“No no, don’t sweat it too much.” A strangely familiar voice said, as if it was in some sort of echo chamber. “Sure it’s a bit of a pain, but I’ll just call in a couple of favors and we’ll edit in all the details later.”

There was a pause, as if someone a bit farther away was talking and Ed groggily opened his eyes to see what all the commotion was about. Then he abruptly lifted his head off the desk because everything had been sideways and he’d apparently fallen asleep like that.

“Hey!” What he now recognized as the voice of Mr. Garry exclaimed. “He’s awake! Welcome to! Ed, right?”

What in the world? Ed thought in not more than a little horror, had he fallen asleep in Mr. Garry’s class? Wait, no. The last thing he remembered was that weird purple eye, then a hand over his eyes, and then he was waking up here. Ed darted his eyes around. Relaxing (but only a little) at the distinct lack of an underground torture dungeon and/or drug lab. They were in a classroom, one apparently still in the annex too judging by the more modern sort of windows and view out towards the bit of greenbelt stretching around the baseball diamond.

And it was a they. Four people sat around him in a scattering of downed desks. A strangely ordinary, if also strangely, well, Ed wasn’t really sure how to put it other than sparkly, tousle black haired and green eyed freshman looking guy seated weirdly normally as if he was attending an actual class; of course, Mr Garry in the front, for some reason spinning in the teachers chair; a tall chisel jawed and for lack of a better term very ‘prince charming’ sort of blonde fellow treating a pair of pulled up desks like some sort of couch; and then… Ed almost fell out of his desk at the sight. Grindliah the apparent witch he’d seen just this morning!

She was seated on one of the tables, one leg over the other, arms lounged over a stack of chairs.

Weren't witches supposed to be crooked nosed and green? Now that he got a bit of a better look, between the black leather varsity jacket thing and shiny silver highlights, she perhaps looked like a junior magazine model or something; the complete opposite of a Grindliah. Or even a witch for that matter.

“Sorry.” She sort of tossed into the space between them.

Ed simply scrambled back a bit more, desk screeching against the floor. And while she did seem somewhat amused at the sight, she was also rolling her eyes at him. To be honest it was only when Mr. Garry seemed to give her a little nod that Ed realized that that sorry had apparently been for him.

“Sorry if I spooked you a bit this morning.” She continued with a sigh. “That was uncalled for. "But... ugh, look, seriously Mr. Garry?" She flipped her hair and seemed to glare at him for a second. Mr. Garry that is. "This is like totally not me. Who even walks around like that?" She glanced at him again. "No offense.”

"None, uh, taken?" Ed managed to say. Since he honestly had absolutely zero idea what she was talking about that was probably the truth.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Good enough,” Mr. Garry stopped his spinning. “But come on Liah, he's like sparked yesterday... I think. Anyway, the covens would have been scrambling over themselves if that was you, err, what's it now? Couple decades?”

"I'm sixteen Mr. Garry."

"Yeah, that." He pointed both hands at her. "Sixteen badaboom."

“Not to get your hopes up or anything.” Mr. Garry glanced over at Ed. “You're a bit late for the red carpet.”

“Yo, Mr. Garry!” The tall blonde dude who the system placed as Chamuel shouted out. “Can we leave now?”

"Yes!" Mr. Garry pushed off from the wall and his chair rolled out from behind the desk. "Yes yes yes yes yes. Just as soon as I get some verbal confirmation you guys aren't going to eat him, thrall him, kill him, or any of the other many things described by prime material law, fourth edition, page 526 subsection B—whew that's a mouthful—when you sense him in a five hundred full shift radius as described by the Crowly theory of my office, yeah?"

"Uh, I don't think I read that part Mr. Garry."

Mr. Garry sort of facepalmed. "Well you trust your parents and your parents trust me so you either read that." A large book seemed to suddenly materialize about halfway through the process of clonking Chamuel on the head. Though, and just before it hit him, his arm appeared to abruptly snap in a way Ed was pretty sure arms weren't supposed to and catch the thing. "Or just uh, how would you put it? Trust me bro?"

Chamuel carefully set the book aside as if it had some sort of very contagious disease. "I, Chamuel Eury promise not to eat Edwin Alexander Marmet, thrall him, kill him, or any of the other many things described by prime material law, fourth edition, page 526 subsection B when I sense his spark in a five hundred full shift radius as described by the Crowly theory of Tamtilus Sigmund Garry's office at Lakepark highschool.

"Huh," Mr. Garry squinted at him. "So you did read it."

Chamuel simply threw up his hands and crashed back into his couch of desks.

After a couple stern looks both Seth and a now very disgruntled Grindliah diligently repeated what Ed was starting to believe was some sort of chant to put him to sleep or perhaps lower his guard. And, well, at least in the case of the latter Ed was beginning to think they'd succeeded.

"So." Mr. Garry clapped his hands when they finished. "You wanted to leave right?"

"Yes! Nice, aight bros lets dip!" Chamuel all but spun his way out of his desks tossing an arm around Seth in the process. Seth was very quick to duck out of it though.

“No.” Seth seemed to say loudly, still half laughing. Then a bit quieter “Look, I want to stick around. Pretty sure Liah is gonna be the only decent point of reference I'm ever going to have for this sort of thing.”

While Cham appeared to say something back Ed didn’t really catch the rest of it as they’d started moving out towards the door. Though more importantly, Mr. Garry had started talking again too and Ed was pretty sure he didn’t want to miss that.

“Hey, before you say anything. Here.” There was a pair of thunks as two books were tossed onto his desk. A brown worn plain one titled Mudman’s guide to the Mystical, and a much more modern one; Baby’s first mana shapes, by Arden Helig. It had a variety of colored polygons on the front with a photorealistic baby. He was also pretty sure it was laminated… laminated with a couple teeth marks in the corner. “Heligs’ pretty old, but it’s good. Before you get into it, most people think Mudmans’ patronizing, but no one’s really bothered to write a better one in the last century or so. If it makes you feel any better, I slogged through it too. Hey, don’t ask.”

Somewhat blankly, Ed hesitantly looked up from the books. A quick peek to his right revealed Seth halfway out the door. Cham too. “So, um… actually can I leave too?”