"Greeting ladies, gentlemen, boys, girls, and anything here not covered by those four terms," said the speaker at the podium in a feminine, who appeared to be some form of lemur, even standing at about three feet tall, which was quite small when you considered that some in the audience stood near abouts to three meters in height, or ten feet, and several of the more serpentine members measured more then five times that in length.<br/><br/>"As I'm sure none of you are aware, considering you are all new students this year, I am Instructor Hermosa, and I teach the advanced Bioengineering course here at Simus. Now if you look around you I'm sure most, if not all of you, will see a species you don't recognize among the class today, and that is to be expected as Simus draws its student body from many different worlds, and even other realities entirely, to ensure that you all have a very diverse experience here," continued the lemur, looking at some of the students and smiling.<br/><br/>"Now, before we begin I would like to state for the record that the world we are on is called Earth, specifically this is Earth 47421 of Reality 175, 326, 298. For those of you who don't understand those numbers, take the Astrogation course with Professor Vernon, and you'll learn them. For the rest of you, just understand that this world is a human one. For those of you who don't know what humans are, just look around you, more than half fall into that species," instructed Hermosa, and many in the audience before her did look around, and all noticed that the majority of their number were primates of some sort, bipedal and furless for the most part, with coverings over their bodies. The ‘humans', some of them never having seen anything but, looked around nervously at the monsters around them and tried to shrink back in their seats a bit.<br/><br/>"You may have noticed in your inspection that they are not exactly able to stand up to most of you physically, and as this world is currently classified as Primitive under the Law of most Inter-reality governments we are not allowed to let most of you be seen, which means, for all of you, that Simus and the surrounding grounds, which are over a hundred square kilometers, are your home, and you are not to travel beyond it, lest we spook the locals," she informed them, a bit of a smile on her face.<br/><br/>"However, don't let this make you think you are completely cut off. There will be family visitation time every Sunday, that's every seven cycles of the sun and moon for those of you not familiar with that name, where you can talk with your friends and family back home, and even go to visit them, however we request that for your own safety you keep the visits to a minimum of three hours, just to be sure no one can find this school due to the power output of the teleporters," she told them.<br/><br/>"Alright then, on to other rules, which I'm afraid are quite numerous at this school, those of you wearing silver bracelets like this one here," she holds up a bracelet that would have slipped over a human wrist with ease, though looks more like a collar when compared with her form, "Are under further restrictions than those without, as you are at a size difference that cannot be allowed, some of you standing hundreds of meters tall compared to the norm of this planet, others nanometers. This bracelets alter you to a proportional height to the norm of this world, and keep you there, for those of you able to change height. Any attempt to remove your's, or another student's bracelet will result in punishment."<br/><br/>"Do not challenge that, by the way, or you will learn just how mean some of the staff at Simus can be, and I assure you, that despite their looks, some of the faculty participated in wars long before your planets had suns to circle, and they can take most of you down without any help at all," she advised them, eyeing a pair of lizard like creatures in the back of the audience that looked like some kind of dragons in the western variant of the term, though their foreclaws were more hand than claw.<br/><br/>"As for meals, the cafeteria located on the forth floor will serve any kind of food you request. Just walk up to one of these," she presses a button on the podium and what looks like a television screen pops out of it facing the students, "And request your food like so," she turns to the screen, "Strawberries," she says to the computer, placing her hand on the top, and then pushing down so the gathering can see she has her hand on a pad atop it. Instantly an image appears on the screen of a bowl of strawberries, and Hermosa reaches in and takes them out of it, then pops one into her mouth.<br/><br/>"There is not to be any eating of your fellow students, and if you are caught trying to do so, you will be punished, and I mean that too. I think the current system is the ‘Eye for an Eye' one where you become a meal for the person you tried to snack on. For those of you who need live prey, by the way, the machine can produce simple, non sentient prey, for you at your request," she informed them as she ate the strawberries, and then put them back into the screen and pushed another button which caused them to disappear and then the screen to go back into the podium.<br/><br/>"That's all for now, so let's have some words from the Dean, and then all of you can go up to the fifth floor from here to relax in your rooms, the number of which you received upon your entry card, the little green piece of paper," the lemur woman hopped off the podium and an instant later a human male stepped up to it. The man appeared to be about forty-seven years of age, with the look of wisdom only one who has seen the world firsthand can possess, and yet he smiled warmly at the people before him.<br/><br/>"Alright then, my name, for those of you who care, is Ilium Carr, and I'm in charge of you for the next few years of your lives, so let me make one thing clear, I want you to have fun, but I don't want you to hurt each other because of that fun. Follow that one rule and you and I will get along fabulously. And for my closing words. Na-Nu Na-Nu," and on the last part of his speech he held up his hand in some odd gesture, and most of the human students looked at him like he was crazy, while a few of them returned the gesture, smiling at some joke only they understood, and with that the Auditorium doors opened and the students began to march towards the stairs, and the fifth floor of the school.<br/><br/>Among the group going up was a human, which was to say he was ordinary when you saw him only from the outside, though like most of the group he had passed some form of exam to get into Simus, though no one knew what kind, as the entrance exams for the school were personalized, made for everyone on an individual level to find some characteristic that the school's parent company, Star Technologies, desired in the student.<br/><br/>Jon Alabaster, the human in question, made his way up the stairs, noticing many of the inhuman creatures around him, that ranged from the humans who made up the majority, to anthromorphic humanoids that had animal characteristics to their form, to what looked like amorphous balls of gas that floated in near the ceiling overhead. Still the gathering didn't seem to interested in itself right now, and most simply made their ways up to their rooms, each student having an individual one on the fifth floor.<br/><br/>Reaching his, Jon slipped inside, leaving the door cracked a bit and looking outward for a moment, wondering what kind of made house he'd gotten himself into before going back towards the bed and looking at his bag, which he'd given to the baggage claim down on the first floor and had found it's way to his room on its own from there. Outside he could hear some small groups of students forming, though most went to their rooms, probably to unpack like himself.