“Huh, it seems like my mana number has more than doubled…” I mused while reading over the blue status box.

“Oh yeah, you must have a magic-type class, Mage I’m guessing.” Gunderson said from beside me while still keeping his focus on driving his bright red Kord Thunderhawk down the road.

“Uh no, my class is called Magi, if that’s what you’re talking about?” I replied to him off-handedly while continuing to reread the blue box.

“Hmm, Magi, sounds like some kind of Mage variant maybe.” Gunderson said while seeming to consider the class himself. “Variant classes aren’t rare, but they aren't common either. Never heard of that one though.”

“Are variant classes a good or bad thing?” I asked

“Well they aren’t bad per se, but variant just means they’re different. They could be stronger in certain ways, and able to use abilities or skills in a slightly different style sometimes. It varies, which would make sense for something called variant, am I right?” Gunderson turned to give me a quick smile, happy at his little joke.

“Right, so you don’t know anything about this Magi class then? The class that the blue box says that I am?”

“Magic and magic-related classes aren’t really my specialty, but thankfully we're almost at the office where there are people who specialize in knowing about those sorts of things.”

I looked back at the road ahead of us to try and see any office buildings, but we were in downtown Redding. We were just going past the large Shasta Mall that I’ve been to lots of times, both with my family and friends from school.

“You said we're almost there?” I asked with uncertainty.

“Yep. Don’t worry about the location, it’ll make sense pretty quick.”

“Okay…” My sketchiness alarm was starting to go off again slightly. Not enough for me to panic yet, but telling me not to worry about the location or anything was concerning.

Just as my thoughts started to settle back down, Gunderson took a sharp turn into the parking lot of what looked like a small coffee shop. It was a single-story detached building with a modest-sized parking lot surrounding it.

Gunderson sped into one of the empty spots before he swiftly cut the engine and turned to me with another broad grin on his face.

“And here we are, Cosmic Coffee, with food and drink so good it will blow your mind away.” He grinned even wider at his description of the place.

“Your office is a coffee shop?”

“Uh-huh, come on in, I’ll show you around and let you meet everyone.” He promptly got out of his car and headed towards the little store’s entrance, not even bothering to look back at me.

Am I just supposed to follow him inside there? I did come all this way after all, and I do still have that quest.

It should be fine. Probably.

Getting out of the car myself, I had to jog slightly to catch up to Gunderson as he opened the door and held it like that so I could enter first.

“After you.” He told me politely

Deciding I was already in too deep anyways, I just went with it and entered the brightly lit and very pleasant-smelling coffee shop called ‘Cosmic Coffee’.

The first thing I noticed was a couple of people working behind the counter straight across from the entrance. Aside from them, there did seem to be a couple of customers sitting at various tables around the small interior. The baristas and patrons all seemed pretty normal at first glance, which only made everything feel even more suspicious to me.

“It’s just a coffee shop.” I told Gunderson.

“Not true, well, it is a coffee shop, but it's not just a coffee shop.” Gunderson told me. “Come on, let me introduce you.”

He walked us up to the counter where one of the baristas was cleaning the counter next to a cash register.

“Florence, darling, my beautiful angel, what’s happened that you can’t even offer me a warm hello? How long have we known each other now?” Gunderson spread his arms grandly and raised his voice loud enough so that I was certain everyone inside the small interior could hear what he was saying.

“Huh, ah it’s you, Herbert. Sorry, I was spacing out there. Yes of course it's nice to see you too. You’re heading inside then, or are you just out here socializing?” The woman, named Florence apparently, replied.

“We are, we are, and I’ve brought a special guest, one you may have heard rumors about recently.” He leaned over the counter to try and tell her this conspiratorially, but the volume of his voice hadn’t decreased one bit. The effect was a bit comical, but Florence seemed used to Gunderson’s antics.

“Oh! Is it this young woman here who walked in with you?” Florence turned her attention to me now. “Hello, young miss, it’s very nice to meet you.”

Florence had started to completely ignore Gunderson’s presence as she offered me a warm smile. She seemed to be unusually happy to meet a total stranger.

“Uh, I’m not sure what ‘her’ means in this context, but my name is Jennifer. Although I usually just go by Jenni.” I told her, doing my best to be polite. There was no way of knowing who this person actually was, or how important she might be in this secretive group. But it seemed like a good idea to try and stay on friendly terms with her regardless.

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“Ah, she’s a polite one, a lot less brash than the last girl you all introduced me to.” Florence had turned back to look at Gunderson as another possibly worrisome thing was just said.

“Last girl?”

“Tch, shh, I’ve only told her so much about all this stuff so far. It’s better not to overwhelm her with names and details.”

“Hmm, I guess. Well, it is your job to look after and not me, so I’ll mind my own business.” She seemed to have reluctantly accepted Gunderson’s point of view.

“Anyways, yes we’d like to be let inside if you have the time.” Gunderson told her with an overly forced politeness.

“Sure, I’ll turn on the coffee maker.” Said Florence before turning around and switching on what looked like a classic or retro-style coffee maker. The heating unit inside started to make noise loud enough that it could be heard from where I was standing.

“Alright, right this way then Jenni, the entrance is in the back.” Gunderson instructed, gesturing with his hand at the hallway next to the counter.

