There’s a quest scroll in the bottom of the trashcan, under the bag, and I pause putting in a new bag as I stare at it. Since it’s being observed, the scroll changes and begins to glow with golden light.
“Congratulations,” a genderless, lightly accented voice says. It doesn’t make sense, but it sounds like it’s coming through the light, echoing and warm. “You’ve been chosen to embark on a magnificent–”
I lunge before it can finish, heart thundering against my ribs, and wrap it in the black trash bag. It’s warm to the touch, even through the plastic, but once I get it properly bundled, I can’t hear or see it which means I’ve managed to contain it.
I abandon my cleaning cart, shouldering the bathroom door open too quickly. It nearly takes out a high schooler lurking behind it.
“Watch it,” the girl snarls, shaking out the hand that had caught the door before it connected with her face.
“Be grateful,” I tell her, shoving the garbage bag bundle under my shirt. “I’m, like, basically saving your life right now.”
She scrunches her nose. “What?”
I don’t answer, instead hurrying towards the principal’s office. Sometimes the sorcerer or witch or whoever sticks around after planting them and I definitely do not want to run into them.
“Principal Flag!” I skid past the receptionist and kick the door open, arms wrapped around the quest scroll under my shirt. “We’ve got a problem!”
Principal Flag nearly throws her brush across the room at my sudden entrance, a blush rising furiously along her cheekbones. “I told you to knock!” Her horse hindquarters stamp in irritation and she hastily smooths her long, centaur skirt back over them.
“Sorry,” I pant, coming to a stop in front of her desk. “But this can’t wait, we’ve got a problem. I found a–a quest in the girls’ bathroom.”
“It’s actually a gender-neutral bathroom now,” Principal Flag corrects, seemingly on reflex. “The students voted and I think it’s quite wonderfu– did you say you found a quest?” She pales. “Was it–was it activated?”
“No,” I say. I carefully pull the bundle from out under my shirt, dropping it onto her desk. “I’m the first to come in contact. It tried to give me the Chosen One speech.”
Principal Flag’s hands hover over the black plastic. “God, it talked? Did you feel a compulsion? Depending on the strength, we could be facing quite the adversary here.”
“I don’t know.” I pull up the visitor’s chair, legs still shaking. “I’ve already been a Chosen one, you know that, a compulsion wouldn’t work on me.” I shake my head. “We can’t let whoever did this try again. A quest scroll ruined my life, our lives, I don’t want that to happen to a kid.”
“I remember,” Principal Flag says grimly. “I’ll be damned if I let some thousand-year-old warlock make off with one of my students. Not. In. My. School.” She trots around her desk to the cabinet. From there, she removes a black, metal box. “First, we’ll destroy it. It’s times like these that I’m thankful we have so many helicopter parents on the PTA. They practically give us the money for these.”
I watch as she opens the box. Dark, rolling steam pours from it and across the desk. When it touches the trash bag, the air begins to smell of burning plastic. Principal Flag picks it up, wincing as the heating plastic burns her fingers and drops it into the box.
“A CURSE,” the scroll shrieks from inside the box. “YOU HAVE DEFIED THE ANCIENT–”
Principal Flag slams the lid back on, locking the thing down. The thing is still shrieking, but the words are muffle and neither Flag or I are susceptible to half curses. Not since our childhoods.
“It had to be an inside job,” I say after the screams begin to die out. “You’ve got the school locked down and I would have noticed anyone sneaking in.”
“I agree,” Principal Flag says. She’s still glaring at the box, mouth a thin line. She looks back at me, grey eyes sharp. “Whoever planted it is a monster. There’s no way they didn’t mean for a kid to find out.”
“Giving quest scrolls to minors is against the law,” I say. “We could call the police?”
Both Flag and I stare at each other for a long moment. Then we burst into laughter.
“A Successful?” Flag howls. “Oh my god, can you imagine what a Successful would say?”
I wipe tears out of my eyes. Successfuls were people who completed quests, generally the light and fun ones that made good day time drama. “Oh,’” I say in a falsetto, “’I’d have killed to have a scroll as a kid. It’s such an honor. They’re starting off right!”
We laugh more, the sound verging on hysteria. Neither of us had the good fortune to be quested with a return the stone to the mountain scroll. We’d gotten something much, much worse.
“Oh, that’s good,” Flag says, dotting under her eyes with a tissue. She sobers slowly, chuckles dying out. “No, we won’t go to the police. I think that us two Unsuccessfuls will do the job nicely.” She grins and there’s something dark in it, darker than one might expect from a highschool principal.
I know that darkness is reflected right back in my smile. “I’ll get on it.”
There are Successfuls, heroes and martyrs who come back stronger and better after getting a quest scroll.
Then there are Unsuccessfuls like us who, if they come back, come back much, much worse.
