Welcome Back to the Guild [continuation]

The dragon continued to throw himself against whatever-it-was that he was trying to get into, now sticking his head inside the entrance and pressing against the ceiling in an attempt to push rocks and dirt out of the way. For a while, he seemed to be as determined as ever to get inside, but, as the RPers continued to talk amongst themselves, the dragon slowed down, eventually stopping entirely. He then turned his head slightly towards the RPers, as if… listening in?

He pulled himself up off the ground and turned his whole body towards the group, eyes narrowed at them. Blood was visible on his face from throwing his head against the rock. He let out a cry — but it was a fairly soft cry, and seemingly not an attempt at intimidating the RPers. He paused, and then he turned away from the RPers and began to scream at the ground, letting out his frustration by slashing aimlessly at the dirt with his claws and tail.

He then paused once more, and he looked down at the slash marks on the ground. He stepped just a bit closer to the RPers (still a somewhat comfortable distance away), keeping his eyes on the ground. By then, MK was right next to him. He pushed MK out of the way with his wing — not exactly gently, but still not harshly enough to make it look like harming MK was his intention. MK didn't seem to be too upset by this, scurrying out of the way and continuing to watch the scene from a bit further away. The dragon then turned his back to the RPers and started brushing his wing against the ground, smoothing out the dirt.

Then, with the claw of his wing, he began to etch lines into the dirt. Each line had to be reasonably large and deep in order to be clearly visible, which created a seemingly rather tedious process of the dragon running his claw back-and-forth along the ground several times in order to create each line. Eventually, though, the lines began to form letters. "W… H… O…" The dragon then started to etch out what appeared to be the first two strokes of an 'A', only to apparently change his mind, scribbling out that particular letter and brushing the dirt over again. He wrote two more letters, and then, apparently finished with his task, he walked around to the opposite side of his writing — so that he and the RPers faced each other with the writing on the ground in-between them. He seemed to remain tense as he waited expectantly for a response to his message:

"WHO R U"
 
Rae felt a little bad as the dragon seemed to get frustrated and upset but she wasn't quite sympathetic nor stupid enough to approach and try to comfort the creature. she gasped a little as Mk was shoved out of the way but it didn't exactly look like he was hurt, still she took a couple steps closer to the cat, watching the dragon closely. "what is it doing?" she asked as it started scratching in the dirt. she took another couple steps closer and tilted her head to try and read it. "I think it's writing something!" she said.

It took a second after the dragon was done before she could figure out what it was supposed to say. "Oh! It's asking who we are" she looked at it for a second then back at her companions. she gave a small shrug before looking at the dragon "we're uh... we're roleplayers, I guess... Um I'm... I'm Rae" she glanced back at the other roleplayers again.
 
Leon shook Callum's hand off of his shoulder. "Uhm, hello? Didn't you hear what I just said, Callum? I'm looking for a way to avoid getting eaten, not for a way to get eaten even faster. Besides, judging by the sheer havoc that thing can wreak, it's not unlikely that it will tear me to shreds in an instant, then come back to you". Of course, Leon didn't really have any other plans, but eh, details.
Before anyone could suggest a new plan, the dragon turned towards the roleplayers. Whether it heard their voices, used some magical dragon instinct or noticed them through some completely different means, Leon didn't know, but it was plainly obvious that they were no longer hidden. Luckily for the trio, the dragon didn't seem to be planning to eat them instantly, instead trying to communicate with them through some writing in the sand. 'WHO R U'? Wait, shouldn't that thing already know by virtue of working for GM? ...Then again, maybe it doesn't know how we look. If that's the case, then we might be able to avoid fighting him after a-
"we're uh... we're roleplayers, I guess... Um I'm... I'm Rae"
Dammit, Rae!
Leon groaned. "Well, so much for Plan Distract The Dragon. I guess", he spoke. And quite frankly, I'm not all that unhappy with that. Not getting eaten is always a good thing.
 
