SavageRifts.com

Date: Monday, 6 January, 2020
Time: 1620
Weather: Warm for season (warm); no wind; no precipitation
Location: Helios Academy
Scene Modifiers

• Light: Bright
• Visibility: Clear

Round 0

It was bright and unseasonably warm for January in Chicago when the seven teens were led onto the public campus of Helios Academy. It was still a couple days before students arrived, so they would have time to settle in and acclimate themselves before classes began in a week.

The campus was divided into five sections. Central campus had the library and computer center, main classroom facility, science building, and art building all situated around an open quad. Surrounding the buildings was a circular perimeter drive separating central campus from the other sections.

East campus was the grounds surrounding a large, impressive mansion, the home of Dr. Helios. It had a hedge maze, an orchard, and extensive trails around the campus. It also had a stable and paddock for horses, and a boathouse and dock on Lake Michigan. There was a large garage, and a smaller building that was the campus chapel.

North campus contained the school’s administrative building, as well as the student services building, which had the dining hall, auditorium, a game room with pool, foosball, and other games, and multipurpose rooms.

South campus consisted of the athletic facilities. The fieldhouse and football and soccer fields, as well as baseball and softball diamonds were here.

West campus was the dorms, where the students lived. There were two dorm buildings on an open commons area. Both dorms were co-ed, though males and females were in separate wings, with a common area between them.

Each dorm was a shared suite for two students, with two small bedrooms with a desk and closet on either side of a shared common area. Each floor had a communal bathroom. Each floor also had a common lounge between the male and female sections. The lounge had a common kitchen for each floor to use, as well. The basement held laundry and storage facilities and a quiet study lounge. On the first floor of the dorm was a faculty apartment, with Tamar Todd living in one dorm and Caleb Black in the other.

Each student was also given a copy of the school handbook, with a couple of added verbal instructions about being a mutant on campus

Helios Academy Campus
Campus Policies
***

Team:
Rob Marks/Volo
Cailean Blythe/Highlander
Jason Konig/????
Samuel Franklin/Probe
Katherine “Kat” Wilhelm/Hexx
Constance Abels/Chance
Shanice Walker/Winger

GM Bennies: 7/7

Shanice actually does read the handbook. In her uniform walking around campus this first open time, she's back to folded arm selfimageconscious and wide squirrel eyes at how everyone's looking at her. It fades away as the tour goes on in a wing, but then they go to the next section and she reboots to it again.

Center: Everyone can practically hear the Beauty & the Beast music manifest around her when she gets into the library. Legit eager seeing the science building and getting giddily excited about science classes to come.

East: Timid around big money stuff, keeps her hands buried in her pockets or hugging herself way too tight, and walking way too obviously at a demarcated 5' away from all museumish/artish/expensiveish anythings. Someone's been through some TALKS about children touching things. She even visibly winces when anyone else get's too close to displays. She is fidgetting like mad when she gets to the entrance of the hedgemaze, but she manages to contain herself from flying up to see it from above, barely. Boathouse, cool, hasn't been out on a lake in a long time. She's been in a Laser sailboat as a little kid, and vaguely knows some concepts, but dad was controlling it. Canoe though, omg, she hasn't been canoeing since two winters ago in the Florida springs. But canoeing in a big open lake would be boring, but worth it to teach friends how to do it. Garage, sweet. Trails/Orchards, awesome, definitely a orchard child herself. Chapel, she hesitates before going in it. There's some soul searching going on in her head. But she does go in and is super polite and respectful. .... then there's the stable of HOOOOOOOOOORRSSSSSSSSSEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ... yall can leave her here and check back in in a few years.

North: Cool, all good. Foosball, rock on. The church youth groups with those ususally had a pool table somewhere, she actually wanders and peeks around for that.

South: Clinical eye checking out everything. Obviously impressed to see what actual financed maintenance does to a facility. One look and one twitch towards the soccer field and averts her gaze and stands where it's not in her view the rest of the day.

West: Mostly just curious looking at the dorms trying to parse that to what she's heard or seen in media about what dorms are like. But before they go in she rushes up to a guide to ask, "what's today's cover story for us not staying in the dorm dorms?"

