*AN: One thing I really like about television is that episodes often have different directors and guest stars, so I was thinking of ways to incorporate that kind of variation in BG. I want to start bringing on guest artists (and maybe even guest writers in the future), so please leave me a comment or PM if you’d like to collaborate with me and we can chat more about it. I’d love to work with anyone invested in this story.

Previously on Black Gold:

Yuri: Seriously, where is Bora? You pretty much don’t even have a roommate.

Tiffany: She goes home to see her family, like, every other weekend.

Yuri: I would not travel through that shady- forest every few weeks. Something’s weird with the mist in there. Makes magic weird.

Tiffany: Oh you’re just superstitious!

//

Taeyeon: Th-that wasn’t a…

Sooyoung: Definitely not a werewolf. Those red scales could’ve been a Catalonian Fireball.

Seohyun : A dragon?!

Yoona: We should go, W-we need to get out of this forest.

Yuri: Yeah. Seriously, dragon-halfers.

Yoona wakes up around sunrise and she wishes that she had curtains to block out the sun’s early morning rays that are creeping over the horizon, but alas, she's still stuck in forsaken nature—and still not home in the comfort of her room at the academy.

She knows that they're getting closer though. The warmth and mist of the enchanted forest has been dissipating the farther they've travelled and they've been entering an area where the trees are speckled red and gold from autumn's touch.

Shivering from the cool air, Yoona carefully sits up and tries not to disturb the other bodies around her. Because of the dropping temperature, the girls have clustered together at night and even Taeyeon has chosen to sleep in her huge werewolf form to help keep everyone warm in the evening. Wriggling out from being sandwiched between Sunny and Hyoyeon, Yoona pops out of their nest and shivers at the loss of warmth, but nature calls, so she wades out of the group of girls to go relieve herself on the outskirts of their site.

They've made camp atop some cliffs this time around and have even found a shallow cave to barricade themselves from the chilly autumn air. As Yoona returns to the cave, she scans the mass of sleeping girls and sighs when can't find her vacant spot anymore now that they've bunch up even closer than before. As she deliberates where to tuck herself in, she smiles when she notices Jessica tucked right up against Taeyeon. She chuckles over the strange spooning werewolf and human, and hopes that Taeyeon won’t roll in her sleep and flatten the thin witch against her.

But as Yoona keeps looking at the mass of sleeping girls, she finally realizes that there are only seven bodies.

Taeyeon, Jessica, Sunny, Hyoyeon, Tiffany, Seohyun, Sooyoung and…

Where's Yuri?

Still groggy, Yoona wonders if she’s remembering wrong when she recalls seeing Yuri earlier this morning, just a few minutes ago. Confused, she wanders back out of the cave and finds the fox as soon as she looks right. Taking a short hike up a steep, rocky slope, Yoona joins the girl on the cliff top that’s close to the canopy of the forest.

As she gets closer to Yuri, she realizes that the fox is sitting cross legged and…meditating?

“Morning,” Yoona greets, voice a little scratchy.

“Morning,” Yuri replies, eyes still closed and with her body still in its rigid, straight posture. “Not sleeping?”

“Had to pee earlier. I feel wide awake now,” Yoona says though chattering teeth. She binds her yellow and black cloak tight around her thin frame while wishing she had more fat on her body at times like these. Even after looking at Yuri’s neat little mediating hands, with her thumbs touched to middle fingers, and rested on her kneecaps, Yoona still feels the need to ask, “Are you meditating?”

“Yes,” the fox replies.

“Why?”

“I haven’t been in touch with my spirt form for a long time.”

“Does meditating help?”

“Yes.”

“I see.”

It's still dark out, but there's enough light for Yoona to appreciate the view that they have of the forest clearing below them. It's comforting having a vantage and being able to see the possible dangers below.

“I didn’t think I’d miss anything from my spirt life. Nowadays though, I wish I could switch back and forth between the two worlds better.”

