[IC] Welcome Back to the Guild

[Kaga]

“Right, well um…” Muse hummed in immediate response to Callum and Kole’s questions, all coming in too rapidly for him to answer one-at-a-time, with Kole in particular pressing far too heavily on the matter of his shapeshifting while his guesses were all so far off-base that he hardly knew how to approach them. Finally, though, once Kole and Callum had both stopped on the term ‘roleplayer’, he’d figured he’d found a good place to start.

“You see…” he cleared his throat. “This world that you’re in now, this is… basically Roleplayer Guild.” He spoke slowly, giving them time to absorb his words. “Each setting you encounter is a roleplay come to life, here. As for why you’re all here, well, that’s still a bit unclear. And as for my shapeshifting, well, that’s not so far off from a set of powers you two now have, as well! And I can teach you how to do the same in ti-“ he cut himself off as he became aware of Nautilus’ plight, wincing slightly as he finally noticed the roleplayer in pain behind him. “Oh, crap, uh…” he knelt down to help him, but immediately realized he had no idea what he was doing. Looking towards the rest of the group, he ran his fingers through his hair nervously. “Anyone here good at first-aid stuff?”

[Neobullseye]

As innocent as Wai might've looked to most people, Leon by now knew that nothing was as it seemed, and everything that GM made should be treated as horribly lethal. Not to mention that anything of that size was dangerous regardless of its intentions. This suspicion was soon confirmed when 'Wai' charged at Leon, only to be stopped almost effortlessly by its creator. During this entire scene, Leon barely flinched, instead having a strange smiling expression on a face that for all intents and purposes should've been plastered with terror at the thought of imminent death. Whether this was due to an assumption that GM had no reason to kill him now, a subconcious assumption that he would revive anyway or due to the last strips of his sanity snapping one by one, one could only guess. Silently, the young man listened to GM's ensuing explanation. So, Wai could apparently operate on his own, not needing any instructions whilst being almost unstoppable judging by its size. Add in the apparent ability to teleport, and it was the perfect guard. Yeah, GM didn't need anything else. Of course, even if something gould get past the giant beast somehow, it was very unlikely that they would be able to defeat a being that could bent the rules of the universe as he saw fit.

Although Leon didn't quite know exactly what GM meant with the terms he used, the underlying meaning was obvious. This wasn't the first time that GM spoke of a previous 'game' either, implying that all of this had happened at least once before and that it would likely happen again too. And he, Leon, would be along for the ride for either all eternity or until GM got bored of him, whichever would come first. At this realisation, the faint smile on Leon's face broke into a grin, his shoulders shaking through barely surpressed laughter -- a surpression that would not last. Soon, Leon broke out in a full-blown, almost maniacal laugh, sinking to the ground as his legs failed to keep him upright.

Upon finally catching his breath, Leon slowly rose back to his feet and turned to GM. "You've.. You've done this before, haven't you? What happened then?"

[Rithas]

Callum was left with his mouth opened as Muse explained that they were in the roleplayer guild...Callum knew that something crazy was going on, but to hear that was just really weird. But as Callum thought about it made more sense. The desert with the tornado...he wrote about that in his RP. The things he saw, they....he swore he remember that on the site. Not to mention the fact that...wait, he remember the private message. He clicked on it and, then he was here. "Well...Okay, that somehow makes sense"

But then Muse was going on the topic of them having powers. Him, Callum having powers? But then Muse was distracted by another person. "What" Callum was confused but then he realize what was happening. He wanted to inquire about what Muse said further but he didn't want to distract from the injury of the other person. But he definitely put it in the back of his mind to ask muse about that later.

When muse asked if anyone had any medical knowledge Callum sighed. Sadly he did not, but he couldn't really help with that.

[Kaga]

GM grinned contently at the sight of Leon’s laughter. Either this kid was thoroughly broken or a reeeeeaaal good actor. He assumed the former. He listened to Leon’s inquiry and silently debated for a moment whether or not to tell the whole story. In light of Leon’s recent descent into madness, he figured he hadn’t much to lose.

