Eliza rolled their eyes as they realized this was less about demons than being teens, "Oh gods, no, I don't eat garbage. Just go have your dreams of world domination with your billionaire slash fanfic." Their metaphorical hackles lowered, Eliza was a little relieved. Eliza could handle teen drama, that what they wanted, or so they told themself. And Eliza wasn't sure they could eat magical undead. Certainly not a group of them at once.

Except for maybe Felicia, she wasn't sure she could count on the others being so magnanimous to help her. Anthony didn't like them, Eliza was pretty sure, and Tiffany had her reputation...

Eliza closed their fists, rubbing their fingers together in a sudden lack something to do. They looked around the room to see if there were any more isolated humans looking terrified at the appearance of a giant spider and a snake woman. Eliza didn't really need a minion, but they would at least offer a little help if needed.

If there weren't anymore in their class but for Sophie, Eliza would just find an empty table end, knowing they made enough of a display already.

Eliza notes that there are only a handful of other kids in the classroom, all of whom are highly interested in not being involved in the contest of wills and prejudice. There's a boy with small horns on his head and cloven feet sitting at the large tables, a girl with glasses sitting on a bean bag she's pulled away from the low table where the undead group has concentrated, and finally, a second boy that might be human sitting at a small desk of the traditional classroom style. These three look especially pensive.

"Garbage? Who're you calling trash you damn—!" she starts to say but suddenly her mouth clamps shut. Her crimson eyes swiftly lock on Maura, who has raised a single finger.

"And just who are you glaring at? You're frightening my little Songbird," she says, before flicking her finger downward. The pale girl lurches forward onto her knees, shivering from the strain of her resistance, but ultimately finds herself prostrated on the floor. "That's better. One should never tell another to learn their place until they're familiar with their own, wouldn't you agree?" Maura then turns to Seong, who is staring in wonder and says, "We'll have a seat here," before guiding her over to a small couch sometimes known as a loveseat as it only fits two. Seong doesn't object, still a bit wide-eyed with awe.

"Miss Ebongrove, please release your classmate," the instructor says, and with a flick of her finger, the pale girl is free to move once more. She elects to remain silent with her jaw clenched in tightly leashed fury. None of her comrades make so much as a peep of protest, either.

"Right then. Hello students! My name is Gerry and I'll be your primary instructor during the homeroom period. There are several other tutors that will be floating in and out of the room and I'll introduce them as they come up. Right now, we need to take some simple assessments of your prior education, so I'm going to pass out the tablets and walk everybody through the process of setting up your accounts and taking the tests."

Tiffany frowned.  Maura shouldn't be doing that... she wasn't sure about what to do about the magic, though.  She didn't use magic herself, but magic had vulnerabilities at times.  Calling Maura out again wouldn't lead anywhere good... but there was something that she could try.  It might work, it might not, but either way, she'd learn something about Maura's magic.  And she might also draw attention to what that witch was doing...


It wasn't anything major, of course, but she got out a pen to write something down, but then fumbled with it, throwing it point-down at Maura's shadow.  Hard.

Eliza didn't offer comment or complaint to Maura's abuse of the other classmate, glancing at the shadows just momentarily. They'd already decided that Maura wasn't any more on Eliza's side than anyone else was in the room. Eliza looked a little flushed with the scene as it was, though if it was just their rage fleeing - or self-awareness filling the void - wasn't obvious.

To avoid another scene and more personal embarrassment, Eliza sat away from the cloven hoofed classmate, instead deciding to sit at a small coffee table near the mostly human kid at the desk. They flashed a short grin, half to gauge future engagement, half to try to show she wasn't actually going to bite anyone's head off. Today, at least.

Eliza wondered at the idea of taking progress testing on the first day, among peers. They wondered how obviously the scores would be shared. If this was going to be that kind of school.