Sam wonders if there is a tech lab, a place for people who like to build things as he does? At least with the library and computer center, he will be able to study in the field, even if there is not.

While he finds the layout of the campus interesting, the rules are more so. No rules against actually USING powers, instead rules about hurting others with them and rules about covering damage caused by them. Even though we were told that the other students are not mutants, this implies that either they expect us to have trouble controlling our powers...or expect us to have reason to use them. Perhaps there are other students who are supers, but not mutants? Possibly they expect us to be attacked at some point in the future? He is not sure what it means, but think it is likely to be important at some point.

He wonders if we are going to be moved to the Dorms and to have room mates. If so, he imagines our room mates will be others from their group of mutant children...except for out one odd member.

If there is not tech lab, he wonders if the Boat House or Garage will be available for use.

He in interested in the sports area, as he plans to continue training and will probably be trying out for some sort of sport. Hopefully he finds an aptitude for something.

Kat does read the student handbook, too, though in her case it's more like W.C. Field's study of the Bible--she's looking for loopholes.

Central campus does impress her, and by the end of the orientation period, she's figured out where she can hole up in the library with a book and be undisturbed--if it's got a decent basement newspaper stacks section, those are almost always abandoned except during end-of-semester project season, for instance. She will start checking out books as soon as it's allowed, mostly classic literature. She also enjoys walking around the art building.

She's mostly unimpressed by the mansion, but she does enjoy the challenge of a proper hedge maze.

Kat immediately gravitates to the pool table in East Campus. She'll spend a fair bit of time here. It's rare that she breaks without sinking at least one ball.

She visits South Campus only when required to for training/classes. She can be lured to a basketball court, but only for one-on-one or, even better, a game of Horse.

She investigates the dorm rooms with some dread. She suggests that "Bubbles and Blondie" should room together, since they both seem to buy into this scene. This, of course, leaves her as the odd girl out. She was clearly hoping to avoid having a roommate at all, but when the semester starts, her hopes are dashed by the arrival of her new roomie, Alexis Monaghan.

Alexis turns out to be kindly, nurturing, and optimistic. She's planning on becoming a veterinarian when she grows up, and already volunteers at a local humane society shelter. The slightly plump strawberry blonde tries to make friends but, well, Kat puts up walls faster than Romulus and Remus. About the only thing that gets Kat's notice and semi-approval is Alexis' musical taste--Kat is shocked into genuine laughter the first time Alexis cranks up the Sex Pistols loud enough to get Tamar coming by to gently chide them to be considerate to their hallmates. It's not enough to bond over, just yet, but they can at least tolerate one another's company when the radio is cranked up just below the limit.

Alexis is obviously dismayed by Kat's stand-offish behavior, but after a few rebuffs, decides to not let it worry her too much, instead making friends with other girls at the dorm.

Settling in Rob was annoyed. A room mate, no way Probe was a perverted spy, always watching people and the others where distant. The only ones he would consider being dorm-mates with where girls, and the school did not allow that. So instead he set about negotiating paying for two dorm rooms so he could comply with their rules, but not have someone in there messing up the place. Once he had his own double, Rob was satisfied. Time to get a tour and see how things go.

Finding a campus ambassador was easy. The facility was large and well taken care of, even the older parts of the buildings apparently had enough caregivers to ensure nothing was breaking off or covered in vandalism. Walking around the facility he was checking out the various facilities and doing the tour as usual. But when the ambassador took them to the Science center he was floored. The facilities where the kind you would expect at an ivy league university, not some Podunk private school. From her out he knew this was going to be his thing. Sure the other facilities where nice, but this would be where he made his second home. The library was likewise somehow well stocked.

The cars where likewise a joke. He knew they could afford better maintained vehicles. But chances are they were just abused by students. Well, no way was he going to get stuck on the side of the road. He set about applying for a parking permit and purchasing a nice SUV. Nothing real flashy that would annoy the others, but something they could all fit in. Eventually he settled on a Yukon. He liked to drive, but was not sure if his license from New York would work in whatever state they were in. But then when he pulled it out to look at it, he realized it was blank. "Humm, well that will be annoying if we get pulled over."

