Even Saints Deliver Mail...

"Mages come in all shapes and sizes. Where one may falter at something, another may excel."

"Another one?" A question Samira spoke aloud in a tired tone. She had just left her room to start whatever day this would turn out to be and already she had been bombarded with a letter. She couldn't even get the door to her room closed before the envelope poofed into existence right in front of her and blocked her line of sight. It was made worse by how much the thing sparkled, with even more of the obnoxious magic particles forming a small cheerful face that talked. "MAIL FOR SAMIRA NASSAR!!!" A pre-recorded message, something she had found out a few deliveries ago when she told the magically formed face to get lost, although more respectfully of course. She didn't want to read anymore of those useless letters that had been coming in recently. Ever since she had been granted the title as one of the Wizard Saints she had been getting letter after letter. It was nice at first to be acknowledged, but then the content of them got ridiculous. Just how many modeling offers did one Wizard Saint need? Interviews? Appearances? A perfume brand?! Were all of the other Saints just as bothered with them?

Samira had actually spent time looking through every single one just in case it was a joke and somewhere within the letters would be the real reason for it being sent. Something that surely would require a Wizard Saint to be around. Or even something that required her position and authority as an Ace of Lamia Scale. How strange it was that no world ending event was occurring, and even stranger that nothing that required monster hunting services was in her mail stash. In a manner of speaking, the young woman should have been ecstatic to have a some form of peace and for so long. Perhaps she would have... if the mail service hadn't had such an annoying upgrade. Gone were the days when a mailman approached her and delivered ONE letter. Maybe two. Now she had to put up with letters that arrived spontaneously out of thin air. It could have been a form of punishment she supposed. Her name likely being on the mailman blacklist for the times one of her spirits chased after the poor letter deliverer due to some mix up in definitions between giving a love letter and being paid to deliver standard mail. Perhaps she forgot to apologize... there was so much going on at that time.

Regardless, she couldn't stick with that theory for the reason that it seemed others were getting their mail the same way. One other mage that was residing within the Lamia Scale guild hall stepped from their room, the sound of the opening door catching her attention as she grabbed her own letter from the magic particles that held it up. She blinked once as her eyes watched the person stretch and yawn, then she cringed as the same mail effect appeared right in front of the other mage as it did her, except worse. Instead of one letter, a giant pile of ads fell right on top of the just awoken mage. "Honestly! What ever did happen to the traditional mailing system? This new one needs improvement," she said to herself while turning towards her room so she could leave the new letter on a small table by the door. This time, her door was successfully closed and locked with no more mail appearing. Good. Maybe she would get through the day without another one. With a smile on her face from the joy of now being mail free, Samira walked passed her door and down the hall.. also forgetting to lend a hand to the poor soul that was now climbing out of the pile of ads that were surely going to be burned in the fires of retribution and righteousness.

Considering there had been nothing else on her agenda of ultimate importance Samira just decided to take the day and explore Hargeon Town, leaving the Pandora branch of the guild to do so. Perhaps she would even do some shopping. What a glorious fun filled and relaxing day it would be! Tomorrow she could get back to the whole research and monster thing. Today was spend the time however she wanted day! A sort of day she did not indulge in often. She preferred keeping herself distracted with matters of more importance than her personal fun and pleasure, but after spending some time at a resort with her fellow Ace, Aiyana Shuer, the summoner had made sure to allow herself to relax just a little bit when the opportunities arrived. Now was such a time. Or, so she had originally thought.

As Samira went through her day of walking around town and stopping by some shops, more letters had arrived. First it was just one, then two, at one point three at a time. Before she could even enjoy lunch she had an entire bag full of mail that would be used as a sacrifice to whatever god could smite down the one sending her all of that junk. She even had to buy the bag to hold it all! If she didn't know any better she would have assumed the bag shop owner was in on it just so there could be a sale. Actually, maybe the shop owner was. A suspicious glance was sent in the direction of the owner after Samira realized everyone in the store had bags full of mail that poofed into existence. She said nothing, although taking note of the owner's sheepish and nervous behavior after catching a glimpse of her stare. Once she had taken a step out of the shop, Samira noticed it was actually raining mail for everyone around, all of them just as annoyed and upset as she was with the new system that must have been someone's failed experiment. It had to be... A proverbial sweatdrop formed at the side of her head at the sight. Even more so as packages and not just envelopes began to appear in the air and fall to the ground, much to the recipient's shock. Well, she was no mail delivery expert so maybe that was how it was supposed to be now... even if it was strange and a bit horrifying with its results. If it was not for her spirits occupying her mind and affecting her dreamstate she would most likely have nightmares about mail storms for weeks. "MAIL FOR SAMIRA NASSAR!!!" A facepalm reaction as yet another letter appeared in swirly sparkles just for her.