Eliza resolved to beat the deadbeats, at the very least. They pulled their phone out to tap out something. To Tiffany, Eliza texted, “oof how embarrassing. Don’t bother pretending to be my frien, btw, Im gonna compete with Anthony on alienating everyone possible”

 Felicia wanted to get up and rip the Pale girl to little bits, she wouldn't eat dead flesh that is for sure. Then Maura stopped the Pale girl, and put her in her place. Felicia smiled at Maura but she also knew not to completely trust her at least not yet. Felicia wasn't sure about Maura using magic like that in school but why would she risk it not for Eliza maybe for Seong, she would watch Maura and she would smile at Seong.

 Felicia then smiled at Tiffany when she dropped her pen, Felicia was going to use her tail to pick it up for her but Maura picked it up with Magic. Reacting to Maura's response to the pen Felicia sends Tiffany a mental message," Tiffany I was going to get your pen, but Maura she is almost acting nice but I still don't trust her, but it seemed like she thought you did it on purpose though Tiffany, that is absurd."

 Then Gerry spoke and they where suppose to do testing on their educational background. Oh boy Felicia was nervous she was technically home schooled by her parents her whole life, she knew one thing she would pass the Ancient History course for sure. The rest of the courses she might need a lot of help Felicia wasn't dumb or super smart she was pretty average intelligence. She would then wait for Gerry to hand out the tablets and get this testing done with, she was getting hungry.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:57, Wed 27 Nov 2019.

Anthony has had plenty of time and is active elsewhere, so I guess he can backlog a little if he wants.

Tiffany's pen lands squarely in a thin shadow on the ground, stopping before it can penetrate the carpet. The impact causes a ripple effect to pass through the shadow, making it darker and heavier, until it resembles a solid object extending from Maura's hand. She is quite clearly unamused as she lifts her other hand and with the flick of a finger, another nearly invisible shadow picks up the pen and drops it on Tiffany's desk. "Drop something?" she says while the first shadowy arm returns to nigh invisibility.

The boy manages to return Eliza's smile, albeit with effort. The shadow arms and pens flying across the room don't seem to be helping his nerves in the slightest.

"Right, well, at this rate I had better pass out the tablets before things get more heated," Gerry says with a sigh.

"Here, I'll help," Saphee says with a smile as she positions herself rather pointedly between the feuding students.

"You're as angelic as always, Miss Saphee," he says while skittering over to unlock the cabinet that houses the electronics.

"If you're already familiar with how these work, please go ahead and start the Academy app and register an account. You can begin the assessment tests as soon as you're ready but don't take too long. There's five in total, one each for English, history, mathematics, occult lore, and the science test is a lot longer than the others. You can work in groups if you want to but you're not being graded, so you don't have to worry about failing."

This message was deleted by the player at 14:23, Wed 27 Nov 2019.

Eliza introduced herself to the other kid, since they weren’t exactly trying to present themselves as the kid who liked to pick fights with whole cliques, “Yo, I’m Eliza. I moved here from Chicago a few weeks ago and had no idea I was going to Monster High, for what it’s worth. Small towns, who knew?” More or less back to good humor after the mercurial turn to fury, Eliza more or less was willing to pretend the posturing never happened.

Eliza also motioned to Felicia to catch her attention and tried to connect telepathically. Eliza tapped their own head twice for emphasis and thought loudly at the Bastet, *Hey, Felicia, don’t hesitate to ask for help or hunker down over here if you still wanna hang after the undead wanted a bite of me. I’d be happy to help ya use these newfangled machines.* Eliza knew that Felicia wasn’t actually ancient, but she was raised to be so.

 Felicia wasn't sure what to do, she really liked Tiffany, she was amazing and so sweet and she was the most beautiful person she has ever seen. Then Maura seemed to be a bitch but she also seemed to know what she wants, and she is being so nice to Seong. Felicia was wondering if Maura was trying to be different than her mother, but Lesliegh also did not say nice things about her sister. Felicia was confused, then when Tiffany dropped her pen,Felicia thought it was totally by accident but Maura picked it up like Tiffany might have done it on purpose but Felicia didn't see it that way. Wow Felicia thought this was going to be harder than she thought being in High School with other people. Her whole life she was taught the Bastet way and the basics to deal with Humans, she knew she would do well in History especially Ancient History because her parents lived it, the other classes she really hoped Tiffany would help.

