Echo is sure to show off a video game trick or two they've worked out, such as fighting to a perfect draw repeatedly in games where such outcomes are rare.  When returned home in a limo his parents are flabbergasted.  Out of habit, they apologize for any trouble caused.

At school, Echo is proud to show off photographic proof that they're friends with the overlander lady on TV and the Princess!  And they're quick to defend their overlander friends with water baloons and such.

  Getting killed the same time you kill the enemy (in Vs Multuplayer) is always funny, yes.

  Joe pulls a Maverick between occasional sightings during the time skip.  Nondescript expectations were correct expectation-where did get that sombrero?-Wait, it's gone now.

  He is a terrible influence though, considering one such brief sighting involved free water balloon refills for Marco and Polo.

One overlander in particular has befriended Echo; Maverick. Bullies usually can't find him to pick on him, but there are some situations he isn't able to leave (such as being in class and having paper balls thrown at him, but then that happens to anyone). A major storm hits while the kids are at school, though. Sheets of rain, loud thunder, strong winds. It's bad enough that the school has nobody going home even when school is over. The teachers, of course, reassure the kids that they will be able to go home in a couple hours. So in the meantime, board games and such are pulled out for everyone's entertainment.

....when did Joe show up at a school to hand out water balloons? Why is he even there? Well, that is just how he is. And now he is stuck in the school after hours. Unless he enjoys being drenched to the bone while being tossed around like a tinker toy.

Echo is oh-so grateful to his cool new coyote buddy for helping out with bully payback.  They think it the coolest thing to be friends with an overlander spy too.  They're sure to supply Mav with escape portals whenever needed.

Usually, their fox half goes to school and their bat half roams about having fun for both of them.  Which today did not include any flying, obviously.  They've been eager to introduce Mav to their cool coyote friend Joe, and there's no outdoor fun to be had right now anyway, so they had offered Joe a portal to their school.

  Even Joe isn't quite sure what sequence of events made him today's substitute gym teacher, but 'hit someone in the face and I throw one at you' has kept dodgeball the most civil it has ever been in a public school.

  The portals certainly beat manual travel though.

The rain is heard everywhere as it pours like a waterfall over the entire school. Maverick dribbles a basketball. Thanks to the immense variety in sizes for mobians, there is a basketball sized just right for Mav. But he has pulled out one of the smaller basketballs in order to be able to play with Echo. And since he's taller than many mobian adults, he can easily play with Joe. "Feel like forming a team and playing basketball?"

Echo is thrilled his two cool buddies finally get to meet.

"You bet!" they answer Mav in unison with a double-smile.

Joe's player has to shift mental gears remembering he's NOT, for once, the tallest person in the entire room.

"Well, can't see why not at the moment. So sure" At least until somebody tells him he has to go punch a weather device/spirit.

Basketball proves fun enough, if exhausting as the game tends to be. Thankfully, racism ironically weeds out the bad sports since they are too racist to even allow themselves to play with the human. But after the game, Maverick rests with the others, gazing out at the nearby door that leads to the school's hallways. "I'd like to explore the school... how about you guys?"

---

After a very long brain flatline on what to do in this thread, I think I have an idea. Maybe. Here's hoping.

During the game, Echo was more eager to impress their friends than score points, so they wound up making a lot of fancy passes.

"Sure!"

"I'll show you all the fun spots."

They've had a lot of time to explore just about inch of the school, so they are very familiar with the neat, forbidden areas where even teachers never tread.

As the (theoretically) responsible adult, Joe opts to follow along outright rather than find them after they do it anyways.

Maverick seems somewhat excited that Echo knows places, but when the bunch arrive at a boiler room basement area, even Echo doesn't recognize the door down here that, when opened, leads to a hallway that just seems to keep going into the darkness to where the group can not see what is ahead.

Responsible adult or no, Echo is thrilled to have his cool buddy Joe along.  They're grinning proudly as they give their tour, but when they find the mystery door, both of them jaw-drop.

"I don't remember that being there."

"Me neither."

(One of his favorite inside jokes.)

"Maybe it's a magical door to another world."

"I wonder how far that tunnel goes."

They cup their hands to their mouths and call out, "Hello!"

Tempted as they are to prank with "Marco / Polo" voice throwing with portal shenanigans, they're too curious what the real result of calling down the hall will be to muddy the waters with such games.

  "That... is actually a possibility."  Common sense says not to open it, narrative instincts say the interesting stuff is that way.  He will meet them halfway and let children take the blame for opening it, if at all.

