The Devils Sanctuary actually improved a great deal from its previous school building. The new building had an underground sewers motif. There was flaming pits around every area, and a giant aquarium right in the middle. Students would look at this and desire to be quenched by all of the water. The cafeteria served on the roof of the building and was entirely open and joyous.
The large difference between the old and new school was the opinions on windows. The previous school had very few, and most of these were covered up entirely.
"The students look out too much," was the common reason for covering the windows.
The new school had plenty of windows. In fact, the teachers demanded more windows. Everywhere you looked, there was something interesting to look at. The aquarium had passageways that would go to many different parts of the school. In reference to how badly students would freak out in the school, they kept large displays with live animals everywhere. This included such things as chickens, goats, cows, horses, snakes, rats, several forms of beetle, and a few odd animals that didn't make any sense at all.
Near the JROTC room was a family of penguins. They moved and bobbed around the glowing red barcodes for shooting practice. The guns were actually specialized cameras, so no penguin was harmed.
The tiger was kept near the biology lab, as were the snakes, and the pig.
If a student looked to any given wall, they would see into some animal areas, and then into another classroom.
The doors made noises on purpose. They opened into the classroom though. The walls were rounded and red brick. It always seemed to be oozing something.
By and far, the school looked like a prison, or the very entrance to hell. Inside though, the windows and animals, and sense of adventure kept the students coming to the school. No parent or teacher could deny a transfer if a student felt it wasn't worth it. East Valley nearly lost every single student in one day after the first attempt to restart the school. This was a harsh lesson for the teachers and the faculty.
The school held an adventurous spirit, and those wishing for daring and fun, applied their services to the school.
Vyska was an artistic type. She enjoyed sitting and drawing in the school art room. It was large and ready for take off. In fact, sometimes it did. It was discovered early on that building and maintaining dirigibles was a much better and affordable practice and constantly adding onto the school.
One could tell where a school was, by the many dirigibles circling about in one area.
This particular morning, the dirigible lifted up. The Devils Sanctuary was on a hill near even higher hills. This always let the art classes to see amazing vistas, and all the rest of the magical Yakima valley. Vyska could see the many schools, and the many downtowns of Yakima.
The Cascade mountains showed white still. The clouds over them, moved slowly forward, bringing a needed rain. It would keep up the mountains, but be empty by the time it reached them.
She looked out and saw one of the blimps from Selah slowly move toward them. It had a Viking motif with shields and bucklers on its side. Vyska didn't mind it to much, until she realized it was coming to close.
"Attack," yelled Vyska, "We are under attack!"
