Welcome Back to the Guild [continuation]

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"And I didn't know that assassins needed a bodyguard." GM sneered in response to Callum's witty remark. "Don't you think that's also somewhat of a… coward thing to do?" he smirked, his gaze focused on Rae as she huddled close to Muse. "At least I'm actually trying to cover all my bases — you know, like a smart evil overlord." he continued.

Muse, meanwhile, started to slowly back away towards the door — as if any sudden movement would trigger a chase like it would with some sort of wild animal.

"But I… literally have no idea what you were all trying to do here." GM laughed. "I mean, was there any plan here? Anything at all?" he asked rhetorically, his laughter starting to make it difficult to even speak. "Or were you all just going to… walk into my domain and just sort of… hope for the best?" he continued, his laughter growing more uproarious by the second.

That laughter was cut short as Gwazi suddenly kicked over a lamp in his and Rin's direction, before dragging his teammates into the other room. Muse didn't hesitate to follow.

"Oh you're not going anywhere!" GM spoke up, grabbing the air in front of him. At the same time, Muse felt as if someone had grabbed his neck, strangling him and pulling him back. While the rest of the group was able to retreat, Muse remained dangling in mid-air, held back by whatever invisible force GM was using to keep his grip on him. "Go on, shoo shoo." he told the RPers, gesturing for them to leave. "I'm not even in the mood to kill you all right now. I'll just hang onto this guy for now, and see how well you all get along without him." he explained, yawning.

Muse remained speechless (even after GM had loosened his grip enough so that Muse could at least breathe), only able to look sadly and worriedly back at the RPers.

"Come back on your own sometime and challenge me then, maybe." GM told them. "We'll see how that goes."
 
"Hey!" Callum pointed at the GM fiercly. "I do the quick witted quips around here!" He shouted, "Not you! Me!" Waggling his finger with unseen ferociousness. "And for~ your information. We had a plan, a plan which we made up as we went but it was a plan none the less-" Callum was cut short by Gwazi grabbing him and dragging him away. Caught by suprise, He simply sagged as they fled. His eyes focused back when he saw Muse get dragged back to the GM.

"Shiiii-"

They left.

"-IIiiiiiit" Callum was still moving away, from that mess. He needed to think. "Muse is back there! and.....oh for fuck sake" He rubbed his head, grimacing.
 
Rae was just trying to go with the flow now. too much was happening at once and she was suddenly being pushed into the other room. she tried to do what she was told but she was scared and confused and Muse was gone. "Wait!" she cried "we can't leave Muse behind!" she looked around at the others then back into the other room, her eyes even ghosted over the still open portal. "Muse is our friend!"
she wanted to do something, anything, blast GM away but she knew she wasn't strong enough.

Rae looked at the guys then back at Muse. they had to get out of there, they had to but... could they just leave Muse behind? could they get strong enough to beat GM without him?
"Guys..." she looked at the open portal "i think we have to run..."
 
Already on top of what the others were realizing Gwazi moved the group forward, forcing them if he had to into the portals to escape, and regretfully leaving Muse on her own. Not having any time to think or react to that situation at all other than getting the rest out, and once out he instantly turned around and swung his sword at the portal trying to destroy it so it can be followed through. Could be pointless, who knew if the sword would just phase back in or not? But this was a world working on RP logic, perhaps plot convenience would be of use.

Throughout all of this he didn't even say a word, seemingly focused in on the task to getting rid of the pursers means of following the now escaped group.
 
Once the RP group scurried back into the portal room, MK Ultra lifted his head with interest, looking the RPers over. It seemed as if he was taking a nap while they were in there.

Gwazi's attempts at slashing the portal with a sword really weren't effective — but they weren't necessary, either. Before anything came after them, the portal suddenly closed up on its own. And it wasn't the only one. All around them, one at a time, all the portals began to blink closed. It didn't look as if any would remain by the time it was over.

Noticing this, MK calmly stood up and walked over to a blank space in the wall. MK closed his eyes, and, before long, a new portal began to form. This one, though, was different — instead of the icy blue color of the other portals, this one was more of a dull yellow, almost matching the yellow-orange color of MK's collar. Once it was fully open, MK opened his eyes again and craned his head around to look back at the RPers, making sure they were still with them. Then, trusting that they would follow, he climbed into the portal, himself.

