Isaac groggily stumbled into the meeting room an hour later and sat down, hard.

“Morning everyone. There was an incident near my house last night involving a band of idiotic teens, a church and an Imp. Cops called the university, uni called me, and in summation, I’m tired enough to make being around anything even remotely dangerous a serious hazard.” Isaac said, barely managing to avoid yawning in the middle of the declaration.

“Yeah, I heard about that. By the way, you’re getting paid for that, and overtime to boot.” Bailey told him “Go home, get some sleep, for we will be questioning you to death about Vegas and last night.”

“Thanks, but I only need a couple of hours of sleep, I’ll just hop on the sofa in the break room and take a nap. I don’t suppose it locks?”

“Sure. Sleep tight and don’t come out until you’re fully rested. I don’t need you stumbling around like a zombie.” Bailey said and tossed him a key. Isaac just walked through the wall, locked the door to the break room from the inside and collapsed onto the sofa.

Two hours later, he unlocked the door and joined the others. Or at least, joined Patrick in the meeting room. Amy was in the storage room, doing something else, while Raul was chasing something noisy around the summoning room with Brisa, his pet dinosaur. Bailey was just typing away in his office.

“So, how was Vegas?” Patrick asked, grinning expectantly.

“Pretty cool, though those rumors about casinos beating cheaters are thankfully just that.”

“Wait you got caught?” Patrick exclaimed.

“Not so much caught as noticed as having unnatural luck. They googled me and found out I’m a [System] researcher and figured that had something to do with it.”

“And then? Did you have to give up your winnings?”

“Nah, I got a temporary job as a security consultant, pointing out potential vulnerabilities. By the way, we now have a standing invitation to that place, free room and board, at least within reason, all we have to do is point out another flaw or two.” Isaac explained.

Face falling, Patrick replied “So I won’t be able to pull off the same trick?”

“Sorry.” Isaac cringed “But on the bright side, do you know how much money casinos throw at you for just a few hours of a [System] researcher’s time?”

“A lot, I’m guessing.” Patrick sighed, still clearly slightly upset, but rapidly getting over it.

“Hell, if I call them and point out that you’re the one who figured out that possibility in the first place, they’d probably fly you out there.”

“You know, the Professor isn’t going to be happy about you encouraging his assistants to run off.” Patrick replied, a wry smile playing around his lips “Oh, that reminds me, here.”

As he said that, he pulled something out of his backpack. It looked a little like a snakeskin handbag, albeit one that had been crafted from a truly titanic specimen.

“You finished it?” Isaac asked.

“Of course I did. Let’s call in the others and give it to him, shall we?” Patrick grinned mischievously.

“Sure thing.”

So, two minutes later, Professor Bailey walked into the meeting room, seeing all of them lined up with carefully curated expressions. While he did not have kids, at least to Isaac’s knowledge, it was one he nonetheless one he should recognize. It was the ‘I did something I’m really proud off but might piss you off’ expression. Uh-oh.

“So, Professor, you know you sometimes wish for something, but don’t ever expect to get it, possibly thinking that no one even heard you? Well, this time, you’re in luck.”

And with that, Isaac whipped the cloth from the handbag.

“Ta-da!”

Bailey blankly at it for a moment, then frowned, hard.

“I sincerely hope you didn’t buy this off any … unsavory characters.”

“Nah, Patrick made it.” Isaac gestured to his colleague.

“Thank you very much for this handbag.” Bailey said, letting slip that he wasn’t all that hyped up for the handbag part of the gift, despite his best efforts to hide it. After all, a decidedly feminine handbag would look incredibly weird when paired with his usual rugged shirt and cargo pants outfits.

Nonetheless, he slung the handbag over his shoulder and struck a cliché runway pose, the combination of styles looking just as silly as anyone could have expected, something that was only made more ridiculous when Amy wolf-whistled.

Once everyone had calmed down and stopped laughing, Bailey slid the bag back off his shoulder and onto the table, patting it.

“You do realize that when the building for our faculty is finished, this thing is going in one of the showcases in the lobby as the first example of a magical artifact constructed in this university?” Bailey asked, flashing them a wide grin.

‘Crap, he turned it around on us.’ Isaac thought, chuckling inwardly.

“You know, we have a bit more of the leather left.” Isaac said “Perhaps a more appropriate briefcase could be constructed.”

“Oh, not a chance.” Bailey laughed, a huge grin spreading across his face.

“You win this round, but mark my words, you won’t win the next one.” Amy chimed in, flashing Bailey an impish grin.

With all the little pranks out of the way, the normal research continued. Summons, their death, and subsequent necropsy, all for the purpose of conducting several different branches of research.

In addition, for completely unconnected reasons, they were getting some data on how quickly damage inflicted on concrete could be repaired by a [Geomancer] of a given Level. No, they truly hadn’t caused nearly enough damage to get any even remotely useful amount of data, not at all.

And no, Isaac had not, ever, accidentally used another fully empowered [Manifold Slash] to attack an Acid Slime that had startled him, no, not at all. No siree.

But all that time passed quickly, with Isaac just doing normal research assistant things … until the thing he’d been expecting to happen for almost a week, finally happened.

Warning! Automatic Summoning has been activated on [Basic Slime]!