♠

Pick a card, any card.

Spades

"Excuse me."



You awake to the sound of someone anxiously trying to get your attention, yet simultaneously giving the impression that he'd probably prefer it if you just stayed asleep. He seems kind of familiar but you can't place him. From a cursory glance you think you might be at your school but you don't really remember how you got here?

"Ahh you're not dead." The guy says. "Good well that's one scandal dodged." He pauses, for a moment you think that having satisfied himself that you are not a corpse he's done with this conversation, then continues. "Well, it was terribly nice to meet you, if you could just unlock the door we can both go on our ways then that would be just terrific. You do have the key don't you?"



Having realized he's not going to help you up, you get to your feet yourself. You don't think you have a key to this place but it's all a little hazy at the moment.

Search self for key.

Check your pockets. Maybe you have a key... or even a keycard?

check your invventory

>Inspect belongings

You're not generally in the habit of locking yourself in unfamiliar rooms with strangers, but you check your pockets anyway. You find a cigarette lighter, an empty packet of cigarettes, a torn scrap of paper stained with ink and a crumpled twenty pound note (score), but no key. Not even a keycard. You give the guy a cursory shrug.

He promptly turns away and mutters to himself: "Well that's just great."

> Snout punching is definitely in order here.

Even when you haven't spent the night sleeping awkwardly against a hard wood desk, you aren't exactly at your most civil first thing after waking and this guy being an ass is not helping his case, but you think you can just about refrain from inflicting physical violence on the guy. For now.

Ask what it is about you he loathes.

"What is your problem?" You snap.

The guy looks back at you, sighs and then says, in a more carefully polite tone of voice: "Look, I'm sorry, it's nothing personal. It's just that I have a reputation to uphold and being seen with people like you isn't going to do me any favours." A quick pause and then almost an afterthought: "No offence."

Wow, it's almost like this asshole wants to be punched. "First of all, who is even going to see you?" You snap. "It was my understanding we were trapped in this improbably fortified classroom. Not much chance of word getting out and ruining your precious reputation and second of all you think I want to be seen associating with some smug dickweed in his dad's suit?"

In any other situation you'd be straight out the door, but the fact that you can't does afford you the pleasure of watching his reaction.

"I'll have you know this is my own suit." He eventually, feebly, retorts. An awkward silence follows and you decide to go and see if you can't find a way out of here. The sooner the better.

Try the door, looks metallic? Red too.

A quick knock on the door confirms your suspicion that it is metallic. It's definitely red, no doubt about it; looks recently painted. There's a box on the wall next to the door with a screen with a cross on it and a single unmarked button. For the sake of argument you give the button a press but nothing happens. Your attempts at prising the door open with your bare hands are just as fruitful. When that fails you give up on that door for the moment and head over to the other one.



The other door isn't red nor does it have a profoundly unhelpful wall mounted control box, it does however have a combination lock. There's space here for eight digits; four groups of two.

>Try to recollect. What do you remember doing last before waking up ?

It's difficult but you try. The last thing you really remember for sure was waiting for your mom to leave. She'd got a message from the school the day before that you'd not been attending classes and she'd insisted on dropping you off. You were just relieved she didn't intend on physically marching you into class. Anyway you were waiting for her to leave so you could too, but you think you must have given up and gone inside. Anything after that is jumbled and indistinct and kind of hurts your head to think about.

> Try to remember where you are.

> Where are you anyway? Examine room.

You don't know. It's a classroom. You'd guess it's probably your school but if so they've really beefed up security since you last attended class.



At the back of the room there are a couple of desks and an enormous pile of unmarked papers. You don't really have an explanation for that. Teachers strike maybe?

> Give the apple

> Throw something at him, claiming it's the key.

> Throw the apple

It's tempting, but this situation is awkward enough without you pelting him with fruit.

search the desk, knocking everything on the floor in the process

Yeah, you don't think that's helped at all.

Also, look for hidden items in the plant pot, you never know.

Anything's worth a try.



You find a small key with a copper coloured keyfob with G-A-9 printed on it.





"Hey what's that." Captain Asshole asks, but before you can decide whether you want to share your new discovery with him or not, he's seen for himself. "Oh thank god!" He exclaims in relief. "Come on then. I can't stand being trapped in here one more minute."

"You do realize that neither of the doors actually have keyholes, right?" You ask. The momentary look of jubilation drains from his face in a way that you would enjoy so much more if it wasn't for the fact that you're still stuck in here with him.

"Wha- uh - I - Are you sure?" He stammers, but quickly recovers. "Okay, I can see why that might seem problematic but it's a key. Keys open doors. Honestly it's not that difficult. You haven't even tried the key so how can you be so certain?"

You don't really know how to respond to that. Maybe you should just give him the key to shut him up while you try to work out how to actually get out of here.



"Look, I'm sorry we got off to a bad start." The guy says. "It's clear we're very different people, but why don't we at least try to be civil and work together to get out of here and then we never have to see one another again?"

All right, let's work together. But you're holding on to the key.

Maybe there's a secret door behind some of those piles of papers?

Give him the key, it's not like he can run off with it
(watch captain asshole lose the key somehow)

You must be registered to view this content.

> Try searching the desks in back.

Oh hey! I remember running into this on the MSPA forums! If I remember right, the first card picked was actually Celtic Guardian but Spades was the runner up. Hope I'm not to late to join the adventure!

>Search the very concept of searching.

take his hand, as if you're gonna shake it. then use him as a crowbar