Turns out the big hatch was the floor of the gym, and the gym was filled with Spirit Guides here for a convention. Worse, when it started rolling aside and folding itself beneath the bleachers, all the Spirit Guides were all in the middle of an old timey dance competition and they started falling in!  

Spirit Guides must be used to that kind of thing because they took it all in stride, laughing and whooping it up. 

After the floor got rolled back in place, the Spirit Guides were real interested in me and my journey and they were all “you’ve got what it takes to be a Spirit Guide!” and started to put the pressure on me to join up. What are they some kind of cult? 

They've got all the pantheons represented, so there were different branches like the El Kahir, the Elf Kura, the Za-Ga-Zig, Ásatrúarfélagið, Aztec Reconstructionists, Phi Alpha Omega, The United Lodge of Theosophists, Wang Chung, Wu-Tang, Church of the Palm Wine Drinkard... each group trying to explain why they've got the best path. Now they're all putting drinks with little umbrellas in my hands and starting to duel with each other on the gym floor. Looks like I'm stuck here for awhile.

Have you ever tried to climb headfirst down a ladder? I admit it doesn't sound like a good idea, and I don't suggest you try it, but it seemed like the way to travel through the empty air shaft if I wanted to get to PSIONIC PROTECTION 101.

It was pretty tough going, but after I got the hang of it, it was a lot like going up a ladder. I couldn't tell if I was coming or going. Before long I ended up in a vast tunnel system beneath the school. There was water, and turtles, and crocodiles and hippopotami, and finally green banks that snakes crawled up, and big red donkey on the shore and hawks circling around in the sky.

Finally, big iron plates. Seemed like a lot of unnecessary security to put students through just to get to PSIONIC PROTECTION 101. But how am I going to get through this giant heavy hatch?

I guess I could always knock.

knock knock knock

BANG BANG BANG

The GREATLY IMPROVED and MORE SAFE school map I found in the garbage has a dynamic index on the back that cross references classes like arithnomancy and mathematical runes and tells you where to find them. I’m also in Psionic Protection 101 and followed the map to a door on the third floor of the theater building clearly marked PSIONIC PROTECTION 101 and I opened it there was a deep empty air shaft with a ladder going down it so I guess I better head.