Callum sighed at Leon's response. "If it'll tear you to pieces in a second, then what chance do we have to get through then?" He glanced over to the dragon, and to his mild horror, it was staring right at them. "Uh..." Staying tense, they all watch as the beast began to sketch letters into the dirt.

It wasn't immediately attacking, which he supposed was a major plus. As the dragon finished, Callum read the words.

WHO R U.

So it didn't know who they were. Strange, but that led to the major possbilitity that the only reason that it had not tried to eat their heads off was simply because it did not know they were an enemy of any kind. Perhaps it would be best to not say who they were and try to get more information off it.

And then, as Callum pondered. Rae went up and told the dragon that they were Roleplayers. A indiscernible groan escaping his lips, he could only cough in response to Rae's announcement. As Leon commented, Callum held a finger up. "Plans seem to not exist in this world it seems."

"But hey...Nice one Rae...." He muttered, inspecting the ground at his feet as if it held some precious secret. Before looking at the dragon, waiting for it's reaction.
 
Puzzled, the dragon pulled his head back in confusion. He kept his eyes narrowed at them, growling lowly…

He flattened the dirt out and started writing again. This time, his reply was only a single question mark. He looked up expectantly at the group for a moment. And then, before they could’ve had much time to answer, he returned his attention to the dirt, and added another word. The end result was:

?
RPers?

The lowercase letters were not quite as legible — with the individual 'penstrokes' starting to blend together a bit. And his second attempt at a question mark was much more hastily-made than the first — still so shallow that it wasn’t very easy to distinguish it from the bumps and valleys that already existed in the uneven soil — but, he hoped it would at least be enough to get his point across.
 
Rae shrugged at Leon's comment "It wasn't exactly a good plan to begin with" she nodded in agreement with Callum but threw a withering glare over her shoulder at him at his next comment before looking back at the dragon as it started to write something else "It's not attacking us by any rate" she shifted her spear into a slightly more comfortable hold regardless.

she looked at the question mark it had drew and tried to read what it was writing now but it was harder to decipher, when she figured it out she let out a contemplative sound "I... I don't think it knows who we are" she turned slightly to look back at her party. "what if it isn't here on GM's order? maybe it doesn't want to kill us" she looked back at the dragon "should I answer it's question?" she only asked because the boys hadn't seemed to happy with her for answering the last one "I don't want to leave it hanging"
 
Leon didn't understand. This creature was Bassie, that much was for sure. But... Why did it not attack them on sight? And why did it not seem to know what RPers were? Not that he was complaining about either of those two questions, but still, it just didn't make sense. On the flipside, the fact that it knew how to write meant that it wasn't just an overgrown lizard either; it obviously had some degree of intelligence. ...No matter which way he looked at it, he just couldn't figure it out.

Turning to Rae, Leon shrugged. It's not like we can get away from it now anyway. "Go ahead, I guess. Just try to not provoke it into chomping us in two, crushing our bones and sucking up the marrow, ripping out our organ, roasting us to a crisp with flame breath or anything like that, okay?" Or, in my case, possibly all four and more. Leon really wanted to stay on the dragon's good side, if at all possible. ...Wait a minute. "Maybe we should ask if we can help it get whatever is down those stairs?", he asked Callum and Rae, lowering his voice to a whisper in a (possibly useless) attempt to not have the dragon overhear them
 
It seemed that the beast did not know who they were. Interesting. Really, as long as it wasn't eating them the situation was going fine. Rae suggested answering it's question. Callum shot a worried look, "I mean, if you want to. But stay in the front so we have time to run away if it decides to murder you yeah?" He gave an assuring smile.

"I'm joking..." mostly anyway.

Leon asked if they should offer to help get into the cave that the giant lizard seemed so desperate to get into. Callum thought for a momet, before nodding. "Yes" He hissed, "Rae should defintely be the one to ask that." With innocent eyes, he looked back at her.
 
The dragon grew impatient and frustrated as he listened to Rae’s contemplative musings. He let out an exasperated sigh, turning his back on the group and stomping around for a bit in the space in front of the dungeon entrance, walking in a circle as he soon turned himself around to face the RPers again. Once more, he began to smooth out the dirt in preparation for his next question.

