Week Four

[stagemanagers]

[Last week, Gershwin High School Academy University saw its very first intentional murder! What a milestone! And right after Spongebob's No Murder party, too - that doesn't seem like it bodes very well for anybody's future.

You all wake up this morning with yet another new memory returned to you. You'll also find that the school's external doors have now unlocked. Congratulations! You're free! Unfortunately, you also seem to be entirely in the middle of nowhere. So maybe it's more of a symbolic victory.

Still, you should look around and do some investigation! Maybe you'll find a fun surprise.]

Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday

(( Be sure to submit your memory regains and your AC for this week! Hester's office hours and the merch booth also remain available! ))

Comments

MODS: investigation!

[themuseabandonsyou]

[ Orpheus wakes up in Longacre on Wednesday morning, curled up against Eurydice's side in the spare bed they'd shoved up against the bottom bunk. Enjoy your second bunkmate, Farrah. It's reassuring, being able to sleep next to her instead of over in Rodgers with the worry that something might happen in the night.

(Plenty of things happen in the day instead, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.)

He gets up and goes through his morning routine, washing up in the boys' locker room as well as taking an extra moment to try to wash his spare uniform in the sink as best he can despite it being mostly white and having paint on it now. Then he heads to the kitchen for breakfast and to take inventory before approaching the machine.

And boy, does it spit out a lot of garbage this time. He manages to sidestep the avalanche of trombones, thankfully, watching the machine eject them at considerable speed, before finally giving up the rest of its bounty, including a pickaxe and... part of a tiara? Strange. He gets down to sorting it all into piles - trombones (and tuba), prop room, kitchen, costume room, and useful things to hold on to.

And then a bunch of other stuff happens that distracts him for several hours but not so long as to run into that ominous Wednesday Night prompt, but he'll return to do some INVESTIGATING, starting with the stairs. What's up with those? How are they blocked off, exactly?]

machine

[howtheworldwas]

[ Apart from her training session with Angus, Eurydice will stick fairly close to Orpheus this morning. She won't cash in her coins until later in the afternoon, but she'll watch Orpheus cash in his, shoving him out of the way of the trombones for good measure.

She's in decent spirits, until the pickaxe drops. Then, she goes very quiet, and once it's time to sort the thing, she'll whisper: ]

I think that's mine.

[themuseabandonsyou]

[ Orpheus steps over some trombones to take a closer look, brows furrowed slightly in confusion. ]

Did you have a job with a mining company at some p - oh. Oh. [ Orpheus looks over at her, suddenly very concerned. ] What do you want to... do with it?

[howtheworldwas]

[ Eurydice continues to stare down the pickaxe, but also takes Orpheus's hand -- so, progress! ]

I don't know. We can't just leave it here, but we can't let it get into the wrong hands, either.

[themuseabandonsyou]

Right. Someone could get seriously hurt, with this. [ But where to put it? ] I don't think it would really fit in the lockers? Maybe one of our trunks, in the dorms?

[howtheworldwas]

[ She nods. ] Get it into the trunk, and slide the trunk under the bed.

[ She lets go of his hand to pick it up, and oh, that's a familiar weight. Her grip tightens, knuckles going white. ]

Come on. [ it's clear she wants to be rid of it as soon as possible. ]

[themuseabandonsyou]

[ Orpheus nods and follows after her. The thought of asking - what Hadestown was like, if it was really as bad as Mister Hermes said, or worse crosses his mind. But he has to admit to himself that he's scared to find out, and more importantly he doesn't want to put Eurydice through having to answer. So he stays silent, trying to think of something to say. ]

How do you think all of that stuff... fits in there? [ he asks, as it's the first thing that comes to mind. ] In the machine. I guess it must be magic, or god-stuff, but.

[howtheworldwas]

[ Eurydice loves her husband and his very earnest attempts at small talk so so much. ]

Mmm. Magic, I think. It's got to have enough food in there to feed all those lizards. [ hmmm ] ...do you think there's a reason? For all those lizards?

[themuseabandonsyou]

I've been worrying about - whether all the stuff in the vending machine that doesn't belong to us is from people who were here before us. Since the Wizard and the Balladeer and Maya and Angus all say this has happened before.

[ Though he had his suspicions about that long before the meeting on Tuesday. He frowns, then shrugs. ]

Maybe someone who was here just... really liked lizards? I guess it's good that we've been looking after them, if they might've been somebody's pets.

investigation!

[stagemanagers]

[You know those see-through metal grills that roll down over, say, stores in the mall when they're closing down? It's one of those! You can definitely see through here, but it kinda just...looks like stairs.]

[themuseabandonsyou]

[ Cool, cool. Orpheus will look for a lock or some kind of mechanism to draw it up, as well as lying down on the floor to try to get a look at what's up the stairs through the metal grill, but under the assumption that that proves fruitless he'll turn his attention to the cafeteria.

First thing's first!! Looking underneath and at the underside of every single gods damned table in there. Any scratches or marks or messages? Or is it just chewed gum all the way down? ]

[stagemanagers]

[There's no visible mechanism to raise it! Lying on the ground, you can see a bit more, but it kinda just looks like another school hallway up there.

In the cafeteria, there's no chewed gum! There's nothing much else there, either. No carvings here!]

[themuseabandonsyou]

[ Well at least we're all civilized humans(/sponges/drakonequi/lumpy spacers) who can dispose of gum properly here. Or maybe we just don't have any gum. Anyway, it's time to check out the vending machines. They're plugged in, right? Even the weird opaque one? ]

[stagemanagers]

[The regular ones are plugged in! The weird one is not. It doesn't seem to have any visible power source, actually.]

[themuseabandonsyou]

[ Well, that'll get his attention. He'll take a closer look at the weird machine - is it pressed flush against the wall? Any gap between it and the floor? They've all been using the thing so much that he doubts there's anything obvious they've missed about it, but are there any markings or things of notice on it at all? ]

[stagemanagers]

[Not really! It is flush with the wall, but not bolted to it or anything. It'd be difficult to move, though, it is pretty heavy.]

[themuseabandonsyou]

[ That's probably going to have to be something to revisit later, when he has help that isn't a scrawny dustbowl survivor. He'll make a mental note of it, though, and move onto the kitchen to do inventory and check all the shelves for strange carvings or marks or anything out of the ordinary, since he's already taking everything off the shelves and out of the cabinets to count it anyway. Multitasking! ]