ORIENTATION

[allforevil]

[When you start to stir from your slumber, you awaken to the smell of dust and rotted wood. Your bed is far from comfortable -- lumps in the mattress, a tattered blanket that barely keeps you warm and a pillow almost as hard as a rock-- and you'll immediately see there are others in your room with you.

All of you are confused, surely. "Where am I?" "What place is this?" Questions like that stir through your mind while you take in your surroundings. Something might catch your eye before anything else, though. A coloured chest tied with a bow, a large gift tag is attached to it with your name on it. There's one for everyone in each dorm, and if you open it you'll find:

An old, worn school uniform.
A colourful costume.
And a pamphlet with information about you, about your stay in this Academy, and a map of the layout of the school and the training grounds outside. The descriptions are vague, leaving out important details about your new super powers called "Quirks", a bland description about how you were selected to join the Academy called "VA" (no explanation what it means), and even the map has lame descriptions of locations that don't really give you a good idea of where you're staying.

Before you can start exploring, or chatting away with your neighbors, a voice rings over old intercoms. It sounds low and comforting, like a long lost friend. But there's something about that that feels.. unsettling. A feeling in your gut that this voice was anything but friendly.

"Welcome, students. You must be very confused, but I assure you I'll be able to answer all the questions you have in just a few minutes.

For now, relax, explore, and meet your new classmates who will be staying with you during this semester.

Oh, but..... whatever you do, don't enter the dining room."

The intercom cuts off, leaving you with a cryptic message to think about on top of.. everything else you're dealing with right now.]

Comments

[dralchemist]

Anywhere. Everywhere. Trying to document my way around the place, make notes, that kinda shit.

Information wins wars. [She can't see that Mirio is looking at her weird; as far as she thinks, her only abnormality is that she's on the shorter side for dragonborn her age.]

[lemirio]

You sure are right about that.

[It's why Mirio's been pouring over the pamphlets for so long, trying to see what he can glean out of them that isn't completely concerning.]

Have you found anything interesting so far?

[dralchemist]

From what I can tell, this appears to have been some kind of school establishment, most likely a middle school or junior high judging by the scale of the equipment. A boarding school, at that, considering the living facilities allowed within.

There's rudimentary amenities, but it seems like the vast majority of everything is falling apart from disuse and disrepair. I'm no engineer, so I wouldn't be able to tell the exact age of everything, but I'd estimate it at... [She looks around, then wiggles her hand from side to side.] 10 years? 15, judging by the way nature has overgrown the structure.

The city outside is in no greater shape. No signs or sounds of life, it seems just as ruined and abandoned as the school. Architecture is nothing like what I'm used to, though, so I have a feeling we're not in the DRagon Empire anymore...

[lemirio]

[Mirio raises his brows as Izzy lists off information about the facility and surrounding area like a textbook, a mixture of surprised and amused while staying quiet to let her go through it all.

...and then she reaches the end and he has to stop her there.]

Dragon Empire? That definitely isn't something I've heard of, you're right.

[dralchemist]

.... What. [From the expression on her face, it seems like she didn't even consider that answer a possibility.]


How? Where are you from that you haven't heard of, like... [Vague gesturing.] Civilization? Like, all of it?

[lemirio]

[Civilization...he's pretty sure she doesn't mean that in the general sense of the term.]

I'm from Japan. From Ishikawa Prefecture, specifically.

[dralchemist]

Never heard of it, buddy. [Which bodes very badly.]

Nothing even close to it... what could that mean? [Her mind begins to race, looking down at her notepad, trying to focus. Ground herself, stabilize her thoughts.] I mean, the rest of the world hasn't been that well defined, so it's plausible that it's somewhere on the other side of the planet, or perhaps a different plane? But that'd preclude knowledge of the Overworld at all. And the Empire is so big that it's doubtful that anybody from someplace with a "prefecture" isn't going to at least have heard of it. So where does that leave us?

[lemirio]

[Oh no]

I wish I knew enough to tell you, but I'm as lost as to what's going on here as you are. I had assumed that I was still...you know, in Japan for a while, but after talking to some others here that's clearly not it.

[He sighs, bringing a hand to his mouth.]

Some of us are from the same place, but mostly it's...all over the map. Or all over the universe might be a better way to put it.