“You are wanted in the office.” Was what echoed through Mitch’s mind as he walked through the halls of the old schoolhouse. “At least this time they didn’t announce it during the assembly.” He thought as he could hear that same speech going on through the walls next to him.

This time when he made it to the principal's door he heard some conversation on the other side of the door. Though muffled he could make out “It won’t be too long. We just need a meeting to ..” Though his eavesdropping was soon discovered as he heard “Ah, seems he is here now.”

Before he could even knock, the door would open revealing a rather full room compared to last time. Standing in front of him was a large, “built like a fucking brick” man with his arms crossed looking down at him. “Eavesdropping are we?” He asked in a gruff tone. He had short buzz cut hair and a long scar running across his lower left cheek that resembled claw marks.

“Now, now, Renauld. Be nice to our guests.” Rin would say. He was sitting inside at the principal's desk “Curiosity is only natural for someone his age.” There was something about that comment that just infuriated Mitch, being spoken down to was what he brought it to.

Nick was waiting at his side and he leaned down to whisper something to Rin. After a few moments he walked to Reanauld and slapped his arm “We have other business to attend to.”

Reanauld glared at Mitch for a moment, but shoved past him after. Nick followed him out into the hall before they left around the corner. “What a prick.” Mitch thought as he entered the room. The principal herself seemed to be out at the moment and Rin was left facing him wearing that same mask he was wearing last time they met.

“You look in good health.” Rin commented, raising a hand to offer him the seat across from him “Do take a seat.”

“What do you need?” Mitch asked, trying not to sound suspicious of him but it was rather difficult to hide that he was possibly the last person he would want to meet.

“Perhaps some respect.” He replied in jest. “But I do want to talk to you about the events that took place on Thursday. I do believe this entire event is down to fault no other than your own, correct?”

While he was correct he would still feel annoyed by how he said it. There was no concern, no questions, just blunt facts and a condescending aura. “Yes, am I here to be disciplined?” He asked.

“What would you say should be done with someone in your position?” Rin simply asked. Placing a hand on a file atop the table “This is growing into a rather large concern. People are flocking to his side by word of mouth.”

“Well…” Mitch responded dejected, not really sure what should be done. By the rules he knew what must be done but certainly no one would want to admit that. “I don’t care.” He eventually said confidently “No matter what I say, you follow your stringent, barbaric rules.”

Rin sat in a cold silence, staring directly through him. Though the silence was enough to shake the faux confidence that Mitch put on he stayed firm. Rin eventually burst out laughing, shaking his head and leaning forward “You are an odd one indeed Mitch.” He said, though he wore a mask he could feel a grin across his face on the other side. “Truth is, there is no real punishment. If we punished everyone who forgot to erase a rune I’m sure we wouldn’t have much of a family left.”

It was certainly a relief to hear that, but then it raised more questions. Such as “What am I here for then?” Which he asked.

“Well, since this is your own fault. I would like to ask you to work with Jasper in monitoring this group's activities. I felt it best to ask you directly since this will be an official job.” Rin explained, pushing across the folder to his side. “Inside are the details, pay upon completion of each milestone, and an email to report to each time you have something to report.”

Mitch hesitantly picked up the folder and opened it up, it was quite heavy and there was a rather large number of sheets in it. They were separated by dividers which each had “phase 1” through 4 written on them. “And what if I say no?” He asked out of morbid curiosity.

“Then it will be tasked to Jasper.” Was the simple response.

“So I'll wind up working on it anyway..” He thought while looking at the first phase which was simply to observe. Sheets designed to be filled out with information gathered from seeing what the next moves of the blog and group he created was.

He returned his attention to Rin and nodded “Fine, I'll take the job.”

“Very good, I knew you would.” He said with a joyous tone.

Mitch had to use all of the willpower he had left to not tell him to perform several unsavoury acts on himself. He simply returned his attention to the file where phase 2 was about infiltration. Knowing the group had been set up the family expected him to get information from the inside and record it in this split.

The third was plant doubt, a simple enough split to understand, from within the group plant seeds of doubt and deter some members without getting kicked out. A much harder split to do but compared to the last one it was a walk in the park.

Split 4; Disband. Find a way to prove the discovery from the manor event as fake and disband the group. There was no time limit on this split but it was encouraged to complete all in a timely manner before it gets too out of hand.

“Now, do you understand the job?” Rin would ask after a few more minutes. His tone had changed, he no longer sounded like a condescending child and more like a boss.

Mitch turned his attention from the folder and said “I have an idea of what I have to do. I need some time to make a plan of action.”