 Felicia opened the tablet, she had a computer so technology wasn't completely foreign to her but it wasn't her best abilities though, hunting was so much easier, she chuckled to herself. She looked at the tablet and was starting her tests when she saw Eliza pointing to her and her head, she was trying to open mental communication. Felicia smiles and opens the connection and she listens to Eliza. Felicia sends back," Oh my thank you Eliza Tiffany was going to help me but it seems her and Maura are squaring off and I don't know if I want to choose sides. Some of this I have no clue about, now History if you need any help that I know. Oh I would love to rip that vampire to shreds, if she hurts you at all she will feel the wrath of my War Panther form."

Felicia then smiled at Eliza and sent back again," If I need help I will ask going to the History one first, if you need help with that one just ask. Lets hang during lunch since our eating habits are closer than most likely the others." Felicia smiles and starts the testing with the History section.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:18, Mon 25 Nov 2019.

Anthony took the tablet, oblivious to the kerfuffle between Tiffany and Maura, and set it down. He ran through the steps to create an account, and then began to take the subject matter tests.

The crushing banality of standardized tests threatened to overwhelm him, but he soldiered on.

Tiffany said nothing.  She'd hoped that her pen might disrupt Maura's magic, but it was looking like there was little that she could do about the witch-girl.  At least as yet... she'd regretted it every time that she took action so far, so she'd wait.

Eliza attempted to give the impression of a head shake over the telepathic connection, “ Oh no, fam, don’t worry about it. Not sure if this is like prison or normal high school, but if you fight one of my battles then you would have to fight em all. Besides, I think they were just being asshole racist, not, like, actually racist. And feel free to poke me about any of the other topics. I passed most of my normal classes easy, I just, ah, failed to attend most days. I’ve got room over here next to the nervous human if you can’t find space next to Tiffany. And sure we can eat together. I don’t need something live for at least a few days and will eat normalish food til then, but you won’t turn my stomach, promise.“

Eliza poked at the tablet for a bit, not loading the test software immediately to see what kind of locks they put on the school hardware and internet access.

OOC:
Eliza is going to see what parts of the school network and internet she can access before doing the test. She’s not doing any hard programming but is interested if the tablets let her access school or teacher files or websites that might otherwise be blocked, from google to websites with textbook answers like Chegg.com

09:12, Today: Eliza Draper rolled 13 using 1d20+6.  Technology, poke at network security

Eliza finds the school tablet to be locked down like a medieval princess's chastity: Everything a student could want for their academic efforts is readily available, complete with all of the apps and even access to peer reviewed journals for sources, but anything else is harshly forbidden. The academy app itself is fairly intuitive to use for anybody that has grasped the basics of a smartphone, which apparently excludes Maura as Seong has to give her a crash course on the most basics of basics - starting with the need to touch the screen with her actual finger and working their way up from there.

Assuming anyone investigates, they find the school wifi uses the same usernames and passwords they just created in the academy app, but when using their own devices the restrictions are lessened to about what one would expect in a department store or shopping mall's public wifi - no games and no porn but everything else seems to work.

Gerry and Saphee have a quiet conversation that could easily be overheard by anyone focusing on them instead of their tests, and then Saphee takes her leave.



No roll required if you want to eavesdrop on the teachers but for obvious reasons I'm not typing it all up unless somebody actually listens in. If you do I'll make it worthwhile, though.

I'd like to know how well you see your character performing on the tests. If you're stuck for inspiration on how to quantify that, remember that this is a reverse classroom, so you can simply specify an approximate grade level if you desire. I'm setting up stuff for the next class behind the scenes in the mean time.