"Mages come in all shapes and sizes. Where one may falter at something, another may excel."

The day ended a little earlier than she would have liked, obviously being too annoyed by the malfunction in the mail system to even bother staying outside. A shared sentiment that was going around town from what she could hear as she passed by others on her way back to the guild hall. One could only hope it really was a malfunction and that this was not how things were supposed to work. If it wasn't then she would have to plan for her mail to go elsewhere instead of arriving right where she was. How did it even know that sort of information anyway? Was a tracker installed somewhere in her body?! Maybe the same one that tested her levels of power that got her into that Sorceror's Weekly magazine as a Y rank mage. Who even made up such a silly rank? She was no more powerful than the others with her title. There must have been some magical science that she was not aware of that determined such a thing. Although, all the time she and her spirits looked around for strange devices that could record that information was wasted for they found nothing. It had to be one hidden somewhere in her body! The only place she had not checked because she lacked the means to do so without ripping herself open, which was not going to happen for obvious reasons. The strange tracker could just stay there! A thought she had before all the mail business started. Now she was beginning to be tempted if only to spare her sanity. Well, whatever sanity she had left if she truly decided to go through with searching for a mysterious tracking device inside her that might not even exist and was part of her own delusions in order to come up with some logical explanation.

Samira reached her room peacefully with no more mail appearing out of thin air calling her name. She unlocked the door, closed it behind her, and leaned against it with her eyes closed as she let out a sigh. The shopping bags and the bag of mail fell to the floor as her grasp on them loosened. What a long day and it had only been a few hours, if that. She was ready for a nap, but actually taking one was not something she had intended to do. Maybe she would just find something guild related to do since her relaxing day was ruined. "Back already?" A male voice called from the middle of the room, a familiar one that belonged to one of her spirits. There were other sounds too. Random shuffling of paper as well as the voices of other spirits. Her green eyes revealed themselves to stare at what she had apparently missed upon first entering her room. The sight of which made her gasp before her eyes narrowed angrily and her hands went to her hips. "What are you doing?!" A valid question given there were piles of envelopes and papers everywhere along with spirits throwing them around from where they sat on the floor.

"What you asked us to do! Don't you remember?!" The excited spirit of Serqet replied as she held up one of the envelopes with a wide victory grin. Her attention turned towards one pile and to that pile the envelope was tossed. "That one is classified as important!"

A black cat with several jeweled accessories on its fur popped out of the "important" pile, having been covered in envelopes long ago. With a paw she took the letter that was tossed over and slid it towards her before using her claws to rip it open and read it. A skill that took much practice to do in her current form without ripping the thing to complete shreds. There were plenty of paper pieces in the small trash can as evidence to her past failures that day. "Serqet, this is a classified as a bill. They are not important. They only serve to annoy others with their expectation of monetary payment. This can go into the trash pile," the spirit of Bastet said to the hyperactive scorpion-tailed woman.

"If there is an expectation of monetary payment then it is in the correct pile. We cannot have Samira fall behind on her payments."

"Hmph."

"Oh my, didn't you say that the advertisement of the life sized plushie dolls was considered important? I'm not so sure we should take your opinion on this."

"It was my understanding that cuddly plushies were important to humankind. Samira has none. It is important that we correct this."

"Yeah, no. Did you forget she's afraid of dolls? Your opinion on what is important or not lost its credibility. Toss the bill into the trash pile!"

With a nod that signaled her acknowledgement of the command, the cat took the letter in her mouth and dropped it into the nearby trash pile. Unwanted bill of zero importance tossed away!

"You should probably close that mouth before you drool all over the floor. Just saying," Susano told the summoner after glancing up to see her mouth agape and her face in total shock as the mess in her room continued to get worse. "You asked us to file and organize all of your mail. What was important was to remain and everything else sent into some volcano for destruction."

