The bus roared as it turned the corner onto 1st street. All Susan could see of it in the dim morning light was the shining headlights and flashing top light. She couldn’t help but frown at the reminder of how early it was. Everyone knew that her high school started unreasonably early. ‘Leonard Gaynor High School’ had a terrible name and worse hours and the student body had publicly protested both to no avail. The unreasonable hours had just never hit Susan quite so close to home before.
After she had stopped crying, Susan had gone downstairs and parked herself at the kitchen table with a pile of her books to wait for her family to appear. Catching up with her science articles managed to calm her down completely, but as time progressed she had found herself more and more distracted by the changing number of the clock that heralded her parents and sister’s arrival.
It was only when the cartoony alarm on her phone echoed down the carpeted stairs from her room that she remembered it was Monday. Unfortunately, thanks to her family’s haphazard wake up times and her unforgivingly early schedule, she wouldn’t see them for another ten hours. Susan had returned her books and prepared for school in a daze, nearly crying when she turned her back on the familiar white paint of the house’s front door.
The squeal of the bus’s tires and the clunk of the door swinging open brought Susan back to the present. She thumped her way up the steps and turned into the aisle. She barely glanced at the familiar drab interior as she tossed her backpack into ‘her’ seat. Laying down across the seat she bunched up her backpack to use as a pillow and settled in.
She let the nostalgic sounds of the bus wash over her as she gazed up at the unpainted metal ceiling. She barely noticed as the bus started and stopped on its route. Her only move the whole time was to take her leg out of the aisle when another student complained about it.
Susan woke up from her daze in an instant. Her mind raced for a few seconds wondering what had happened when a thump came from the seat in front of her. She couldn’t help the smile that broke out on her face. It must have been eight stops since she had gotten on the bus, apparently her mind had forgotten her old schedule but habit hadn’t.
“Hey Susan.” A familiar squeaky teenage voice said as a mop of shaggy brown hair popped over the edge of the seat.
“Cole!” Susan exclaimed as she bounced up in her seat, revealing blue eyes and a pudgy face as the rest of the self proclaimed anime lover appeared. A grin split his face.
“Hey, great to see you’re alright!”
Susan paused at this. “Why wouldn’t I be?” She asked.
The mood turned from jovial to awkward in a moment as the teen awkwardly raised an arm to scratch at the back of his head. He shuffled in his seat so that he was better positioned to look back at Susan.
“Um, well, you know… last Friday,” He began slowly, “When Kelly pushed you across the hall. It looked like you took a nasty fall, and well, I was just kinda worried about you.”
Susan blinked a few times as her mind ran in circles digging up what it remembered of Kelly. She was… a cheerleader, kind of annoying, a bit of a psychopath. Oh, and the reason she and Cole were friends. The Susan of last Friday had nightmares about her, the Susan of today vaguely remembered someone similar to an angry chihuahua.
“Oh her! Sorry, I totally forgot about her.” Susan said with an awkward smile.
Cole stared at her like she had just grown a second head.
“You forgot about Kelly Baker?” He asked with wide eyes.
”Yeah, I had a really crazy weekend and it slipped my mind,” Susan said with a shrug, which only seemed to draw a more incredulous reaction from the boy in front of her.
“Susan, she threw you into a locker,” Cole leaned in and whispered.
”Look, a lot happened over the weekend and honestly, Kelly Baker is like, the least of my problems right now,” Susan explained with an awkward wave of her arms.
”Oh, is everything alright?” Cole leaned back, looking even more worried now.
”No, no. Nothing bad happened, but I was super busy and the school stuff just took a backseat, okay?” Susan snapped back.
”Yeah okay,” Cole let out a breath, some of the tension leaving him. “I get you. One time I went to this huge summer camp, made new friends, did a bunch of new things, went on adventures and stuff. When I got back to school everything seemed super different for a while.”
Susan sat back against the poorly cushioned seat to think for a second. One day, or a thousand years ago, depending on how you looked at it, Susan had been kidnapped away from her home. She had then spent the next millennia in a near constant fight for survival, trying to get back. In that moment, Susan looked back over a thousand years of war and madness and reflected on how it might have changed her.
“Kinda like a really bad summer camp I guess.” She said lamely.
