The Hooded

New Faces

As Shadow finished his 6th lap, he looked around and he couldn't see Aaron. He looked around more, but still no Aaron, or Garret, for that matter. He decided to head into the cave center, where most of the other people were. He wanted to walk around and talk to people, so he did. He saw Dreth sitting at a bar (which were plenty in the area) and drinking something with a weird color. Dreth was one of the only three people Shadow knew so far being in the Hooded, so he decided to start with him. Then, someone came up to him, stepped on his foot, and yelled at him, "Hey, new guy. I heard you're takin' easy crap from Aaron. Did you beg him, or somethin' like that? That's low." He said. He had a green cloak with his hood up, a black undershirt, and a strange combination of pig skin, boar skin, and some other grey colored skinned pants, and Shadow noticed a strangeness to his voice, like it was slightly high pitched. "Listen, I don't know why but-" Shadow tried to say, "All these people, including me, are ELITE. We don't hold back, and we don't hesitate to kill. You either step up, or step out." The green cloaked man said, and walked away. Shadow stood there for a bit, confused. He forgot about it soon after as he walked over to Dreth, who saw him coming. "Hey, haven't seen you in a while. You look like... did you run laps but not use your knife?" He said. "Holy wha- how did you know?" stuttered Shadow. "Usually people are sweaty and have at least one small chunk of cotton from the dummies, but you are only sweaty. Really sweaty..." said Dreth. "...Okay, so anyway-" Shadow trailed off. "So, I kinda saw what happened back there, you alright?" Asked Dreth. "Oh, yeah, him. He's... short tempered, I guess." Answered Shadow. "HE? Dude, that dude's no dude. That's a girl." Said Dreth. "Yeah, that's the opposite of a dude. That's a... non-dude..." Said the bartender, who wanted to join the conversation but knew nothing about it except that there was a guy who's actually a girl. "Yeah, we know," said Dreth. He hung his head and continued washing glasses. Dreth continued, "So yeah, her name's Ariad, she's not he nicest in the world. Best stay away from her." "Yeah, I figured." Said Shadow. "Well, I got to do something, so see you later?" "Yeah, for sure." Said Dreth. "Bye!" "Bye." Shadow walked away from the bar and saw Ariad staring at him weird.