ENCOUNTER some of Aegidius's strange "friends": 4 + 2 + 2 [bravery] (8): You have to convince them

You and your fellow magical schoolgirls spend the time in this strange room a bit awkwardly. Kinzie makes it clear very quickly that... well, it isn't so much that she doesn't want to talk to you, but anything you say will be used against you as things are. She's definitely going to trash your reputation in Leontes for this.

There is no sign of that shy little girl your brother is scouting as a potential mage. You sit down on one of the couches. Felice slides her butt into the couch next to you and starts gently rubbing your back and sides and asking personal questions about your brother. You shake your head. "Are you really that attracted to Aegidius? He is ze least fun guy I have ever known. I respect him, but my God, he is like a looming graveyard statue come to life." Felice giggles, and lowers her glasses an inch to wink at you. You continue. "...or are you just doing this as some kind of test to make me uncomfortable? Or do you just want to be able to tell him afterwards that you... we..." You blush and look away from her.

Felice manages to pack a lot of sultry allure into a concise, monosyllabic answer: "Yes~~~"

You groan and roll your eyes. "It's a no wonder you never had a serious boyfriend or girlfriend, Felice. You are clearly so high maintenance."

"Hey, that's not tr-" she pauses and thinks for a moment, caught off guard by your sudden snark. "...How many times do you have to do it before it is 'serious'?" Then she notices Milly trying to open up the case of that glass and plastic screen thing she zapped. "Hey! You silly girl! Stop, you're going to break it worse!" Felice says.

"I can fix this, I can fix this! It's just copper and lead. If I can find some spare copper somewhere in the house, I can restore the melted bits!" Milly says, her short shirt fluttering as she awkwardly dashes upstairs, leaving you, Kinzie and Felice.

You ponder. The fact that your brother brought that kid with him... but her parents are mundanes, right? So why would they agree to leave their daughter in custody, even temporarily? Did he just explain it to them? If magic isn't known here, that might seem absurd to them. You can't believe that Aegidius would use magic on their minds, so how did he convince them? Does he have some kind of status or power in the mundane world? Or... a network of influence?

...come to think of it, why did Aegidius have a key to a conveniently unoccupied house?

Suddenly you jump in your seat as the front doorknob turns. You and the beautiful curly-haired petite girl next to you gasp. Felice reaches for her wand... "Nein! Nein! Put it away!" you hiss at her, slapping her hand. You do likewise, keeping it in a specially designed pocket in your jacket (although the newly shrunken, sexy version of the jackets created by Felice's short-sighted spell doesn't hide it well).

Standing in the doorway is a young man with a polo shirt and close-cropped hair, with a gold watch gleaming on his wrist He walks into the room and jumps with a start when he sees you three in the living room... HIS living room, you wonder?

Behind him are at least three others, looking rather similar to him: 20-something men wearing clothes with names and logos you don't recognize on them. They all stare in surprise.

At first, the man looks a little worried and you feel your hand involuntarily reach towards your wand. These are... definitely a bunch of mundies, and they're looking right at you and the others. However, after a moment looking at you - who are, to his unschooled eyes, a girl who's just a hair shy of five feet tall and no physical threat to anyone old enough to drink - his body relaxes. A couple of the other men behind him look excited to see the three of you and start whispering to each other.

The man with the gold watch puts a keyring into his pocket and looks upstairs. "Ayyyyyyyyyyy there!" he says in a sharper version of the accent that most Boarbristle students (though not foreigners like you, Felice or Milly) speak in. "Eddy! Get your arse down here ra-ight now! Did you bloody well invite strippers to my home?!"

You hear some ominious sounds from upstairs. Crashing, furniture sliding, a strong gust of wind. After a minute, your formidable older brother comes to the top of the bannister wearing a mundane-style suit and tie... though he has left his pointed hat on. He looks up and notices it and swats it off his head as if hoping it won't be noticed. You haven't seen him this humble, meek or apologetic looking since he wrecked mother's teleporting armoire while trying to skimp on moving expenses. "Hello, Ralph..." Aegidius says.

The irate homeowner sweeps his hand behind him. "Here I am, thinking, hey, since you're already borrowin' my home for all your travels again, I'll bring a few of the guys from my seminars at Queen Mary's and let them talk to my 'financial wizard'. Have you show 'em the way you can predict the turns. And..." He stops and breaks into a grin, laughing, even as Aegidius has the look of a fieldmouse being dived on by an owl.

"Haahahha! I'm just giving you shite, Eddy. Choice, very choice. But really, the lads would love to talk to you about your prediction model."

"Stripper..." Aegidius's deep voice croaks a little. "I'm sorry, I do not know this word," he says, purposely exaggerating his accent and speaking more slowly than usual. "These are... students... from another school I teach at, sometimes. There is Kinzie... and Felice, with the glasses... and next to her on the couch, my sister Fran."

The other young men start looking at 'Ralph' and laughing, making exaggerated, silly expressions and softly punching him and grabbing his shoulders. "Oh! Ohhhhhh! You stepped in it, mate!"

Ralph stands there stammering for a minute. "I, uhh... c'mon, you know I was joking, Eddy. Girls? So sorry about that."

Kinzie curls her lip and smirks humorlessly. "No offense taken, you stupid rich cunt."

You drop your jaw a little and your hand goes for your wand again as you try to remember if Mundanes carry weapons to compensate for their lack of spells. Is she trying to start a fight?

But whereas a wizard will often take a serious insult as a challenge to his pride regardless of the challenger's sex, it seems that these guys don't take her words seriously at all and laugh again.

Now that they're no longer looking at you, you turn your gaze up towards your brother and stare daggers at him while he looks at you pleadingly.