Recently in Minnesota, my team and I discovered a scheme by some group that was selling magical texts to wanna be spellcasters. (For more info see my post in agency voices)

As we have discovered each buyer, we have taken the book away from them and then gave them a little bit of a scare to discourage them from further meddling in the supernatural. However we decided to take a different approach on this last case.

On a tip from a contact of his, our parapsychologist Reggie (alias) tracked down a fledgling cult in a small town in northern Minnesota. The fact that they were amateurs was obvious. Two hours after our arrival we knew the identity of each "cultist" and their "sanctum". It only took a little more digging and some surveilance work to discover that the head of the "cult" had bought one of the mystical texts.

We decided to have some fun with these guys. While they were in the midst of trying (and failing) to summon an entity, we burst in on them. We quickly identified ourselves as troubleshooting spellcasters, here to help them learn how to succesfully use their magic (it was really hard to hold in the laughter from this point onward). They were skeptical at first but a few spells from David, our Arcanist, quickly changed their minds.

For the next five minutes we "instructed" them in some simple spells, and their accompanying hand gestures (all of which were quite lewd and embarassing). They were starting to get a little frustrated at their lack of success when David pointed out that maybe their clothes were "interfering" with the flow of mystical energy around them. Poor saps didn't even question it. So for the next five minutes they continued to try to cast a spell in naught but their underpants. Hand gestures and all.

At this point we could no longer keep up the charade, it was simply too funny. Once we managed to stop laughing, we quickly revealed our true purpose there, not to mention the hidden camera we had just used to film them. We threatened to reveal the tape to any interested party if they did not hand over the book and tell us who they had bought it from. Suffice to say they spilled the beans really quickly.

We e-mailed the footage to every e-mail account listed in their school directory the next day.

A little harsh, maybe, but they had been messing around with things better left alone and needed to be discouraged from ever doing it again. The punishment had to fit the crime.

I commend your tactics. Not everything should be handled with stiff, overdone heroics. Instead we should be using funny, overdone heroics! Your war story gets a 9 out of 10 on the style scale from everyones good pal (even if they don't know him yet) Lazrous.

Nice! If only all the supernatural problems in the world could be resovled this easily.

Unless one or more of them takes the embarasment the wrong way. Anger and resentment are powerful manipulators, and I for one do not want to see the arcane equivalent of a Columbine massacre.

Or Hilter for that matter..

While he was eyeball deep in the cult, he did not seem to get much out of it. Fortunately for the world.

For now that is true, but what if he/she now finds the drive to move past playing around. They may be smarter this time, having been caught once before. This might seem like a funny joke, but humiliation breeds resentment, and there is a chance someone may go down a dark path because of it. We will be watching them closely..

never thought id see magical hazing.

I had to wait until I was a registered member to make a comment on this, but the moment I heard of this I had to make a comment, no matter how long after the fact that the comment would come.

First off, while it is painfully embarrassing and possibly dangerous to have people meddle in the supernatural willy-nilly, unless the tomes you were speaking of are specifically dangerous, you might have been better off just finding the users, scaring off the particularly stupid, and leaving the safer spells to those with legitimate potential. But it's obvious from the rest of your post that a well-thought or even logical motive is beyond your group.

So, let's take this one from the top... There's a small cabal in a town in Minnesota. By inference they are mostly of school age, probably high to college at best. They're well known to be so, so probably they are considered social outcasts by the rest of the town, and as such flaunt their 'Mystical' nature to get anything BUT disdain from everyone else in town.

In other words, a mid-sized group of high-school kids, who are probably treated as outcasts and scum by their fellow students, finally get a chance to get their hands on something they've only dreamed of for years. Real Magic, a chance to prove they're not all insane freaks. They start a ritual and fail it... Not really surprising. They are completely untrained and unskilled, and more like than not lack the power to really succeed at such a task. Lord knows that it would be beyond me at that age or level of skill, and I doubt anyone here could say different. So there they are, probably depressed, hopeless, and confused.

Then you guys break in, call yourselves... Oi, 'Troubleshooting Spellcasters'? I'm going to be embarrassed about being classified with you people for months... Anyway, you break in on them, scare them, promise to help them, and show off the reality of Magic to them... And then you get stupid.

You proceed to humiliate them, forcing them all to do idiotic hand gestures. You've shown them that things WORK, but after promising them that you'll teach them, you make it impossible for them to succeed. More depression and confusion, more hopelessness.

Then one of you gets the EVER so funny idea to tell them to strip. Of COURSE they'll do it, they've been dehumanized enough by you at this point to do whatever you tell them, let alone afraid of you from whatever you've been brandishing at them by this point. (I know you didn't mention weapons in hand, but you break in on a private group unarmed and didn't get hit a few times for it, you had to be wielding some kind of weapons.)

So now they're naked or next to naked, humiliated, embarrassed, and still desperately trying to get things RIGHT, because they believe you... And you assholes bust out laughing. You reveal the whole 'joke' of it, point out that you've been recording the whole painful experience, and blackmail the information you want out of them with it. And as if that wasn't enough, you go out of your way to show EVERYONE you can what you did to them, absolutely destroying their lives.

So, did any of you idiots bother to check out how many of them committed suicide after that? Every one that did is one you might as well have killed yourself. Don't be proud of your actions, you're no better than the jocks in school that humiliated these kids in the first place. In fact, you're worse in that you actually offered them hope, and then destroyed them utterly. I actually hope that something got drawn to the negativity you created there, and that it comes after you for what you did. It's people like you that make me disgusted to be human.

After reading the post authored by Adamageist, I feel the need to give a reply to this person who has obviously never faced a demon.

Mr. Adama have you ever seen what happens when a demon summoning goes bad? I have and it is not pretty. In point of fact, I still have nightmares about one of them.

We were in Michigan at the time and we recieved reports of a demon worshipping cult that were about to attempt a summoning. My team and I tried to intervene, but we arrived to late. Sometime during the ritual, the summoner lost control of the demon. When we arrived we found the cultists strung up on the walls of the house. They had been dismembered and gutted, but that wasn't the worst of it. They were somehowe still alive.

You may think I was being hard on those kids, and you were right because I was. I'd much rather they be humiliated than end up like those Michigan cultists. Their dissapearence had filled me with regret over our actions, but I know that we wouldn't have changed a thing if we were given the chance. Better they be humiliated than toys for a demons "fun".

I appologise for being so harsh, but my point was simple enough...

By humiliating those children, you run the risk of becoming the new focus of their lives. If you were unsuccessful at getting every scrap of knowledge they had hidden, or they were later successfull at aquiring new sources, they would have valid reason and ample motivation to go after you with whatever they have available.

And personaly, while I concidered what you did to them at the ritual site perfectly appropriate, it was what you did afterwards that pushed it too far. You destroyed the possibility of them going into a normal social life, once they realised that what they had wanted before was just out of their grasp.

Just think about that, that's all.

I too apologize for being harsh.

Still, I'd much rather be the focus of their anger, than all those bullys you mentioned earlier. I can defend myself and I know the risks.

Also, I wanted to reply to celeste. Yes I still carry Karlash. Ours is a bond that only death can break. Still, I'd recommend staying away from magical weapons of Karlash's caliber. I mean it's nice to have several millenia of experience in fighting the supernatural at your fingertips, not to mention certain other features, but it is simply not worth the price. I can never again have a normal life, I am always going to be hunting the supernatural. But then i think you know alot about not being able to have a normal life.

By the way, if your up to it i'd like to know more about vampires. I've never faced one and would like to be prepared when i do.