"I told JING WEI to organize it all!"

"Oh... well she's on vacation. We're now your happy little helpers, but for celestial's sake, why do you have so much damn mail?! When was the last time you actually looked through all of this?"

"Uh..." Samira's annoyed look switched to an innocent one as she glanced away from the spirit that was asking that and tapped her cheek in pretend thought even though she knew the answer. "Not in a while?" A sweet smile formed on her face that would surely have the spirits understand and give her their forgiveness. Or she had hoped. Instead they all paused their work and gave her blank stares. "Well ever since the new mail system took over I got a bit overwhelmed and so just started tossing it all into a random corner of the room."

"That explains why it was all on one side of the room, but doesn't explain why Jing had several bags of your mail too. I am guessing you started stuffing them into the celestial vault of ours to the point that she had to clear it out, right?" Kukulkan in a more humanoid form instead of her true spirit form commented as she lightly tapped a pile that was near her and watched it fall over. "Look, can we just burn all of this shit and start with nothing? They'll send her extras if it's THAT important."

"Yeah, lets just go with that idea."

The rest of the spirits began to agree. Why they couldn't decide that before making a mess of the room was unknown, but at least they tried. Although, Samira was still not so happy with their attempt. She had wanted her organization spirit to take care of it, and she certainly didn't want everything thrown away! "What?! No! You are not doing anything of the sort!"

The spirits began standing up and cleaning up the mess by putting them all in their own bags that poofed into existence from magic particles. The wind swordsman of the group also stood up and approached Samira, patting her head as if she were a child with a tantrum. "Samira, you're cute and all when you get angry and start ordering us around, but, I'm going to have to disagree. We're burning this junk. Consider this as a favor to you and a job well done for us. Everyone's happy! They'll write about it in the history books and tell this legendary tale for centuries to come. It'll be completely amazing. But first," the spirit then knelt down and picked up the mail bag that was on the ground beside the summoner. "There we go. Wouldn't want to miss these!"

In response Samira grabbed onto the bag and pulled it back. He did so as well. This resulted in a tug of war that even got the other spirits involved in some way, either by taking part of the tug of war, or by trying to talk some sense into the others. "MAIL FOR SAMIRA NASSAR!!!" Several envelopes fell from the ceiling as sparkling portals formed for the mail to come through. "MAIL FOR SPIRIT SUSANO! MAIL FOR SPIRIT SERQUET! MAIL FOR SPIRIT BASTET! MAIL FOR SPIRIT KUKULKAN" Mail for everyone in the room! They all stood there, covered in sparkles and envelopes, and the room was even messier than it was before. A long moment of silence as they all thought the same thing. Well, sort of. One spirit may have wanted to devour the person in charge of the new mail system. It was now starting to send mail to celestial spirits?! How the heck did it even know they were in the normal world and not their own?! Overpowered magic technology!

"Perhaps I should look into this mail issue."

"Probably a good idea."

"Mages come in all shapes and sizes. Where one may falter at something, another may excel."

A person would reasonably assume that any issues regarding the mail service would best be dealt with by going to the local post office, correct? That was what Samira had assumed herself. A simple solution that surely would not take forever and a day. Just a stroll down town so she could voice her complaint and get everything settled. A fantastic plan! Genius! Naturally such simplicity did not exist. It never did for her.

The trouble making spirits had been left to clean up the mess that had been made in her room, hopefully properly that time, while she left to see just what was going on with the "experimental" new delivery service. This time she made sure to carry an umbrella as she walked down the now mail littered streets. Envelopes and papers still fell from the skies to reach the proper recipient, most of them heavily annoyed. Now everyone was starting to get duplicates of their mail. Some getting identical letters and packages on even more levels than that. Triplicates, quadruplicates, quintuplicates. It never ended. "That explains why there is so much," Samira commented to herself after overhearing a conversation between a small group of townsfolk complaining about that particular detail. No doubt her own massive amount of letters had to be from the same exact issue. If there was any god out there at all it would be anyway. Otherwise her new hope of easily tossing out the extras for quick mail removal was dashed.

