Thankfully, Alice had known where to go, apparently having toured the entire campus already in the time it had taken Cael to wake up and deal with his own enrollment issues.
What exactly the demons had been doing during that time was still a mystery, but Cael didn’t really care to ask.
‘R200’ turned out to be the first residence unit by the stairs of the second floor in a completely different building.
As close as Cael could tell, ‘R’ stood for ‘Residence’, but that brought into question the validity of direct alphabetical translations. Was [Read] using information he didn’t have to more accurately translate the words he was given?
It was also possible that it was just a coincidence. Cael would need to test it once he’d settled in.
And that was a whole other issue.
Cael just lay on the couch and stared at the ceiling while Crash and Alice argued about rooms and bathrooms.
Thankfully, there was more than one bathroom. Among the four small bedrooms, there were two joint bathrooms. Each was connected to two of the rooms.
Since they hadn’t fully moved in yet, there wasn’t much to be said of the homeliness of the dorm, but Cael figured it functioned well enough.
When entering the common area of the dorm, the first thing you noticed was a living room of sorts. It was as barebones as possible. Made up entirely of one couch that Cael was laying on and a low table, empty of all decorations aside from a list of advertisements for businesses in the area.
Off to the side a bit, there was a dining table with a chair for each of them. Set had turned around one of those chairs and was watching Crash and Alice argue in the kitchen just past the living room and dining area.
Aside from the couch, all of the furniture looked and felt like plastic.
Beyond the kitchen was a balcony that looked out onto a field that was presumably used for practice.
Crash and Alice were both against sharing a bathroom for various reasons.
Crash’s reasons mostly just summarized to mean that he didn’t feel like sharing. He was definitely trying to make some point about his high social status, but Cael was having difficulty focusing.
He was still suffering the effects of the emotional overload earlier and was in constant danger of nodding off.
On the opposite end of the spectrum from Crash, Alice defended her right to her own bathroom by citing a biological quirk of her species and then describing in detail an alien process of periodically laying eggs and becoming highly territorial.
From the bits Cael managed to catch, it sounded pretty brutal and about a thousand times more valid than anything Crash had said.
‘Cael, this conversation is going nowhere,’ Ava interjected, which meant it was starting to annoy her. And that meant she wanted him to do something about it.
He huffed and sat up groggily.
“This conversation isn’t going anywhere,” Cael parroted Ava since he was still tired and didn’t see any reason to rephrase what she’d said. “Set and I are also people, so we should also have some say in this. If it’s okay with Alice, I can share a bathroom with her and just deal with the whole egg thing when it happens. Likewise, since Crash and Set already know each other, I’m sure it wouldn’t be too much trouble to share until we figure out some other accommodation.”
Both Alice and Crash had small frowns on their faces.
“That’s literally what I proposed a minute ago. Why didn’t you speak up when I said it then?” Alice’s brow furrowed in frustration and the spider legs on her head twitched.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
“You did? I’m sorry.” Cael scratched the back of his head and looked away sheepishly. “I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m just finding it difficult to concentrate right now.”
He covered a comically timed yawn with his hand, which noticeably lessened her irritation.
Alice sighed.
“Fine. Since I trust there won't be any additional concerns, we'll be doing that.” She stared at Crash with an eyebrow raised as if daring him to object.
When there was nothing, she turned on one heel and marched away to claim her room.
Cael watched as she passed by him to enter the right-side room closest to the unit door. That meant he would be rooming on the right side by the balcony.
Now that the matter had been decided, Cael got up to go lay down on a proper bed.
The couch was lumpy.
“Changeling.” Crash stopped him before he could even get halfway across the common area. “You mentioned that Set and I know each other already. What exactly did you mean when you said this.”
“Hmm? Oh. I just thought you two acted like friends. Was I wrong?” Cael shifted uneasily on his feet.
Something about the way Crash spoke put Cael off balance.
He was so self-assured that Cael felt out of his element just interacting with him.
“No. You were correct, I was simply curious as to your reasons.” Crash waved his hand to dismiss Cael and turned to look at Set thoughtfully.
Was that all he’d wanted to ask? Odd, but Cael wasn’t mentally present enough to try puzzling out why that seemed to be such a concern.
He went into his new room and shut the door.
Ava locked the door behind him and he yawned.
Since it was still pretty bright out, the room was still illuminated by the window along the wall to his left. It was even more bare than the common area.
Aside from a twin bed and a desk with a digital clock on it, there wasn’t anything else to be found in the room.
To his right, were two doors. The one further into the room was open and revealed itself to be a closet. Through the one closer to him, he could hear Alice already taking advantage of her bathroom privileges.
The shower was running and Cael could hear her softly singing.
[Read] wasn’t translating her words, so either she was too muffled, or she was singing in a language she didn’t understand either.
Cael had kind of wanted to take a shower, but he was technically cleaned when he’d stepped through Layla’s door a couple of hours ago.
He figured it would be fine to just sleep.
Curiously, Cael hadn’t needed to actually use the restroom yet. He wondered if that was just not something changelings did, but that didn’t make a lot of sense biologically.
‘I’m pretty sure it’s because you keep getting hurt. The System needs to get the material to heal you from somewhere.’
That made a bit more sense, but it meant he should be eating a lot more.
His stomach grumbled in confirmation of this thought.
Despite this, he was quite sure that lunchtime had already come and gone while he was busy, and the state of the dormitory indicated that there would be no food for him even if he were to go looking.
Instead of worrying about that, Cael dropped the handle on his luggage and flopped onto the bed.
There were no blankets or pillows, but Cael had passed out in less comfortable places.
:[:]:[:]:[:]:
Cael had passed out the moment his head hit the pillow.
Tar felt the familiar connection go fuzzy and Cael’s train of thought cut off and knew he would be out for at least a few hours.
He slipped out of the room under the door and slid out onto the balcony.
Unlike Ava, he could move practically anywhere he wanted.
Because of this, and due to the bet he had lost to her, he was in charge of exploring and mapping the rest of the campus before Cael woke up. This included marking areas of interest, scouting for nearby dangers, and tracking down all of Cael’s classes.
Room numbers and classtimes had been helpfully marked down in the schedule book Lady Lar had given them two hours prior.
Each of these had been additionally inscribed in the soulscape and was left to Tar to go looking for them on the doors of each classroom and lecture hall.
Logically, Tar was aware that he would have been playing this role regardless.
Ava needed to stay beside Cael while he slept in order to keep guard. Her physical form allowed her to act as a much more effective guardian and since Tar could move much faster than she could, he would be able to return from anywhere on campus in a fraction of the time it would take her.
While he couldn’t know for himself what was happening near the changeling due to the low range of the familiar bond, a portion of himself still resided in Cael’s soul at all times. If anything occurred, he trusted Ava to alert him.
In the form of a cat, Tar leaped down from the balcony and set out on an adventure of his own.
Knowing Cael's luck, he might not have much time to work.