THE MOMENT
"This is why you're 'too busy' to help the team?" Lupe asked Ark. She glanced up and down the line with no cutoff in sight on either end. "What are you in line for?" she asked. She'd asked him to help out another team member with a quest, but he said he couldn't. She had to find out why and discovered him in a queue.
"To help the team," Ark nodded. "The Magi-Knights are having a meet & greet. If I can talk to Grace, I think I can earn her Flair," he answered, then shrugged. "If you want me to go help Sandy and Todd, then you gotta take my place here so I don't lose my spot."
"Where?" Lupe asked. She looked around again. The line of students cut through the school's gym; but, she hadn't seen any hint of the queue from the outside as she approached it.
"On their server, duh," Ark chuckled. "They're only the most popular guild in the multiverse, there's more than one line to get to them," he said. "Here," he added as he gave her a scrap of paper, then stepped out of line to let her in.
"What's this?" She tilted her head as she tried to make sense of the warped letters and symbols. If she had to guess, she'd count three of the squiggles as 'numbers', but there were others she had no idea how to read.
"It's my - your place in line," Ark nodded. "This line, in this universe, in relation to the rest of the event."
"How do you read it?" She asked as the student in front of her took a step forward. Ark chuckled and shrugged.
"No idea," he said.
"Well.. how do I know when it's my turn? How do I know when to call you back?"
"Your position changes as you move through the line," Ark nodded. "At some point, you'll start recognizing numbers; but, even then it's not that complicated," he chuckled as he eyed the empty spot in front of her. "It's a line; just move forward."