A Coinbearer summit

Morning arrived swiftly, and with it, an annoying buzzing from your phone. Archer's, as well, was vibrating pretty wildly from his discarded pants on the floor. You groggily climbed out of bed, rousing Felix at the same time, to check whatever it was that someone seemed to find so important to message you so early in the--oh, it was 10 AM. You two were apparently quite exhausted from the day yesterday. You tossed Archer his phone as you stared at yours, reading the message aloud.

"...Coinbearer Summit Three. Attendance mandatory except group 2 Coinbearers. Come in base form, with coin and change of clothes. Meeting at seven, pool, gym, tours from five until ten. Food and drinks provided." You checked your phone. "Not a lot of notice for that..."

Archer scratched his head. "Tell me about it. See, I would have had to tell you about me before tonight anyway, otherwise you would've found out in a very awkward place."

You two crawled out of bed, to get washed and prepped for the day. Archer helpfully gave you a particular little pill to take this morning after, just in case. That spurred all sorts of weird questions about what might happen in the event of a preganancy, if it were even possible. Neither of you had answers, but at the same time you didn't want to take any chances.

For the first day in what felt like forever, after you two had flipped your coins and returned to normal, you parted ways to attend classes. Each class had advanced a full topic beyond whatever you were last studying, and tests were looming, as well as professors eyeing you suspiciously for your absences the past week. Great... without the chance of rising to stardom at a sport as an excuse, you were going to have to study even harder, or start dropping classes entirely. Another low-grade year might mean academic probation, and then college is done for. You at least wanted to survive until your senior year to give the baseball team a shot.

But, you had to think about today. Classes were just an agonizingly long distraction from what your mind was really focused on. How many people were going to show up to this thing? Were you going to have to demonstrate your talent for this? How big was the pool?

You and Archer met up after classes, shortly before five, both looking a little overwhelmed from what you've missed, but the workloads were already forgotten once you were in your car heading toward the mansion. You triple-checked the list, making sure you were ready for whatever might happen, knowing nothing else beyond that it sounded like it might be a bit of a party.

That was an understatement. Besides being criminally underdressed, you and Archer were among dozens of people, of all genders, shapes, ages, and walks of life. The two of you may have seemed out of place, but besides the staff--to the best of your knowledge--everyone in the room was a Coinbearer. Save for what was apparently 'group 2', you guessed this was the lot of you. Given the sheer size of the headcount at the King estate, you wondered if you would run into anyone else you might recognize from the university, or from around town.

"Look, I know you two are new to this," Alice said from behind you, causing both you and Archer to jump in surprise, "but you could have at least worn jeans without holes in the knees."

Archer held up a finger at Alice. "That presumes I have jeans without holes in the knees. But my knees gotta breathe. Hey, where's the pool?"

"More importantly, why are we here?" you added.