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[Weirdsound]

One more question.
How does the school react to us disappearing into the dungeon, do we get counted absent or something?

"There it is. The question that everyone asks. The metaphysics are complicated, but the TL;DR is that by growing in the dungeons, you partially displace your own timeline across multiversal space. When you leave a dungeon, history will try and compensate, and rewrite itself around you to minimize the impact of your time in the dungeon on the rest of your life. Unless you wind up on the wrong side of someone who can mess with time or reality, your life should still make sense and remain unruined no matter how much time you spend hanging in dungeons.

...That said, constantly having reality re-written around you can be bad for the psyche, so I do mandate regular breaks from adventure. Mmmmmmkay? A day or two doing human things between trips is more than sufficient to keep you sane."

We should probably try to balance being a dungeon grue with being a human, so let's go have a personal and social life for now. Maybe we'll make some friends to invite to our club, and then need to have awkward conversations about the fate of.

All right, I think that does it for questions. I think I'm going to try and make some friends before I hop into my next dungeon.

"Very well. Your homeroom will be waiting for you whenever you need it. I'll await your return with baited breath."

The next few days are interesting to say the least. You see things now; Swords stuck into walls, discarded potion bottles in the bathroom garbage, and tiny winged humanoids darting around the ceiling among other things. Mr. Levy was right, perception is warped for most people in this town, but now you can see things for what they are.

Of particular note, you notice a good portion of the student body, perhaps one in every twenty five or thirty kids, have brightly glowing eyes. You catch these odd-eyed folk, from time to time, stealing a glance at your crown. At first you assume that they are fellow members of the Level Up Club, blessed with sight as you happen to be, but a quick check in the bathroom mirror confirms that your eyes do not glow.

As you try to figure out the mystery of the glowing eyes, some of the people who bear them begin to reach out to you. They seem friendly enough: happy to talk about regular school and teenager things, but they occasionally hint that they know a bit more than they let on. Four of them in particular seem to be going out of their way to try and be your friend. By the end of the week, each has given you an invitation to sit at their respective lunch table. You note that each of these potential friends are pretty tight with some clique or another; Trying to hang with more than one of them could complicate things, and whichever one you reciprocate friendship towards could wind up defining your social life for the duration of your time at this school.

You weigh your options with the knowledge that this might be one of the most important decisions you make.

Lacy is a large and imposing girl in the ROTC program. She enjoys watching sports and her best subject is history. Openly gay, Lacy's favorite topic of conversation (aside from teasing you with hints that she knows what you are up to) are the other girls in class. She talks endlessly about her many crushes, and presses you for information about your own taste in women. If you steer the conversation away from romance, she enjoys trash talking the Middlesburgh sports teams you grew up rooting for. Lacy sits with the military clique: her fellow ROTC cadets and army brats from the nearby base. You get the feeling that the people at her table would have the most dungeon relevant skills when it comes to combat and survival.

Crow (who steadfastly refuses to answer to her real name) is the spitting image of the stereotypical emo kid. Her best subject is literature, and she is one of the rare people capable of talking Epic Poetry with you, but her favorite reads fall under the cosmic horror genre. Of all the people with glowing eyes, Crow's lips are the loosest. She mentions the Heartkeepers and Mr. Levy with some frequency, and once spent several minutes fangirling over the talisman the Bugbear gave you. The table where Crow and her goth peers sit is home to two other students with glowing eyes, easily the highest concentration you have observed anywhere in the school.

Ai is a massive geek. Borderline dork even. She excels in all her classes but confesses that computer science is her favorite. Outside of academics, her hobby is gaming; Her ELO in Modern Doomwatch 4 teeters on the verge of top 500, but she is more than willing to use her low ranked alt account to carry you to some wins. The only time Ai ever brought up dungeon stuff to you was to express her annoyance that you don't yet have a Omni Sim Card. The dweebs that Ai sits with are nice and talented people, but her lunch table is clearly the lowest on the social ladder. That said, as the lone new kid, even a sit at the nerd table is a step up.

Out of all the strange people to reach out to you, Miranda is probably the worst human being. She is a straight up mean girl who is better at cheerleading than academics. Pretty much every word out of her mouth is gossip directed toward another student. Flaws aside, Miranda seems protective of you, being the only one to express concern about your cursed crown. Miranda's small clique of ladies holds court at the lunchroom's most prestigious table, where they are joined by a rotating cast of athletes, cheerleaders, fashionistas, and other popular students. You note Miranda seems to be the right hand of her tablemate Bethany, the absolute worst bully in school, and perhaps a good friend to have if you can swing it.

Which group do you try to fall in with?

