“Look, I told you I forgot.” GM snapped back, putting his shirt back on. “I’m a busy guy, you know? I mean, I’m more than happy to carry out my promises, I just need to know what it is I promised in the first place.” He told Bellua, before he heard the rest of what the beast had to say, and an idea struck him. “Wait… you say you wanna hunt him yourself? Is that the new deal?” he asked. Well, wasn’t that fantastic? Either way he’d get the servant he wanted, but if he accepted this new offer, not only would there be less work to do on his part, but he’d even get to watch the chase! Fantastic. “Either way works for me.” he told Bellua. “But if you’d rather be free now and hunt the kid yourself, I can easily arrange for that.” His left eye flickered devilishly in the darkness of the cavern. “So long as you uphold your half of the deal, of course.”

"Better than what you have done for me," spat Bellua, writhing in the chains. "We both get what we want, and far more expediently than the current method." The dust from the cavern walls slipped seamlessly to the uneven floor as the captive watched his only chance at freedom place its shirt back on. He breathed, waiting for the release from his bonds. Time was all he had at the moment, the seemingly endless hours of his captivity passing him by without a moment's notice. Bellua couldn't remember the last time he was free to walk his realms, or if he ever had the chance to do so in the first place. "What say you? Release me from my detention and you will find the blood of your enemies at your feet when I return."

“Heh, sounds like a plan to me!” GM grinned, leaping into the air almost anime-style. “Minion geeeet!!” he wailed, bringing the palm of his hand down onto Bellua’s forehead on the descent, then bouncing off of him and landing back on the ground. He’d created a bond, then. Not one that provided direct control, probably not even one that Bellua could detect, but a bond nonetheless. The creature was his – and he knew it.

After that, his eye flickered, and the chains that held Bellua captive disappeared into nothing. “There. You’re free to roam to your heart’s content – or, um, lack thereof, maybe.” He rambled. “Just uh… don’t kill Muse yet, alright? I wanna keep him alive for a while longer.” He told Bellua. “Besides – someday, he’ll be mine to kill.”

Callum eyes opened lazily, His head felt like someone kicked him through a brick wall. "I'm okay everybody...everything's alrigh.......what" Callum's pupils widened. Something was different, no...a lot was different...no, everything was different! He seemed to be in a giant desert...but the sand was white, not snow. It was still sand, just white. Not to mention the fact the sky seemed to be pitch black. In the distance he could see what looked like a giant tornado, but there was no sound. In fact there was no sound at all. just a Erie silence. Callum decided to just ignore all these weird things, maybe he was dreaming. He hadn't had a lucid dream in a while.Now that he thought about It, this place reminded him of something. Which made sense, if he was dreaming then everything would be from his mind...or something like that.

"You know for a lucid dream this is pretty stupid, I mean really brain!? this is the best you could do!" Callum sighed and decided to walk around. He thought he could control the dream, or something like that. But that wasn't happening exactly, well...Maybe he would get the hang of it. "...Ah, now I know where this is from! Of course it's from roleplayer guild...I have been thinking about it a lot. I hope I can do a back flip in this dream, I've never done a back flip before, this seems like a good time to do this...okay, Let's go" Callum jumped and fell back. Of course he fell on back, he started to think he didn't even know in theory how to do one.

"Ah well" Callum got up and started to walk in one direction. Maybe he would see something interesting, he hoped.
But as he kept walking, he started to realize that the black sky wasn't endless, in fact...it kinda just....stopped
"Well, This is a weird dream" Callum grimaced at the thought of it getting really weird. Like, weird enough that when he wakes up he wants to forget the dream right away.
Already he wanted to wake up.

(oops)

The chains dissipated, causing Bellua to drop a few feet and collapse to the ground upon his hands and knees. His body looked frail and thin, but was adorned with markings of an unknown origin. He was shirtless, but was clothed otherwise in apparel that would suit a monk. After a few moments, Bellua rose to his feet, shaking the atrophy from his muscles and giving GM a sharp look before walking past him towards the cavern. He stopped short of exiting, turning halfway to face his liberator. "Where are they?"

The conversation was going increasingly away from what Nautilus would consider to be interesting, and thus he became increasingly unattached to the conversation. He slowly moved himself away from the area where the conversation was taking place, and looked around instead. He found Ebil sitting by a tree, apparently having the same concerns. Nautilus then walked toward Ebil and sat to his right.