Yoona’s a bit surprised when Yuri wants to talk about herself, but she’s curious about the fox herself. “You’ve only been human for like two decades. Surely you’re more tethered to your spirit life, right?”

“Hmm…I don’t know how to explain it. Maybe it’s like when you don’t practice a language for a long time, you start to forget words and how to form sentences. It’s like I can’t remember how to reestablish the nerves running into my spirit form.”

“I’m sure it’ll come back to you.”

“I need it back now,” Yuri sighs, finally cracking her eyes open from her meditation.

Yoona notices the bright flecks of red twinkle in the gumiho’s eyes before vanishing again. “I’m sure it’ll come back in time. What’s the hurry?”

Yuri looks up through the sparse canopy and finds the sky still half black, with the sun’s rays barely breaching over the horizon. Yoona follows the girl’s gaze up till she sees what the trickster spirit is so concerned about.

“It’s going to be a full moon this evening,” Yuri whispers, staring at the near-perfect sphere in the sky.

***

Guest Artist: JetiSpaghetti [Twitter] [Tumblr]

***

 “This ing forest is driving me crazy!” Hyoyeon growls as she violently shakes her willow wand, trying to will sparks of heat from her wand. “What does a girl have to do to make a torch around here? I’m freezing! The mist isn’t even that thick up here, why is it still botching my magic?”

“Bora did mention she always travelled through here with centaurs to her to the keyport on the southern coast. She probably didn’t need to use magic,” Tiffany mentions.

“Who uses the keyport on the coast?” Hyoyeon asks, cringing her nose at the absurd travel. “Use the temple gate on the northern plains like everyone else!”

“In her defense, the one of the coast connects right into Seoul. The temple gates we us takes us into Yeongdeok, where our parents have to pick us from the middle of nowhere,” Sunny groans.

“Who gets centaurs to them?” Hyoyeon asks.

“Rich people,” Yoona laughs.

“If Bora had bodyguards, what happened to her?” Tiffany absentmindedly worries.

Taeyeon offers what little knowledge she has to her friend. “Siwon told me when humans get bit by a werewolf, everyone reacts differently. Some change almost instantly, some take weeks. Everyone’s symptoms are different too. Some get physically sick, some more emotionally sick. Memory loss is a big problem too. Maybe something happened to those centaurs too and she just didn’t remember?”

Tiffany pinches the bridge of her nose, trying to ward away the dull thud of an approaching headache. “I don’t know what kind of a mind forest we’ve fallen into, but I want out. None of this makes any sense.”

“Yuri, you’ve been on this island all your life, right? What’s the deal with the mist?” Jessica asks her roommate.

The fox laughs. “Trust me, if I knew, I’d be happy to tell ya’ll. Spirit world was completely different place, nothing like actually being on this island. Besides, I can’t remember much from that long ago.”

“I thought the island’s mist was put here by witches and wizards to hide this island and the school?” Sooyoung questions.

The other witches shrug and only Seohyun brings up, “Well, this isn’t like Mahoutokoro. SKY’s only a couple of decades old. Not much about this island is known.”

“Doesn’t make sense,” Sooyoung mutters. “How could our school have possibly been sitting next to a whole forest filled with monsters for so long?”

“These halfers haven’t always been here though. This isn’t the first time we’ve taken a field trip this deep into the forest,” Tiffany reminds her friend.

“Let just get out of here. We can’t be far now,” Taeyeon mutters, pulling the Slytherin cloak tight around her human frame. “Headmistress Li needs to know what’s going on out here.”

Jessica hates that she’s at the back of the group of hiking girls, but she can’t help her fatigue.

“Unnie, come one,” Yoona says, smiling and trying to encourage the older girl.

“My feet are killing meeee.” Jessica whines and fakes a soft sob when Yoona gently grabs her wrist and tries to drag her along to close the gap distancing themselves from the rest of the girls.