Moving past the conversation she had been eavesdropping on, Samira pressed forward, ignoring the small bumps of envelopes that collided with the top of her open umbrella and evading the packages on the streets that made for a minor obstacle course. Out of some sort of weird curiosity, she gently slid a package out of the way with her boot only for the brown labeled box to be replaced by another that looked exactly the same in size and shape. Well, they weren't kidding about the mail cloning itself repeatedly. This problem needed to be solved before she the town completely drowned in envelopes and questionable duplicated packages. She could ponder how exactly everything had several clones of itself later, as well as wonder if duplicate orders that were magically made counted as theft from catalog companies. A shame she had not ordered anything to take advantage of the situation... not that she would of course... No matter. To the local post office she went. To the destination that would surely have all the answers she traveled. To put an end to the horrible mail storm plight was her goal! To have her afternoon dream be crushed and obliterated was the reality.

The moment she reached the building Samira knew something was off. It was quiet. The building was dark. No one else was around. A sign on the door told her everything. "It... Is closed?" Her umbrella dropped as she continued to stare at the sign with a blank expression. Then that expression died as she read further, her disbelief growing. Apparently the new mail service was so top notch that there was no need for several post offices anymore. Only one was needed. The main base of operations of whoever designed the whole mess: the Magnolia Town post office. Terrific. Now she would have to travel to another town to figure out what was going on to save her own everyone's sanity.

"Hmmm," Samira turned serious for a moment as she thought over her options. Did she really feel like traveling to Magnolia Town? Surely Hargeon Town was not the only one experiencing... technical difficulties. There had to be other complaints. The guild in that town could handle the situation. Someone had to be desperate enough to make it a job of some sort. There was even a resident Wizard Saint there as well. All in all she could have wasted her time in going. "MAIL FOR SAMIRA NASSAR!!!" The green-haired woman heard the magical sparkles and the voice, and even heard something falling from the sky. Something heavy. Then she felt a collision. Not on her body, of course. The magic barrier around her protected her from such trivial things. Whatever it was though seemed pretty big judging from the sound and weight of impact. As soon as it hit the magically formed barrier the object bounced off and hit the ground with a loud crashing thud, probably cracking the concrete in the process. She would have known if she had looked, but no, she remained un-phased, as if her almost being crushed didn't happen at all.

Samira pulled the sign on the door off and brought it closer to her face so that she could read the smaller print. An address of the Magnolia Town postal office. No number was there for her to make use of her iLac, however. So much for the long distance complaint.

'So we're just going to ignore the fact that you were almost hit by a flying refrigerator?' A voice of one of her spirits again, but that time in her head since he was no where near her or had been summoned. Yet as always every single one of them knew what was going on around her. Most likely had even seen it given that particular spirit knew what the heavy object was.

"Oh, is that what that was?" Her tone of voice still collected and not entirely surprised. Well, except for one tiny detail. She didn't order a refrigerator. A thin brow arched as that was fully processed in her mind. "A refrigerator?"

'Goodness, why in the celestial realm would you buy one of those? You have no need for one. The guild has plenty.'

'To save time walking from her room to the kitchen, dumbass. It's lazy but I'm not going to judge. I would do the same thing.'

"Actually, I did not order a refrigerator. There must be some mistake with that order."

'Nope! I ordered it!'

All of the spirits that were within Samira's mindspace and left in her room became silent. Those near the scorpion tailed spirit that admitted to her purchase stared at her with questioning awkward glances. Samira herself had twitching eyebrows. Terrific. Now she was going to be avoiding refrigerators falling from the sky all day because of a spirit placing an order in her name for one. If she was lucky that order wouldn't malfunction and duplicate itself. "Why would you order a refrigerator?"

'To hold more game night snacks, of course! We really needed an upgrade.' So perky, so joyful, so incredibly dense that Samira could picture the spirit jumping around happily and being completely clueless that she had done any wrong at all.

"And you ordered this in my name because...?" The summoner was almost terrified of the answer, but it had to be asked. She was curious, and there were no limits to make her back out of sating it.

'They wouldn't deliver to the celestial realm, or to spirits. I think the company has something against magical beings from other realms. So I put your name!'

"Well I do suppose that does make a little bit of sense. Slightly."

'There was also a Wizard Saint discount.'

