After sitting at full mana for a while, I was feeling pretty alright. During that time, Midnight had used Sending so that nobody would worry about our delay. Even with that and his expenditures during battle, he still recovered to full before me. That would have been the case even if I hadn’t apparently gone into negative mana, since we had about 15 total points of difference in our mana capacity. Levels would do that, and I was pretty much guaranteed to stay ahead of Midnight unless we ended up in extremely odd circumstances.

  I cast a test spell, utilizing Haste to expend a similar amount of mana. The good news was that the lingering effects didn’t seem that bad- unlike absorbing mana crystals, the negative side effects of which lasted more than a day once I hit that point. It was only slightly painful, like moving too quickly and being reminded you have a headache.

  Magical girls were gathered around as we made our preparations to leave. It wasn’t just because we were friends and they wanted to say goodbye- Fried Shrimp didn’t seem to appreciate me at all- but also because we didn’t know if my Gates could make it easier for The Scouring to reach this world or if it was just coincidental timing. The safehouse should be more secure, but there were a handful of transformed individuals around as we cast Gate.

  Midnight was preparing to perform the bulk of the magic, three quarters of it just so that he wouldn’t be at precisely his fatigue threshold. We weren’t up for any sort of excitement with people passing out or whatever.

  “Bye! Thanks for inviting us over,” I waved.

  Strife shook her head. “We are the ones who should be thankful. You have helped bolster our allies once more… even if there were some inconveniences.”

  “We’ll stay in touch with you all,” Midnight commented. “Let us know if there are any… continued issues.”

  Then we used the spell, the portal opening in front of us back to Extra. I didn’t sense anything else weird happening around our portal, and Midnight and I made sure to do our best to properly shut it behind us. I wasn’t sure if there was an actual difference with letting one close at the end of its life, but we might not figure that out without trying.

  -----

  I needed to get into touch with an experienced spellcaster. I already had plans for that, but I reiterated the point with Sir Kalman. Relatedly, the Order of the Lion had some of their magely associates meet us during the whole elf debacle- was that war still happening? I supposed in broad strokes that was still happening, but much more slowly. But about the mages, he didn’t have to wait for me to contact him first. So that should allow any discoveries to be reported a few days earlier. And save Midnight and I the mana unless we actually needed to initiate contact.

  It had to be possible to infuse that mana in something like my staff. I didn’t want it to actually be part of my staff because dispelling magic was much more practical, but having more magical gear would be nice. Unfortunately, I didn’t know how to make things do magic. Vilhelmiina was able to reshape the daggers from the elf ninjas, but it was still fundamentally the same magic it had already.

  I hadn’t fought any Doomsday minions in a while. It wasn’t that he’d given up crime, I just hadn’t been involved with those particular situations. His minions weren’t just from my world, though. There were plenty of humans mixed in, always doing stuff around New Bay.

  Maybe I could seek some out and take their magic stuff. Though I had the feeling Doomsday would have come up with some magical self-destruct methods too, if he could. Though I wasn’t sure if people from my world would go for that normally, he could probably trade them things of great value. Most likely stolen, but other criminals wouldn’t care.

  -----

  I hadn’t gone over the full details of the magical phenomena I experienced with Calculator. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him, I just didn’t have much to say about it. Anything he could tell me would also be speculation, so I just said another weird magic thing happened and I would keep him posted.

  But I did talk about it with Doctor Patenaude.

  “I’m just worried,” I said. “What if I don’t break magic?”

  It took him a bit to answer. “I imagine nothing will happen if you don’t.”

  “Exactly!” I waved my arms about. “And then what?”

  His sensory stalks undulated slowly. “My understanding is that you are content with your life of magical mercenary work. Would continuing like that be a problem?”

  I hadn’t thought it would be. Things were pretty exciting. But now I had a mystery to solve. “I can’t help but wonder if this is what everyone was hiding. Is hiding.”

  “A long time mystery, perhaps?” Doctor Patenaude asked. “It is certainly worth such consideration for a lifetime goal.”

  “Well…” I shrugged. “I didn’t really suspect any of this until I ended up here. A little more than a year ago, now. But they were hiding it from me my whole life, I just didn’t know. Which is the point.”

  “Recency does not make it less important to you,” Doctor Patenaude commented. “But I believe you have some other reasons not to ‘break’ things.”

  That was true.

  “It might not work and I could just hurt myself for no reason.”

  After all, I was just making assumptions about there being something to learn on the other side of this. Maybe I just got lucky for things to have worked at all.

  -----

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  From what I heard, nobody tried to steal Thanksgiving, but I did hear about something after the fact. I received a call from a rather distressed sounding Rositsa. “Turn on the news!” she demanded.

  “... It says that this year’s pardoned turkey got hit by a drone. How unfortunate.”

  “Not that!” she grumbled. “The other news!”

  “Cat saves cats caught in trees?” I wonder if Midnight knew he got on the news. It seemed he had made good use of Mage’s Reach.

  “No! Ugh, I’ll just send you the link.”

  Ah. I could see how this might be relevant to Rositsa now. Vampire murders. I read the whole article just to be certain it was the vampires that had done the murders and not the other way around. It could have happened. “This doesn’t look great.”