“We don’t expect this to be done soon.” Rin assured him, resting his gloved hands down onto his lap. “This is a long term threat.”

“Is that some sort of grading system?” Mitch asked, flipping the folder closed.

“Of course, we have a way to grade every threat that comes to us. It ranges from “dispose of immediately” to “Long term threat.” Both should be pretty self explanatory.”

“Yeah, how do you rank something on this scale?” Mitch asked, his stomach still churning at how easily he could talk of disposing of human lives as if it was some form of day job… Which it kind of was to the family it seemed.

“Well, immediate disposal would be someone such as Lara.” He stated so casually “Someone who would not be missed, and continued existence could lead to problems in the future unless they join the family.”

“So it's safe to guess the latter threats will be missed, and someone will look into their death?” Mitch asked. Once again it was such a horrifically casual comment to talk so lowly of the newest recruit and how ready they were to erase her existence. As much as it made him feel dirty, he had to keep his composure and follow Rin’s tone to keep the conversation flowing smoothly.

“Of course” Rin replied quickly “People like high up government officials, cult leaders, and influencers in this modern day. It will only lead to people digging into the cause of the death, which ultimately leads to us having to deal with other people along the way. We want to keep the casualties to a minimum.”

“How graceful.” Mitch spat without thinking, his eyes widening as he caught himself but it was too late now.

“Think of our methods, what you will.” Rin replied, his tone taking an even more serious shift. “But this is a serious threat, and I expect you to take this work seriously. If you do this correctly this could end with only one life lost.”

Once again the comment infuriated him. Without a moment's silence he promptly responded “I’ll come out of this with no lives lost.”in an equally serious tone, standing and walking to the door with the folder.

“One day that naivety will wear away.” Rin responded, before his tone returned to rather jovial “I do hope you are training for that festival.”

“What is with this man…” Was all Mitch could think as he left the room and closed the door behind him, clutching that folder to his chest.

During lunch he spent his time sitting with Joel and Saoirse. He was given some time to slip the folder back into his room before he returned to class but he couldn’t get the job off of his mind throughout his class.

“Yo, Mitch?” Saoirse said as she waved her hand in front of his face.

He pulled his head out of the clouds for a few moments to respond “What is it?” He asked as he leaned his elbow on the table.

“You zoned out again.”

“Yeah, sorry, got a lot to think about.” He replied, having ordered a small plate of fries and hardly eating any of them. He mostly played around with the fork as he was wondering what his plan of attack even would be.

“You’ve been well out of it since you went to that principals meeting. Is the family festival really that stressful?” Joel asked between bites of his large burger that struggled to contain itself without spilling out the other end.

There was a partial silence again as Mitch thought how to answer. He didn’t want to lie but he also didn’t want to tell them exactly what happened. Eventually he decided to partially explain. “I have a new job with Jasper, It’s one of those big ones. Just trying to think of how to start it.”

“How big, we talking about?” Joel asked between the previous question and now having managed to finish his food.

They listened intently as he thought of the easiest way to explain it without giving too much detail. “It’s one of those over the course of a few months' jobs.”

“Any details?” Joel asked again, leaning over the table to get in closer.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“That’s all private.” Mitch replied with a light chuckle. “Not sure what I’m allowed to say.”

Saoirse just laughed along as she continued to eat her lunch. “Better be paying attention in class still.” She eventually added.

He had the job on his mind for the entirety of the weekend classes and had a plan in mind for when he returned Sunday night. He was quick to gather Jasper and Lara for a meeting at the manor. He had messaged ahead of time that he wanted to talk with them so when he got there they were already waiting by the dining table.

“What’s the matter?” Jasper asked as he entered. Knowing him he already knew exactly what was going on but still felt the need to ask.

He still had his suitcase with him as he came straight from the train station and he had to spend a moment going through his suitcase until he pulled out the folder to throw on the desk. “I had a meeting with Rin yesterday. I was given this assignment.”

“That’s a pretty hefty folder.” Jasper replied, picking it up to flip it open. “He had contacted me about the job he gave you, it seems there is a lot here.”

“We have a long time to complete it, but the first step is to infiltrate the group. We have to just wait for them to add us since we gave the details.” Mitch explained succinctly.

Lara was leaning over to look at it with Jasper, finding the blank pages in the first section to be quite hefty. “How much is he expecting us to report?” She asked as she counted out 20 lined sheets for observations from infiltration.

“Well, 20 pages of course.” Jasper bluntly stated “But first we need to get into that group and watch it.”

