"Trying to find what time it is?" Ebil asked.
"Yes, I am," Nautilus said, his eyes looking at the sticks instead of Ebil. The shadow of the upright branch was longer than the branch that he used to measure the length. Having seen the sun at high noon before, this would mean that it was about 3.15 pm, assuming the day and night were of equal length. He did a prayer, again quicker than usual, and as soon as he finished doing so, the rest of the group started walking. "Ah, finally they're moving. Let's go!" he said, waving his hands to the direction the group was going, hoping Ebil would go up and walk as well.
After walking for a while, the group reached the proper entrance to the academy. "How can it take so long for us to do this?" he commented, saying to no one in particular but with a voice audible by everyone in the group. He then started counting the number of the group members in the hall way, and to his surprise it was one less than what it should have been. He counted it again in case he accidentally skipped anyone in the count, but indeed one man is missing. "Guys, sorry if this means we stop again," he started his sentence a bit nervously, "But I think one man is missing from us. The little one if I remembered it well". He looked around for a bit, but he didn't find the missing little one. Having your group member lost in a completely foreign land is a very bad nightmare. But it must be even worse for the man who get lost, he said to himself inside his own mind.