”That’s alright, I guess. It’s just that with everything going on with Kelly, I was really worried you wouldn’t show up today,” Cole said, looking visibly relieved now.
”No, the locker thing is fine, didn’t even leave a bruise,” She said, pulling up her sleeve to show her pristine shoulder.
Cole smiled for a second before his eyes widened. “Woah, what's up with your arms, you been working out?”
Susan looked down at her arm and saw the muscles that definitely hadn’t been there the week before. Her mind flashed through the settings of the shapeshifting spell she used to look human. She froze as she tried to think of a way out of the awkward realization.
”Yeah, crazy weekend, right?” She responded with a completely normal and absolutely, definitely unworried voice.
“Guess so.” Cole trailed off awkwardly, either missing or ignoring her awkward deflection. “Anyway, want to hear about this new anime I’ve been watching?” He said as he changed back to a more comfortable topic. When Susan waved him on, he quickly launched into an animated description of epic action scenes and shoehorned love triangles.
Susan sat back and smiled, not entirely listening but just letting the familiar drone of nerd-talk wash over her. The bus rumbled on.
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The school day began as scheduled. Bells rang, concrete halls filled with the squeaking of shoes and yelling of teenagers then fell silent again. Susan sat through an English class she hated, and then began her math class that she’d learned the curriculum too long before she took the seat in class each day.
Like Cole had said, it didn’t take long for the reality of high school to reassert itself. Susan sat slouched in one of the hard backed plastic desk chairs as the sub droned on, barely caring that no one in the class was paying attention. Why Mr. Hanson, the hard headed and gym obsessed football coach was even considered as a substitute math teacher was anyone’s guess. The one positive was that he didn't care what the students did so long as they looked mostly awake.
As the robotic drone of his voice faded into the background, Susan felt all of the memories of the other world slip away. They seemed to fall into a dreamlike space in her head where for a few moments, she found she could pretend they hadn’t happened.
A wad of paper struck her back. Snapped out of her reverie Susan whipped her head around and saw a familiar head of shoulder length black hair three seats behind her. She grimaced as she fully remembered the person who had haunted her nightmares so long ago.
Kelly Baker was a tall, blue eyed and pretty Sophomore at LG High. With the combined looks and confidence of a natural diva, she would have gotten the attention and envy of the entire school if it weren’t for one small problem.
She was pure evil.
A thousand years of yearning for her old life had apparently painted over some of the darker aspects of Susan’s past. And dark aspects those were, because some of Kelly’s harassment went well beyond high school bullying. Susan had heard rumors that some of her victims had called off school for days or weeks after incidents with her.
Looking back at her, Susan kept an eye out for her fellow victim. After all, Kelly would never be caught doing anything questionable by the teachers. Despite the fact they were all well aware of her proclivities, she was careful enough not to be caught in the act. No, she would press gang some innocent bystander into doing it for her.
There he was. The lanky boy seated across the aisle from Kelly had a half guilty, half relieved expression that he was trying to hide behind a textbook. Susan took a second to think through her options. She could avoid Kelly, let her be someone else’s problem and wash her hands of the situation. On the other hand, if there was a perfect use for the unthinkable arcane might she now wielded, it was dealing with her high school bully.
She glanced at the clock, it was only five minutes till the end of class. Turning her head back to the boy she locked eyes with him and mouthed the word ‘bathroom’. She saw his eyes turn to the clock and widen at the realization that he could leave and hide out until the end of class. His hand shot up like a rocket and when he was called on he almost shouted his request. Barely waiting to hear the grunted assent of Mr. Hanson, he grabbed his backpack and fled towards the door. Passing Susan he let out a whispered “Thank you.”
Susan barely noticed the next five minutes, but as the bell rang and she stood up from her seat she saw Kelly’s thunderous expression and couldn’t help her smile.
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Susan walked through the roaring cafeteria, tray in hand as she tried to spot Cole. Her shoes squealed over the glossy tile as she dodged around wandering students in the too thin aisles between the tables. She saw a flash of color from the corner of her eye and turned to see Cole waving to her from a table in the far corner of the cavernous room. It was partway filled with people from one of the nerd cliques. The assortment of a dozen different anime and superhero shirts made for a noticeable splash of color in the chaos of the lunch room.