Now Samira had to let out a sigh. So close to having some form of relief. Once everything was settled she would have to take care of that and return the refrigerator... refrigerators. Or at the very least give the company that sent it the full payment. She was not about to accept a discount because of her title. Really it was a bit disapproving that they had even offered one in the first place. Even more so that a spirit took advantage of it to a point that it could affect her reputation, something she considered to be important. Although if the company really believed for a moment the real Samira would have ordered something so trivial at a discount then maybe she already had work to do in making a more stable and clear reputation. All this mix up did was reveal that weak area.

"MAIL FOR SAMIRA NASSAR!!!"

The Saint cringed heavily as the voice played and magic sparkles filled the sky. It was not a refrigerator that dropped from the sky, however. What came falling just for her was what ended up being a large pile of plushies. She fled the scene before those horrible abominations could surround her completely, leaving her poor umbrella behind as well as her new fancy refrigerator. There may have even been a wish for the delivery to have been a second refrigerator instead of a storm of plushies.

The other spirits in Samira's room looked at the only spirit that had an interest in plushies earlier. She blinked innocently but otherwise cared little about the stares and glares she was getting. Moreso she had immediately moved on to her true thought process. "I too took advantage of a Saint discount. Their delivery time is very impressive." The others did not even want to bother asking when she had time to make the call. The mistake and misjudgement of ordering dolls and plushies at all aside, they had to agree the delivery time was excellent.

Sometime later after Samira had put that horrible nightmare far behind her she had finally settled on taking action. There was absolutely no way she was going to have more of those fluffy things be delivered to her. Waiting for someone else to handle the situation was out of the question. She was going to slay a monster that day in the name of Lamia Scale. Not some sort of giant beast. Not a magical monster from a different realm. Not even the terrible paper work monster would be her opponent that day. No. As an Ace of a monster slaying guild she was going to take on a new villainous creature that had become a plague on society and the entire world. The Magnolia branch post office!

"Mages come in all shapes and sizes. Where one may falter at something, another may excel."

Some more time had passed rather uneventfully. Well, in the world of Samira. Mostly everything had been tuned out while she worked on the task that required so much concentration. Pick up a package or envelope and toss it into one of the correct portals. It was strange really. With the speed she was going, which she had considered to be normal speed, she had to wonder how the mail deliveries were getting to people so quickly. There was an over abundance, after all, and even with her army of spirits it still took time to get through all the mail of the entire country! Or continent. She herself was just dealing with the ones in Fiore. Her spirits were scattered about taking care of the more international mail. Or were supposed to be. If she had been paying attention even a little to them and did not put so much trust in them to stay on task then she would have taken notice of them goofing off or just lazing about. A good chunk of them were bored. Only the easily amused or odd ones were thrilled to be helping at such a trivial task.

"Celestial's sake! This is boring! How do people do this everyday of their lives?" So shouted the always complaining swordsman spirit while tossing the few envelopes he had been holding onto the floor instead of the actual portal he stood in front of. He had had enough. He was a combat spirit, not some minor spirit that was only capable of making a summoner's life easier by doing something so ridiculously simple as tossing mail into a portal. Putting postage stamps on everything would have been more of a challenge.

"I'm having fun! What portal do you have? We can trade!" The spirit known as Serqet suggested with a wide grin as she turned an entire bag of mail upside down and allowed its contents to fall onto the floor. She was on the bottom floor of the room while Susano was on an opened upper floor. Hearing him as well as the others was very easy and needed no telepathic communication.

"Uh, Minstrel I think." Susano zoned out for a moment as he chuckled lightly, remembering the last time they were all in that country. It was probably best not to bring that up, or anything that could be generalized as a walk down memory lane. Besides, as soon as he got going with being amused by that sense of humorous nostalgia his mind snapped back into reality. What kind of suggestion was that?! "How the hell is trading going to make this any better?! It's still tossing mail into a swirling circle of magic! No, you know what? Don't answer that. Your opinion doesn't count." He then walked over to the railing and peered over while leaning against the bar. There was a lot more noise down there than there should have been and now he knew why. Not only had the scorpion-tailed spirit dumped several bags worth of mail all over the place and onto the floor, but she was practically swimming in the envelopes. No wonder she was having "fun." That probably explained why she wanted to trade. Making a mess of the bottom floor wasn't enough. How Samira could tune something like that out he had no idea. The sight even made him facepalm and die inside. Somehow he was going to end up getting yelled at for it or at the very least help clean it up. "Are you even supposed to be dumping everything onto the floor?"