"Hi, erm, what is your name again?" Nautilus tried to open the conversation but completely forgetting Ebil's name. "It seems we're being reduced to mere unimportant characters for the time being. Unless we regain their attention or start a side plot, I don't know what will happen to us," he said. The words 'side plot' referred to them going through the front entrance. He felt it was urgent for someone to go through the front gate, but nobody was taking action. Perhaps if he and Ebil started it, others would follow or at least notice them. If NPCs, or 'Guild natives' to be more politically correct and all-encompassing, disappear when they were not plot-important, who can guarantee that the roleplayers would not follow the same fate? We were indeed plot-important some moments ago, but not everyone could be important forever, right? his argument went inside his head.

Ebil looked up in surprise. He wasn't used to being noticed when he was off by himself.
"It's fine. You can call me Ebil, which was my guild name," Ebil said when the other said that he didn't know Ebil's same. After listening to his slightly cryptic talk, Ebil thought about it.
"You mean you think we will disappear like the NPCs? I never thought about that." Ebil said, thinking. He had thought that the rank was 1: Roleplayer, 2: Character, 3: NPC. He hadn't realized that the RP might think of them as some sort of alien. Then Ebil gasped.
"Maybe the RP thinks we're like those people that aren't really part of the RP, but post anyway! Which means nobody would even realize we're here!"

"Oh, well, we were just trying to find a way into the academy in general." Muse clarified to Jacklyn. "I can sortof-kindof sense other roleplayers, you see, and I know there are more in the academy, though I'm not sure where." Though Muse was a bit concerned about the girl's injury, it seemed like she didn't want to talk about it, so he didn't bring it up. "But you said you don't recall seeing anyone in there, right?" he asked. "If it's unlikely that any roleplayers are hiding there, we should probably search somewhere else..."

"Who's 'they'? You mean the roleplayers?" GM asked. "Pssshhh they're all over the place." he answered. "Feel free to mess with them as you please... Say, you want me to give you the power to track them down?" he offered. "I mean, it's a little... fuzzy, for lack of a better term - not completely accurate. Cuz, you know, I designed it for Muse, and I didn't want the sense to be too good... Haven't had time to upgrade it, though." he rambled. "Regardless, you want the tracker power or not?"

Orb continued walking. "So, uhh... Anyone any idea where we're going...?" He waited a few moments, no response. "C'mon, why so silent? And what about this new girl? What's yer' name?" he turned his head and realized no one had followed him. He sighed. Why does this always happen.... He jogged back to the group, turning a corner to where he thought they were. "Hey, guys! Are we going or not?" he waved to them to follow.

(Sorry for short post...)

"A general direction is all I need," Bellua scoffed, his muscles tensing, then coming to relax. Under the surface, he was seething with rage and a lust for destruction, but he had a different goal in mind - one that required both his creator and the ones he traveled with to lay dead at his feet. Nothing else would bring him satisfaction until the deed was done.

"I will return shortly," he spoke, his words fading as he left the cavern and proceeded down a long tunnel that seemingly had no end in sight. Before long, he emerged from the darkness, peering over a land which was enshrouded in a forest. With a low growl, he marched through the trees, leaving behind evidence of his being there in the form of a very small decay of natural life. It was what seemed like only a few minutes before he arrived at a lake, sniffing the air. Pupils dilated, he caught a scent. A few, to be exact, all of them humanoid in some way. Bellua smirked, laughing lowly as he followed the trail, disappearing back into the forest as he headed toward Kalmaysia Academy.

It won't be long now, he thought.

Your end is soon.

---

Euclid burst into the main hall, stopping to catch his breath. He looked around frantically, trying to figure out where Rose and Leon could be at the current moment, but he was only here for so long and didn't know the entire layout of the place, but he at least remembered that he last saw them in the kitchen. But, GM was there - wasn't he? Shaking his head, Euclid clenched his fists again and started to backtrack his steps from the main hall back to the balcony that gave a good view of the cafeteria.

Several moments later, and Euclid was staring at a hole in the glass, where he tossed a flower pot in hopes of distracting long enough for Leon and Rose to escape. There was no one inside as he carefully climbed his way into the cafeteria. The once existent doors of the kitchen were gone, and a huddled mass lay in the middle of the area in a crumpled heap, a dark liquid surrounding its form. He assumed it to be the creature that was attacking the ones he got separated from. Upon closer inspection, he found it to be malnourished dog, one that looked seemingly abused and mistreated. He winced at what he saw, covering his nose and mouth to keep from inhaling the scent of blood and death. Stepping past it, he moved further into the kitchen, looking around for any signs of life.