The scene waiting for them on the other side had a certain ambience to it much unlike any RP setting they'd encountered before. If it wasn't for that ambience, it could've looked like a typical village setting from any medieval fantasy RP, but, this setting was definitely not typical. The first odd thing to notice about it was the color. While the RPers and MK themselves looked the same as they did before stepping through the portal, the rest of the world around them had a very dull, gray look to it — but not the sort of dull grayness one would expect from a mere cloudy day, or anything of the sort. Instead, it looked as if it had previously been a completely normal scene, only to have all the color removed from it. It wasn't completely black-and-white, though. Rather, it looked as if someone had opened a previously vivid and colorful image in Photoshop, and turned the saturation way down, sucking the life out of those bright colors until each of them was barely a notch above gray — giving the whole place the vibrancy of an old, worn-out VHS tape. The roleplayers themselves stood out rather noticeably by comparison.

There weren't any people around, either. No NPC's, nor characters of any kind, really. It was empty, like a ghost town. And, not only did the town feel incredibly empty but incredibly still, too. There was no movement — every object, every bit of foliage, and every spec of dirt remained perfectly in place until disturbed by a roleplayer's touch. The entire place almost seemed to be frozen in time.

The portal let the group out on the edge of town, seemingly at one of the main entrances to it, and a nearby sign seemed to label the place as "Droc Village". Behind them — in the direction that would've most likely led out of the town — there stood a familiar wall of void. The village itself seemed to be intact, and there was plenty to look at in front of them, but, upon close inspection, it looked as though the void wall had circled the town completely, making it impossible to travel anywhere else.

MK sat calmly on the dirt path and craned his head around to look at the RPers, watching as they entered this strange place.
 
For most of their escape, Leon just went along with the flow. For one, he was way too shocked about everything that was going on that was going on to actually react to it. Literally everything had gone to hell within the span of mere seconds for the umpteenth time. It was strange; as easy as he stood up to those natives and as much courage he showed against Ribâs, so easily was he thrown into desparation by GM's simply being present.
Second... He didn't feel right at all. His head was hurting, there was this annoying buzz in his head, and everything just felt really... off, something that only went downhill as they went through the portal MK made. Leon didn't even make a mental note of the fact that MK made a portal to wherever they were now, seeing as something else took up all his attention. When he came out of the portal... everything was almost completely devoid of colours. Leon rubbed his head and eyes. Did... Did something go wrong with his last resurrection? ...No, that didn't make sense; he could see colors just fine five secods ago, not to mention everyone else was still in color. Which meant the problem had to lie with the world. It... Ow! Why was his head hurting so much anyway? He didn't get hit during their escape, so it couldn't be an injury. But... Not important. What was important was finding out where they were and finding a safe place for now. Looking around him, he could see the obvious buildings right around them. Behind them, however... was nothing. Literally. Like what they saw back in the Guild, there was a wall of pure nothingness in that direction. Presmably, the same was the case in all other directions if they traveled in that direction far enough. So... did they travel back to the Guild again? But how? Wasn't the Guild destroyed by GM?
"...Is it just me, or does this place look like a Guild location to anyone else?", Leon asked. ...At least that was what he tried to say. Instead, however, not even a whisper left his throat. What the? Why... What's going on? He repeatedly scraped his throat in a desperate attempt to regain control, hoping that people wouldn't take too much notice of it and just blame it on a coughing fit or something. "...Where are we?", was all that Leon managed to mutter after a short pause.
 
Rae sent one sorrowful glance back at their guide before she was unceremoniously shoved through the portal. she sighed heavily and wrapped her arms around herself as she looked around the portal hub and muttered "back again" then her attention was drawn to the cat, which was walking towards the wall. she followed him carefully until the portal opened "what... MK?" then he walked through the portal.
Rae looked around at her companions and since she felt like there really was no other choice, she stepped through. every portal seemed to send a shiver through her spine and she shook it off as she looked around her new surrounding.
"woah..." she suddenly got very happy that she was not color-blind, though it didn't do her much good right now. "where are we?" she asked, quietly. she had a bad feeling, she really didn't like it here.
out of the corner of her eye she saw Leon scratching at his neck and turned "Leon? are you alright?"
when he spoke, voice quiet, it only reiterated the idea that something was wrong with him. she stepped closer, putting a hand on his shoulder "Leon?"
 
Callum yawned as MK-Ultra opened up a portal, seemingly by itself. "Aww, who's are little portal making magical cat. Yes, yes you are!" Callum walked up to the portal. He thought about the colours of the portals, "Huh, kinda like portal" He muttered to himself before stepping through. As the whole group inspected their surroundings.

"My my, I do love the surrounding colours of grey, grey, light grey and dark grey. Truly a wide selections of colours." He told himself, chuckling to his own joke. He spun around to see the void surrounding them. Completely ignoring Leon's troubles, Callum spoke, "Hey, it's kinda like we're back in the guild. Neato" He announced out loud. He kicked the dirt.