A black cat then popped out of the new mini lake of mail envelopes. She shot a glare at Serqet for burying her in the envelopes, however unintentional, but made no comments towards that. The spirit of Bastet would just move on in a dignified manner! She hopped out of the "lake" and shook her paws and flicked her tail to get rid of any mail that came out of the pile with her. "Normally, no. But for some reason these bags are not organized at all. Kukulkan already threw several entire bags through a single portal before we realized this. Samira will probably be reprimanded for that."

A hiss echoed through the large room to interrupt anything more the cat planned to say. "I only did what made the most sense. Why toss single envelopes when you can toss the entire bag? What a waste of time. Only morons would do what you guys are doing."

"Yes, but we can also say that only morons would throw unorganized bags into the portal. The deliveries will be in error."

"So what? We'll be gone by then, and I got rid of my section of the room in about five minutes." So true it was. Her side of the large portal room was completely empty, and had been for a good while now. "Not my problem if they weren't organized before I got a hold of it. Everyone should have seen that coming." Instead of helping out someone else the human-disguised winged serpent was lying on a couch filing the nails she did not have in her actual form. Not that anyone actually wanted her help anyway if she was going to do it wrong which is why no one really bothered to call her out on her laziness beforehand. "Not even sure why that thing isn't programmed to send back the wrong mail. Does it just sit there in some weird magical space for eternity when it can't find the recipient in that country? Seems like that should be one of the first few issues you plan to solve before using some new fancy magitech," Kuku mumbled to herself while continuing to give herself a manicure that will not even last the day. She ceased her activity though when she saw the light spirit walk by wearing the same mail-girl outfit Samira was wearing. "Why are you wearing that ridiculous abomination of an outfit?"

"It amuses me." Amaterasu said with a smile just before turning around and conjuring up a mail cap to place on Kuku's head. "There. I am now even more amused." She let out a mocking giggle as she walked off, ignoring the agitated hiss from the serpent spirit.

"Well there goes my plan of getting rid of that massive pile on the floor quickly," Susano grumbled to himself. Maybe he could get Agni to burn it all. If it didn't exist anymore technically speaking it wasn't delivered to the wrong location and there was no way to prove that it actually reached the post office. Maybe. Did the place have lacrima tech cameras to catch the act on tape? They could just blow up the building and get rid of both mail and camera evidence... "Thaattt's probably too extreme." Yet that plan still remained on his mind and was not off the table just yet. He was still bored, and that was not a world ending problem that would just go away by itself. Would this problem lead to everything getting worse and making the difficult task of magic mail delivery even more stupid and difficult? Naturally. It wouldn't be an episode of The Life of Samira Nassar without spirits screwing up even the simplest of tasks.

"Mages come in all shapes and sizes. Where one may falter at something, another may excel."

Several more minutes and the building still stood, as did the mail that was everywhere. The brilliant plan of just getting rid of everything the nuke way had not come to pass just yet. It was super effective in the past and surely would be even in the current catastrophe of brains turning into non-interactive mush, but just how much trouble would they all actually get in? There was a limit and blowing up the post office might have serious consequences that none of them were willing to go through. A certain summoner screaming at them for instance. That was so damn annoying and painful to listen to. There was the possibility that she would not talk to any of them for a week afterward, but that time of peace usually had a habit of turning into a scenario that was a pain in the ass to deal with. If they were going to get in trouble for anything then it had to at least be a bit more reasonable. "That's it. We're going with Kuku's method!" As deliberately wrong as the feathered snake's method was, it would only be a mild annoyance to Samira, and most likely would not be found out until much later unlike the sudden removal of a building in the center of a populated town. Unless that mail tech guy got a hold of Samira no one would know any better, and judging by his lack of even knowing who she was the chances of the summoner being informed of a mass of wrong mail destinations would be slim. It was semi-perfect. There was a mildly bad feeling at the back of the spirit's mind that something would happen to prevent the plan from working as he imagined, but it would go ignored in favor of getting rid of his boredom.

The rest of the spirits, at least the ones that were close by to hear, glanced over in his direction with mixed expressions. Some of surprise, some of confusion, some even relieved to be saved from the endless amount of filing they were doing! Then there were those that could only eyeroll and wonder just where this would all end up.