“Well ya see…” he spoke. “I used to run this game called Data Spell. You wouldn’t have heard of it. Or at least, I’d assume not. Because if you have, well then, I’d have a very different job in mind for you…” he trailed off. “But, we’ll just assume for now that you haven’t. Anyway, this game, Data Spell, I presented it as an MMO, a very special MMO. See, when players logged on to this game, they would physically enter it – sort of like what I did with you roleplayers here. The difference with Data Spell was that the players’ bodies would all remain in their own world, while their minds entered their in-game avatars. Also, Data Spell had an explicit warning on it: if you die in the game, you die in real life. Play at your own risk. Etc, etc. Thing is, no one took the warning seriously! People played on and killed each other and all assumed that if your in-game character died you’d either be banned or need to get a new avatar or something. Hardly anyone actually believed in that whole in-game death nonsense, leading many of the most powerful players to become real-life mass murderers! Hahahahaha!!” he laughed maniacally, taking a moment to enjoy the glory days, when his game was perfect and he reigned supreme…

“But um…” he continued once he stopped laughing. “Unfortunately, it didn’t last forever. Rather complicated story as to why it fell apart, but bottom line is, it did. I lost pretty much the entire in-game environment, not to mention all my players, even the ones that worked under me like you do now, but, after I found this place, I decided to try again, starting from scratch. As you can see, though, I already changed quite a few things from the old formula. Your whole self is here, not just your mind, I didn’t give a bullshit warning that no one would read anyway, and uh… biggest difference is that I really don’t have an in-game world put together yet. Almost everything here is left-over from the realm as I found it. You and the others are basically all beta testers.” He explained, returning to his swivel chair as he curled up with his laptop. “Oh! And, it just occurred to me…” he spoke, ready to rename the file previously known as “rpg004”. “I never did catch your name, kid.”

[Neobullseye]

"Why are you surprised at that?," Leon smiled at GM's explanation. "It's like instruction manuals. Nobody ever reads them unless you force them. You should've put some kind of rule up that people have to enter a password that's listed somewhere in the rules. That way at least nobody can claim that they didn't know about it. Lawyers can be real jerks about things like that. Of course, it's not like you care about lawyers, right? Who cares about them?! I don't, that's for sure," he ranted, getting more and more off-topic. "Plus, you said it was like an MMO. People assume that MMOs are played through avatars. After all, most of them are. Speaking of MMOs, did you have any marriages in that Data Spell thingie? All good MMOs have marriages in them. Ooh, and major wars! Can't have an MMO without those, right?"

"Also, my name's Leon. Not Leon Belmont though; I'm not a vampire hunter. It would be nice if I could summon a whip though. You know, like ka-POW!," he went on, making a gesture as if he was actually attacking someone with a whip -- making sure, of course, not to aim at either GM or Wai. Bizarrely, a whip actually appeared upon him doing so, making a loud cracking noise when the shockwave travelling down the wire hit the tip. "...Well now. That's special," he mumbled, staring at the weapon in his hands for a bit before casually tossing it aside. "Ah well! Anyway, like I said, the name's Leon, Leon Winter. "

[Kaga]

GM’s eyes widened slightly at the sight of Leon being able to summon the whip so effortlessly. I thought it takes longer than that. he mused to himself. At least it did with the others, that I’ve noticed… maybe I should spend more time observing them…

“Leon, eh?” GM echoed, then he paused, as if contemplating something. “…I like Leo better.” He spoke, promptly grinning and ruffling Leon’s hair before renaming the rpg004 file as such. “Anywho, as for Data Spell, I bet some people probably got married. People could do basically whatever the hell they wanted; they were real people after all, so there weren’t exactly many technological limits to what they could do.” He smiled. “Everyone was just left to their own devices. It was kind of like Lord of the Flies, but with dragons. That’s what made it so fun!!” he chirped.

[Neobullseye]

"Well, if you like that better, you can call me that," Leon responded whilst absently combing his hair with his fingers, not noticing GM's reaction to his earlier actions. "You're the boss, after all! Also, dragons! Dragons are awesome! Aww, now I wish I played that game just because of the dragons," he chimed. "Everybody loves dragons! Well, except for the people who get eaten by them. Then again, at least the dragons loved them. Or maybe they were just really hungry. Who knows! I don't, that's for sure! Maybe we should go ask someone else? Like one of the other Beta testers, for example. Where are they, anyway? I haven't seen any on the Island other than Euclid and Rose..."
Somehow, through the insanity that was that rant, Leon managed to get back to a reasonable topic, even if he barely realized it himself. If there were as many Beta Testers as GM implied, then where were they all?