It took her a solid minute to travel the hundred feet across the room, dodging through the heavy traffic of the early lunch rush. She dropped her tray on the table with a clatter and settled down on an uncomfortable plastic seat at the far end of the table across from Cole. They exchanged nods and turned back to continue his discussion with a tall scrawny boy seated next to him.
“Hey, what’s going on here?” Susan asked.
“Just telling Andrew,” Cole turned back and gestured to the long haired boy wearing a t-shirt with a bad math pun sitting next to him, “About the isekai genre.”
“The what genre?” Susan replied, leaning back and trying to relax as she waited to hear the translation for the name of the latest anime thing to catch Cole’s interest. She had never quite understood his love of anime. Especially when the most basic things such as genre titles needed a dictionary to understand.
”It's the ‘in another world’ genre. It’s a big fad right now and-,” Cole cut off as Susan instantly went from relaxing in her seat to leaning forward with a look of intense interest on her face
”No, go ahead,” Susan said, waving her hand for him to proceed.
”Uh, OK,” Cole replied awkwardly. It took a few seconds, but nothing short of a death threat could stop him when he got talking about his interests and he launched off back into his explanation. Apparently, Isekai was where the protagonist of the story got sent to another world, usually because they got hit by a truck of all things. Then they would get superpowers of some sort, maybe fight a demon king, and almost definitely get a harem of beautiful anime girls.
Susan tuned out the yelling of students and clatter of trays and shoes as she focused on Cole. Cole wasn’t alone in his confusion at her sudden interest; she noticed some of the other teens at the table sending glances her way. Everyone there knew this was completely out of character for her. Susan usually spent her day chained to a book or her phone, tuning out anything non science related- that usually being her fellow nerds.
”Does the protagonist ever get turned into a dragon?” Susan interjected as Cole paused for a moment to scarf down some of the tasteless cafeteria food. Susan had ignored hers, she didn’t want her first proper meal back to be something that made her want to re-‘isekai’ herself.
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“Well,” he started again as he pushed away his tray, “That does happen from time to time. There’s like a whole sub genre where people get turned into various monsters, and I’m pretty sure there are a few dragon isekai stories out there. But it’s not like its own thing.”
”Huh,” Susan said as she finally relaxed from her perch against the edge of the table. She ignored the looks of bewilderment from the people around her. Cole resumed his explanation of the anime genre as she mulled over the new information.
Could she have saved herself some trouble if she had been aware of this genre? Should she do some research into these anime? She thought about it for a second before realizing that this would require her to watch them and abandoning the idea entirely. Watching anime would take time away from her scientific papers. Maybe she could grill Elizabeth later.
Her musing was cut off when she saw Cole freeze in place as someone settled on the seat next to her with a thump. She turned to see familiar black hair and a smile that would have won awards. Probably by murdering the competition.
Susan found herself taking her first good look at Kelly Baker for the first time in over a thousand years. Kelly was wearing a blouse and skirt that were definitely more than Susan could afford and definitely were not school approved. If Susan had an eye for fashion beyond anything other than her typical comfy sweater and fraying jeans she would have noted the perfect color coordination, and maybe the spots of black on the skirt that didn’t quite look right.
What did draw Susan’s attention was the suspiciously clear white skin of Kelly’s face, and the distinct smell of magic.
“Hey Sue,” Kelly said with sugar sweet voice, “I missed you in class earlier.”
“Sorry, can’t talk right now.” Susan said before pulling up her phone and scrolling through it blindly while inside she panicked. Magic was not supposed to be here. She had no memory of it and had entirely expected to never see from anyone other than herself ever again.
Beside her, Kelly’s white skin turned red with anger as her face turned into a snarl.
“Don’t think you can ignore me!” She hissed as she slammed her hands against the table with a bang and stood up to tower over Susan. “Did you think I’d let you off the hook for your little stunt with John earlier?”
Susan broke out of her reverie, mind readying itself for a fight. Judging the magic concentration around Kelly, she was surprisingly dangerous… for a teenager. Susan ran though a couple scenarios through her head before realizing her best option was just to drive Kelly off for now. The middle of the cafeteria during the lunch period was not the time or place to have a magical throwdown.