"We are?"
"Eh?!"
"You are joking..."
"Oh, here we go!"
"Good idea if we wanted to be idiots that actually thought we could get away with that unnoticed."
"Can it. We're all going to get in trouble anyway."
"No. You would have gotten in trouble. And probably Susano since he did nothing to stop you because he's an unobservant moron."
"Exactly! Wait... You little bit-"
"Language. Although, if I may ask, why would only those two get in trouble? None of us did anything to stop it either. The blame should be placed on all those present."
"Because that's just how it works around here."
"That... does not really explain anything in the detail that I had expected."
"Okay, it's because we dislike him and we all planned to place the blame on him from the start."
"WHAT?!"
"Who cares? Let's just get this over with. By the time anyone finds out we will be back home."
"And Samira?"
"Her problem by then. Don't keep putting the 'du' in 'dumb' by asking stupid questions."
"Hey! It'll be our problem right after, you know!"
"Only if you're dumb enough to be tuning in and listening. I plan to push the ignore button when she calls until it all blows over."
"Of course you are..."

"All right that's enough talk. It's starting to annoy me and I am starting to feel like you all don't like me. It's actually uncomfortable." Susano scratched his chin for a moment as he said that, wondering why it was they decided that he take the blame. Was he really that easy of a target to have a believable fake story that put all blame on him? The spirit frowned and then went into a state of gloom once he recalled all the past events up until right then. It was totally believable. Those bastards! Well whatever. First things first: take care of the mail problem. He shrugged away the gloom and went back to normal, clapping his hands together once to hype himself up to the current task. "Let's do this!" He then looked around as he contemplated the best way to do this. "Us up here will toss over the mail to you guys down there. Mainly because our stuff is still in bags and containers and not a paper lake." It would take way too long to get all of that upstairs without destroying the place in the process and leaving evidence. They were supposed to avoid that! Could they have just used two portals? Sure. Using one was preferable though. One that led to a place no one would think to look. Sin. Let all of those monsters and hell spawn there deal with the hellish and annoying punishment of getting someone else's mail.

"Okay, everyone up here help me toss this stuff over the railing. Except Agni. I don't trust you enough not to burn anything... Pele too actually... you know what, if your element is fire or water just don't touch anything." The element of water being added because soggy mail was horrible mail.

"Probably should have mentioned that a long time ago." Agni commented quietly while rubbing the back of one of his necks. He had already managed to burn quite a few before tossing them into the portal. At least he can say they were delivered correctly. They may have been on fire when they reached the recipient but they had made it there. That was all that counted, right?

For everyone else up on the upper level, they gathered what they could and went to the edge to start adding to the mail lake down below. Until they were stopped, however. More points to bring up before they could get away with this plan to rid the world of that day's mail deliveries.

"Wait! Stop, stop, stop!"

Everyone stopped what they were doing. Not so much because they were ordered to but because now they had to wonder the answer to the infamous question of "what now?" They were not going to get anywhere with all of these interruptions!

"Dammit! Now I have to ask. Why?"
"Samira may be distracted and deaf to this conversation, but she's going to notice a waterfall of mail falling from up there eventually."
"Shit. I guess she isn't dumb enough to think it's a newly installed decoration, is she?"
"A newly installed decoration with no one around to actually install it but us? No. She isn't that dumb."
"I mean... it's possible..."
"Just stop."

In that same instant the spirit clone of Apollo materialized in a swirl of orange and yellow colored particles. Unlike the trouble-making spirits that were already there, he had been in another area of the room closer to Samira and some of the more good rule abiding spirits. He had been able to listen in though to their plan by the mental communication link they all had. Technically Samira could too, but she had been zoned out and concentrating. Well, for the most part. There was one tidbit that the rest of them were not aware and the sole reason why she was not speaking up at all even though the plan was far from secret. "No worries. That's covered." The spirit of the sun and music commented with a wink as he hovered in the air with his legs outstretched in front of himself and the rest of him leaning backwards against something that wasn't even there.