[Kaga]

GM grinned. “Don’t worry, man – I can make plenty more dragons!” he chirped. “As for the other beta testers, I was just thinking about them, myself.” GM hummed. “I can assure you there are more of them than just what you saw. And it seems they’re all in one place… and not far from here! We could easily take ol’ Bassie out there. Or rather, new Bassie.” He shrugged, walking towards the door. Once he reached the dorm room’s exit, though, he stopped at the sight of what was outside. “…Huh.” He spoke monotonously. “Yeah, I think we lost the rest of the academy.” He explained, looking out at the empty sky in front of them. “Oh well!” he shrugged again. He then took a good few steps back from the door, and gave himself a good running start before leaping out into the open air and summoning his pet Zelda Skyward Sword style. Upon whistling in free-fall, the large green wyvern appeared underneath him to catch him.

“Owowowowow…” GM could be heard mumbling as the dragon, Basilix, slowly rose up to GM’s hideout. “Ok, that’s not quite as fun as it looks…” he groaned, flipping himself over onto his back. “Eh, at any rate, get on, kid.” He told Leon, attempting to brush off the pain.

[Arty Fox]

Kole had been very interested by the not-dragon-angel’s explanation of their current predicament. Though it was a bit farfetched despite the little niggling sensation from Kole’s gut stating it was true. Then again there was a giant floating island flickering away above them among other things that didn’t seem like they could naturally happen around them.

Koles reaction to the little tidbit of information about them all having powers was similar to Cullum’s, only not vocalised as he was busy forming more lists of questions to ask. What were these powers? Were there loads of different types? Did everyone get the ability to shape shift? What defined which abilities and powers a person would get?
But the answers to those questions weren’t quite as important at the moment as the injured person nearby. Racking his mind for any first aid information his mind had stored away Kole moved toward the injured person and the not-dragon-angel.

“Right, um, first of all.” Kole knelt down by the injured person as a list quickly formed in his mind. “uh, the injury itself I guess? Well, you’re not bleeding at least, so that’s one thing.” An item on his mental list was ticked off. “Can you move your foot at all?” He then asked seeing that the person was clutching their right leg.

He noted with some annoyance that he still didn’t know anyone’s name, beside Callum of course. “I’m Kole by the way.” He stated, attempting to rectify the problem.

Catching a glimpse of something at the top of his vision Kole looked up to the sky, and his jaw fell. Where the island had been flickering happily away a black box now squatted among the clouds. But that wasn’t what had driven a stake of fear through Kole, it was the giant green dragon beating it’s wings with a steady rhythm keeping it aloft beside the box. It looked a lot more threatening that the Not-dragon-angel.

[Neobullseye]

"Sweet!," Leon exclaimed, focused more on the promise of more dragons than GM's talk about the other beta testers. If it weren't for GM forcefully ending their conversation by jumping out of the building -- That for some reason was now missing about 99% of its original volume. For a moment, Leon wondered if maybe GM could fly, seeing as unless things had changed in the recent past, the island should still be floating on a stupidly high altitude. This unspoken question was soon answered when GM came back flying up -- on the back of a green dragon, that is, and complaining about the pain the fall had apparently caused him. If Leon's mind hadn't broken into a thousand tiny pieces, he might've realised that this meant that GM wasn't invincible after all. Instead, the young man was just enthousiastic about actually riding a dragon.
"Okay, sure," Leon answered, jumping from the edge of the door opening towards the dragon. Problem is, momentum tend to be a thing when you land on an unstable surface, which almost caused Leon to slide right off on the other side. The poor kid managed to somehow hold on, but was in such a poor position that it would be nigh impossible for him to get back up on his own. "Uhm... whoops?," Leon muttered, somehow not sounding all that scared even though the only thing between him and an ungodly long fall was one clinging hand. "...A bit of help please?," the young man asked the being somewhere above him, trying to reach upward with his free hand -- but falling somewhat short due to basic physics. It wasn't like GM had any reason to let him down here, right?