  "Though I can't remember 'old boiler room' ever being something good things have come from."  Though he should at least point out THAT much to them.

Tempted as the GM is to say nothing echoes back for creepiness factor, instead, they get the expected echo of their voices saying hello.

Maverick doesn't say anything (shocker!), but does look at the hall with curiosity. He begins walking down the hall.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:50, Sun 20 Mar 2016.

"S'matter, tough guy?  Scared?"

Echo is doing a decent job of hiding their own fear... for a kid.

"No worries.  If any monsters jump out, I'll just teleport us back here!"

Marco smirks mischievously.  "Unless we get sent to a whole other zone.  Then we'll be stuck!"

"Beats being stuck at school in a rain storm, though.  Let's go!"

They follow Mav in, on guard against sudden monster attacks.

  "Well, I'm likely expecting it to be worse than it actually is."  Joe, you're expecting it to be a Tomb Of Horrors 'LOL you stepped into the sphere of annihilation, idiot' scale issue at minimum. Which is just foolish.

  You can't suffer after a party wipe.

The hallway seems relatively mundane. There is a door on the left, a door on the right, and a door at the end of the hall. The left and right doors seem to be doors to rooms with desks and stuff while the door at the end just opens to stairs that lead down.

Echo looks relieved and weirded out when the side doors open to normal rooms of normal things.

"Weird.  I don't remember this place..."

They can't remember if they explored every last inch of the utility room that led to this mysterious hall.  Probably not come to think of it.  Utility rooms are doubly creepy when you're alone.  Not that he'll admit to being too scared to explore.  But since Mav took the lead last time, they wait for him to start down the stairs first before following along.

"Unless those desks are secretly monsters in disguise, then I was expecting worse than it is too."

  Perhaps in the end it shall be revealed they are dealing with the greatest monster of all. Boredom... What? Mittens would agree there.

  Still, boredom means a lack of endangered children.  Even if they are badass children.

  "Well most elementary schools don't have a Sub basement, so not knowing about it isn't surprising."  If it doesn't involve shoving Echo out of the way, Joe will opt to head down the stairs before the kids though.

Maverick certainly doesn't object to the smart thing of letting an adult go first.

There are no light switches and the stairs descend into darkness. But then, the basement lights up, as if detecting the trio coming down the stairs.

Before you is a vast room about the size of a normal Walmart and filled with just as many shelves. The shelves are filled with odd-looking little blocks of black and silver plastic (think approximately like a hard drive). There is a computer off to the right of the stairs. Looks old. Lots of dust here.

Echo doesn't mind Joe going first either.  They do a poor job of hiding how scared they are.  So much for one kid qualifying as badass.  Down in the mysterious archive, they kinda calm down.  Still very creepy, but at least it makes some sense for being under a school.

Polo dusts off the computer and sneezes.  "There's still power down here, so we can try booting up the computer."

Marco shrugs and tries booting it up.  "Probably just boring old school records."

"But maybe we'll find something interesting."

"Like if one of our teachers got in trouble a lot as a kid."

  "I think the last thing anyone is interested in are Julian Kintobor's yearbook photos."  Though he probably went to a different gradeschool anyways.

  He examines some of the Datacubes™ for any sign of labels.  Because knowing public schools, even if the contents are old beyond use the labeling will still be legible.

OOC: Datacubes™ went out of business after one too many disputes over what a shape a cube is resulted in an inter office gang war.

I also remember me and classmates in High school in the YEAR 2000 joking about Still On A Shelf In The Back Of Room textbooks.  With relevant at it's printing entries about the USSR
This message was last edited by the player at 11:19, Mon 25 Apr 2016.

The computer turns on.

The hard drives seem to be the kind you can simply plug in as externals, but are currently plugged directly into the shelves. Their labels are things like "History Archive (3000)" and "Biology Archive" and "Technology Archive"

The computer says in a soothing female voice, "Greetings. I am Archive. How may I assist you today?"

Maverick was looking at the archives with Joe, but when he hears the computer, he turns to look and walks over to it.

Echo sweatdrops.  "No Julian Kintobors among my teachers that I know of."

They look over at the computer.  "Hello, Archive.  Um...  What are you an archive of?"

"School records of faculty and students?"

"Or just general library stuff?"

He can see why this system was abandoned.  With only 1 terminal, no way it could keep up with the demands made on the school's current multi-terminal system.