Clans & Orders

John swallowed a knot in his throat, and chose his words very carefully before the gi-wearing mage. "I don't know what happened... but... is anyone hurt?"

Kim's features softened for a moment, but no more than that; she nodded, keeping her eyes on John as she spoke. "Many. Some have been possessed or influenced by evil, and it filled their bodies with... unhealthy desires. At first, I suspected your demon."

John did his best not to react. How the Hell does SHE know about Fairy?!

"But you do not bear the Outsider taint."

"Outsider?" That word again...

Kim turned her back on John and approached the bi-curious slime pile at the center of the room. She almost shouted her words. "Of course, beyond those tainted, dozens more are merely their victims. There are still many students who remain unaware, but... at this point, lives will be ruined if someone does not intervene."

The haze temporarily lifted from Moira's mind as she heard Kim's words. Why was she on the floor... cuddling with Rave, no less?! Rave, who was lost in the slime as well... another victim.

Arguably, a victim Moira put in harm's way.

Moira was still fighting the haze of the slime ****, but her body knew its duty: she withdrew from Rave's pretty, pink little nipple and kissed the offended breast. "The Lady blesses you."

Rave giggled in her throat as she felt Moira tease her flesh... and blinked rapidly with slow realization. She sprang up from the floor, followed shortly by Moira. "W-Whoa, hey, uh-"

Shocked out of her own half-daze, Moira slowly followed, her hands scooping her breasts once she realized John was present. "By the... t-this is a misunderstanding!" John did a double-take between them. "No, an attack! We were attacked!"

"Of course!" Rave agreed, covering her own nudity once she realized it.

"We were under the influence of evil! There was nothing else to this!" By the Lady, why do I feel guilty about it?!

"Duh, Moi-Moi," Rave nervously laughed, "I mean, we got cornered by those slime monsters. Of course... you know, without that," she continued, awkwardly motioning between herself and her rival, "we'd... never-"

"Of course not!"

"Yeah, no!"

"Absolutely not!"

"Not under any other condition!"

Kim and John, neither of which had questioned them, now glanced between the confused, embarrassed women.

It was Kim who broke their silence first. "Warden." The gravity hit Moira, though she continued to do her best for her modesty. "I did not come to help you as a kindness. There are people that I cannot help, and in seeking one to punish I found no signs of an enemy, let alone one who might be bested to lift the taint put upon the students. Indeed, I found only this."

John's fear began to build as Kim approached Moira. He had been careful... but perhaps not careful enough. He still had the fairy dust canister in his inventory. Was there a camera in the kitchen, then, when he opened a tunnel right above the mashed potatoes vat? But how the Hell did +1 libido and one orgasm do everything she described? No... it can't... John read the quest again: the numbers remained hugely disproportionate to the effect. Fairy dust doesn't even do anything like this. It should've been a few soaked seats, some soiled underwear and everyone gets changed before the next class... at worst, a few go home embarrassed. So how...?

Kim reached into her gi, and pulled out her evidence. "The school needs you and your Order, now more than ever."

Moira carefully grasped the object, yet unseen by John, and her eyes opened wide.

Rave's eyes widened too, though in that case it was as she felt something drool out of her pussy and onto her fingers. Her hand drifted from her sex, holding a fair droplet of blue; with the aid of gravity, ever more of the stuff would be coming out of her for the remainder of the day. She looked about, **** again for an exit, and found the door closer to the teacher's end of the room was now blasted clear, though she could scarcely remember how Kim had done so in protecting them. "You guys can handle this."

Moira thought to try and corner the rogue mage, but the thing in her hands, if she understood it, meant Collide was the last of her worries. She only nodded idly.

The door opened and closed, and Rave was gone. John could no longer bear his curiosity, at what evidence he could've possibly left behind. What will the Order do with me if... Slowly, the small, foreign object came into view.

Magical item: eye of the beholder. This glyph is a magical charm that allows its creator to see through the hand-drawn eye as if it were his or her own. This glyph has been enhanced to also transmit sound. Status: inactive.

John's eyebrows twitched. He hadn't the slightest clue what he was looking at: the charm, a thin disk carved from wood, had a red eye crying a red tear painted on its front, and its magical nature was reported immediately.

Moira shook her head. “I sense its... magic,” she began, her voice still shaking after her experience, “but I’ve never seen such a thing.”

Kim nodded. “Nor have I. I would've left it be if not for its essence: there is the resonance of an Outsider in this."

Moira's frown deepened. John, curious at her reaction, remained silent. "Outsiders...?" She glanced at John. "But... that's not..."

"I cannot let my clan know I meddled in this affair, and so I cannot return to my clan with that." Kim moved away from Moira, leaving her holding the charm at arm's length. "But I also cannot stand by when such an enemy has set their sights on the Academy."

"The Order will handle this," Moira declared with an impressive authority for a half-naked paladin, "and then we shall discuss this."

Kim began to head for the door after Rave. "I know not of what you speak. After all: I left thirty minutes ago to warn your Order. You did not see me here in the Academy... either of you."

Moira nodded with the confidence of some unspoken agreement, but John remained unsure. "I don't even know who you are," he half-lied. He was better off not admitting to yet another that he could see her basic information. "I don't know what an Outsider is, or what your clan does, or how-"

"Remain so fortunate, John," Kim interrupted. He grimaced, but she didn't turn to see it. Instead, she remained before the door, closed her eyes, and began to tremble. What John took to be a violent shaking was the image of the martial artist within the barrier before its colors inverted like a ruined photo negative. John's eyes hurt to stare directly at her, and the image quickly turned into a blur, then into a sunspot on his eyes as he tried to keep sight of her.