The dragon began to carve out what appeared to be the start of a 'G', but he soon paused as his ears perked up at the sound of Leon’s whispering. He locked his attention on Leon for a moment, letting out a soft, contemplative growl. Whatever it was that the creature was thinking about, however, he seemed to give up on it fairly quickly as he then returned to his writing.

But then, he paused once more as it seemed that the group was planning on sending one of its members to speak for them — and it seemed that they were finally going to start answering his questions.

The wyvern let out a cry of… happiness? — emphatically bobbing its head up and down at all of them, and especially at Rae in particular. He then took a few steps back, before plopping himself onto the ground with a thud, lying down in front of the group with his legs sprawled behind him. He took one of his wings and bent it so that he could rest his head on its bony side, and then laid his other wing neatly in front of him. He looked intently at the players, with his body arranged in a very "tell me more" sort of pose. It didn’t look very comfortable — with his wing being bent underneath his head like that — but at least it communicated a clear message.
 
Rae glared at both boys for a couple seconds before she heard the dragon moving and her eyes shot back to it as it seemed to be super happy about whatever they were talking about. she looked at the boys then sighed a little angrily "if it eats me, I'm haunting your asses for the rest of your life, got it?"

then she took a few steps forward, when the dragon didn't immediately eat her, she took a couple more until she was right in front of it. she looked back at the boys again, a little more scared then angry now, she took a deep breath and then looked back at the dragon "hi... ummm soooooo, we... we thought you were uh... were working for..." she looked back pleadingly before looking at the dragon "uh GM, the... i don't know overlord or whatever... he's been trying to kill us so we thought... you were gonna try and kill us too"

she glanced past the dragon, or at least tried, "What's in that place? what are you looking for?" she glanced around "Is there anyway we can help you?"
 
The dragon squinted at Rae and tilted his head slightly as she described the GM as an "overlord". But other than that, he remained still as Rae continued to speak. Once Rae finished her questions, the dragon once again nodded in the same exaggerated fashion as before. Quickly getting to his feet, he ran to the dungeon entrance again. Placing his head against the inner wall and pushing outward, he managed to dislodge another chunk of rock from the side of the structure, causing another portion of the already-mostly-destroyed roof to break apart and fall into the dungeon below.

The dragon held out his wings to gesture at the half-destroyed entrance. Then, thinking that still wasn’t enough to get the message across, he begrudgingly returned to smoothing out the dirt once again. But then, a better idea came to him. He returned to the pile of rubble around the dungeon entrance, and poked around the debris with the claws of his wings until he found a suitably flat chunk of rock. Separating it from the rest of the pile, he then started to scratch on the surface of the rock with his claw, and was delighted to find that it actually produced semi-legible marks. He had to press down harder than he did on the soft dirt, but at least he didn’t have to dig a trench just to produce a visible mark.

After he finished etching out his message, he set it on the ground, and used his wing to push it in Rae’s direction. The slab read, "TOO SMALL". As Rae picked up the first slab, the dragon rummaged through the pile once more until he found another flat-ish rock and started the process again. It still took him a minute to etch out a legible message, but, once he was finished, he set the 2nd slab down and nudged it towards Rae like he had with the first one. The 2nd slab read, "MAKE IT BIGGER".

The dragon once again gestured towards the semi-demolished entrance.
 
Leon nervously looked at Rae's advance towards the dragon, praying to whatever gods might be listening that the dragon wouldn't bite her head off. Apparently he managed to gain some favour, because that was exactly what didn't happen. In fact, the talking strategy seemed to work pretty nicely. Sure, the dragon couldn't speak, but at least it could write. Annoyingly enough though, it had decided to write on a stone instead of the ground now, making it impossible to read it from a distance. Feeling a bit safe by the fact that Rae hadn't got chomped in two, Leon decided to walk a bit closer to the dragon in an attempt to sneak a peak at said dragon's writing.
"Uhm... Maybe we could enter that place instead?" Leon suggested. "If nothing else, it's a lot more efficient than dragging stones around for the entire day." That, and we can turn whatever is down there against the Giant Evil Dragon instead of handing it over to him.
 