“Are you intentionally trying to give off super sketchy vibes, or is that just happening naturally.” I asked him with a fair bit of worry.

“Hah, any vibes, sketchy or otherwise are purely unintentional. Promise.” Gunderson tried to give me a reassuring smile, but I still wasn’t sure how much I trusted it. “Although, if you think things have been sketchy so far, wait until you see the next part.”

“Why the frick would you tell me that?”

“Thought it was funny.” Gunderson remained smiling at me as he said this.

“Just, lead the way then, jeez.” I grumbled as I looked down at my feet in distress.

Gunderson did so, leading me down the short side hallway and stopping in front of the entrance to the men’s restroom.

“You’re joking?” I was five seconds away from bolting out of here and this crazy situation.

“Nope.” He told me with a big shit-eating grin.

“You want me to go into the men’s bathroom.”

“That is where the entrance is.” He told me matter of factly.

“The entrance, to the office for your sketchy and super secret organization.”

“Uh, secretive I’ll take, but I’m still not fully on board with the label of sketchy.”

I just pointed at the door in front of us that had a men’s restroom sign attached to it.

“Okay, for an outsider I can appreciate the weirdness of it, but I promise it’ll all make sense when you go inside.”

“You first.” I told him challengingly.

“Sure, if that’ll make you comfortable, that’s not a problem for me. First though, I need to explain how to get inside.”

“Aside from opening this door.”

“Yes, aside from that. Once you go inside you need to turn on the faucet closest to the door. Turn the handles for both cold and warm water all the way up until you can’t anymore.”

“What…” I tried to start asking before I was interrupted.

“Then you need to go into the bathroom stall furthest from the door and sit down on the toilet. Once you’re there, all you need to do is just press the little knob to flush the toilet.”

“You know that sounds crazy right?”

“You just had a life-or-death battle with an undead monster last week, and won.” He told me bluntly.

“I mean, good point I guess.”

“As I said, if it makes you feel comfortable, I’m happy to go first.” With that, Gunderson turned around and went inside, the door closing behind him.

I was left all alone in this small and slightly cramped hallway, not sure what to do with myself now. After fidgeting a bit, I started to hear the sound of a faucet being turned up very high.

I guess that’s step one done, or is it step two? Was Florence switching that old coffee machine one part of this process? He did ask for help, right before she did that.

About ten seconds later I could hear the sound of a toilet flushing. But aside from the expected noise of water sloshing, I could also hear a sort of bizarre thump and rumble coming from behind the door.

It only lasted for about a full second before the men’s restroom seemed to return to complete silence once more.

Did it work? Am I supposed to go in there and do this now, or do I need to wait for something first?

I looked around the still-empty hallway for any clues or indications of what I should do. But it was ultimately just an empty hallway, absent of any guidance or instruction.

Letting out a deep sigh, I reminded myself again that I’d already come this far.

I opened the door and stepped inside what appeared to be a perfectly normal, if a little bit large for the location, bathroom.

Inside there were a couple of sinks with mirrors, some urinals, and a pair of bathroom stalls.

This was weird for several reasons, but also because I’d never been inside a men’s bathroom before. Well, my Dad might’ve taken me inside one when I was a baby. but since I couldn’t remember that it didn’t count.

Now though, I had to perform some bizarre ritual to get to the office of some shadowy, maybe governmental, agency that is supposed to be able to help me with my bizarre magic powers that I received inexplicably and seemingly at random from a floating blue box that no else can see.

I turned around to look back at the door behind me. Do I go back out and just leave? I could.

Gunderson wasn’t here now to stop me or anything. Wait…Gunderson wasn’t in here.

I looked around the bathroom more carefully, ducking my head low to see under stalls for any feet. After a quick look around I couldn’t find hide nor hair of Gunderson anywhere in here.

Guess he really did go somewhere then. Must be some kind of secret entrance, maybe a super high-tech spy elevator or something.

Curiosity warring with concern, I decided to continue forward.

I turned both of the faucet handles up until they wouldn’t turn anymore. Looking around after that I hoped to see some kind of indication that I did something right or not, but the bathroom looked just the same as it had before I messed with the sink.

Moving on to the next step, I made my way to the stall Gunderson indicated I should use, and entered it.

I closed and locked the door behind me, as I would normally if this was a regular bathroom, and sat down on the toilet seat.

I feel like it’s important to point out, but my pants and underwear were all still pulled up. Gunderson never mentioned anything about this exactly, but I will not be dropping drawers in this situation without a very very very good reason.

Taking a deep breath to prepare myself, I reached back with my right hand and pressed down on the toilet’s cold metal handle.

The toilet and water seemed to behave normally at first, but quickly I felt a hard lurching sensation tug on my entire body as the whole room felt like it was moving around me.

After only a second though, the sensation passed, and I was left still sitting, fully clothed in a men’s bathroom stall.

“Um…” I wondered out loud.

I looked around for any sign things had changed, and when I tried to look under the stall to the area outside it, I saw two pairs of feet standing at a distance from me that did not fit the room I had been in.

“Ah great, you made it through, you can come out any time Jenni.” The voice was Gunderson’s.

With more than a little uncertainty, I stood up, unlocked the latch, and began to open the stall door.