HURGMCGURG

Have you ever wondered how someone first made cheese? I mean, how do you do that? Is it some kind of magic or something? I am in awe of our ancestors and thankful for their sacrifices in the name of that glorious substance.

Zzzzzzz...

Mruh? Wha? Whazzat? 

Izza meh, Maro. Wut?

Huh? What's happening? Stop poking me, damnit!

"Fuck off! Let me sleep!" I open my eyes to find a very angry Lia glaring at me. So she can be angry. What do you know?

"So, how long have I been out?" I yawn and stretch. "Did you find the IDs yet?"

Thwack! Lia gently taps me on the cheek with the full strength of a body builder, letting the pain clear my head. I sit there, stunned for a moment.

"... Fucking, ow." I say, trying to process this.

"I... I really thought you might have been an okay person, but..." Lia trails off. "I think I may have been wrong."

I'm just gonna be blunt. "Yeah. You were wrong. And? What time is it?"

She gave me a long, hard look (As hard of a look she could give me. She's not the most talented when it comes to that sort of thing.) before relenting with a sigh. Sorry, I'm not sorry. Time to get this show on the road!

"It's been almost half an hour since I entered the building." Lia is angry, exasperated, and do I detect a hint of joy? Nope, that's just her being pissed.  "Why didn't you help me search?" 

I give her a somber look. "That is one of life's many mysteries. It's right up there with 'why is my ass itchy?' Not everything has an answer us mortals can comprehend. We should be thankful to the higher powers that they are willing to even grant us sentience, and not berate them for what they have not given."

Thwack!

"Ow." Goddamnit. Is this going to be a habit now? "Did you find the IDs?"

"... No. I didn't." 

"Wake me up when you find them." I lean my head back and get ready for another nap.

Thwack!

... Nope. Not gonna deal with this.

Thwack!

Nuh uh.

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

"My body is evolving to deal with the pain. I can barely feel anything at all now."

"Um... Your cheeks are pretty swollen. They may be numb."

"Evolution is amazing."

Lia sighed. "Please help me search."

"Don't wanna."

"Then... I'm not going to search either."

...

"Get Otto to do it. Or we could bring Agatha in here to do it for us instead."

...

"Okay."

Problem solved. Slavery is so convenient.

Wait... 

Rather than thinking about the moral issues involved with that statment, I'm going to sleep again.

* * *

I wake up to a very loud noise. Okay, not that loud. When you suddenly wake up to a loud noise, it's automatically very loud to your ears. It's that way for me at least.

"Du, wha iz, the, thig? Huh?" Brain is rebooting. Approximate loading time: five minutes. Immediate goal: Find out what in the fuck is happening. "How's it hanging?" I say to the strange world in front of me.

Oh fuck, I must of rolled into some trash. I am just fucking coated in crumbs and various... stains.

Wait, why is it only half of me is covered in this shit? Isn't the half I was sleeping on perfectly fine?

I'm not sure what it means, but...

I'll have to force some answers out of Agatha.

I look around to notice a distinct lack of... Anyone. What's happening?

I hear another loud bang, this time coming from the reception room. Is that the name of the room? Sure. Can't think of anything else I would call it. 

I get up and stumble out of the room to see...

Okay, I don't know what the fuck happened, but that's okay. I don't need to know what the fuck this is to appreciate the beauty. 

Otto has his head shoved through the front door of the guild, and Agatha has her entire body halfway through the receptionist's desk. Lia is the last one standing.

And she's pissed.

Got it.

Time to slowly back out of the room and hope she doesn't notice. Stealth powers are on. I think. Yep, we're good.

I round the corner and back away from the doorway. Once I am certain that I'm out of the blast zone, I let out my breath.

Holy fuck, Lia is scary. I thought she was a pushover, but nope, she's just really tolerant of my bullshit. Let's not follow in the footsteps of my teammates. That seems like a very bad idea.

Okay, I need to make my entrance once she's calmed down a little. 

Wait a bit more. 

And a bit longer...

Okay, we should be good.

"Hey... What happened he-AGH!" I have to stop talking because my jaw just found a fist propelling the rest of my body into a wall. My head breaks through the wood panelling and I just let myself sit there for a moment.

"SHUT THE HELL UP!" Lia screams at me. "ALL OF YOU ARE SUCH SELFISH BASTARDS! IS IT EVEN POSSIBLE FOR YOU TO ACT LIKE GOOD PEOPLE FOR FIVE MINUTES!?! WHY THE HELL DO I HAVE TO DEAL WITH YOU PEOPLE!?!

...

Well then.

Someone appears to have some anger management issues. Maybe it's that she doesn't work well in a team? Probably that. Well, she's gonna be stuck with us for a while... She better work that out.

"Lia," I remove my head from the wall, not really worse for wear. Man, leveling up is the best. All those upped attributes make me buff as fuck. "Imma need you to calm down a little bit. Deep breaths. In... and OWWWWWW--"

Lia leaps forward and slams my face back into the wall, widening the already existing hole. That fucking hurts.

"JUST SHUT UP! YOU NEVER STOP TALKING! ALWAYS ACTING LIKE A--" WHAM!

Yeah. I did it. I hit her back. Full on fist to the jaw. Some people say a true gentleman shouldn't hit a woman. 

I say that's favoritism towards a specific gender, and therefor, sexism. I would hit a guy in this scenario, so it's fine if I hit her. If you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen. If you're going to hit someone, you shouldn't be surprised if you get hit back. I'M JUST BEING FAIR!

Lia went goes sliding halfway across the room, holding her cheek, anger radiating from her body almost like an aura. I start speaking. "Okay, you want a fight? You get a fight."

She looked at me. I looked at her. I shrugged.

Then we both dashed towards each other, fists raised.

