Today was going to be a strange day, sometimes you can just feel this kind of thing in the air. Last night was not a good one, anxiety made sleeping almost impossible and the idea of being seen made exploration unappealing as well. In the end Lucianus decided to train and make sure nobody would see him by mistake again, he was not good at conventional stealth so he decided to hide in plain sight, just where people would normally not look, up on the rooftops. After half the night spent standing on top of buildings hoping to not be seen sleep was finally reachable.
School was an ordeal, the paranoia was already enough but the sudden reappearance of the green haired teen from two nights ago made it worse. The subject did not seem to notice him, he was almost in a trance when entering the classroom, judging by the bags under his eyes and a couple of burst vessels in them it was sleep deprivation, which checks out with the information from before. The witness sat a couple desks in front of the vampire so they did not have clear line of sight on eachother, Lucianus kept observing him for any signs of interst but the tired fellow did not seem to reciprocate, he oscillated between states of more or less sleepy, he even fell asleep a couple of times on the desk. The sleep sessions seemed to be planned as they started on break moments, he never quite seemed to wake up in time however and for some reason the vampire felt compelled to help him so he shook him awake attempting to not be noticed.
As school came to a close and the time for the meeting drew closer as well Lucianus was torn between two objectives, getting to the meeting and confronting the sleepwalker. He decided to follow the green boy for a bit, but if no opportunity presented itself to try and talk he would run back to the meeting, he should be fast enough for that. As the target moved however he noticed him heading in a familiar direction, the club room, could it be just a coincidence? It would not appear so as the other teen calmly entered the room, sat at a table in the middle of it, and promptly fell asleep. Not only his witness was a classmate, he was also part of the same online group, this raised a lot of questions, who was he? And did he make the connection already? Some key factors started standing out, the small food box in front of him meant he was either "Nossey06" or "Zero Sum Game", they both promised to cook something and even got requests from the others, Lucianus believed it was in poor taste to just start making orders to what was sounded like a joke but the cooking was done, the slight smell of sugar meant he even got some of the fancy orders. They say to never judge a book by it's cover and Lucianus was an expert on books, but sometimes the signs are clearer than you would expect, it was an 80% chance it was Zero Sum Game.
Having identified the sleepy worker did not make attempting interaction any easier, right now was the right time, but what if he got it wrong? It could just be a tired and overworked student seeking a place to rest, just as the vampire was about to try and enter he heard quick steps coming from down the hallway, so in a panic he hid behind a corner. A girl approached the door and after some hesitation went in, it seem another member of the group arrived, or it could be another student sent to clean, the last one did not finish the job after all, just to be sure Lucianus decided to move in closer to make sure he did not get the wrong people. The girl shook the overworked student awake and they started talking, the conversation confirmed his suspicions, the green haired teen apparently named Shun was Zero Sum Game, the girl apparently named Tojo was Nossey06, they both actually cooked something. With conflicting emotions and at least some questions answered Lucianus was gathering courage to enter the room when a very energetic voice takes him by surprise "Lucianus! You're part of the group too? Why don't you go in?", The panic was interrupted by another voice from within this time "Verdeus, a good friend, with an appropiate host", "What?", "Come on! Don't be shy, we can wait inside". Without waiting for a reply Lucianus was dragged into the room, and after some apprehensive stares and an exchange of names the meeting could be considered started.
People kept showing up after that, some older than the students as was to be expected, it was late enough that it should not be a problem. Lucianus was stunned by the interactions, but did his best to not think about stange things fo a while, unsuccessfuly as it was still in the back of his mind but at least he managed to make conversation, at least he thinks he did. When the conversation starts calming down and people start addressing the clear sleep problems Shun has it seems like everyone that wanted to make it is there, everyone shows concern in a different way, and the explaination of "Poliphasic sleep" does not seem to calm them much, but on his part it's not his buisness to pry in so he does not know what to say. The situation is strange and the voice in his head comes back in his memory, there is another soul apparently, during the course of this meeting the others also seemed to interact with the other table if in a distracted manner, the put some food on it so they must see it. As the pale boy observes the room and the meeting is about to properly start he searches for an opportunity to bring up the table, and then the voice returns, "Just say it, you will not find a more natural moment anyway", and so he just blurts it out, "Can we talk about the table?".
Surprise is what most react with, confusion about which table, but after a quick correction there is also recognition. Amaury, the energetic voice that dragged him in and triggered a reaction from his soul clearly recognized the runes, now someone else could try and explain with him. It does not seem to work particularly well as some members of the group are almost in a daze staring at the table, they start chanting, an attempt at stopping them is made but it's too late, this time at least he is not alone but there will be a lot more to explain and even more questions for himself as well.
The meeting went better than he dared hope, everyone took the existence of the other world pretty well, more or less, the souls did a good job explaining from what it looked like. It was chaotic sure, but nobody tried to kill eachother or got killed so that's a start. The following times were also surprisingly calm, probably a consequence of having to get used to a whole new world. For Lucianus the new worlds may as well be two, he only started really exploring his own after going to the other one. His new habit of jumping from rooftop to rooftop allowed him to notice many things he could not before, or even things he would simply ignore. One night he managed to pick up something that would be more important than everything he discovered of the city up to now, it started normally enough and turned into something much more serious, he had to act fast.