 Felicia will set up her account and get ready to start the tests, she will activate the History test first. She will then stop her testing and just make it look like she is moving on but wont start the test, she will try and listen to the conversation between Gerry and Saphee, once Saphee leaves she will then start her history test. She thought that test was extremely easy, but that is one thing her Parents knew well was history they told her all their stories through the centuries. (She would be at a Junior or Senior level in history.)

 Felicia would smile and then try the Occult test, she did fairly well but somethings mostly about magic she wasn't that good in. Any section on shapeshifters and Bastets she would do very well in. Felicia was happy with her score she just needed to learn more about real magic.
(She would score not training in magic and the rest Sophomore level.)

 Then Felicia did the math section, basic math she was extremely good at maybe it was a cat thing, but she had no experience with advanced math just basic math. She did above average on what she could answer. ( Basic Math very high level, advanced math below Freshman level.)

 She then decided to try the English test, she didn't think she would do too great in this, since her native language was Ancient Egyptian. She did okay slightly below average for a freshman. ( She would score Freshman level on English.)

 Then Felicia got to the Science test, her parents didn't teach her much about real science they didn't really believe it, except computers they had one of them, Felicia bought it actually. Anatomy she would do okay in, if their was a cat section, she would ace it, natural sciences like surviving in the forest, hunting, she would do very well at that. For the rest of the sciences she would score fairly low.
( Her score would be overall below Freshman level, listed as untrained.)

 When she was done with her tests she would wave to Gerry and say," I am done what do we do now Sir?"

Anthony is smart. Way too smart for his own good.

So as he contemplated how he would make this interesting, an idea came to him, and he set to the test with enthusiasm and energy, and completed it fairly quickly.

Except, it will turn out, not a single one of his answers were correct. Not. One.

He had, for reasons passing all understanding, decided to offset each correct answer by exactly 1 spot. The answer to question 32, which was "B, Concrete", he had listed as "A, Abstract", and the answer to question 61, which was "D, Corinthian", he had listed as "C, Ionian'.

Each answer offset by exactly 1, and decremented, in all cases. B, became, A, and A became E, wrapping around.

He was feeling quite smug by the end of it. Certainly the proctors of the test would be stunned by the fact that not a single answer would be correct? After all, with five choices for each answer statistically he should be expected to get 20% correct, just guessing.

He waited to hear what the answer to Felicia's question would be.

Eliza was never very good at multiple choice tests. Conceptually, they understood that humans liked to put things into boxes, but for them, their otherworldly self, they were from a world of nuance and insubstance, where the only absolute was the heat death of the universe.

So they kind of relied on Eliza for this sort of thing, and Eliza - the original owner of their body - was just okay at tests. Distractable, they tried to listen to the teachers chat for most of the start, or checked in with Felicia to make sure she felt comfortable using the technology. When Eliza finally realized how much time they might be wasting, they rushed to try to catch up to where others seemed to be.

History, given their mother's career and Eliza's own interest in Art and the context around it, was her easiest subject. Math and Science were next, as she was naturally pretty clever, and math was pretty integral to how they did magic.

It was acually in English that Eliza struggled the most, primarily because it was so specifically such a contextual-cultural issue. They could read it and comprehend fine, and probably explain it, but when suddenly asked to identify typos, grammar, or punctuation failures, it tended to befuddle Eliza. The sentence just needed to make sense, why does it matter if it's in passive voice?

Eliza's magical understanding was secondhand from Eliza's body companion, but would be oddly, patchwork. Easily "magical college" level on a conceptual level, but struggling with one or two strange specifics. Figuratively, they knew how to multiply in magic, but didn't understand division, and had to take extra steps to convert everything to a form that Eliza could manage. The answers were right, but if any work had to be shown, it was a far more complicated answer than was necessary.