Crouching between thin air, Callum could feel some type of relief that half of Rae wasn't in the dragon's mouth.

Getting the courage to check what it wanted, Callum groaned slightly at the revelation. He looked at the enterance, it wouldn't be hard to do what the beast wanted.

But as Leon suggested, perhaps it was best for the thrree to just go throuh the enterance in the first place Callum had the suspicsion that Leon had the same idea that he himself did.

"Hmm" Humming to himself, Callum walked over to the half-destroyed enterance. Tapping a lump of rubble with his foot. Callum looked backed, "I mean, might be a bit annoying to get through. But still probably be easier then blasting our way through all nilly-willy" Even if that was a completely possible solution and Callum did want to blow something up.
 
Rae looked at the entrance. she honestly wasn't sure how they could get it any bigger without destroying it, since every time the dragon messed with it, more rubble just fell inside. she made a contemplative noise as Leon and Callum each made their suggestions. she looked the dragon over, she was pretty sure she knew what Leon was planning, but she wasn't going to voice that fact. she didn't necessarily want to give the dragon whatever it was that it wanted so she nodded "I think Leon's right, I'm not sure we could make it large enough for you to fit through, I could make an explosion I'm sure but it would probably just collapse the entrance and then we couldn't get in either"

she took a step forward to get a closer look, going slightly around the dragon without actually getting any closer to it. she looked at her friends then back at the entrance "what exactly are we looking for in there?" she asked "we can't get it if we don't know what it is" she thought for a second "Also, what does it do? I would hate to pick it up and die instantly, that would really suck" she wasn't sure if the dragon would get her rather dry humor but it made her feel better, she wasn't enjoying this at all, in fact it was very quickly wearing down her nerves as she was terrified that the dragon would turn on them at any moment.
 
The dragon groaned upon hearing Leon’s suggestion. He then began to press his forehead against the ground — rubbing his face into the dirt in an expression of tired frustration. He really wasn’t going to get any closer to his goal than this, was he?

As Rae spoke, the dragon finally pulled himself up off the ground and reached for another stone slab. He wrote, "TELL EX I SENT YOU"

He set it on the ground, and pushed it forward with his nose, sliding it across the ground to the RPers. He then turned around and, with a huff, he began pressing his head into the dirt again.
 
"...Now, I don't speak dragon, but something tells me that means 'no'," Leon muttered upon witnessing the dragon's initial direction. Ah well, nothing they could do about it now. I guess that meant they just had to move on, walk past the Stupidly Large Evil Dragon and continue on their travels. It was sad, truly, but what could they do to avert this fa-
And of course the S.L.E.D. had to ruin his hopes at that moment. The beast wrote something on a stone slab, then pushed the thing towards them,allowing them to read it. "Ex... Wait a minute, isn't that... Yep, nope, no no no, not doing that, no, nuh-uh, nein, njet, 0, nee," Leon ranted, making wild denying gestures with his hands. "If that's how it's going to be, then we just have to part ways, Bassie. Good luck with digging and all that, and sorry we couldn't help you, but look at the time! I have to go to the dentist, do the laundry, and I'm pretty sure I left something on the stove too. So bye!", he kept going in one giant breath, slowly walking off as he went on and on.
 
It seemed to Callum that the dragon had resigned to letting the trio go down themselves. Which would certainly save themselves time. Reading the slab, Callum face scrunched up in confusion. "Who the hell is that?" He questioned to no one in particular.

With no clue why, Leon suddenly began to declare that the group would not go down and that in fact their buisness was done here.

Running over to him, Callum put his hands on Leon's shoulders. "Woah woah woah...Bro, pal, buddy, kiddo. Look, I think a little bit of..." He waved one of his hands between the two of them. "Communcation is needed before you walk off declaring your done." He looked back at the cave entrance. "Let's just go in, we've already nearly died once or twice. Or...a lot in your case. Anyway, It's not a trap, or if it is. It's a very convoluted one."

