Kim slid back up off the table. “My dad changed jobs. I mean like, what am I supposed to say? That’s what pastor Harris told me. Fucking Kelly won’t buy it for a second though. Kinda wish we’d swapped places, don’t you have like that mind voodoo thing? Make her believe me? Argh, no that’s no good. I don’t want her to hate me.”

Ed felt a twinge of jealousy, at least she had friends. Though he shook it off a second later as one of the lunch ladies appeared to be walking up to them. She had a little 'Thralled' status above her head too.

“What’s up?” Kim turned to see where he was staring before warily scooching back a bit at the sight. “Ok, no way even the lunch lady’s in on this shit.”

“That’s just Serah.” Well, he supposed it could be Liah too but Ed was pretty sure she’d have been ‘Charmed’ in that case. “I think.”

From what he’d learned of the wards, nothing dangerous could have gotten into the school without triggering at least a dozen failsafes and/or Mr. Garry warnings. In which case he was pretty sure Serah would have extracted him already.

“I thought you said she was like five foot nothing, waist length platinum and pale as a ghost with freaky red eyes.”

The lunch lady stopped, maybe five meters away from them.

“Is that how you think of me?”

“Whoah! You can hear that?”

“I am using a third person perspective in addition to the physical senses of this meat puppet.”

Ok, well, now Ed was definitely sure it was her. He raised his hands. “Just for the record, I never said that.”

“Wow, way to throw me under the bus dude.” Kim shot him a glare. “That’s just uh, how some of my tea—other kids describe you. I’ve never been to the nurses before. I just know some people, who get injured, like, a lot and um, yeah? I’m sorry. Ms. beautiful nurse…” Kim eyed the rather frumpy looking lunch lady up and down. “Lady?”

“It is fine.” Serah waved her off, Ed noticed there was no wasted movement, though it still looked somewhat awkward. “I have been watching you. I believe you have something for me?”

“Oh yeah, Harris totally warned me about this. Here.” She rummaged into her jacket before removing a large capped tube.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Serah broke the seal and dumped what appeared to be some sort of scroll into her hands. She unrolled it, briefly scanning the contents. “I see.” She tucked it into her apron.

The lunch lady slumped, as if her strings had been cut. Then she blinked a couple times, looked around in confusion, before picking up one of Kim’s discarded salad wrappers and wandering back over to the kitchens.

Leaning in somewhat furtively, Kim peeked at the security cameras. “Is she watching us from those?”

“I think it’s more like some sort of magic thing. If you pull back some of the wall panels you can actually see some of them too, they’re like these symbol things etched into the stone.”

Kim scoffed nervously. “And I thought Catholic underground church spa was weird.”

“So, like what? You’re just back now?” Ed was finding this a little hard to believe.

She leaned back a little and shrugged. “I guess?” She rolled her shoulders a bit as if to get some sort of kink out. “Foster relations and mutual understanding between mages and inquisitors, by joining hands with the new generation of supernaturals we may usher in a new age of peace and prosperity?”

Ed noticed she seemed to be reading off a small notecard. She handed it to him.

“It goes on for a bit there.”

It did indeed go on for a bit there. Ed flipped it over. “Ok, wow. Um, do you get paid for this?”

“Well.” Kim hedged. “No?”

“And you’re just ok with this.” Ed was starting to suspect mind shenanigans.

“I mean, I think I’m gonna have to quit the team.” She sighed sadly. “And I’m probably getting railroaded into some sort of church career but other than that, yeah, I think we’re cool. ”

As she slapped her cheeks a little. “Did you see my guns?” She pulled back her jacket again, though, it was more like a sleeveless outback vest now that he thought about it and Ed had to stop himself from blinking as the insides seemed to be absolutely riddled with various talismans, a couple knives and a… a—

“Is that a pistol?

“Sig p210 semi auto freeze rounds actually.”

To be honest, he was about to ask why Serah’d even begun to imagine why this was considered ‘safe’ and allowed on school grounds when he remembered the dust bullet spell among the many other probably even more lethal things he could do now.

“Right.”

Well, that and the fact there was a blinking little notification thing up by his minimap and right below the little crossed menu button thing he had. Unlike the usual light calming blue though, it was blinking a rather harsh sort of red. Curiously, Ed mentally clicked on it as he tuned out Kim’s rather increasingly excited words.

“New quest.”

“Avoid system discovery by both the mages and the west coast inquisitor alliance.”

Rewards:

2,000 exp

Shop access

Bonus objective: Successfully deceive either of the local factions of your innocence.

Reward:

Additional skill slot