[Kaga]

GM opened his eyes at the sound of Leon in his current predicament, and for a moment, he seemed willing to help him up. But then, he paused, expression changing into a sly grin as his mischievous nature got the better of him. “Sure, I’ll help you up.” He spoke as he leaned back on the dragon’s hide, relaxing as he swung his foot down such that his heel landed on Leon’s fingertips, causing the boy to lose his grip. “You should respawn up here, after all.” He chuckled as the roleplayer fell to his impending death on the desert ground below.

[Rithas]

Callum sighed as everyone paid attention to the injured person, but he then noticed Kole was looking at something. "Kole? What are you looking a- Oh my god" Callum grimaced as he saw the giant dragon in the sky, and for some weird reason, he doubted this one would turn into a normal person. Not that the person was a normal person since he could turn into a dragon, but he was getting off point. "Really?" Callum muttered as he looked up at it. And then he saw a small shadow...it looked like someone was ontop of the dragon..not only that, but then he saw another one, and this one was falling...and falling fast. "Umm, Guys....."

[Neobullseye]

A sharp pain shot through Leon's hand, causing him to retract his hand away from under GM's foot. What happened next was elementary physics; no longer attached to anything in any way, Leon's body was quickly drawn to the ground below by a thingie called gravity. The young man's eyes grew large upon realizing his predicament, his lungs forcing out a scream fueled by primal instinct, not hindered nor affected by reason or lack thereof.Of course, it wasn't as if this had any effect on gravity's embrace drawing him ever closer to the surface below...

With a sickening crack, Leon's body struck the ground, cutting off his deathly scream in an instant along with breaking just about every bone in his body. Some of the sharper ones, such as the ribs, jutted out at random places, creating the illusion that the quite obviously dead man fell into a spike pit or something. As if that wasn't gross enough, the same gravity that had so broken his body was now drawing the remainder of his blood out of the wounds on the bottom of his body and onto the ground, where it formed a crimson puddle. His neck was at a very unnatural angle, and the state of his head was best left undescribed. All in all, it was clear to anyone with the ability to see that Leon's life had ended. Again.

[Animelover_princess]

Rae wasn't at all sure how she could contribute to the situation, she knew nothing about first aid except CPR which was a mandatory class at her high school, but he was breathing and he wasn't choking. she nodded to the guy when he said his name was Kole "I'm Rae" she looked at the hurt guy "i wish i could help but all the first aid i know comes from anime" she sighed, then she heard Callum say something and she followed his eyes to the box and the dragon and the following person "Muse!"

[Kaga]

Still fretting over Nautilus’ injury, it soon became apparent that the only thing that, given everyone else’s medical inexperience, the only thing that would alleviate Muse’s worries would be something else to worry about.

And it didn’t take long for such a thing to arrive.

Not long after they all shared their inexperience, the roleplayers directed Muse’s attention towards the black box where Kalmaysia used to be, and the dragon hovering in the air beside it. Already he had a bad feeling about the situation, the hair on the back of his neck standing on-end at the thought of the madman up in the clouds. But of course, his uneasiness quickly turned to panic at the sight of someone falling from the dragon’s back to their death below. “Hang on!” he shouted instinctively, wings sprouting from his back as he half-dashed half-flew to the boy. But, gravity proved to be faster than him, and he braked sharply so as to avoid tripping over the mangled corpse that laid in front of him. Feeling slightly sick just from the look of the thing, he averted his eyes. As much as he wanted to help, there was no doubt in his mind that the boy was beyond saving. And, despite all his crazy powers, he did have limits - namely, he could not bring back the dead.

[Arty Fox]

Koles stomach did flips and leaps at the blood curdling scream that pierced the uneasy silence. Down and down the boy fell, body tumbling in a mess of flailing limbs.
Koles eyes slowly followed the boy’s descent from the terrifying dragon high above them to the serene landscape around them. The world seemed to slow down allowing Koles mind to fully absorb the moment as is progressed. The boy’s screams ended with a gurgle and his body folded in on itself as the ground refused to softly embrace it. The crunching of bones and snapping of cartilage was complimented rather exquisitely by the sounds of organs being shredded by the splintered bones.

Kole felt the blood drain from his face and bile rise steadily up his throat at the sight. His body shook violently while the gears in his mind grinded against one another unable to move without tearing themselves apart.

