The PCs arrived in the city of Haleon, home of the Therian Academy (where they were all supposed to be starting classes the following week) in the afternoon of M4B41. Orientation week – a full 7 days to get acquainted with their new surroundings without the rest of the students and faculty around for distraction.
The first to arrive was Clarence Darling, who came with his father, a merchant, whose trade route took him through Haleon twice a year or so, on the way to Astrakhan. After helping set up their goodly sized wagon near the middle of town, Clarence turned his attention toward the school.
The next arrival, Lord Percival Eckhardt, rode in on his thoroughbred horse, escorted by several guards. (The son of a Duchess is not safe travelling alone, after all).
In similar fashion, and not too far behind, Hayate made his way into town with a pair of bodyguards afforded him by his parents’ position – working as bookkeepers in the Palace of Lights.
Upon arrival at the school, the new students were greeted by the head of the welcome committee, Denise Sinclaire, who informed them that they were the first students to arrive for orientation. The first, that was, other than Shanris, who had been working at the school for several weeks already following some trouble with one of the faculty members.
As evening was approaching, and the weather was unseasonably hot for the latter parts of Browning, the students were shown to their respective rooms and then released for the night to spend their time as they wished.
At night, the party took dinner as an opportunity to get to know each other better. After dinner was over, everyone except Shanris gathered in the common area and listened to Denise perform with her lute. It was immediately clear that not only was Denise a Bard, but that she was skilled enough to imbue her music with magic, making her truly remarkable to listen to. Notably, Shanris had already known this, and had been taking care to avoid her performances since arriving at the school.
After the performance was over, the humans (Denise, Percival, and Hayate) retired to their rooms to sleep for the night. Clarence meditated in his room and then spent the remainder of the night browsing through a variety of books in the school’s very impressive library, while Shanris walked around outside, keeping a loose watch.
Most of the daylight hours of the next day were spent doing various school-related activities, such as meeting the groundskeepers, receiving standard equipment, and going on a tour of the school building and grounds (which included only the public areas). As there was little else to do, the evening was again free, and spent at the local bar. Percy made conversation with the bartender, Shanris sat quietly at a table, scanning the crowd, Clarence played darts with the locals (with some success, as they were pretty drunk already, and playing for rounds), and Hayate naiively got himself hustled in poker (though he was eventually saved by Shanris, who noticed how much cash he was going through, and forced him to stop before he got himself mugged).
“You really ought to be more careful with your money, rich boy. Show the wrong person that you’re rich in this town and you’ll get yourself in some serious trouble.” Shanris slips a few gold coins into Hayate’s hand to make up for some of his losses (which, in truth, he had just pickpocketed from Hayate himself on their way out of the bar).
After a few hours at the tavern, the party returned to the school and each member spent their night in the same way they had spent the previous.
The rest of the week was fairly uneventful, consisting of more orientation activities such as paperwork, equipment familiarization, room inspection and so on – but strangely, no other students arrived. As the days went on, it became more and more apparent that Denise was beginning to worry, and finally Percy pulled her aside and asked her about it.
distracted… “Oh – it’s probably nothing. It’s just… well, classes start on the first of First Moon, and none of the professors or other students have returned yet… at least half of them should be here by now.”
The night before classes were scheduled to start, the party went out into town once more to ask the townsfolk if they had heard news of any travelers running into trouble. None of the townsfolk seemed aware of any problems, but as they were questioned, it became clear that they hadn’t heard of any travellers either. One older woman even remarked that some relatives she was expecting were overdue. The party returned to the school and retired for the evening, as it seemed that was all they could do for the time being.
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