After all, why bother with a trap when the dragon would of eaten them at this point.

Leon could feel Callum slowly pulling him back. "At this point if we leave I'll feel a little blue-balled so can we just go in?"

It wasn't like he was going in there himself, he would scoff at that thought. Too must dust.
 
Rae could agree with Leon's sentiment, she wasn't liking the way this was going and was a little frightened herself. But at the same time she agreed with Callum, they'd come this far and they couldn't exactly go back, there wasn't anything back that way but a wall of void that would tear apart their souls or something. she looked between the boys and the dragon as Callum tried to pull Leon back.

she hadn't even touched the stone slab yet. "I agree with Callum, Leon." she said "I don't feel like we have much of a choice at this point, we can't go back and MK Ultra did want us to come here," she glanced at the cat "we should at least check it out" she took a couple tenative steps forward, starting to go around the dragon, before pausing to see if they were following because she was NOT going down there on her own!
 
"What are you saying? The dragon wants us to go to Ex, who we all know who he is, while he.... keeps digging?", Leon said, only now noticing that the dragon was doing anything but that. "Uh.... Huh. Oh. Whoops, my bad, I guess. Sorry for the confusion...", he muttered, still feeling very much nervous due to GM's name being dropped. The others were right though, it wasn't like they could go back either. "Well.... down we go then, I guess...", he continued as he walked over to the hole in the ground, peering down to see if there was anything like a ladder, stairs or whatever that they could use to climb down in a somewhat normal fashion, or if they had to go spelunking.
 
As Leon said goodbye to 'Bassie', the dragon’s gaze snapped to Leon. His body tense, it looked as if he was about to lunge at the roleplayer — but he paused as Callum spoke up, apparently disagreeing with Leon’s plan. The dragon remained rigid as the conversation continued, but he seemed to relax — at least a little bit — once the group had convinced Leon to enter the dungeon. Still, as the party began to descend, the dragon seemed to be pacing back-and-forth to the side of the dungeon entrance, warily keeping an eye on the roleplayers — and on Leon in particular…


The entrance to the dungeon — at least at first — seemed to be little more than a rocky hole in the ground, and one would need to exercise caution to climb in without slipping on the loose rubble. That being said, Bassie’s destruction only reached so far down — he was much too big to get into the hole himself, after all — and so it wasn’t long before the crumbly rock wall/floor transitioned into a proper flight of stairs. Upon entering the dungeon, it at first seemed that there was no light below — but, as the players descended on the staircase, two rows of torches — one on each wall — lit up beside them. The fire from the torches hardly looked natural, however — as each flame burned in a warm violet color, bathing the whole interior in an eerie purple hue.

The staircase eventually opened up into what appeared to be a large, empty room. The torches on the walls continued into this room, as well — but in such an open space, the lighting was somewhat dim. Despite this, it was not too difficult to make out the bones that lay scattered across the floor — some of them seemed to be rather humanoid, but others were more difficult to tell.

In the corner of the room lay perhaps the most peculiar thing about the room — a bunny rabbit. An enormous bunny rabbit, that is. It appeared to be sleeping, curled halfway into a ball with its back to the players. As the rabbit lay in a particularly well-lit spot, one other odd characteristic was discernible — its body appeared to be partially transparent, as if it were a ghost or a hologram. Apart from its size and ghost-like form, however, it looked like a completely ordinary rabbit.

Aside from the staircase where the players entered, there was only one other doorway leading out of the room; it was on the far wall, opposite the players. It was an open path, with no closable door separating the two rooms, but it was too far away to clearly see what was in the other room. The only obvious thing was that more light seemed to be coming from there. This light was a bright, bluish-lavender color, and it was not only somewhat brighter but also more consistently bright than the flickering torchlight in the current room. This light appeared to be more artificial, and it was reminiscent of the glowing light of a TV screen or computer monitor in a relatively dark room. Still, the players couldn’t see what sort of screen the light was coming from — assuming it was any kind of screen at all, as opposed to some other source of light entirely.