"Hello?" he called out in a forced whisper, loud enough for anyone in the immediate area to hear, but not loud enough to hopefully draw much attention. As he looked around, he spotted a trail of blood that led to some type of secret door in the back of the kitchen. Examining its surface, he eventually pried it open using a pulley (albeit with a few failed attempts), peering inside to witness an escape into the Academy's garden.

He crossed it as fast as he could, keeping as low as possible so as not to be seen, or so he hoped. Moving quickly, he followed the trail of blood as best he could before tripping and slamming into the ground, keeping from breaking his nose by his hands as he instinctively braced. Getting up, he looked around for the cause and find, somehow, a rather evenly corner sticking out from the rest of the dirt. Moving over to observe the extrusion, he felt across the surface with his fingers and gave a hard tug, feeling it jerk a little. Curious, he heaved and uprooted what looked like a hidden tile among the expanse of the garden. Dropping down into the tunnel, he eyed the long stretch he'd half to walk. He grumbled, inwardly complaining as he sealed the tunnel shut. Afterward, he started walking.

Some time later...

"Oh, no, Euclid," he said to himself. "You could have just unplugged the computer. But, noooooooo. You had to click, and now look what you did."

"Got yourself in this mess, guy."

"Idiot."

Euclid grunted, having slowed down from the arduous walk. He was lazily coasting to the end of the tunnel, vision pressed to the ground because he had no reason to look up in case there was a diverging path. It never came. What was the point?

The answer came to him when he collided with a wall, giving a resounding "oof" in the process. Looking forward, he came to a stop in front of a wall that just so happened to have a set of ladders leading up to... well, he didn't know.

Staring for several moments, Euclid's face turned red and he shouted.

"Oh, come on!"

Jacklyn looked up confused, having zoned out while having yet another common conversation with herself. "My name is Jacklyn," she clarified, "and I think that he's right, we should get going. I didn't see anyone in there, and I might quite a bit of noise when i woke up.... someone would have come by now."
[i]Quite a bit doesn't even cover it...[i/]
Jacklyn glared at her rabbit, seemingly upset though the others wouldn't know why. "Let's do what orb said... it's too dark in there any how and it gives me the creeps... reminds me too much of high school." Though she didn't look it, Jacklyn was in fact a college student.... the more she thought about it the more she realized that if this was real then she was actually absent from the real world.

A little while after they left she looked at Muse, "How does time work here? I'm I missing classes in....well, RL?"

"Ebil," Nautilus said, repeating the boy's name. Repetition helps one remembers things, and this was not an exception. "I should be able to remember your name for the rest of the day, but don't know about tomorrow". He had got that bad habit of forgetting people's names the day following the acquaintance, and he hadn't been able to get rid of it.

"You mean you think we will disappear like the NPCs? I never thought about that." Ebil said, thinking.

"Only a speculation, though. But on a second thought, if we are playing this game, think SAO, then disappearing due to unimportance would lead to a contradiction. Except if..." Nautilus responded, but Ebil seemed to complete the sentence for him.

"Maybe the RP thinks we're like those people that aren't really part of the RP, but post anyway! Which means nobody would even realize we're here!"

Nautilus sighed, knowing that the logic inside the Guild can be mind-blowing. "Are we a part of this? And how do we post here, by the way?" he asked. He then stood up and picked two branches of a tree, both are quite straight and one of those is only slightly longer than the other. He placed the longer one upright on the ground and made sure it stood up even though he was not holding it. The shorter branch was now very slightly longer than the apparent height of the longer branch due to some part of the longer one being buried under the ground. He tried to measure the length of the shadow created by the upright branch, checking whether it was longer than the branch he used to measure that length.

"I think we just move, talk, or do anything. Maybe we're posting right now." said Ebil. He watched the other start working with sticks and their shadows.
"Trying to find what time it is?" he asked. Of course, it would still only tell kind of what time it was. They would need a compass to know if it was morning.
Suddenly, he wondered what time it was in real life. He remembered how slow some of the RPs he was in before. If they posted each time they did anything, and if everyone posted once a day, that would mean it would be... What? Two weeks?