Asset by DALL-E. Character Sheet.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

DALL-E spits out four images per prompt. I made a gender neutral request for highschool students with glowing eyes, and I got these four young ladies back. I swear my intent isn't to make this a harem RP. 

[King Zultan]

I'm gonna vote for ether nerds or bullies.

[ZBridges]

My vote is for Crow.

[IncompetentFortressMaker]

Crow seems like a handy pick. If she talks about Levy and the Heartkeepers that much, she probably knows something, after all. She also seems to have glowy friends, so... interesting?

[King Zultan]

You know if you guys think that crow goth kid is the way to go I'll vote for it.

[Weirdsound]

My vote is for Crow.

After some diliberation, you inform Crow that you will accept the offer to sit at her table. The next day at lunch, she is quick to introduce you to the four friends she sits with. You begin to get a feel for each of these people rather quickly.

Zach is pretty much the leader of this little social group. He is confident, charming, and possesses the same mysterious glowing eyes as Crow. Zach spends much of the lunch period strumming on his guitar and composing dark song lyrics, but when he talks you can't help but notice how strange and... archaic he can be. Despite dressing the part of a contemporary emo, his musical taste and choice of language paints him more as a metal-head from the '70s or '80s. He often speaks fondly of memories from concerts that would have happened when his parents were young kids, and teachers who have been retired for decades.

Despite his laid back attitude, Zach commands the utmost repsect (and perhaps even the fear) of the other students at the table. Everyone is quick to laugh at his jokes or flinch when he raises his voice. Everyone that is except...

...His girlfriend who goes by Becks or Becky. Aside from her lack of glowing eyes she could easily be mistaken for Zach's twin. They are about the same height and skin tone, and clearly coordinate outfits with each other. Socially she is more or less a non-factor, sitting on Zach's lap as he strums his guitar and staring dreamily into his eyes. Only occasionally does she chime into the group discourse, usually with a dark but funny joke about the ills of society.

Despite the fact that he possesses glowing eyes and is the only senior in the group, Crow's brother Gunther seems to be the lowest on the social totem pole. Like Becky, he rarely speaks. Unlike Becky it is the cartoons playing on his phone rather than a lover's eyes he is typically staring into. Sitting next to him, you are pretty sure you pick up the faintest aroma of weed. He probably speaks no more than six sentences the entire lunch period, and three of them are "hey guys, check this out!" before showing off a clip on his phone. In spite of them all being in English with good writing and animation, you do not recognize any of Gunther's cartoons.

Harmony is Crow's best friend, and together the pair is the driving force behind most of the discussion at the table. You find it hard to get a read on this bubbly and friendly young lady. She lacks glowing eyes, but loves to talk about magic in a way that strikes you, a spellcaster, as almost but not quite accurate. Like Crow, she is into Cosmic horror, and unlike Crow she fancies herself an author in the genre. Apparently she brings in copies of her latest short stories every few weeks for the table to read.

As the lunch period winds down, you notice Zach grab a large handful of Ketchup packets and depart in the general direction of the Home Economics classroom. Knowing that behavior could be indicative of entering a Dungeon, you are inclined to follow, but Crow cuts you off.

"Hey. Thanks for taking up my offer. I'm sure you had plenty of other suitors; A new member of the Level Up Club is a pretty big deal for my people. As a general rule, it is not cool to talk shop around the normies... I'm... umm... actually kind of bad with that rule. I'm sure Mr. Levy will explain what I am soon if he hasn't already... Either way, the old disembodied voice likes to withhold information, so use this when you get the chance to get all the deets on who your friends really are, okay?"

Crow hands you a large, ornate, and asymmetrical silver key with the words "Rasputin Society" engraved on the side.



+Rasputin Society Key

A new key. Perhaps it is time to enter a dungeon and seek a chance to use it! How do you proceed?

Assets by DALL-E and Midjourney. Character Sheet. Quest Board.

[King Zultan]

Well we've been given a key that'll explain some stuff, so I say we go to the dungeon and learn some stuff.

[IncompetentFortressMaker]

Yeah, but the question is which dungeon do we go to? It looks like Zach is going to visit Noir - from Levy's whiteboard:

There is one small thing we would like you to do for us; Powerful beings looking to invade your realm give their followers fantastic devices called 'Uncertainty Hearts'. It is likely you will encounter an uncertainty heart or two during your time with us, and club policy dictates that when that happens you should destroy it or hand it over to a Heartkeeper. Heartkeeper Noir will give you the rundown on how that works; Find her in the Hall of Rituals, which can be accessed by using ketchup packets from the lunchroom to draw a pentagram on the emergency exit door next to the Home Economics classroom.