“Wait, you haven’t gotten in already?” Lara asked, taking out her phone and fumbling with the lock screen until she flipped her phone to show the P.Normal Runic Group that was set up on common social media.

“Weird, I was checking earlier.” Mitch replied as he took out his phone, Jasper following suit to check.

Neither of them had been invited to the group. Mitch checked through his notifications though he never really had any, but he did find under the tab of messages sent from accounts he wasn’t friends with he had a message that wasn’t pinged.

“Your application to the P.Normal Runic Group has been denied on suspicion surrounding your character. You will be removed from any future events, thank you for understanding.” Was sent to him by a now deleted account so he couldn’t see anything about them.

“I got this weird message..” Mitch said as he held out his phone to Jasper “Seems our romp out there to investigate has led them to be cautious of us.”

“Well this seems rather bad.” Jasper said as he found he had the same message in his spam folder “At least Lara has gotten in. One person with a foot in is all we need.”

“That's a lot of pressure to stay in.” She replied, holding up her phone to look through the recent posts. “The only post on here at the moment is that they are working on an application for people within the group to be able to get news on when he finds any more runes and can come see them.”

“He is really pushing this.” Jasper replied, leaning over to look at the post with her “No comments but a handful of likes. Guess it should be expected the group is rather small after that whole presentation.”

“Let’s make sure it doesn’t get any bigger.” Mitch said with a sigh, fidgeting with his own phone on the table. He was getting increasingly anxious about the situation but panicking right now would get him nowhere.

“Well what could be the best way to do that?” Jasper asked as he slid the first lined page over to Mitch.

He nodded as he got what he was insinuating and pulled a pen out of his bag. “I think the easiest one for me at least is to plant some doubt in school since some kids from there went to the event.” He explained while he wrote down about the first post and his plan in school.

“Good, get on that tomorrow then.” Jasper replied as he stood up from the table. “Go home for the night and get some rest.”

“Yeah, I’m tired after classes.” Mitch lamented, slipping the half filled sheet back into the folder “I’ll leave this with you, don’t want anyone else finding it.”

Jasper nodded and took the folder from the table, heading out and up the stairs. After sharing a brief goodbye with Lara he left the manor and made the trek back to his family home.

The next morning he had shared a similar breakfast with his father and sister before he made his way into school where everything seemed rather normal outside of Shaun of course. “Hey man, did you check out the group?” He asked while he sat with his lunch.

“Nawh man, I declined the invite.” He played off as not getting in would be quite suspicious. “Not too convinced by the whole light show thing.”

“Awh man, that's a shame, we both got in.” He said as he showed off that Emma was also in the group by bringing up the list of members and showing him his phone.

“Hey guys.” Emma said as she placed her bag onto the floor “you two talking about spooky shit again?”

“Mitch declined joining the group!” Justin would almost yell, speaking as if he had made some grave error of judgement. Mitch was too busy scanning over the group's members, finding only a handful at the moment at twenty.

“Why?” She asked while the two took their lunch out and set it across the table.

“I don’t believe in that little light show he gave off.” Mitch shrugged. As if he needed to defend himself for not joining the loony club.

“Awh man, you are no fun. All it takes is believing a bit.” Shaun tried to counterpoint, but Mitch was taken aback by the sound of a 16-bit funeral theme that layered twice over itself. It led to them both taking out their phones and seemingly checking something.

“What’s all this about?” Mitch asked, not wanting to look rude by leaning over to read their phone screen so he prodded.

Luckily for him Shaun was always open to showing him his phone. “It’s the new app thing they made.” He saw the screen had been holding what looked like Joseph’s blog but in a far more compact and portable design that actually fit a phone screen properly. “They send out a notification any time P.Normal posts anything new to it.”

“Kinda tacky don’t you think?” He asked, finding this app must have been made by Joseph himself or a rushed job that he paid very little for since it had the incredibly cheesy funeral tone and the lack of any formatting on the blog. Anyone with trouble seeing anything small would be pretty screwed trying to read through this app.

“Really fits his motif.” Shaun tried to explain on behalf of P.Normal. He seemed far too engrossed in this character at times and Shaun seemed far too willing to buy it.

“Makes sense.” He replied, curious to what the latest blog post was but he wasn't sure what to say. He had already backed himself into a corner by saying he wasn’t interested at all.

He finally figured it out, playing the role of the sceptic he said “So, what bull is he saying this time?”

“It isn't bull.” Shaun defended, falling right into his trap as he figured out he would defend it by explaining. “It’s a link to a recording of the rune, urging everyone to share it.”

“Trying to use others for viral marketing.” He smirked, tapping the table idly.