”Sit down, okay?” Susan said, placing a hand on Kelly’s shoulder and pushing down, planting her solidly back on the seat. Kelly’s mouth flopped open in sheer incredulity. Susan wasn’t sure whether it was from the indignity of being forced to sit down, or the indignity of having someone standing up to her.
Susan watched a myriad of emotions run through Kelly’s face. First confused, then her mouth closed and her jaw snapped shut, jaw tensing in anger. Finally, Susan saw her come to the inevitable conclusion as Kelly processed the secret that only the two of them knew. Kelly had an impressive amount of magical power at her disposal, with a good amount of it enhancing her body. Enough that Susan shouldn’t have been able to move her against her will.
Kelly’s skin went pale again and her eyes widened, staring straight at Susan as she put two and two together. Without a word she stood and stalked back into the rush of bodies coming from the cafeteria line. Susan watched her go before turning back to her table to see the slack jawed expressions of everyone there.
Cole was the first one to speak up. “What was that?” He asked, voice raising as his hand waved to accentuate his words.
Susan shrugged, “Just thought I’d make her leave.”
Susan saw the rest of the table break out of their shock, and began quietly muttering to each other. She was well aware they wouldn’t be thanking her for fending off Kelly. That would make her come back for revenge like lightning to a lightning rod. The best option for them now was just to sit back and hope they weren’t caught in the splash zone of whatever retribution was coming. Kelly was like some sort of pagan god to them. They just hoped they could appease her and prayed that she ignored them in return.
None of them thanked her, even Cole. He just gave her a nod, she didn’t blame him. They both knew that if he supported her and then her spat with Kelly went truly bad for everyone, neither of them had the social capital to rejoin the group.
Susan glanced down the table and paused as her eyes reached the end. Interestingly enough, their group had an outlier. Susan didn’t know her very well, though she knew her name started with an A… oh Anne. The diminutive brown haired girl was staring at Susan, her large black eyes glittering with excitement and hope.
As Susan looked over at her the girl noticed the attention and looked away. Susan narrowed her eyes, there was something going on there. Every other person at the table, even Cole, was betting on Kelly punishing Susan for her stunt. One look at Anne told Susan that her chips were solidly on the other side of the table. Except that she shouldn’t have any evidence to back that idea up, unless…
Well, there was already one magic user, what was one more?
Susan shifted on the hard plastic seat, trying to get as comfortable as she could. She spared some looks around her and caught a few sympathetic looks from the students at nearby tables. She wasn’t the first person to fight back against Kelly, though in their minds she might very well be the last. Susan returned her focus to her food, pushing it around the congealed mass of bread and meat the cafeteria called a burger.
She let out a sigh, wasn’t she supposed to be relaxing and enjoying the first true freedom she had felt in centuries? Well, this was the price she paid for returning to a world where vaporizing your problems wasn’t a legally justifiable solution.
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School had ended. The gray halls were empty, the teachers holed up in their rooms to look over their students' progress. Cole and his friends were locked away in a dusty classroom squirreled away towards the back of the school. Susan should have been well away from here taking the bus home. Instead she stalked the halls like a patrol guard, not looking for anything, just seeing what there was to see.
She couldn’t use the sixth sense for mana a normal mage would have. Susan saw and smelled it. A flash of pink cosmetic magic near the entrance to one of the bathrooms, a whiff of a common cheating cantrip coming from the door to one of the classrooms.
It wasn’t common, it wasn't as if every hall were alive with clouds of magic like in a mage school. But it was there, in opposition to every part of Susan’s memory and knowledge of earth. Solidly confirming that no, Kelly wasn't a fluke. Magic was here on Earth, like finding mold on fresh bread.
Susan sucked in a long breath and let it out, this would complicate things. It was better in some ways, yes. She wouldn’t be isolated and alone with her knowledge of magic like she had expected. The existence of magic here just meant a bucketful of monkey wrenches would be thrown into her plans. Powerful mages, headstrong dragonslayers, and inevitably, dealing with the insufferable dance of politics made magic.
Susan’s shoulders slumped as she remembered that. She would have happily taken a few millennia of loneliness if she didn’t have to deal with magic politics again. She straightened up, at least this didn’t change her plans too terribly much, it just meant hiding a little better from now on.
