Izzy’s Room

 

–Isn’t it neat how everyone rooming at Martin’s gets these rooms? It wasn’t long after I arrived that I started to really make my room mine. It doesn’t look like a hotel room anymore, but I’m trying hard to keep it looking neater than my bedroom back on Beck Island. I’d just die if a cleaning MS came in my room and found it looking like Edith’s room, no offense to Edith.

 

Old-Fashioned TV Set

 

–I’m crazy about this artifact! It’s older some of the things they have in the second floor museum! Sam says that these were put in every room in the dorms back in the 40’s when they were the cutting edge of technology. They’re like a noos projector, but limited only to electric signals, and can only display on a tiny box. It’s kind of neat!

 

–When I get real close up to one, I can see the projection break down into tiny red, blue, and green lights. Sam says his grandmother told him that if you stared too hard at a television, it would fry your brain. Here’s hoping it’s not true!

 

–I love how it has such a presence in my room! It’s not like a noos projection that you can put on the wall or ceiling or floor with just a snap of the fingers. Its all on a screen (and not the kind you can touch), which is on a box on a shelf in my room. It’s…well, it’s like it’s more real than a noos projection. That’s the best way I can describe it.

 

Smokey The Cat Plush

 

–This cheap plush is near and dear to my heart. They sell them at the school store, and after I aced the Smokey the cat test in ERC I just had to pick one up.

 

–Some people say the test is cheap, and maybe they’re right. The test is that you’re in the suburbs and there’s a house fire, and in a third story window of the house is very skittish cat. If you try and just grab Smokey, he’s going to run back inside and get fried. But if you coax him out, or just do nothing, he’ll jump to a nearby tree and climb his way down to safety. Cheap? Maybe, but it teaches two important lessons. The first is the first rule of superheroics–do no harm. Make sure your presence and actions don’t make things worse before you do anything else. The second is to pay close attention to the people you’re trying to safe. They aren’t juts practice dummies, people will have their own quirks and behaviors.

 

–I managed to get the test right on my first go, something they say is rare. Here’s to keeping up the good work! Smokey the cat, considered yourself rescued, and conquered!

 

Star Shield Collection

 

 

–Star Shield is the new arcade game at Alan’s Arcade. Edith and Yomi are both big fans, so I got caught up in it too. I got to be careful not to blow all my allowance on Star Shield cards…otherwise, I won’t have any left for Multiverse Match cards!

 

–Star Shield is a combination of air hockey and a trading card game. You use three cards to create a shield, and then you use this shield and the abilities it gives to protect your goal the puck, called a star to keep with the theming. It looks really cool when the shields explode!

 

–It’s supposed to be really big in Japan, from what I’ve heard.

 

Pai-Gow Tiles

 

 

 

 

–A memento from when Monster took me to palace in the realm of Tiendi and read my fortune in a random toss of pai-gow tiles. The tiles he tossed my way formed the pair “Mooy.”

 

–Pai-gow tiles tell the story of creation. The Gee Jun pair represents God, who made Heaven, or Tien, and then Earth, or Di. With the cosmos created, God then made Man, or Yun, and Gor, or geese, to feed him. But God didn’t just want man to be fed, he wanted man to live in a beautiful world, so next he made Mooy, or plum flowers. Monster says because it’s my tile that my destiny is the beautify the world.

 

–That’s a pretty good fortune–now if only luck determined skills, I’d be all set!

 

Blueprint Safe

 

–Contents: The Mercury Toothpick

 

–Size: About one mini-fridge

 

–The school put this in my room after I returned from Tiendi with a really cool gift from Monster’s father, the Dragon King Ao Shun. The gift didn’t have a name, so I named it the Mercury Toothpick, because it looked like a toothpick made out of mercury. It’s a pretty important tool. Ao Shun created it as a gift to the Monkey King, Sun Wukong, to try and get in his good graces. Like the Monkey King’s legendary Ruyi Jingu Bang, the Mercury Toothpick can turn into anything its wielder imagines, but is also enchanted to never fall from the wielder’s hand. I can hold my palm flat out and it’ll still stick to my hand.

 

–So, since I got this really powerful magic object, the school put a safe in my room that links with the Blueprint, an adjacent universe created by a race of giant owl-people called the Hubaro. The Hubaro are obsessed with knowledge. Should I call them obsessed? I guess you’ll have to be called obsessed with knowledge to create an entire universe to gather knowledge for you. The Hubaro like to watch other universes, but don’t want to violate others’ privacy. Privacy is something the Hubaro have a hard time understanding, being a race of natural telepaths who evolved reading each others’ minds, but they learned that other races can get very mad when they find out aliens are watching them and taking notes. They created the Blueprint universe as a way to get around privacy concerns, at least in their minds. The Blueprint is an infinite expanse of dark blue that reflects objects in adjacent universes as a collection of white lines. It makes things look like blueprints, hence the name.

 

–The school is on good terms with the Hubaro, and Mr. Neiros, a teacher, is a Hubaro, though he looks human, kind of. The Hubaro allow the school to use the Blueprint to store stuff in a secret floor that only exists on the Blueprint side. All the most important stuff is kept on the secret floor. For instance, the bodies of vampire kids and Sword Saint’s sword.

 

–I put something in my Blueprint safe and close the door, it’s transferred to the secret floor for safekeeping. When I want the contents back, I enter in the passcode on the control panel, open the door, and everything will be as I left it.

 

–I’m not about to write the password down in my notebook. What if a supervillain steals it, or Tommy Taylor? Instead, I’ll record a riddle that only I and my closest friends know the answer to. That way, if I’m ever mind controlled by a supervillain or get amnesia from a mind blast, my friends can open the safe for me. The riddle is this: What’s too far for a boy on a motorcycle to get to, but not his friend?

 

–Yeah, if I was mind controlled, it would probably be easier just to ask the Hubaro to get the Mercury Toothpick, but whatever, I like having a secret riddle code!

 

Wardrobe

They say the clothes make the man, and the superclothes make the superman.

 

Short-sleeved Polo And Khakis

 

–A combination similar to what I wore back on Beck Island. Functional, if not fashionable, and comes with the Martin’s emblem! Neat!

 

Business Suit And Clip-on Tie

 

–Sam says the modern trend for superhero fashion is “non-supercostume supercostumes,” stuff that you could wear on and off the clock. For instance, Sam’s supercostume is just a leather jacket with a cool design on the back. So my supercostume is a business suit. I feel so adult wearing it!

 

–To be honest, I was a little nervous at first about adopting the whole “office supply” theme as Xerographer, but after Monster talked up how unique it was, I’m all in!

 

–I think I look really cool in my suit, especially when I wear sunglasses with it!