That conversation had rendered Zell completely witless. Perhaps he was over-thinking the entire situation a little too much. For the next thirty minutes, he'd find himself alone in his room, his arms crossed, deep in concentration on exactly what had happened and how to fix this. He knew that neither of them would get anywhere until this was fixed. Had Lina's affection towards him changed even as the others had showed up on Garden's doorstep? Well--no... it hadn't. He recalled just a day or so ago, the two of them reclined on the couch in a comfortable little lump under a thick blanket. Oh shit, what had he just done?
Zell burst out of his room and down the hall to Lina's room, trying to think of what to say--wondering if it'd even matter if he knew what to say, just to say something, to hopefully fix everything. He reached her room and held a fist forward to knock, but immediately withdrew his hand. Something was amiss. The door was wide open, there was no Lina inside, and inside was a mess that suggested somewhat of a struggle.
Zell looked next door to Karen's door and knocked as hard as he could. Karen opened the door looking extremely startled. "Is Lina there?" Karen shook her head and shrugged, but from behind her door popped Dan who'd been hanging out as he was done unpacking into his new room.
"Um...I thought she was with you?" Dan asked, rather confused. Zell only frowned. "I mean, we asked her if she wanted to hang out, but she said 'no' because you guys had something else planned." That took a major stab at Zell. Now he really felt like an ass. Good job, Dan. It became clear of Zell's distress soon enough and the two of them stumbled forward, "We'll help look."
They eventually found Daccir and asked him to come along as well, but could not find Nakago anywhere. Had he gone missing also? First things first, Karen cast a tracking spell learned from a crash course back at Trabia from Lina's dorm and immediately footsteps from her doorway caught green flames and let them out towards the front gate.
The group followed the tracks out from the front gate to the front of a thick throng of forest trees. In front of this monstrosity of a forest, they stood, spellbound by its rather haunting nighttime visage. "Well, what are you waiting for?" Karen asked them all. Zell nodded and plunged in first. The other followed behind him, struggling to keep up with his determined pace.