  “I know!” she said. “They violated the rules of hospitality!”

  “And killed people.”

  “Well, yes. Obviously.”

  “So… should I be watching my back for vampires, or do you want me to do something about this?”

  “You can find people, right?” she asked.

  “Sometimes. If the circumstances are right. Do you think this is connected to the group from your world?”

  “What else could it be?” Rositsa asked. “The locals have learned to be more… circumspect. At least when dealing with standard humans. Either way, we can’t just allow them to ruin what little reputation my kind has in this world!”

  I took some time to think about it. Was there a way I could help out and get paid? I checked the articles to see if there was a reward listed. Nope, nothing there. Though there should be standard mercenary rewards for bringing in wanted criminals. Tying whoever we found to the actual problems might be the difficult part.

  “I’m fine with helping,” I began. “But while I can find people, they won’t necessarily be connected.”

  “... You can’t draw upon the resonant power of spilled and consumed blood? The taint of broken hospitality?”

  I thought for a few moments. “I’m pretty sure my magic doesn’t work like that. But it sounds like yours does.”

  “I am unable to perform much magic here,” Rositsa said.

  “Why? Is it the sun?”

  “Daylight does certainly weaken the efficacy of my abilities, but mainly I lack sufficient power. Since the only blood I have to call upon is my own.”

  “Ah. Does only human blood work?”

  -----

  I wasn’t going to volunteer my own blood for Rositsa’s magic. That would be silly, because I needed to be clear headed for if and when we actually found people. That was why I had ordered a truck full of blood.

  Obviously it wasn’t actually full. It just had a few five-gallon drums. According to Rositsa, the less fresh blood was, the less potency it had. So with some fresher pig’s blood and some nearly expired human blood, she should have enough to function.

  The driver looked a bit confused to be showing up in a random residential neighborhood, but relaxed upon seeing several people in outfits. Rositsa was bundled up in cold weather gear so she wouldn’t easily be recognized, but beyond her there were three others. We had Twirl, Punk Monk, and Bandage. Boom didn’t even answer and the siblings didn’t sound happy to go on a mission late at night. People should always be up for spontaneous missions. Frankly, I thought there was a lacking work ethic in the youth these days. The fact that some of them might be older than me wasn’t important.

  Bandage picked up one of the barrels. She might have been a cleric, but she was quite sturdy. She yawned. “What’s even in these?”

  “Blood,” I explained.

  “Yeah, alright,” she shrugged.

  Punk Monk looked at the one she was carrying. “What kind of blood?”

  “Read the label.”

  She held it out. “Mixed human blood. Hmm, it’s expiring soon.”

  “That’s why we can get it,” I pointed out. “Otherwise it would be used for blood transfusions, or for responsible vampires.”

  Twirl was the smallest of the humanoids present, but he was still able to carry the nearly fifty pound container with ease. It would have been a bit embarrassing for the Brigade if he couldn’t.

  Rositsa had one as well as we approached the house. “Mixed? Do not people know how much that dilutes the potency?”

  “No,” I pointed out. “None of this was put together for blood magic. Also, did you think we got this from a giant or something?”

  “Of course not,” she shook her head. “I would have at least expected it to be stored by blood type and resonant qualities.”

  “You’ve been here long enough to know better.”

  I shifted my barrel to one arm, trying the handle. “The door’s locked.”

  “Obviously,” Midnight said. “This place was a crime scene. Did we-”

  Knock was a relatively low level spell. Three distinct sounds rang out, echoing down the street. “Don’t need the key,” I commented, turning the handle and stepping inside.

  Rositsa hesitated at the door, but ultimately stepped through. “It is a shame to see a residence of this sort become this way.”

  Though she was slightly behind me upon entering, she ultimately led the way towards the dining room with confidence. There, we could see some chalk outlines and a whole bunch of yellow tape.

  “I can feel it,” she said. “We shall bring these into the adjoining kitchen.” When we did, she had everyone set down the barrels in a sort of star pattern. Then we popped open the tops. “Mage. I am uncertain if your mana based abilities will be helpful, but I will gladly accept any assistance you can provide.”

  “We should be able to do something,” I said. “Enhance Mind should be a decent start. And what’s the point of having Advanced Divination Magic if I can only do normal things?”

  Midnight had no comment on that. Neither did the others.

  They did comment on the blood beginning to flow out of the barrels onto the floor. It began to draw out complex symbols as Rositsa sat at the center. I could feel the power involved, but it was quite foreign to my own abilities. However, I still tried to give it a little push. My mana did something after the blood began to layer over itself- though strangely it wasn’t coating the whole floor nor piling up, even though more than enough blood should have come from the barrels to coat the entire room.

  Not that there was an inconsequential amount of blood though. And I felt it begin to call out to the blood in the other room, bringing with it resentment. Personally, I thought it was more about the fact that the people were killed than some vampires breaking rules of hospitality, but this wasn’t really my area of expertise.

  Blood began to swirl around Rositsa in a storm, almost as if it were trying to attack her. I just had to assume that everything was still going to plan.