Different place same story...mostly

Their shared apartment was relatively close to Lambda, though it was still quite the walk. The streets were clean, well maintained. Rob spotted a few workers wearing work clothes with the Lambda school logo, the Greek symbol that was its namesake. It looked almost like a hand holding a crowbar to him.

They made sure to exchange pleasantries with these workers if they could, after all, that would be them soon and it made no sense to antagonise upperclassmen anyways.

Soon they arrived at the campus, Lambda College was more a loose collection of buildings peppered in amongst greenery than one cohesive campus. The paths flowed lazily among the greens, there were very few lawns in direct sunlight, there was a mix of wild and cultivated flowers around clusters of thickets. There were small paths leading off inside, faint outlines of benches could be seen, presumably a place for people to eat lunches in peace.

Rob and Mars removed their shoes to walk on the grass barefoot, they always liked the sensation of grass underfoot.

They hastily put their shoes back on before entering the first years’ orientation at the large auditorium, a large all-purpose lecture hall. And buckled down for a standard thoroughly boring induction speech.

An hour later, their expectations completely met, they left without any new information other than their assigned jobs for the semester. They had already made sure to properly inform themselves of the expectations and policies for the school so it should have been no surprise that the induction would inflict psychic damage.

Their first class, Introduction to responsible residency was similarly droll, merely informing them of what to expect from class and various assessment deadlines.

The rest of the day followed suit, their first year had a heavy focus on instructions for integrating into their new roles in society, learning to care for each other and themselves. Understanding their rights and freedoms and the lines that were drawn.

-x-

Lunchtime was not very different from high school, though the scenery was quite nice, tables interspersed among the greens, wild grasses and trees sheltering clusters of tables.

Mars was absently eating a sandwich, much more focused on the small hieroglyphs she was doodling into her notebook.

“Whatcha up to M?”

It took a few moments for the comment to register.

“Hmm what?” she blinked, clearing the brief funk. “Oh yea this, uhm, I had this weird dream last night and now I can’t get these hieroglyphs out of my head.”

“Well, you were watching the history channel the other day, what was it this time? Aliens?.”

Mariza giggled, Cassandra took the notebook and started writing around the glyphs, her frown and subsequent taking out of her phone completely unnoticed by the other two.

“No it wasn’t aliens, they were actually talking about a collapsed tunnel in one of the great pyramids, apparently some sort of structural part failed. There was some weird writing on the part of the stone blocks that was uncovered because of it.”

“Oh, is that what you were drawing there?”

“No, they couldn’t really make it out well, they suspect its normal hieroglyphics but they made a lot of fuss about using some sort of software to reconstruct what was likely written.”

Cassie chose that moment to but in.

“Are you sure your fat ass didn’t change the channel? This sounds like a level of rigor unseen from them.”

“Cass!” Both Rob and Mars hissed.

She took no notice, instead showing them the annotated glyphs.

“These, are interesting though, none of them exactly match any hieroglyphics on the internet, they’re also incredibly regular.” She pulled a ruler and protractor off the table to show them. “See how they are all comprised of straight lines and tidy angles?” Her mouth pursed to the side. “If it weren’t for the fact I watched you draw them I would have thought they were done with a straight edge or a printer.”

The others took the notebook and checked for themselves.

“Where I have you been keeping this calligraphy talent all this time M?” He demanded.

Spotting the tension Mars gave him a hug, “I don’t know, I cant say I’ve ever drawn a straight line before in my life, ruler or no ruler.”

He regained his spirit quickly, jumping up.

“You guys know what this means right?”

“Cthulhu no not this again.”

“We’ve got a mystery on our hands.” He finished dramatically.

Cass sighed, “is this going to be like the mystery of why the entire football team got benched?”

Both Rob and Mars went beet red at that.

“Because as fun as watching the football team get pegged by the cheerleading team was I don’t know if the weeks of assing about was worth it.”

“No, no there will be no pegging this time, just a good, clean family friendly mystery.”

He missed that highly dubious looks his friends gave him for that declaration.