"Reminds me of Pokemon Mystery dungeon, you know? With the time gears? That game had the most bullshit final boss of all time. Who thought it was a good idea to give Dialga an random instant kill move." He turned back to the group, but his shoulders quickly shagged. He waved a hand lightly, "You're not listening" He grumbled to himself.

He walked in front of a house, "Ah, an house. In all it's sturdy grey nature." He glanced to MK_Ultra. "Anything you want to show us?"
 
Gathering himself, Leon just nodded. "Yeah, I'm okay, Rae. Just had a little headache for a while, that's all. It's okay now though." In reality, he wasn't feeling all that okay yet, but he wasnt'going to complain about it. They had other priorities at the moment. "Let's just find some shelter in one of those houses first," Leon suggested. "Somehow I doubt we're going to find anything threatening around here, but I really don't want to stay outside either..." With that, the young man turned towards one of the buildings closest to the group, which seemed to be a café of some sorts. "This one seems to be as good as any. Do you agree?", he asked, placing his hand on the door handle, but not actually opening the door yet.
 
"I wouldn't trust this place..." Gwazi stated after the group noticed they had wandered back into the Guild. "This place could end up crashing down on us at any moment".

Though, they would still need a place to rest. So when Leon asked about finding shelter he shrugged and said "Let's get some rest then... But after that I suggest we find some way out of here".
 
The group entered a building labeled as "Droc Cafe", and attached to that sign was a smaller sign that read "All species welcome!" — and, on that sign, someone (likely the owner) had made the hand-written addition of "Even wolves!". There was also a sign on the front — this one more at eye-level — that read "Best Cafe in Kahkrah", and, beneath it, someone had written in graffiti, "it's the only cafe in kahkrah, tho". This was met with a response, in someone else's handwriting, "but what about…" and the words that followed were too smudged to read. Another comment from a third person was even more unintelligible, though it seemed to contain the word "Basilix" somewhere.

The inside of the cafe was just as grayed out as the outside. It was a simple, medieval tavern-esque sort of place, with a dirt floor. Said dirt floor was covered in footprints of all sorts — not just humanoid prints, from people who were probably wearing shoes, but also what appeared to be canine pawprints, and even tracks that appeared to be reptilian or bird-like. It was still empty, though, with no people in sight. That said, the walls were covered in fliers of all sorts. Some of the content seemed rather innocuous, such as a flier that read, "Want to help us build a temple?? Meet us by Rianoct Bay — we're the ones with the giant sea dragon". But, much of it seemed very propaganda-esque. One flier had the words "THE JEWEL IS STILL OUT THERE" plastered over a graphic of a purple gem, and there were similar fliers with statements like "WE'RE WATCHING" and "RESPECT EX" alongside graphics of wolves. As a counterpoint, there was also a series of fliers that offered statements such as "EX IS A LIAR", "DON'T TRUST EX", and "WE KNOW THE TRUTH", alongside graphics of a spider. And though the colors in the area were all rather washed-out, the wolf-based propaganda posters seemed to have a vague purple color scheme to them, while the spider-based posters seemed to have more of a yellow scheme. There were other fliers on the walls, but these wolves and spiders certainly seemed to be a common theme.

On the countertop at the front of the bar, someone had carved in the words "Basilix was here lol". The carving looked like it had been etched in deep with a knife — or, perhaps, a claw. And it looked old, too. It was surrounded by other scribblings that left replies such as "you're always here", "can you please NOT be here?", and the incredibly-witty response of "you suck".

Despite the emptiness of the area, it was certainly alive with people's voices — in writing, anyway. And so, if anyone wanted to learn more about the inhabitants of this land, here seemed like a good place to start.
 
Callum sighed, in the way that people sigh when they find something and immediately realise the situation is a lot more complex then they original thought it was. That really they can't truly be bothered at the moment to figure out what exactly has happened here. Which in Callum's case, he just wanted to potentially murder someone and take a nap. And maybe have a drink of coffee. He supposed that he could actually make his own coffee. But he didn't want to accidentally poison himself. That would be a rather embarrassing way to go after escaping being eaten by a pycho who was at that time a giant wolf.

"Well, shit" He finally said, to no one in specific. He ran his hands though his hair. "Right, so some weird thing with animals. And...wolves and spiders? Some weird messages, people saying to not trust others. I mean...." He grimaced. He was never good at learning potential lore. He always kinda wanted to, but then he gave up and just went on with the main mission. But this could be important.

