We need a coffee place on campus. It's a necessity when you time skip through the night and only get an hour and forty minutes of sleep.

I’m surprised you haven’t discovered the Spoonbender, @Len. It’s been offering the same great coffee and other psychoactive hot and cold drinks and snacks to Psyhigh students at competitive prices for years! Maybe you’ve been stopping by before it was built? Or after it was destroyed.

I’m back on campus distributing my “GREATLY IMPROVED” and “MORE SAFE” Psyhigh maps to incoming freshman. Find them for sale in — you guessed it — the Spoonbender!

I’m really worried about finding all my classes. Especially since 86% of my brain cycles are locked down in a fugue state generating a private key for my psychlocker.

Freshman jitters!

So I’m really glad I bought one of @Hector Penman’s school maps at the Spoonbender. It looks really easy to read and makes me confident i’ll have no problem finding my way. I’m mapping out my paths in different colored highlighter for each day.

Let’s have a map party in the Spoonbender and do it together!!

Is anyone else having trouble figuring out the list of courses? I couldn't find Algebra 2 anywhere. Just a bunch of classes on "arithnomancy" and "mathematical runes". Is this, like, a big inside joke, or...? Speaking of, if anyone can tell me what "Psionic Protection 101" is or why it's a required class for new kids, let me know. The description just says it teaches me to "protect myself from psionic attacks". Some kind of martial arts class maybe?

Anyway, thought I'd introduce myself. I'm Jake, I just transferred here from Johnson Public High School, and am looking forward to making some new friends. As soon as they let me out of my dorm, anyway. Apparently there's some kind of mutant bat-lizard, and he's trying to eat people's souls, so they aren't letting people outside until someone banishes him back to the nether realms using the sword of a thousand hopes.

You guys sure do have some weird slang.

The GREATLY IMPROVED and MORE SAFE school map I found in the garbage has a dynamic index on the back that cross references classes like arithnomancy and mathematical runes and tells you where to find them. I’m also in Psionic Protection 101 and followed the map to a door on the third floor of the theater building clearly marked PSIONIC PROTECTION 101 and I opened it there was a deep empty air shaft with a ladder going down it so I guess I better head.

Oh, yeah, you don't want to go down that ladder. I tried, but some people in long, flowing robes stopped me. Apparently, that room's where they protect the school from "ancient danger". Like security guards or something. Wouldn't let me through. I told them I was there for class, and they just laughed at me. I apparently lack the "psychic potential," whatever that means.

If anyone can figure out where I'm supposed to go for πøth hour (or what time that actually is), let me know. Until then, I'll be using the time to catch up on homework in the theater lobby.

I’m in Psionic Protection 101 too of course (required for Freshmen!) but the map told me to take the ladder up (not down) and I climbed up and through a hatch and popped up into a waiting room with a bear in a uniform at the front desk. He had medals and a hat.

“Right this way,” he said. Or something like that I assume because it was in some kind of Bearish.

He took me into a big room filled with other students taking a test and sat me at a desk with a pencil and a test paper. I didn’t know there’d be a test in the very first day! Jeeesh!

Is there a time limit? The questions on the test keep getting smaller and smaller as I go...

Psyhigh’s own Troop 109 of the Spirit Guides will be conducting campus tours for incoming freshmen starting this weekend at noon at the bell tower.

As our motto says, "We show the way!"*
















*At least, that's our modern motto. Our original motto was ""Hail to thee, O daughter of Amenta, mistress of Peteru of heaven, thou gift of Thoth, thou mistress of the two sides of the ladder, open a way to Unas, let Unas pass. Hail to thee, O Nau, who art seated upon the brink of the Lake of Kha, open thou a way to Unas, let Unas pass. Hail to thee, O thou bull of four horns, thou who hast one horn to the west, and one to the east, and one to the north, and one to the south, let Unas pass, for he is a being from the purified Amenta, who goeth forth from the country of Baqta. Hail to thee, O Sekhet-Hetep, hail to thee, and to the fields which are in thee, the fields of Unas are in thee, for pure offerings are in thee" but it didn't fit on buttons so nicely.

Wow. You guys sure do have some history. I was a scout too once, but we mostly just learned how to tie knots.

Also, by bell tower, did you mean the big one towards the center of the campus, or the one with the eight locks and the (very realistic) fake blood on the door?

Actually, you know, now that I think about it, there's only one bell tower. Don't know why I thought there were more. There has only ever been one bell tower.

Man, I didn't get enough sleep last night. Feeling all funny. Anyway, see you there!

Have you ever tried to climb headfirst down a ladder? I admit it doesn't sound like a good idea, and I don't suggest you try it, but it seemed like the way to travel through the empty air shaft if I wanted to get to PSIONIC PROTECTION 101.

It was pretty tough going, but after I got the hang of it, it was a lot like going up a ladder. I couldn't tell if I was coming or going. Before long I ended up in a vast tunnel system beneath the school. There was water, and turtles, and crocodiles and hippopotami, and finally green banks that snakes crawled up, and big red donkey on the shore and hawks circling around in the sky.

Finally, big iron plates. Seemed like a lot of unnecessary security to put students through just to get to PSIONIC PROTECTION 101. But how am I going to get through this giant heavy hatch?

I guess I could always knock.

knock knock knock

BANG BANG BANG