[ZBridges]

Maybe we could ask if any of them want to join us?  I'd be fine with any of the dungeons, but the Overflow Bin might be the best place to start.

[IronyOwl]

I'll +1 the Overflow Bin. Might want to figure out what our new buddies are before we invite them places, so we know what that entails for them.

[King Zultan]

+1 to the Overflow Bin and finding out what the new friends are.

[Weirdsound]

Maybe we could ask if any of them want to join us?  I'd be fine with any of the dungeons, but the Overflow Bin might be the best place to start.

Overflow Bin it is.

...But not quite yet. I'm going to experiment and pre-prep this whole dungeon, rather than doing just one room at a time. This should allow me to present a more cohesive dungeon and do turns faster, but the down side is that it will take me a bit to set up. I'm not sure how long, but I'll aim to have it ready by the end of the weekend.

In the meantime, to keep you busy and because I have an irational dislike of double posting, lets play a little Intermission Mini-Game!



The AI tools I have been using generate four images per prompt. The nonsense pictured above came out of the same prompt as an image I used in this thread. Go ahead and guess which it is. One guess per person per 12 hours. First to get it right wins a free self +1 that they can cash in on any single suggestion that they make in this game. Go!

[ZBridges]

I'm guessing it's this one.

[King Zultan]

Is it that goblin medal?

[Weirdsound]

Is it that goblin medal?

I'm guessing it's this one.

These are both correct. ZBridges was first, but he also linked a whole post with multiple images while King Zultan was second but more specific. I'm not sure who it would be fair to call the winner, so I'll give you both a free +1 to your own suggestion to use at any point in this game.

---

Deciding to visit the Overflow Bin, you make your move early in the morning - as soon as the school doors unlock. You trust the perception distorting magic, but still feel it would be best to minimize the number of people who interact with Jameson as you lead the Zombie through the halls from your homeroom to the school library, where you get on an open computer.

You note to your displeasure that it takes you a few minutes and a web search to figure out how to bring up the command prompt; It would seem that the knowledge the crown is stealing from you isn't entirely limited to understanding of dungeon objects and artifice. Eventually, however, you are able to input 'run_ temporaldesynch.lvlup' per Mr. Levy's instructions. Instantly, you are hit with the irresistible urge to climb through the computer screen...



You find yourself standing in a white void, with Jameson at your side. The PA system crackles to life.

"Ah. On your way to the Overflow Bin, eh Randy Boy? Very good. It looks like there is someone in the first room I would rather not talk to if I don't have to, so I'm going to give you a brief rundown before we get you loaded in."

"The Overflow Bin is navigated via Warp Distortions. If someone enters one, and they or the person who forced them to enter intends for them to teleport, they will teleport. Keep track of what colored Warp Distortions you use and encounter to avoid getting lost, mmmmmmkay?"

      "The Dataflow River cuts through many rooms of this dungeon. Sometimes it is open to the air. Sometimes it is sealed within pipes. A living or otherwise animated being who enters the river will expelled from the dungeon to their point of entry... usually. As much as I dislike interfering in such matters, I do exercise a degree of control over this. I've set the river to Hold Jameson and place him in the next room you enter should he fall in without you; It would not do to have a being opposed to life pop-up unsupervised in the school library. Keep all this in mind, and feel free to smash a pipe if you feel overwhelmed and wish to leave the dungeon in a hurry, mmmmmkay?"

"Lastly, it is worth noting that many of the fights you will encounter here will be low stakes. The most common inhabitants of this dungeon are called Dwellers or Displacement Folk: Someone gave them the nerdy Latin name Homo Obsessio, but that really isn't quite accurate. They are artificial beings constructed from a mix of human and elfish cells, held together by time displaced by the people who interact with the dungeons around here. They would be tough to distinguish from normal people if they didn't have glowing eyes. Displacement Folk are nearly immortal ageless teenagers; If they are slain near enough to the school, a Heartkeeper can and usually will restore them. With that in mind, the ones you find in dungeons are usually eager for a fight. Luckily for you, they know that killing students gets them in trouble, so if one beats you it will usually just run your pockets for a trophy or two, and find you medical attention."

Mr. Levy pauses for a second, before continuing.

"Oh. Um... only count on the non-lethal fights against Homo Obsessio you find in dungeons accessed via school grounds. Mmmmmmkay? Those that wander can get caught up in some nasty stuff, and they know I can only supervise the school dungeons. Anyway, lets get you loaded into the Overflow Bin!"

*Pop*



You and Jameson now stand in a room with 4 uniquely colored Warp Distortions. A Goblin, completely unbothered by your sudden arrival, stands to your north. The Dataflow River flows to your East, West, and South.

How do you proceed?

Assets by DALL-E. Character Sheet.