Walking over to the poster of the jewel. Callum laid his hand over it. "Jewel...." That could be important. "This place looks like it was busy with life but....there's nothing." He glanced back to his companions. "Not a single sign of present life. But the foot prints. All...of the...creatures." Callum shivered. "This is unsettling..." Callum went back to inspecting the walls with the propaganda closer. Hoping to find something else of note.
 
Rae looked around the cafe with apprehension. she shivered and stepped up to the bar, muttering "i don't like how empty everything is".

she looked at Callum as he spoke "definitely some weird stuff, it seems like Ex is some person, possibly a wolf, given the graphics, and there are a couple factions, at least one sides with this person, at least one does not. there was likely a war of some kind going on as well, no matter how small, perhaps between the factions" she looked around and suppressed another shiver "or i suppose, it's likely was now" she ran a hand over one of the sentences carved into the bar. "this Basilix may have been a person of note as well, but i don't know..."

as Callum went to check the posters, Rae hopped up to sit on the bar and twisted to get behind it, she was sure there was an easier way to get back there but she did it anyway. she glanced at the ground, seeing if there was any signs as to what species tended the bar. she also covertly looked at the alcohol itself, to see if she recognized any of it. lastly she glanced around on the inside of the bar for any notes or papers to examine.

"definitely unsettling" she agreed. "maybe we shouldn't be here? maybe it's more dangerous then anywhere we've been, something had to have happened, there has to be a reason no one's here anymore, and the colors, it's like the world's dying"
 
"Whoa whoa whoa," Leon interrupted Rae as he followed the group into the building, having held the door open for everyone else to enter first. "Did you just say 'Basilix'?" A voice in the back of Leon's mind seemed to think it was pretty important too, but his brain was drawing blanks. "Basilix... Basilix..." Leon muttered the name to himself, trying to remember where he had heard that name before. "Oh yeah! There's this file on GM's computer labeled 'Basilix', and opening it caused it to summon a... lizardman-thing." Wasn't there more to it than that though? A voice in the back of Leon's brain insisted on this, but... He just couldn't remember for some reason. It was as if there were holes in his memory that just wouldn't be filled, no matter how hard he digged for them. And then there was this annoying headache that just wouldn't go away. If only someone had an aspirin or something... Oh, wait a minute! "Hey Gwazi," Leon said, "Do you still have that book-thing? If so, do you think you can use it to get me some painkillers? Write something down like 'Then the group found a bottle of aspirin in the cabinet behind the counter' or whatever... please?"
 
Rithas said:
Callum sighed, in the way that people sigh when they find something and immediately realise the situation is a lot more complex then they original thought it was. That really they can't truly be bothered at the moment to figure out what exactly has happened here. Which in Callum's case, he just wanted to potentially murder someone and take a nap. And maybe have a drink of coffee. He supposed that he could actually make his own coffee. But he didn't want to accidentally poison himself. That would be a rather embarrassing way to go after escaping being eaten by a pycho who was at that time a giant wolf.

"Well, shit" He finally said, to no one in specific. He ran his hands though his hair. "Right, so some weird thing with animals. And...wolves and spiders? Some weird messages, people saying to not trust others. I mean...." He grimaced. He was never good at learning potential lore. He always kinda wanted to, but then he gave up and just went on with the main mission. But this could be important.

Walking over to the poster of the jewel. Callum laid his hand over it. "Jewel...." That could be important. "This place looks like it was busy with life but....there's nothing." He glanced back to his companions. "Not a single sign of present life. But the foot prints. All...of the...creatures." Callum shivered. "This is unsettling..." Callum went back to inspecting the walls with the propaganda closer. Hoping to find something else of note.
Click to expand...
A closer look at the Jewel poster revealed a more detailed explanation towards the bottom of the page that was labeled as being directed at "new players" — describing the Jewel as "Ex's chosen one" and "a symbol of his evil". The poster then described the "Jewel player" as being a Data Spell member who is chosen upon joining the game is given an exceptionally powerful avatar, that there have been numerous Jewel players throughout the game's history, and that the Jewels are all distinguished by the gemstone tattoo that they all have on their chests. The poster then mentioned that the current Jewel player has not yet been found, and instructed the reader to bring the Jewel to "Northeast Keresto Forest" if they found them (though an exact location was not specified). It then ended with the sentence, "Wolves will be killed on-sight", followed by a small spider insignia in the bottom-right corner.

Other Arachnid-sponsored posters spoke of other criticisms of Ex, throwing around terms like "power imbalances" and "unfairness" and "encouraging the strong to devour the weak". Many of them also urged players to seek them out in Keresto if they wanted to join the fight against Ex.