He didn’t want to be here anymore. He want to go home. He wanted to hide away forever and be forgotten, undisturbed for the rest of his days. He wanted to forget all of this.

"What just happened?" Kole whispered in a shaking voice, hoping that someone hadn't actually died in front of him.

[Animelover_princess]

Rae watched Muse fly for the falling boy, the scream seemed to shake her to the core. in the deafening silence she heard the impact, her hand went to her mouth in horror "oh my god.
Her eyes were huge, she dropped to her knees, an arm around her stomach "i'm gonna be sick" she put a hand out to stop herself from falling over "ohhhhhh why is cake the only thing in my stomach"
she finally made herself look up, she could see the body from here. she slammed a hand into the ground "Bellua! where the hell did you go!?"

[Neobullseye]

Some moments after Leon had kissed the ground at terminal velocity, the air next to his body started to softly ripple and curve. At first a vague humanoid shape started to appear, slowly becoming more clear in detail and appearance until finally revealing the human being that had suffered a gravity-induced death moments earlier.
With a soft moan, the man rolled and cracked his neck and joints, as if all that had happened was him falling asleep in an unnatural position. "Well, that was uncomfortable," he muttered, still rubbing his neck. "Eh, at least I'm down on the ground now, so there's that."
At this point, the man seemed to finally notice the fact that he was surrounded by several strangers. "Oh, hi there! So... who do I have the pleasure to meet? My name's Leon," he smiled -- something that someone who for all intents and purposes just fell to his 'death' really should not be doing. "As for the dead body over there, don't pay attention to it. I'm sure GM will come down and clean it up any minute now. Speaking of him, didn't he say something about expecting me to respawn up there next to him? Yes, I think he did," the young man continued, more talking to himself than to the people around him. Moments later, he looked up at the dragon near the floating box far, far above his head. "HEEEY!," he called out, waving his arms up and down. "GM! I'm down here!"

[Rithas]

Callum started to run towards the, now screaming person. The scream was horrible, his limbs flailing about uselessly. "Come on!" Callum kept running, he didn't know why he kept running, maybe he thought he could do something to catch him. But gravity sadly decided to go faster then anyone else. And The person smashed into the ground with a sickening crack. "Oh jesus" Callum felt extremely sick as he saw the persons body just seem to break in every part. "Holy shit" Callum staggered back as he looked at the sight. He thought right then he was going to get sick.

Sure there could be demons, sure there could be dragons, sure there could be so many things. But, to see...this. This was horrible. But Callum looked up towards the dragon.
"umm, Muse. Who is that person on the dragon?"

But then the air started to move, and soon enough the person who he had seen getting completely wrecked up, moaning about how that was uncomfortable. For some reason, Callum was more mad that his dead mangled body was right next to him. "They didn't even bother to make that vanish" Callum muttered quietly as he looked at Leon, who had just announced his name. Then he started to call out for the person on top of the Dragon. GM?.....That could only mean two things if this was really the roleplayer guild. But he was more distracted by the fact this person seemed to be a little crazy. Or maybe he just died a lot...Callum sighed as he realized what he just thought.

Callum tilted his head, "Sooo....This happens to you a lot then?" He asked Leon

[Kaga]

Muse stayed still for a long time, not sure what to say to his role-player companions about the dead body. It was horrifying, for sure - enough even to make him a little sick - so what was he supposed to say to comfort them? Unable to offer any kind words, all he could do was silently curse the man responsible.

…That is, until the dead boy suddenly rematerialized in the air in front of them.

Muse stiffened, now more speechless than he was before. Was this one of GM’s victims, or affiliates? His heart started beating faster as the role-players started asking about the madman above, and even the young boy who’d just fallen to his death called up to his master.

“That dragon-rider’s dangerous!” Muse spoke up quickly to the group behind him, unsure as to what else to say as the creature above began its descent. “That’s the godmodder - the one whose clever idea it was to cause all this madness.” he retorted.

“Didn’t expect you to respawn all the way down there!!” GM called, shouting to be heard over Basilix’s wingbeats. “Oh heeyyyyyy look who’s here!” he chirped as the dragon landed a short distance away from the group, towering over them as it blocked out the sun above them. “Nice army, Muse!” he called sarcastically. “How are those plans to defeat me coming along?”