Myra the librarian, ever the cataloguer, decided to sort aloud the facts as they knew them. It seemed important that they shared the information, not just because each of them knew only certain things, but because they had been brought together. Not by the counselling summons, but by the shared experience, a resonance Wren could strongly affirm as she felt her way through each of them in turn, like different instruments all about to play together.
Minsoo's focus on the basement jogged Myra's attention. Kyle had noted the layout of the first floor: lobby, reception, waiting area in the middle, the offices and counselling rooms to their right, archive, maintenance, toilet, staircase off to the left, but it was Myra who noticed how the design of the layout wasn't simply because the building's architecture determined it to be so. It seemed to her that the rooms were like partitions, dividing up what would have been larger spaces. They all knew this building had undergone (and continues to undergo) renovation. To her, the partitions seemed to have some possibly arcane purpose, to diffuse aggregated emotions? Relevant, for a place such as a counselling centre, but inexplicable if the renovations done were of the mundane sort.
Myra's thoughts about the layout seemed to coincidentally prompt Minsoo's confidence. Minsoo was now surer that there was a basement to this Redevelopment Wing, a place that occluded her, but her inability to perceive the specifics almost guaranteed it existed. For the briefest moment she thought she smelled the slightest whiff of smoke.
Kyle's method to read the room was different from Myra's. Once again he relied on his understanding of networks. The strong wifi SSID signal, ASHS_ECG, he picked up yesterday even though they were at Founder's Hall, a wholly different building, was coming from this building's server! (ECG must be the abbreviation for education and career guidance?) But no sooner did he use his newfound senses via his own phone when the device began to blink. He lost the piggyback, then the connection, then the signal reading altogether. And the phone was getting very very warm! Was it time for a restart, before things got worse?
Amidst this, and ironically while Jonathan was talking aloud about not snooping about alone, Torrance nonchalantly walked toward the left corridor. Ms Young, the admin receptionist, paid him no heed. The toilets were down that corridor after all. But Torrance did not walk all the way to the washrooms. He stopped at the door labeled Archive, and gave the handle a twist. It wasn't locked! Looking in he could see a small desk immediately next to the door, and beyond which rows of metal shelves, the near ones with neat upright files, the farther ones with dossier boxes. More filing cabinets sat right at the end. Was Torrance thinking of entering in full view? There was a chance he could find hardcopy information about the student population, although arguably new information was more likely to be computerised. At this point he could still pretend he opened the door by mistake, thinking it was the toilet.
Torrance's ducking off was ironically something more up Jonathan's alley, given his track record of disciplinary issues. But that made Jonathan right about a couple of things. One was the need to continue to talk discreetly. Perhaps Kyle could engineer a secure chat somehow (if his phone wasn't currently on the fritz). They had to be careful, what had happened to Alex, if indeed something happened to Alex, could have happened to any one of them, if they were all of the same predicament. Would this place know about what ailed Alex? According to Daniela, Alex's absence wasn't just a regular absence from school. Wren said Daniela saw it as some sort of darkness he disappeared to, and had heard Veritas talking about a girlfriend and a sanatorium. Would the name Alex Vance ring familiar to Young, who after all was the first person any student would meet if they came to the centre.
OOC:
A bunch of things.
Runekyndig, the Occult roll (apart from providing the summary which I figure is a freebie), gives Myra the idea that there's an occult reason for the way the rooms are laid out. Not like it's a pentagram or anything, more like it spreads out any previously concentrated resonance. This is affirmed by your success in the Prime roll. Narratively I'm using this success to turn the concidence into something concrete for Minsoo.
So KCC, Myra's mention of the basement gives Minsoo the affirmation that there is a basement in this building (let's make that near success a success!)
Psybermagi, unfortunately while Kyle has the place mapped out, and picked up on the wifi origin, your magick roll is our first magic of the game I think! Narratively Kyle loses the use of his phone/focus (for a while). And mark 2 points of Paradox on your sheet.
PhoenixScientist, with that roll, no issues with sneaking around. And with Arcane I'll grant even if there's a camera, no one's really paying attention because Torrance is going to the toilet. This also means he can enter the Archive unnoticed if you want. Just remember it gets more obvious the longer he doesn't come back from the loo.
Eldarin, thanks for fleshing out the auras of the PCs! Of note, Young the admin receptionist has no aura of the magic sort, (sleepers still have regular aura vibes naturally).