It was fully three days later when Rob was challenged poking around. As he was looking through some books in the library an old man, maybe mid thirties, or even forty walked up to him. "Do you have a library pass? I have seen you in here four times already, but I have not seen you check in or check any of the books you bring back out. I just checked the computer and all four books you had where in fact never checked out."

Rob looked surprised, reaching into his pocket he pulls out his pass and concentrates on wishing for it to be the right card for this kid. “Sure I have a pass, here.I just paid dues the other day. It should all be in there.” Handing it to the guy Rob concentrates on the computer showing him whatever he expected to see, as he waits for a moment then takes the card back. “Seems real weird for you to care about books coming back in. I would think you only care about books going out?”

Shaking his head the old man answered. “It all works the same kid. Books coming in, that were not checked out, means people sneaking out. Make sure you stop by my desk to check out before leaving.”

Rob nods reading the name tag. “Sure thing Dave.” This wish of his was creating as many issues as it was helping with. Their records being erased of what he rad makes sense. But dang, his license, his library card, his student ID. What will he do if his powers lock-up again? He will not be able to fake it or use mental illusions on people. He needs to concentrate on being better with his powers, and on making sure he does not lock up again.

Upon returning Rob realized as it turns out, Dave was not all that bad. As as the Evening Senior Librarian his job was to preserve the materials and ensure the library was in good shape. But this left him with a lot of free time on his hands. Time he could use for reading, watching people, and researching interesting topics. Rob found himself frequently just hanging out and chatting with the old guy. Hi knowledge of the esoteric, political, historical, and just about everything else was amazing.

Rob, knew he was more well read than the majority of American adults. But compared to Dave Clanika he felt like he had never cracked a book before. The guy must be the most interesting dude he had ever met.

When Caelian gets to his dorm room and gets situated, he notices the laptop and smartphone. He decides to see how far his techno jynx goes and boots up the laptop.

Utilizing the preassigned login and password, he quickly logs in. Fingers flying rapidly over the keyboard, seems to trigger no sort of electronic mishaps and Caelian lets out his breath. Whew.

Chance didn't stick with the tour group for long. She was always one to explore at her own pace, since that pace outpaced what other people could do. Blink and you'd miss her. Under a red sun, amidst students frozen in time, Constance walked around the impressive, sprawling campus. She found unobtrusive spots to emerge from redshift and rejoin the normal flow of time so she could push through a door into the library or other buildings. After poking around she'd vanish again. Moving too fast for a human eye to register, she had freedom to nose around in places where students typically weren't welcome...but the library didn't seem to have a big, clearly marked 'restricted' section, and the cafeteria was depressingly short on human cadavers being served up to unwitting schoolgoers.

In fact, what struck her most in her explorations was how ordinary it seemed. Sure, it was kind of...collegiate?...for kids that were high school age, but there were older people there too. And despite knowing there were clandestine mutants about, Chance didn't catch anyone using powers on the sly. At least not visibly. It made her feel a little weird about using her own. Was that not okay here?

Finally she wound up at the dorm building that the note on her flyer informed her was the one she'd be staying at. She strolled up to her room, as normal as you please, and poked her head in. The room was hotel-clean, with a pair of immaculately made beds and no posters or personal touches. Of course, she realized. The other kids were still on the tour. In objective time, she'd probably only been gone for like...what, half an hour?

On impulse she took a photo of the room as it was pre-lived in. It joined the snaps she'd taken of various spots around the school that had seemed interesting or just pleasing to look at.

Then, for a minute, Constance sat on the bed she immediately decided was hers. There was honestly a lot going on right now. She'd gone from hunting for clues to being captured by some crazy corporation to finding out, hey! She'd left home! And was going to this school that seemed more like a college! Life upside-down much? She was worried about her mom, now all alone. And what about herself? Would she be okay here? Did this mean she had to stop following up on her dad's death? Would she make friends? What about her old friends? What would the classes here be like?

On the other hand, she was here because she had powers. Other people did too. The idea that she'd finally be able to really explore and experiment with what she could do was...exciting. She'd always had to be so careful before. Seeing 'herself' appear at Nexus had been a big flag that she was capable of more. Or would be.

What would she do with that?