* * *

"What are you two doing?" A simple question posed by a robot forces both me and Lia to pause what we're doing. My hand was grabbing onto her hair while she had me in a headlock. Lia is mostly on top of me right now, but my legs are wrapped around her legs so she can't maneuver well. I don't think either of us really know what we've been doing. We had both been mostly exhausted by this point, and had started wrestling on the floor. Not the sexy kind of guy and girl wrestling, the kind where you're trying to beat/restrain the other perfectly.

I guess both versions are fun in their own ways. This was surprisingly cathartic. A great way to work off all my pent up frustrations.

The main problem with this method is that two of us are bruised and battered, our clothes are ripped, and someone's tooth is on the floor. I think it's mine. Shit.

"Otto, I was attempting to deduce why you were in the door, when this savage attacked me. Although I may be a gentleman, I was forced to fight back in order to defend myself." Eh, it's true enough. She wasn't going to stop punching me until she calmed down, so I think this worked out.

"Uhh... Sorry?" Lia says it almost like a question. Looks like she calmed down a little. "When I get really angry sometimes I just... Attack... Everyone..."

"... That is not normal." I state. What the hell, wasn't she supposed to be the cute, timid girl of the group? How the fuck am I supposed to tease her now?

"No that is not typical behavior." Otto agrees with me.

"...Yeah." Even Lia agrees with me. Great. We're good.

"Okay then. So, Lia. Did you ever find our IDs?" I ask, knowing she probably didn't. "Also, why did you enter your berserker rage?"

"YES! Yes. We found them." Lia spoke excitedly before calming down a little bit. "And, um... It was..."

Otto had to explain, as Lia wasn't willing to continue. "Agatha said some very antagonistic things to Lia, and since you were not here to quiet Agatha, Lia became very angry." 

"Oh, I forgot to tell her to not berate you. Sorry, I didn't consider that. I'll have to order her to do that next time. By the way..." I looked around. "Where the hell is she?" 

We looked around, but she was no longer in the room with us. Fuck, I must have missed her when she left. Damnit. Now I have to go track that fucker down so I can administer justice for Lia. 

Actually, after that fight, I don't think I care as much about justice for Lia.

Okay, focus. Where the fuck is she?

I untangle myself from the knot that is me and Lia, and stand up. 

"AGATHA, GET THE FUCK OVER HERE!" I shout as I wander around the building. "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING!?"

"SIMON!!!" Lia shouted at me.

"WHAT!?" I walk back into the reception room.

"The um... He's gone." Lia said.

"Uh... He?" I ask, before it dawns on me what she meant. "No. No way. NONONONO-"

I look at the chair where he was tied before and she's right. Not there. 

The fucking receptionist is missing.

This is gonna be a problem.

"Simon, I advise we leave immediately and attempt to find them both or we will be in a lot of trouble." Suggested Otto.

"FUCK! LIA, TEACH ME TRACKING MAGIC OR SOMETHING!" I shout at her, pretty much point blank.

She jumped in shock and let out a little squeak. "Ah! Um, I don't really know tracking magic..."

"FUCK!" Okay. Okay. "Ideas. Where the fuck are they? Someone, give me a plan!"

Otto raised his hand to his chin, as though he was puzzling out an answer. "I do not have any ideas." 

"I, uh, well, I don't know." Lia is panicking harder than me. What the hell do I do?

Think. Not your strong suit, but fucking think.

Right. I made it so Agatha wouldn't be able to run away or escape. I also said she wasn't allowed to try and hide from me. So, how did she get away from me?

Well, what if she didn't try to escape? What if...

Okay, the receptionist might have helped her. But how? He was tied up. But I didn't say to Agatha that she wasn't allowed to untie him, I was napping at the time.

Okay, here's what could have happened. Just a theory. Agatha gets up, notices we're distracted, and wakes up the tied up asshole. She unties him, has him somehow secure her or knock her out so that she isn't escaping but is instead being kidnapped? Something like that? Would that count?

Dunno, but it seems like a possible scenario.

Okay. So, I can't figure out how to find them based off of method of escape. That means I have to get creative. Where would they go?

Okay, Agatha has a bunch of guards in her pockets. Who knows who else? I can't track her down that way. 

Right, she's enslaved to me. That's a permanent problem. She'll probably seek out some way to remove that from herself.

She said it's hard to remove someone from slavery, and that you need a special ritual or some shit, so that doesn't matter right now. Where the fuck are we supposed to find someone like that? 

Magic. Magic is the solution to all problems. There is no tracking magic, so I just have to invent some! 

Okay, how the fuck do I do that? I would need to know what to track magically. It's not like I can track her magic signature, or some bullshit about everyone having a unique magic flavor. I have no idea if it even works that way! I need to think. How can--

Right. Duh. I'm fucking dumb. The slave collar will save the day.

I concentrate on the mana in my slave collar. 

Nope, I don't know what to do. I get a faint feeling, but it's more like I can kind of sense... something.

I snap myself out of my magical trance of magical bullshit. "Lia, get over here so I can fuck with our slave collars."

"That..." She starts backing away. "Why? That seems like a really bad idea."

I roll my eyes. "I'm not actually changing them. I'm going to try tracking her location using the signal between the different slave collars and her bracelet. I think it should work if we use both of our collars together."

"Oh! That's fine! Sure!" She walked over and I bent over a little so I could move my collar closer to hers. 

I refocused and tried to understand the magic a little more. Okay. Sweet, I have a general direction.

"That way!" I pointed directly at a wall.

...

We'll have to go outside for this.

HURGMCGURG

Honey, I'm home! I finished my fucking exams, so I can get back to what you love the most!

Not writing shit.

I'll probably not really be updating the story much in the summer. Sorry pals.