(OoC: I sort of expect Eliza to get a solid senior level in history (art knowledge and their mother is a historian, junior in Math and Science, and freshmen in english language (Higher in reading comprehension). Eliza is very knowledgeable in magic but has strange gaps in early or mundane skills because of their origin being off Earth. She's probably slow or worse in testing than reality because being nuerodivergent doesn't always lend itself well to tests. )

Tiffany sighed, frowned, and concentrated.  She was reasonably bright, but not an actual genius, and unlike some students, she'd been through the school system already.  She was from a privileged background, and while the circumstances of her family life changed their long-term goals markedly from how pure-bred humans operated, there were expectations of schoolwork.  It actually calmed her down a bit-- this was familiar; this was solid ground.  She focused and ground out the work.

I think she'd do pretty well on all standard subjects; average adult-level Int and a lot of good support stuff, plus the many benefits of an upper-class background.  (Tutors, plenty of time to study, good nutrition, etc)

I'm gonna just, bypass the whole conversation between Gerry and Saphee. It won't cause any problems for anybody to skip it, but I gotta do what I gotta do.

Anthony, Eliza, Felicia, and Tiffany all finish their tests before Maura and Seong, in no small part due to the aforementioned lack of familiarity with modern technology the Ebongrove girl has. "If you're done, you can go ahead to lunch early. The app will show you your schedule if you need it, but you can't take the tablets out of this room," Gerry informs the class at some point during this process.



The cafeteria, should the students elect to go there for chow, is a comfortable cafe style room with plenty of space for the kids to move around and sit in the booths and tables, although not every such booth or table has a seat for the larger-bodied species. Orders are made from several touch screen kiosks mounted on the walls, which print out numbered tickets, which are in turn shown on a large flatscreen when the order is ready to be picked up. The menu isn't exhaustive, but it covers all of the bases well, and there are various self serve counters with cereals, salad fixings, and pastries as well.

Tiffany went through the cafeteria line.  This wasn't really good food, of course, but it was here, and she could eat it.  She tended to load up on the proteins as much as she could-- she was a growing young lady, and her hybrid genetics put her metabolism into overtime-- and she was trying to be healthy, so she got some greens on the side.

But where to sit?  She looked around to see where the others were.

 Felicia would get up quietly when she was done and follow Tiffany to the cafeteria. Felicia would look for special orders, and order either live food or raw meat to eat. Once her food was done she took her tray and walked up beside Tiffany, she then said," Hello Tiffany is it ok if I sit with you, I also asked Eliza to join us as well, if that is ok?" Felicia then points to a large open table, so the others could join them when they where done with the tests.

"Of course," said Tiffany, picking a table that had room for them all to sit together.

Tiffany finds that there no such line, as multiple ordering terminals are available when she enters. All of the students present right now appear to be freshmen, released early to lunch once their tests are complete.

The menu accounts for the carnivorous nature of some students, offering large portions of meat as entrees without accoutrements of any sort. These include various organs not generally eaten by humans, which contain vital nutrients, and a notice in the menu system reminds students browsing this section to be mindful of their diet in much the same way that the software encourages picking fruits and vegetables for the omnivores.

Eliza was enamoured with the show of advanced technology in contrast with the mythology of consumers. They took their time and ended up ordering two full meals, neither light but both cooked, having skipped a breakfast that morning, something they rarely did. Live food could wait until later that evening. They weren't behind yet, but would need to feed on something smarter than a rodent in the next couple days. Eliza figured two cheap human meals couldn't be more expensive than the raw liver on the menu.

Eliza waited for their food before heading over to Tiffany and Felicia's seat, steeling themself to not be embarrassed by their burger, fries, and two slices of pizza. "Heya, how the tests go for you two? Also? So weird sitting with other people at school. I'm used to finding a small corner to hide away in."

"But now all the things that hide in the shadows are in school together," Tiffany pointed out.  "Why hide?"

She took several rather savage bites of her food.

"I think I did all right on my tests," she continued.  "I'm a pretty good student."

Eliza shrugged, "Oh there may have been a time  where I took down all the bathroom signs in the school and installed them on rows of the school bleachers rows. Some people get offended at the impropriety and you can't eat people on school property. I'll have to find out what kinds of places around this school would be good for hiding from monsters who don't enjoy art."