2nd Floor Common Room Saturday Afternoon

[not_a_haint]

It was really, very, incredibly cold outside. Which was unfortunate for a number of reasons, one of them being that Caleb was feeling poorly, emotionally speaking and his usual remedy of going for a broody walk was, well not out of the question but seemed like it would be counter productive.

So instead, he was listening to the radio, as he attempted to make pizza. Well a few pizzas as the pre-made crusts only came in so many sizes.

The current music selection was actually doing a fairly good job at alleviating some of his angst.

Comments

[sairis]

Sairis smiled. "Never underestimate beans." They'd been a mainstay of his diet.

"I'm still not sure about the combat class," he said. "And a few of them were nothing but watching 'movies' this week. Which are frustrating." There were so many cultural references he didn't understand! "What about yours?"

[not_a_haint]

Caleb grimaced about the movies. "Yeah I got dropped into th' deep end with movies. I'm not sure what Miss Dooley or whoever was in charge o' signin' me up for classes was thinkin' 'Cinema Studies' would be, but I doubt it was this. Course I dunno if they thought any of it was gonna be how it is. I been tryin' t' ease myself in a bit on my own which has been goin' fairly well.

"Other'n that, I'm takin' creative writin', Feed Yourself which has been very helpful, and Th' Long Con. I think that's the one that's gonna give me the hardest time, but it might also be th' one that'll be of th' most use."

[sairis]

"The Long Con? What's that?" Sairis asked.

[not_a_haint]

"Do you got snake oil salesmen where you're from? Folks who come into town hawkin' some potion or other they swear will cure what ails you, then leave before anyone figures out it's all a fake.

'Parently another word for 'em is con men. A long con, I have recently learned is a scheme that can take weeks, maybe months t' complete." He hesitated, but decided that it was probably safe to confide in Sairis about this. "There's folks who mean me harm that might still be lookin' for me back home. So I need t' learn how t' pretend t' be someone I ain't."

[sairis]

Sairis grimaced. "That makes sense. A lot of people back home would want to kill me, too." Not that he had much hope of pretending to be someone else. Not for long, anyway. It seems an odd thing for a class, though."

[not_a_haint]

"It does. This school isn't quite what I was expectin'," understatement of the year, "But then nothin' about this entire island was. Although, given' my relatively isolated upbringin' I'm not sure I could say exactly what I was expectin'.

"My learnin' was pretty basic. I got my letters, learned basic 'rithmatic, maybe a more balanced picture o' history than some, but not a lot 'bout anythin' outside o' Appalachia. Mostly we learned how ' survive in the wilderness, fix stuff, take care o' animals.

"Oh an' Appalachia is a pretty big swath o' land in the Appalachian mountains."

Oh! He'd found an atlas lying around. Where had he put it?

[sairis]

"I have no idea how I even have classes, since I certainly didn't intend to come here," Sairis said. "I grew up with one old man in a tower, though I did manage to watch some classes at the university remotely." He shrugged. "My master taught me just about everything I know."

Well, he'd known some basics before that, but he tried not to think about that time in his life.

[not_a_haint]

As usual, when it came to hard luck, or weird experiences, Caleb had been one upped. "That is a puzzle. I wonder if...could a portal to this place have spontaneously opened, and then the universe just kinda adapted to your presence?" Caleb had no idea what he was talking about, and he knew it.