Once school was over Mitch returned from class to the manor, this time bypassing the dad joke from Jasper as Lara was the one who opened the gate for him.

“You think you would have a key or something to get in here by now.” She said as he got to the door, holding a pile of sheets under her arm.

“Jasper loves wasting my time with bad jokes.” He chuckled, pointing at the pile of sheets as he asked “What’s all that?”

“Oh it’s nothing too special. Just some sheets I have to fill out about training with Jasper.” She explained, following him to the living area by the front of the house. “Thought I could fill them out while you do homework and such.”

“Sounds good.” He replied as he threw his bag to the floor before collapsing into the soft seat that had the sun shining in the back which made it quite warm.

“So, did you find anything from your friends?” She asked as she began writing on the first sheet.

“A small bit. Joseph has made an app in record time because it is held together with duct tape and rubber bands. Apparently they are trying to get all the members to share the video so it goes viral.” He explained as he laid out his maths textbook and copy.

She would take a moment to check her phone before she flipped it around to show the app “I got accepted into it too since I got into the group.”

“Be sure to keep an eye on it then.” He replied, leaning over to check his questions and start writing into the copy. “Who knows when he will pull something dumb.”

“Give it time.” she replied with a hearty chuckle. Though she turned the conversation to a more casual setting “So, any plans for the week off that’s coming up?”

He would maintain his attention on the copy and replied “Nothing that I can think of. Most likely just catch up on studying and sleep. What about yourself?”

She felt somewhat more relaxed now as she rested the sheets against her leg which was crossed over the other “Training, maybe I’ll explore Carlow a bit and see what is around.”

Though the calm conversation didn’t last long as Jasper would soon burst into the room “Well look who got in without saying hello to his dear old grandad.” He said as he had the same folder from last night.

“Nice to see you too.” Mitch jeered, pulling his chair forward to let him squeeze behind and get to the free one on the other side.

Jasper slapped the folder down and said “Well rudeness aside, any news?”

He spent a moment to fill him in on what he had just told Lara. This caused his demeanour to change rather quickly. “I don’t like the sound of this.” He grumbled, rubbing his chin which was coated in prickles of white stubble which made an audible sound akin to sandpaper being rubbed.

“What’s so bad about it?” Lara asked as she had also started writing into her training logs that rested against her leg. Not a single glance shared in the room as they all focused on their respective papers.

“Can’t help but think this is going to spiral out of control.” He began to explain, opening the folder and laying out the unfinished sheet from yesterday. “It sounds like the beginning of a cult if you ask me. A bit far-fetched and early to say, but it is one that we have seen happen time and time again over the years.”

“It’s our job to make sure it doesn’t get that far.” Mitch quickly replied, knowing people that he personally knew were involved made him far more determined than usual to make sure this was solved as quickly as possible. His personal moral compass added that he would do this without losing a single life.

“I sure hope we can. It is a long term threat, so he has plenty of time to start something like this.” Jasper calmly retorted. “We can’t rush something as delicate as this. If we deal with him too early it will just raise more sceptics.”

“We can surely do this without having to deal with him.” He replied quickly once more, the same determination showing in his tone now “We just need to discredit him, make people not believe in his story.”

“Some would say a fate worse than death.” Jasper said, picking up one of his pens out of his pencil case that rested close to the books on the table “Having all you worked for be pulled out from under you… The world suddenly thinks you are nothing when you were right all along.”

Mitch wanted to retort, he felt the hurt in Jasper's tone and left it be. This wasn’t an argument worth having. After a few moments of silence he finally replied “We need a way to make sure he can’t trace Lara back to us. Otherwise this gets really difficult.”

“Funny you mention that.” Lara perked up and said “Jasper and I were looking at apartments earlier today that I would stay in any time something to do with him comes up. I would leave from there, and make sure he can track me back to there.”

“You aren’t scared of this weirdo knowing where you live?” He asked, finally turning his attention from his book.

“Well of course it will be scary, but scary is part and parcel of the job.” She said with a hint of hesitation. She sat up and tapped the pen against the sheets as she talked, the speed picking up over time.

“Sure you want to be alone?” He asked after, sitting back up.

A heavy silence washed over the group as Lara sat staring into the table, thinking about what she could possibly see in there. Jasper eventually said to her “If you see anything, I will be on speed dial. Call, text, carrier pigeon, I’ll be over to handle anything you see.”

“I guess I can live if that is the case.” She replied, nodding along and returning the pen to its drumming. Though she didn’t sound wholly convinced she was willing to put the work in to help those who she felt had helped her.

The three shared a collective nod and returned to their individual work.