“I got just the thing for you, Sica!” Hyoyeon chimes from the front of the hiking group. She jogs to the back and hands Jessica the metal flask. “Here.”

“W-what?”

“Drink,” Hyoyeon laughs as she pushes the flask into Jessica’s hand. “I promise it’ll help numb the pain.”

“Oh, unnie, please no,” Yoona laughs, plucking the flask out of Jessica’s hand and putting it back into Hyoyeon’s. “Jessica-unnie doesn’t hold her alcohol well.”

“Wha—hey! Yoona!”

“Oh my gosh! None for Jessica,” Taeyeon sternly says from a couple of meters ahead. “Drunk-Sica is a crier.”

“Taeyeon!”

Yoona throws her head back in laughter when she’s reminded of how Taeyeon had brought the drunk weeping Slytherin into her dorm that evening. “God, she cried so much!”

“Oh my god, when was this?” Tiffany laughs.

“Your birthday party,” Taeyeon laughs. “I found her passed out outside of the ‘puff dorms.”

“Taeyeon,” Jessica growls, pressing her fingers against her temples, “can you not—?”

“Haha, alright then, not Jessica,” Hyoyeon laughs, stepping back towards the other girls. “Anyone else want a drink?”

“ME,” Sunny growls, pushing pass the other girls to access the flask.

Despite all the pointed jabs at her embarrassing first drinking experience, Jessica can’t help to but to smile sadly, wishing that they were all home at the academy right now.

***

“We really should find a place to make camp soon,” Hyoyeon says as looks at the fiery orange sky through the sparse autumn leaves.

“We can still travel for another hour,” Tiffany insists. “Come on, you know we’re close. What if the academy is just beyond those trees?”

“Fany, everyone’s tired,” Sooyoung replies as she comes to a full stop. “Let’s just start again in the morning, okay? The sun’s setting.”

“Come on! I can feel it—I know it! I know we’re so close!” Tiffany pleads. When all the other girls stop their pace as well, Tiffany throws her arms up in defeat. “Fine! But we’re not sleeping here. We need to find higher ground at least.”

Jessica whimpers when she was so damn close to sitting down and taking the pressure of her aching feet. Even though she’s sure that she had complained about the dirt before before, Jessica wouldn’t mind lying face-first in the ground right now if it meant she could rest her feet.

Taeyeon bears no shame as she gladly topples to the ground and sprawls out on her back. “Please. Here. Camp,” she begs, thinking that it feels like they’ve covered twice the amount of ground that they usually do.

“What she said,” Jessica whines.

“Worst couple ever,” Sunny whispers.

“Laziest couple ever,” Hyoyeon replies back under her breath.

Taeyeon tilts her head off the ground and glares at her friends. “What did you say?”

“Nothing!”

“Nothing!”

“Seriously!” Tiffany says, “We need to go find a camp site with higher ground.”

“Can’t you guys just sprinkle your protego stuff around me?” Taeyeon asks from the ground, gesturing huge circles with her arms.

Tiffany rolls her eyes. “Okay. I’m going to go ahead and look for a campsite. You guys just...don’t die, okay?”

“I’ll come with you,” Yuri volunteers.

Watching the duo start to walk away, Jessica panics and calls after them. “Y-you guys shouldn’t go alone! What if that dragon-halfer’s out there?”

Usually silent with her older peers, Seohyun feels the need to agree with Jessica though. “She’s right. We should split up, half and half. Jessica-unnie and I will come with you.”

 For a moment, Jessica considers protesting so that she can rest her feet, but the thought of her friends—alone in this forsaken forest—makes her uneasy. Begrudgingly, she rises to her feet and joins the group of travelling girls.

“Okay then,” Tiffany says with a small smile, knowing how utterly pooped Jessica must be. “We’ll be back in a bit, ladies.”