It was unclear as to how much of their rambling was actually being taken seriously, though. There was even one flier that was placed right next to an Arachnid flier, and was nothing but a plain white page, typed in Arial font and in a large enough size to fill nearly the entire page, that simply read, "Ex made Data Spell. Don't like, don't play??" Additionally, several of the Arachnid posters seemed to have been torn off the walls aggressively — lying in crumpled heaps on the ground.
 
Gwazi nodded at Leon's request, writing down exactly what he suggested of 'Then the group found a bottle of aspirin in the cabinet behind the counter' before saying "Alright, go check behind the counter". Before then turning his attention towards these posters and simply stating to the others "Well, this area seem's rather... Dramatic. Seem's like we entered an area regarding player divisions and elitism. I'd hate to see how unstable such a world personification can get".
 
At first glance, it would've seemed like there was nothing of interest behind the bar counter — until Rae opened one of the cabinets, and a splash of color caught her eye. Not only did the bottle of aspirin that Gwazi wrote about in the notebook appear just as intended, but it also wasn't grayed out like everything else.

Meanwhile, MK, who had previously been curled up on the floor taking a nap, suddenly jolted awake, looking very alarmed. He ran over to the door, his tail thoroughly puffed up, and started meowing and leaning his forelegs against the door, as if he wanted to be let outside. But the door inched open without any human's help, as it seemed that the door handles were just for show, and that the door could easily be pushed open without them. MK, though, instead of rushing outside, just stood in front of the now-open-ajar doorway, still meowing and turning his head back at the roleplayers. He then ran over to the propaganda wall, and began pawing at one of the lower-hanging fliers. It was one with a wolf on it.
 
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Rae picked up the bottle, turning it over in her hands a couple times, interested in the colors if only because it was the only color other then the players themselves and the cat. "huh" she turned around, leaning on the counter as she did so "Gwazi, it worked" holding up the bottle, she saw the cat bolt for the door and raised an eyebrow but called out to Leon "Hey, you needed this , right?"

she watched as MK pushed the door open but didn't go through "what's up with him? MK!" she called "what's up, kitty? what are you trying to tell us?" then he went to one of the posters, pawing at it and she made a contemplative noise, one hand going for her weapon as she hopped over the counter again. "what is it, Kitty?" she asked, as she headed towards the posters.
 
"Yeah, thanks," Leon anwered Rae as he took the bottle of aspirin from her. Not bothering to read the instructions or even get a glass of water, the guy simply took two pills from the bottle and popped them in his mouth. A short chewing session later, the two tablets were gone. Of course, it would take a bit of time for them to truly work, but the placebo effect does not care for such silly things as medicine taking time to actually reach the blood stream. God, that's so much better...

Now at least somewhat rid of a screaming headache, Leon's mind could process the current events a bit better. The writing on the tables, MK freaking out, the posters on the wa- MK freaking out? Okay, that couldn't be good. "MK, what's up?", Leon said, looking at the flier MK was pawing at. That wolf... Hadn't he seen it somewhere before? Or maybe he was just associating unrelated things due to sheer shock and whatnot now. Meh, whatever. Focusing! "Uhm, guys?", Leon said as he drew his weapon, "I'm getting a bad feeling about this place. There's way too much things pointing to GM in here. The wolf pictures, the mentioning of a 'Basilix'... I don't know, maybe I'm just getting paranoid, but at this point I'm ready to panic over everything if that will save me from 'dying'. Not to mention that MK is freaking out too, and so far trusting his instincts has never proven us wrong. What do you think?"
 
"Well, well, well" Callum grinned manically, "I have no idea what any of this means" He took a step back and rubbed his eyes. "I'm too tragically traumatised over events for this much deciphering what essentially amounts to propaganda posters that would probably make as much sense if you just threw an omelette at the wall" this wasn't fair, it felt like only had one piece of a jigsaw. That even after he got all the pieces it would turn out that the jigsaw was actually in five-dimensions and he would feel rather silly for trying at all in the first place.

Noticing that MK-Ultra seemed to be doing, and the rest of the group seemed to be rather worried. Callum scratched his chin. He shrugged as Leon voiced his opinion. "Well, what isn't incredibly unsettling in this whole world. Everything is always just a little bit off, except in this place of course. Where it's flat on it's face." stretching, Callum made a chair for himself and sat down.

"What is it MK? The GM? He didn't seem that concerned on chasing after us. Perhaps he's sending wolves to chase after us. He certainly has a thing about wolves. He needs a hobby....well, he needs to die. But also a hobby." Closing his eyes, He folded in the chair.

"I'm sure it's something that's incredibly dangerous and scarring no matter what, but don't worry folks. We'll just throw Leon at it"
 
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