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Rook, at this point, was through with playing anymore games and was ready to just find his teammates. So, even though it was probably breaking all kinds of rules, Rook hopped up onto one of the many tables, not even bothering to see if it was in use and called out.

"CALLING ALL OF UNI FACTION! IS ANYONE FROM UNIVERSITY FACTION PRESENT?"

He continued to stand on top of the table, ignoring all of the confused or disapproving looks he was getting.

Harper noticed the man wearing a jersey standing on top of a table yelling about the university faction. Leaving her table she made her way over, confused to why he was flagging them down and attracting the attention of everyone in the casino. She hoped nothing had gone wrong, or at least nothing bad enough they couldn’t manage it in some way.

“I am here.” She waved to him, leaving him on top of the table to do what he wanted.

It was easy to see Rook standing on the table, and she could hear him easily too. With his call she was up and running over to them, seeing a few familiar faces there too.

"Great, you guys completed your quests too?" She felt a little better at the sight. "Sweet!"

Her eyes set on Hitsu, noting the girls puffy red eyes. Her face feel, unsure as to why she had been crying or how she could rectify the situation.

There was a loud thunk from a nearby Blackjack table as Caroline sat up too quickly and knocked her head on the edge of it. This was immediately followed by a hissed 'ouch' and many colorful words that should absolutely not be said around children, which never had any bearing on anything she said regardless.

For once she had been doing something innocent. Mostly. She almost had a full deck of nines, and would likely have been able to complete it if she hadn't given away her position. There was no chance the dealer was not aware that she'd been hiding under the table the entire time, but he was not paid enough to bother or was bored enough to humor her.

"Present in what sense of the word?" she asked Rook as she neared him, eyes narrowing alongside her unnecessarily cryptic inquiry. She was still rubbing the back of her head, and apparently didn't intend to offer any explanation for that.

When the first member of their university appeared out of the crowd, Rook flashed them a bright grin, which only grew wider when they were followed by another. Immediately he returned Harper's wave with an enthusiastic one of his own "Hey Harp, what's up? How are things faring on your end? And Hitsu, I haven't seen you, well I've heard you on the radio, but--are you okay?" He asked, noting the red rimmed eyes.

He would have pressed the matter further, but shortly after Cecil appeared and was heading right for him. "Now, now. Just hold on a second and wa--hugghh!" Rook barely had time to react. He moved to step back, but was caught by Cecil in a tight hug, which squeezed the air right out of his lungs. "Ce, yer crushing me man, can't breathe!" A slight exaggeration, but when you were kind of dangling about a foot off the ground, in the grip of a well muscled giant, what else could you do?

Kammy, Corey, Caroline, and Gillian all got a slight wave, as it was about as much as he could manage at the moment.

"Uh, hey! I was just--" He struggled in Cecil's grip to get a bit more air. --" y'know hanging around." Though for Caroline's question, Rook gave the 'I don't know the answer, but please don't fail me' look and weakly added. "Uh... present here?"

"Oh!" With the cheerful chirp of a response, the suspicion was lifted. It seemed that if he had been graded on this, he'd just gotten an A. "Well, I'm present then. Presently."

Presumably, he would inform all of them about...whatever it was he hoped to inform them about...once everyone answered the question of presence. This was Caroline's assessment of the situation, at least, and she sat back against the edge of an adjacent table to watch Rook attentively - or watch him get crushed, more specifically.

While she waited, she idly shuffled the deck of cards that she was nearly finished building, displaying an array of nines, nines, and more nines. Twelve decks had already been deconstructed and reconstructed into this, and thirteen sets of nines was the magic number, if such a thing as magic existed.

As more and more people popped up Kammy felt even better, especially at Corey and Caroline, their necks free of restraints as well.

"You guys lost your collar statues too, awesome!" It was also fun to see Cecil run up and hug Rook (or bear hug him from the looks of how he was breathing afterwards), the gentle giant becoming emotional.

She then turned her sights on Caroline's deck of cards, and the amount of...nines..she had in it.

"Thats a..pretty cool deck there." She said. "Is it part of a special strategy you got?" Maybe playing a hole bunch of nines would allow a super special secret summon she didn't know about.

"Oh, wowzers!" James reverently took the offered deck, thumbing through them. "Boy howdy, it must have taken you a while to sort through all these!"

And he knew exactly what do do with them.

Assemble a card house, obviously. He started building neat little triangles.

"Oh, hey Kammy!" he added, still concentrating on his handiwork. He loved doing little things like this - it always impressed the kids, and it was so much fun to knock down later. "Wanna help?"