to leave early.”
“So, um… are you friends with Sarabeth too?” Harry asked. He had seen all three of them together, after all.
“I think so,” Jack answered. “We’ve sat together at lunch a few times. Actually, she saved my life once. So at least I’m sure she wants me alive, which is a pretty good start.”
“I’ll say. Geeze, you sit with preds at lunch?”
“Oh, just Fiona, and Sarabeth when she comes over. I’m pretty sure I’d be the lunch if I tried it with anyone else.”
“I think it’s amazing you even manage that. I mean, I don’t know how I’d even begin to- um…” Harry began to grow nervous again.
“What’s wrong?”
“Uh, it looks like your werewolf friend is coming back.”
“Oh,” Jack glanced over and saw Fiona walking toward them, tail swishing gently. She wore a pleasant smile, which only widened when the two of them made eye contact and she gave a little wave.
“Should I, um…?” Harry asked, taking the smallest fraction of a step back. It was clear he seemed concerned about sticking around.
Jack knew that fear of watching a pred approach; not just the common mortal terror that came with being human, but the deep, bone chilling dread that came with the firsthand knowledge of exactly what their digestive system was like on the inside, up close and personal, far too close. He thought back to when he’d seen that panda make her catch in the hallway, how bad he’d felt for her two doomed prey, how he wished he could have done something to help. He only wanted to help more now that he knew this boy was nice. It wasn’t every kid who could listen to him talk about being friends with Fiona and not look at him like he was an alien or a suicidal lunatic.
“Let me introduce you to her.” It was half an offer, half a suggestion. “If she knows you’re my friend, she’ll leave you alone for the night.”
“R-really?” Harry asked.
Jack smiled and nodded. The other boy wasn’t quite sure, but he was now indecisive enough not to try and leave, which meant he was still standing there once Fiona arrived.
“Hi,” the werewolf said cheerily, glancing between the two boys. Her eyes settled on the unfamiliar one. “Who’s this?”
“This is my new friend, …um…” He looked to ‘his new friend’ awkwardly, realizing he’d never actually gotten a name.
“Harry,” came the nervous answer.
“Jack,” the marked boy replied in turn.
“Hi Harry, I’m Fiona, nice to meet you.” The werewolf put on her absolute best friendly face, tail wagging, ears perked, teeth concealed, and she reached out a clawed hand invitingly in the stranger’s direction.
Harry looked down at it with healthy concern, even as it hovered innocuously in the air, as if he could see the strength lying dormant beneath the fur, all too able to grab him. Fiona took no offense; that was a very reasonable reaction; kids her little sister’s age often used a fake greeting as a sneaky trick to snag a meal, so it was something any surviving human learned to be wary of. She just continued to stand there welcomingly, giving this boy a moment to settle.
“It’s okay, she won’t bite,” Jack encouraged.
Harry glanced at him, then to Fiona- his eyes passing over her empty belly before settling again on her hand. For all he knew, Jack and her actually did have some kind of deal, and it involved luring unsuspecting kids into her belly in exchange for protection. Being in high school, he’d seen some very convincing ‘performances’ from some very underhanded teens. But Jack seemed so nice, and… Well, what was left to lose at this point? He was already in pouncing range now, and if Jack actually did turn out to be her hunting buddy, then he was both outnumbered and out positioned.
“Nice to meet you,” Harry said, placing his hand in hers and shaking. “…I, um, hope I can make it through the night without ending up in your belly?” He squeaked out the last bit as if it were a stick he were reluctantly using to poke a bear- or in this case, a wolf. Fiona smirked, amused.
“I’m sure I can manage that,” she told him, shaking in turn. Her nose twitched, and she leaned forward just a touch. She closed her eyes for a moment and took a big, long:
*sniiiiiiiiiifff*
The human’s odor drew deep into her lungs, filling her mind for a moment, before she let out her breath in a puff. The action of her snout stole Harry’s attention so thoroughly that for a moment he even forgot his hand was still in hers.
“Um, what was that?” he asked nervously.
“Oh, just want to make sure I’ll recognize your scent if I run into you later.”
“It’s a werewolf thing,” Jack reassured.
“Oh, um, riiight,” Harry said, glancing over at his new friend to help strengthen his nerves.
He felt his hand start moving in the predator’s grasp and quickly looked back. She’d lifted it up to her face… up to her snout. Her jaws opened and before Harry could even feel the incoming rush of terror, her tongue darted out and quickly lashed a streak of saliva across his knuckles. He pulled back like he’d just brushed death, and she offered no resistance, letting his hand slip easily from her claws.
“Fiona!” Jack scolded.
“Sorry!” she apologized. “It was just a friendly lick!” But she seemed to know even while she was saying it that that excuse wouldn't hold up. “I know I said I’d keep any new friends out of the taste test. But since I’m not going to eat this one, I just wanted to know what I was missing out on, that’s all.”
“What taste test?” Jack asked for the second time.
Fiona opened her mouth to speak, but her ears swiveled. Jack heard the sound too, a high pitched:
*dink* *dink* *dink*
The universal call-to-attention of a glass being tapped. All eyes turned and fell upon Mr. Belv, the mage who had previously greeted them at the front door. He had entered the room at some point and was now standing at its center atop a small stool.
“Salutations, privileged guests. On behalf of the Beatricia family, I welcome you to Beatricia Manor, and the celebration of Lady Sarabeth’s birthday anniversary. On this evening, we have in place for your enjoyment an itinerary of several pleasant and stimulating activities. To begin, we will be having a game of hide and seek.”