A burst of magical power rolled over her like a miniature shockwave. Susan resisted the urge to punch a wall as the universe itself seemed to laugh in her face. Darnit, regular humans might notice magic this concentrated. The wave had come from behind her, deeper in the school. Susan didn’t hesitate to turn face and march headfirst into the danger, intent on giving it a piece of her mind.
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The water hissed as Anne scrubbed her hands of soap. She never liked the school bathrooms, everything from the plastic walls to the toilet paper had been scraped thin to save on money. The one she was in now had the added benefit of being cramped , the space between the sinks and the stall walls was barely enough room for two people to walk past each other.
She still used them, it would be stupid not to. Every second she spent at the school, in a club or just hidden away in a corner was a second not spent back home. Even if it meant dodging Kelly all day, staying away from the Brick was always worth it.
The telltale sound of the door squeaking made Anne turn her head to the side to see who was coming in. She froze in horror at the same time as a predatory grin spread across the dark haired entrant’s face.
”Oh hello Annie,” came the too-sweet voice. The grin widened as Anne remained silent and shrank in on herself.
”What’s wrong?” It continued.
“N-Nothing,” Anne managed to squeak out in reply.
“Oh that’s great!” The smile seemed like it was stretching the sides of Kelly’s face now, baring teeth that gleamed in the clear white light of the bathroom.
“See, I was just feeling a bit peckish and I was hoping you would help.”
Anne froze in place. She had known Kelly was bad news. Now her mind was running back through the past month of interaction with her. The pale skin, sharp teeth and dozens of puns and snide remarks about eating pointed towards a terrifying conclusion.
Kelly Baker was a vampire.
Kelly stood still, watching and looming as Anne’s mind flashed through her options, none of them good. Low on options and desperate she opened her mouth and let out a scream of, “HELP!”
Before the noise could start to echo down the hall Kelly surged forward. Her hand launched out to clamp down over Anne’s mouth. She continued forward, shoving Anne back and slamming her into the wall with a shattering of flakey plaster.
”Oh, you shouldn’t have done that…” Kelly whispered, staring Anne in the face with narrowed eyes before she glanced downward toward Anne’s neck. Kelly threw her head back and opened her mouth wide to show her canines elongating into needle-sharp points.
”Beautiful, aren’t they?” Kelly asked as she stared down her nose toward Anne, reveling in the wide eyes and shaking limbs of her victim.
Anne was beyond terrified at this point, but she still managed to reach up with quivering hands to grasp at Kelly’s arm. She desperately shoved at the arm holding her in place but failed to push it back. She couldn’t even dent the skin, the flesh of Kelly’s arm was as ungiving as iron.
“Oh, I’ve been smelling you for weeks now,” Kelly said. “See, I know your little secret, you're not human either, are you?” She continued, the steel grip of her arm denying any form of escape or rebuttal from Anne. “So I’ve been wondering…” Her voice got quieter and quieter as she moved her head slowly towards Anne’s neck.
”What does another monster taste like?”
The door swung open with a bang.
“Is everything alright?” Cole shouted breathlessly.
Both pairs of eyes moved to stare at Cole. He stood just past the still swinging door, chest heaving as he stood staring at the two girls across the room from him. His brain desperately played catch-up as he realized that he had unthinkingly charged into the women’s bathroom. A bathroom with a vampire in it.
Anne couldn’t tell if she should be elated or horrified as she looked upon her rescuer. Cole was a good person at heart. He had heard a scream and come running to help. And now, watching him take in the sight of Kelly pinning down someone while sporting a mouth straight out of a horror movie, he just straightened his shoulders like he was preparing for a fight.
“Oh what’s this?” Kelly said with a curious tilt of her head, “You shouldn’t be here…”
”P-Put her down!” Cole responded, balling up his fists and holding them out in a sloppy boxer’s pose. “Or else!”
”Else what?” Kelly spat. She held up her other hand and snapped her fingers. A pulse of magic rushed out from it and Anne watched in horror as the walls of the room took on the telltale shimmer of isolation magic.
Cole looked around in shock at the changed walls, and then the blood drained from his face as Kelly turned around fully. Dragging a struggling Anne behind her like she was an awkward bag of luggage, she began stalking towards him.
