"Here's hoping."

She gets out of the elevator and looks around.

There's a hallway off in two directions. There's also a scorch mark on the walls. 

"Oh, I am going to find out who did that..."

But Juniper leads her past that, to a big common area. Lots of couches, lots of tables, some TVs, all in durable-plastic college style. There's a few people there, mostly women.

"<Hey Juniper, new face?>" One calls out. The System translation is getting much smoother, but it's still subtitles.

"Yep!"

"<I'm Liao. Can you settle an argument for us? Eh, you probably want to settle in first. Sorry.>"

"I'm Bluebell. And I don't know much, but I can try!"

"<I have a skill called 'Imbue Metal', and some others for doing metalworking. I also have a spell impression that takes imbued metal and turns it into lightning, and I bought the parts for a director and assembled it myself. The question is though, should it still count as something I made myself if I pay someone else with Imbue Metal to do a lot of imbuing? I can only do it a few times a day before it stops working. And it's really more like filling up a gas tank than a critical manufacturing process.>"

"<We've established that buying parts doesn't count, but following someone else's blueprint exactly would,>" Another person comments. "<And Liao didn't, she broke three prototypes before getting it right. But imbuing the metal isn't like gas- It stays imbued pretty much forever. Or a couple of years, at least. It's part of the assembly process. Turns it uhhh... Magically conductive.>"

"The design's yours, the optimizations to it are yours, you could do it yourself from the raw metal - that's more than enough. People still say they "built a computer" even if they just put together a GPU and a CPU and some RAM, or a birdhouse if they bought the screws. If anything I'm more on the "it's fine to use prefab parts" side of this discussion. I see nothing wrong with contracting out some of the busywork."

"<See?>"

"<Fine, fine. And welcome to the building, miss Bluebell. I prefer to go by Mai.>"

"Good to meet you, Mai, Liao. I hope to get to know you over the coming weeks."

She looks back at Juniper. "So which of these rooms is mine?"

"Right this way. You're room 2, unit 302- You have one roommate right now, and the other two will probably fill up soon. The System will unlock the doors for you."

The room is a lot nicer than the common areas. The central area has a big window out to the park, and a big fancy kitchen along with an old style arcade machine in a corner and what looks like some sort of holographic puzzle toy hovering over a coffee table.

The bedroom itself is big, and slightly barren in that hotel-y generic style, and has an ensuite bathroom.

"We typically warn pretty hard against power use in the dorms, whoever burned the wall is in big trouble. I bet the other night guide took care of it, since I didn't hear anything. Anyway. Feel free to rearrange the furniture however you like if your roomies agree, or even add new pieces! As long as it's not dangerous! Your only roommate for the moment is named Amaris Fuller, and she's at a tour event of Wright supply stores downtown now."

"Just to be clear, is it cool if I do my feng shui thing to my personal room or is that countermanded? All it should do is make it a bit more comfortable."

"Does your Skill do anything to the furniture, walls, et cetera directly?"

"No, it just uses arrangements of existing things when it's in interior design mode."

"Then I officially declare it A-okay!"

"Wonderful! Thank you very much, I guess I'll get started settling in then."

"Please feel free to send me a message or come by the office any time. I like to talk about plans for the future with everyone at some point. But for now I'll say goodbye and let you settle in. Have a good one!"

And Juniper is gone.

She waves goodbye, then steps into her room and closes the door, setting her pizza down on the desk to get the doorhandle.

She flops onto the bed.

So, girls. What do you think? 

It's really a lot all at once, but it seems like the system - both metaphorically and literally - is on our side here. I'm concerned about the Artonans having a drug problem and I don't super like the curfew, but it's not too different from living at home.

And what do we think about... our own family situation.

We were going to be moving out soon anyway. Sure, it kind of sucks to not be able to see them again, or any of our old friends, but it's like moving to a different school. It happens. 

Everybody here is going through something very similar to us, and while the culture is weird - seriously, I can go to a brothel but not quit school? - I consider having actual literal superpowers a pretty good compensation for ending up here. 

We're going to get wealthy and help a lot of people, and that's worth a lot to me.

Honestly the worst part of this whole thing is still being stuck in university. 

Sure, but that's really same old same old. It's not a major downgrade from where we were before.

I get the sense that the system's actually trying. Even if it is kind of... 

"If you have superpowers and are a law abiding citizen you must live on this island" sure is... very itself. And I get the distinct sense that Earth and the Artonans are working at cross purposes. But as systems go, it could be a lot worse.

I'm uncomfortably reminded of the residential schools program, only this time superpowered people are the natives.