Still sprawled on the ground, Taeyeon watches as Tiffany, Jessica, Yuri, and Seohyun proceed ahead while the others remain. Glad that she hasn’t been abandoned, Taeyeon mentions, “Do you guys think we should go catch up with Fany and them?”

“Hey…do you guys see that down there?” Sunny suddenly asks.

Curious about what her housemate has found, Hyoyeon follows her friend’s line of sight down stretch of trees. “Is that...an old house?”

“Shed maybe? It looks tiny,” Sunny replies.

“Guys?” Taeyeon asks for the girl’s opinions again, wondering what her friends are whispering about.

“Yeah, yeah, hold on, Taeng. I think we found something,” Hyoyeon says, dismissing the wolf-girl.

Watching the group of girls start to wander away, Taeyeon sighs. Defeated, she tries to remind herself ‘mind over matter’ as she grits her teeth through the ache in her legs and rises back up onto her feet.

When she catches up with her friends, she peeks over the shrubs to inspect what they’re looking at. The shed’s small, appearing no more than ten by ten feet, and the old coat of grey paint is chipped and spotted with rust, which makes it obvious that the place hasn’t been maintained in years.

“Please tell me that that’s not a creepy shed put here in the middle of nowhere...” Taeyeon groans.

“Storehouse?” Hyoyeon eagerly asks.

“Professor Choi did mention that the school has storehouses all around the perimeter of the academy,” Yoona says.

“I’m pretty sure he was just messing with you guys so that you’d all stop breaking into the storage lockers at school,” Taeyeon mutters, now worried about the volume of her voice.

“No, they’re right,” Sooyoung says. “Sometimes we stay at the stables with our creatures that we’re studying and we have storehouses around the academy.”

“Come on, there might be some supplies—or food!—let’s go check it out,” Hyoyeon says before jogging towards the shed.

“Get back here!” Taeyeon hisses.

Yoona tries to protest too. “Unnie, don’t—”

“Come on, Yoong,” Sunny says as she takes Yoona by the wrist to drag her along.

After a few minutes of hushed, “Come on’s!” and, “Hell no’s!” the group of five witches eventually find themselves all standing in front of the shed, staring at the rusty paint job.

Hyoyeon gulps when she’s suddenly feeling less brave. “There could be food or supplies...right?” she asks, hoping someone will back up her curiosity.

“U-unnie, what if there’s something in there??”

“Like a rabid werewolf-hybrid that wants to turn us,” Sooyoung deadpans, voicing everyone’s greatest worry.

“We could keep talking about it or we could just open the stupid thing,” Taeyeon says, annoyed that they’ve all been standing right outside of this shed for the past five minutes now.

“O-okay.”

Hyoyeon holds her breath before pulling open the shed door with her wand outstretched.

Nothing.

She blinks when there’s absolutely nothing inside of the hut. No supplies, no food, no magical room...no halfers.

Just...nothing.

She steps into the hut and looks around in utter disbelief of the void. Right after she sighs, Hyoyeon drops her head, and unexpectedly finds what she was looking for.

“ing knew it,” she says, grinning from ear to ear as she stares at the hatch on the ground. “You think it’s like a school panic chamber or something?”

“Unnie, maybe we shouldn’t—”

“Hurry up and open it, Hyo.”

Impatient, the Gryffindor witch reaches down, grabs the metal ring, and yanks on the basement hatch. As soon at the wooden frame lifts an inch from the floor, the witches are greeted with a shrill scream of an alarm.

WOOOO! WOOOO! WOOOO!

Sooyoung staggers back from the surprise of the sound and tries to cover her ears from the deafening noise. “Shut it up!” she screams.

Hyoyeon can’t hear the other witch, but she too is already thinking of a silencing charm. She wipes out her wand and casts, “Silencio!”

WOOOO! WOOOO! WOOOO!

“Come on! Silencio! Silencio! Silencio—!”

Taeyeon snarls as her ears take in the shrill sound, but she quickly covers them and