Following the general consensus, Muse led the group away from the girls' dorm and in search of a better entrance, beckoning Ebil and Nautilus to follow. "Well, unfortunately, yes, probably." Muse responded to Jacklyn. "There isn't exactly a constant time conversion between here and there, seeing as how the flow of time varies from setting to setting, but in most cases, time moves slower here. So in other words, a lot of time has probably passed in your world since you left. Sorry." he explained. "Although, given everything that's been going on lately, you all probably have bigger things to worry about than missing school..." he trailed off grimly.

---

"M'kaaaay have fun~" GM chimed as Bellua sauntered off. The beast could do as he pleased until summoned, GM figured, just like his old minions. He vanished in a flash of purple as the creature left, off to do other things.

She let out a small huff as she climbed up the ladder, laughing at Leon's remark. "Probably." She said with a small chuckle. It certain had hurt him far more than it hurt her. With that, she climbed out of the manhole and went to the bag to search from some pain killers. Finding a small bottle, she smiled. She heard faint voices coming from the tunnel but decided it might as well just be her hearing things. Her hearing wasn't all that great all the time anyway. "Well, look-y here." She said with a big grin, leaning over Leon so that he could see it. "I found your cure all." She told him jokingly. She grabbed a bottle of water and a few of the pills and handed them to Leon.

Well, tried to anyway. Right as she was leaning over, she heard a loud thump and then someone yell, "Oh, come on!" She jumped, surprised by the sudden loud noise, the pills dropping to the ground and the water bottle falling and splashing both Rose and Leon. Wide eyed, she looked down at her now wet pants. "God dammit! Now I look like a peed myself." She grumbled, irritated. She huffed and took a few more pills, and the water bottle which still had a bit of water in it and handed them to Leon, helping him take them before going to check out the tunnel.

When she did, she looked down to see Euclid standing at the end of the tunnel, already starting to come up the stairs. "Well, seems like we left a pretty obvious trail. Good to see you again, Euclid. I promise we didn't plan to leave you. Honest." She said with an almost joking smile.

The teen gulped, biting her lower lip. I've got bigger things to worry about? Sure if weeks had gone by and she had missed classes she was out of a lot of money but....
"I worry I might have more questions then you have answers." She admitted, "but... did our bodies get trapped as well do you know? Have a disappeared in the real world or is my body in a coma at the hospital?"

Hearing a voice from above, he focused on what looked like a silhouette of a person upon the ladder that called out his name, sounding just like Rose. Surely he hadn't caught up with them that quickly, did he? He stood there, waving tiredly. "Oh, hey," he spoke. "You guys alright? I saw you get attacked back there, so I tried to distract them with whatever I could find." Grabbing a rung on the ladder, he slowly started to pull himself upward, grunting and heaving a sigh or two ever so often. He wasn't why Rose was here, but he was glad that it wasn't any immediate type of danger.

---

Bellua stood in the middle of a desert like area, peering up into the sky and watching a floating land slowly drift through the clouds. His smirk had more descended into a look of pensive frustration, feeling himself getting closer to his destination. Sniffing the air, he found a new scent distracting him from his goal, and so he wandered, watching a lone tornado tear through the desert area. Before long, he could see someone walking in the distance and he pursued them until he could call easily gather the being's attention.

"You there," he called out, the lack of noise from all around making it easy to be heard. "I require information about the location of my creator."

Callum kept wandering around the avast desert, it was rather lonely with the completely black sky. "This is the most annoying dream ever!...if it's even is a dream that is" Perish that thought right now, you are not in a weird fantasy world or some crap like that. This isn't some roleplay!....but the link? Callum suddenly remember the link. He suddenly went to sleep...or something right after he clicked that link. That's not possible is it? "Just keep walking, keep walking...You'll find something nice...you'll find someth-"

"You there, I require information about the location of my creator" Callum froze. He slowly turned around, to see a figure...No, He was a lot closer, and looking rather dangerous.

I wouldn't want this, why is this....thing here!? Just to be hundred percent safe, even though this was probably not needed. Callum thought for a second, well clearly this guy wants to uh....find his creator or whatever, he doesn't exactly look like the person who would take it well if He had none. But he had no reason to harm him right? Pfff, what am I talking about, I'm sure it's totally okay and I'm not endangered. Because i'm in a dream...yes that's it .

"I have not....seen your "creator" but....I haven't really gotten any details on what this...man? Let's just it's a he...Looks like, if you would to give some details on what he looked like then...maybe. But as of now I have nothing to give you. Yeah, definitely" Callum spoke nervously and his speed kept changing, while also making wild hand gestures.