Monday September 11, 2017
Lunch
Sanae and Ignatius stared at their phones for a little bit. Well, that was neat, wasn't it! Apparently some Hanged Man guy was in "Nearby Plaza"--which sounded vague, but luckily, you knew exactly where that was. You were pretty sure that that plaza had an actual name, but, uh, you couldn't remember it. Nobody could. The one with the pharmacy and the Chinese food. You know. That one.

Uh.

Well, moving on, that was pretty handy. There were a lot of other people. You had to wonder what "ambiguous" meant for the Priestess arcana meant. Maybe it meant the location was ambiguous. That was interesting.

"...r arcana comes in four suits, which are the ancestors to our playing card suits..."

Right, class was still going. Well, sorta. The class proceed, with Mr. Alfredson only bursting into laughter two more times, before the cross-year program wrapped up for the day, and you could have the one half of your lunch break that was miraculously spared. Now that was nice!


Afternoon
Outside of a bizarre incident in Senior Chemistry, where Mr. Brandt went on a rant about potassium, the afternoon passed without incident. Classes were as boring as they tended to be. Yawn. Dull stuff. Not even worth discussing, really.


After School
Free at last!

By a consensus that was not reached, but which would mostly likely be reached, you headed off to that nearby plaza to, uh, do... something.

Nearby Plaza
After about five minutes' stroll, you arrived at that nearby plaza. The place was fairly familiar. Wide parking lot, half-full. Asphalt was uneven and cracking in quite a few places. Stores arranged in a line, with seemingly random height changes. Bigger second level that overhung a few feet forward, over the first level. The second level, of course had all the signs. The thing as a whole was fairly plain--random benches, plants and signs on the sidewalk in front of the actual stores. The fact that everything was a dull beige stucco didn't really help matters.

You know, when you got right down to it, this was more of a strip mall than a plaza. But really.

Either way, apparently the hanged man person was here... somewhere...

You had no idea how this was going to work, but either way, you no doubt fanned out and looked for candidates. Maybe. Maybe you just bought some fried rice instead. After a while, though, you noticed a familiar face you hadn't seen for a bit--some senior named Andy, or something along those lines. He was in the senior string ensemble at school, and was considered an all-around cool guy. Maybe you chatted him up for a little, while he was eating.

If you did, it would be mostly small talk.
"...ensemble's starting up again, first meeting later today, going to be exciting...
"...how about Mr. Boring again, huh? Jeez, I thought I saw the last of him last year...
"...oh, my younger brother's actually taking his first year of high school now. Bert's his name. If you see him, be nice, because, you know, I can't, on account of being his older brother and all. Actually, I'm waiting for him here today, show him around the plaza and all, you know..."
More small chit-chat.

After a bit, a small, slightly mousy teen walked over. He was about half a foot shorter than Andy, but the family resemblance was clear. He clearly had no idea who you guys were, and clearly had an issue with that--but either way, there were a few rounds of introductions.

"I gotta run--ensemble meeting started ten minutes ago! Nice talking with you guys--be nice now, see you guys."

And with that, Andy was off. From an outsider observer's perspective, he just ditched his little brother with some friends. That was a good start.

"So, uh..."

You felt your phone buzz.

That was almost certainly Otherworld Hub updating. Great. You could tell right away that this was going to be a very uphill battle.

Either way, there was an odd silence that probably oughtn't be there. What did you do?