Kim Moon cancelled her Training Meditation spell! Kim Moon has exited the illusion barrier.

John rubbed his eyes and looked at Moira, doing his best to not stare at how her breasts tried to surge past her forearm-

"It was you." And the cold fear was back. John's fingertips trembled as he found no route of escape save the door used by Rave; but running was hardly an option with the Order. His silence was damning. She narrowed her eyes as she paced around him, and walked towards the corner of the blackboard. Only now did John realize that her shield and hammer had been buried in the wall behind him.

She dropped the charm into the inside of the heater shield and, without so much as a grunt, ripped both implements of her trade out of the wall. The blackboard cracked further with the **** of her retrieval, and her breasts shook with the **** of her pulls. Despite John's presence, she showed no worry for her modesty now. "An Outsider could use demonic essence... but it probably wouldn't. Certainly, I would be able to tell... and it certainly," she repeated the word, each one a nail in a coffin, "... certainly, it would not seem so precisely the same as your tamed fiend."

"Moira-"

"John." She slipped the hammer into the shield, and began to fish inside the magical space for one of her spare uniforms. "I do not yet know what you did, but it's clear that you've gone too far yet again." She looked down at herself, sighing with the slick layer of slime that continued to cover her, thankfully inert thanks to Kim's intervention. Father will be displeased to know I owe the Moon a favor...

"It... it wasn't supposed to be any worse than when we first met?" He tried, and failed, to make it almost sound charming.

Moira pulled a huge white towel out of her inventory, and began to towel off her limbs as she spoke. "We met because you were spreading demonic influence onto unsuspecting women! I was urged to forgive you then, and I've no such urgings now that you should know better! Do you know that I had to find excuses to kiss blessings upon each of the poor students and teachers your demon tainted? Now we'll need to edit memories, if you managed to inflict more harm this time-"

"... Then what do you want?" Moira stared at him with a confused, angry twist to her features. She wiped her chastity belt clean, and threw the towel back in the shield before pulling out a second one. Given his own inventory ability, John didn't even question the capacity of the shield. "What do I need to do to make it right?"

"You'll help me reverse it, of course."

"I don't think I even can-"

"Then I'll report your transgressions to the Order, and they will find a suitable duty for your punishment," she declared with a finality that left no room for compromise.

"The barrier is starting to fade... I suppose that cheat, Rave, made her escape after all," she grumbled.

John knew he was on thin ice already, and said nothing.

"What the Hell?" A robed figure in a dingy motel room stomped her foot in frustration. She had deactivated the Eye only long enough to catch a midday nap, but such had been enough: it was no longer responding to her call. "After all the resources I stole to make it, too! Plus sneaking into the school so damn early- argh! First the Firebat, and now this..." Frustrated, the diminutive figure returned to the desk to finish up her less magical works. Standing on the creaking chair, she looked down at the wave of falsified papers, certificates, and other proofs of her experience and talent as a substitute teacher for such specialized academies and preparatory schools. Soon she'd be in a proper apartment, closer to the Academy than this wretched inn, and closer still to her persons of interest.

"Wonder who the Hell took my Eye though... curse the gobsmacking, teetering, tit-slapping dung-bunny who stole it, curse his house and his seven divorcees and three widows, damn his whole lineage and all the sons he never had-!"

She went on like this for some time, ever presuming a male mage had crossed her. Tall folk were always prejudiced, but the tall men most of all in her experience, a bitterness grown exponentially by the misogynist egomaniac that called himself her superior. It was that same Master from which she stole, and she wasn't about to risk it again She would have to wait until she made her appearance at the Academy proper to spy on her target. Bitterly, she continued her work, and burned her false name into the falsely-aged paperwork before her: Juni Snick. Those idiots will never see me coming... and then, John Newman... hoohoo... then your power will be mine!

By the time Moira was buttoning her shirt, the barrier had fallen away completely, and chance had left them in an empty classroom. Grumbling, Moira finished getting dressed while John peered out through the windows, noting nothing out of the ordinary in the fields or streets. Maybe it's not as bad as the quest results claim... Suddenly remembering it, he brought it back up and tapped "Y" to accept.

QUEST COMPLETE!
+5,500XP
+1 [magical item with one property based on targets]
+1 [skill lvl or knowledge of targets] (to be chosen within 24 hours)

Magical item: crown of fear. Grants the user the ability to gauge fear or anticipation in a target, and to detect intense apprehension or terror within 1,000 feet. Once per day, the user can look upon a target and either cause a mortal fear of the crown bearer or else cure any and all fears or apprehensions felt towards the user.

Would you like to define the desired skill or knowledge from targets? Y/N

John was nearing his next level, but that hardly outweighed the implication of his reward. Fear? Why... His inventory ticked up, but now was hardly the time to try out this new headgear. "What now?"

"Now we assess what you've done." Without a further word, Moira affixed her brooch and led John out of the classroom.

Sighing, John pulled up his inventory, clicking the crown into a container... and as he did it, he looked at the vacuum flask icon, still reading at 49% capacity. What the Hell did you do? He didn't even contemplate clicking on it; he had read it dozens of times and knew its effects. Maybe this really wasn't my fault... and someone was casting something through the Eye...!