Cole seemed to realize the true danger or what was happening and reached behind him to tug at the door. His breath picked up as it refused to move for him.
”Sorry, can’t be letting you escape now.” Kelly said as she switched back to her ‘normal’ singsong tone. Her hand flashed out and she grabbed Cole’s shoulder before turning and without any apparent effort, ripping him off his feet and dragging both her struggling captives back away from the door.
She threw them both against the far wall, ignoring their cries of pain. Anne collapsed into a heap. Cole struggled to remain standing before his knees gave out and he followed her to the ground. Kelly loomed over them, her figure silhouetted by dingy fluorescent lights.
”Looks like a two for one deal,” Kelly said with a knife tipped smile. “Except, what to do with the extra?”
She reached down and trapped Cole's jaw in a vice-like grip, forcing his head up to look him in the eye. . “I was going to do a little catch and release program, but SOMEONE just had to walk in.”
Cole had tried running and fighting, now his body seemed to fail him and he stammered out a desperate question. “W-what a-are you going to do to me?”
”I-I-I’m going to kill you!” Kelly said with a cruel, mocking voice that definitely shouldn’t have come from a teenager.
Anne should have been terrified of the situation but she couldn’t help but find herself hating it instead. Her weakness and bad luck had meant that now Cole was doomed, not just to a life of servitude like she was, but to death. Her body shook and she desperately tried to move her shaking muscles to lash out. But they betrayed her, remaining where they were.
Kelly’s mouth opened again, not to mock this time but to feed. The long fangs lengthened even more as she leaned in towards Cole’s shivering body.
The door slammed open with a bang, admitting an annoyed looking Susan. Looking over the room with tired eyes she let out a quiet breath.
”A vampire, really?”
Kelly spun around, face snarling and fingers curled like claws. Anne’s mouth fell open in incredulity while Cole slumped down as Kelly let him go.
Anne couldn’t help but question what was happening. Kelly was powerful; all vampires, even a young one, were creatures of unquestionable power. Anne had thought so, right up until Susan had walked through Kelly’s wards like they weren’t there. Now she was staring at Kelly from across the room like she had spotted a really big spider on the wall and was wondering how to kill it.
”This isn’t some party! Get out! Get out and I'll let you live!” Kelly shouted, her frustration at being interrupted again clearly overriding any consideration for the situation. Susan didn’t move, continuing to stare silently for a few more seconds.
”Okay, here’s how things are going to go,” She said in a bored monotone. “I’m going to fix these two up,” Susan waved a hand past Kelly towards Cole and Anne. “Then we,” She pointed at herself and Kelly, “Are going to have a talk.”
Silence reigned for a few seconds. Anne moved from questioning her life to questioning her sanity. Cole slumped down against the wall, passing out under the stress of the situation. Kelly’s breathing slowly began to pick up, her whole body trembling as her muscles clenched in anger.
”You little witch.” Kelly almost whispered. “You got your hands on some magic didn’t you? Went and fooled around for a few cantrips and now you’re back thinking you can be top dog, huh?”
She stomped forward, shoes cracking the tiles beneath her with each step. Her voice rose to a scream, “Well if you want to die to a vampire I’m happy to help!”
Kelly lashed out with her fist. Susan didn’t even try to dodge as the fist crashed into her stomach. Anne watched in horror as Susan vanished completely in a shriek of steel and an explosion of dust and rubble. Kelly stood in place for a few seconds, arm still out as her chest heaved.
Annes breath caught in her chest as the dust cleared, revealing a gaping hole where the door had been. Her mind went blank as she fully processed that Kelly had straight up murdered someone. She had come close only seconds before, but Anne seeing it with her eyes was something completely different.
Kelly finally straightened up, turning her head back to Anne with a happy little grin on her face. Like she hadn’t just murdered a fellow student at their school.
”Now where we-“ Kelly’s voice was cut off as a rush of magic came from the hallway. The shimmer of Kelly’s magic on the walls was wiped away and replaced by a heavier glow that left the bathroom almost totally empty of sound.
A second later footsteps echoed from outside. A figure came through the empty doorframe. It was Susan, clothes full of dust and massive tears, hair ruined, and with the same unworried expression on her face.
”Okay, next time, let me get the silence rune up before you go smashing stuff.” She said, with a roll of her eyes.