"How?"
Apollo moved his hands to the back of his head for extra comfy support. Invisible leaning walls didn't exactly provide such comforts. "She left to get lunch like thirty minutes ago." He glanced down at the baffled spirits and chuckled. "You guys didn't notice?" The many facepalms, sighs, and eyebrow twitches gave him the answer. "Jeez, you all really thought Samira would just let you make this mess and let you make it worse as a bonus? You really think the girlie is that absent minded?"

"Yes."
More confirmations and agreement of many other spirits followed.
"Harsh."
"Don't you remember us wrecking the library? She was sitting right there and didn't notice."
"Well..."
"And even after that she left us here alone. To complete this job. Properly. Kind of stupid."
"Yeah... I don't really remember a time where we did actually do things like this right. The girlie really gives us way too much credit."

"Actually, forget about that. She went to get food and didn't ask if we wanted anything?!"
"You don't really need to eat like she does though..."
"Doesn't matter. It's the principal of it. That's pretty damn rude! Here I am working hard to do her job and she can't even be bothered to ask if I want a snack!"
"Complaining isn't working hard though, my friend. You are mistaken if you believe this."
"Hey! It takes a lot of effort to complain as much as I do!"
"A lot of effort to do the job the wrong way as well apparently."
"Is this your way of asking me to shave all of that kitty cat fur off of you? Because I can."
"Oh shut up! Get rid of this stuff already before she comes back, you idiots!"

That snapped everyone out of their arguing and back into action. Now they most definitely had a time limit to get everything gone. Once Samira came back it was a sure thing that she would come and check up on them. They needed to be done before then in order to look like the perfect and helpful spirits that they certainly were. No questions asked or suspicions created.

"Hey, I've been thinking," Apollo stated as he emptied one of the mail bags to add to the growing mail lake below. Toss just the bag? Nah. The waterfall of falling envelopes looked better. Something was on his mind though and he felt it necessary to bring it up. He dropped the empty bag and turned around so that he was leaning backwards on the railing.

"That's dangerous for you." Susano commented as he tossed a full bag to the lower level, purposely directly above another spirit that stood there so it would hit him and knock him to the ground. He thought nothing of it when he heard the angry shout and backed away innocently so no one would know it was him.

"Ha! Usually yea, but hear me out. When we came here there was mail falling all over the place everywhere for everyone. I know that mail guy stopped it for us and Samira so that we could actually work, but what about everyone else? How is she even able to travel the town to get a snack or even interact with anyone to pay for anything?"
"Umbrellas?"
"I'm pretty sure the town is a paper lake by now so probably not. Doesn't help stop the heavier packages either. Actually why are we even continuing to throw mail through these portals when we know the thing needs to be fixed? We're kind of just adding to the problem."
"Eh, it's probably like a story that has some gaping plot hole that will never be explained or brought up again. Besides, we'll probably forget about that in about five minutes anyway."
"Very true."
"Right? Come on, stop thinking so we can get this done."
"Righto."

"Mages come in all shapes and sizes. Where one may falter at something, another may excel."

About ten more minutes had passed since the spirits started working. Everything from the upper floor was now on the lower one and towards the Sin portal it would all be going. The land of Sin would soon be covered with all of the world's horrible mail! Hellish items for a hellish land! It was the perfect spot! Although really not many of the spirits particularly cared about where it was going. They could have littered the country of Seven right next door and it'd be fine with them. Sin was just a place no one would notice and so far out who would really go looking for misplaced letters? However, there was one spirit that could not let the destination that would be used for their little scheme go. It had to be brought up immediately.

"Another thought."
"Oi! What did I say about thinking?!"
"I know, I know. Dangerous and time consuming, but this is really bothering me."
"Ooooo! I wanna know!"
"I don't."
"Am I to cut out his tongue in order to keep him from speaking again?"
"Agree. Talk too much. No care to listen. Will split skull with rock if words continue."

Apollo kept bringing it up until the moans and groans of the spirits that just didn't care turned into exasperated sighs of agreement. "We may as well hear it." It's not like they could all decide on the genre of background music to listen to instead. It also didn't help that he was the spirit that could make said background music. "See? Everyone else is interested."

"Ugh, fine. But keep moving while talking. It drives me nuts that you can't do both at the same time."
"We're shoving all of this stuff through the portal labeled Sin."
"Yeah?"
"Sin."
Everyone: "..."
"..."
"Going to go into any detail about what is so important about a portal that leads to someone's bright idea of hell on this plane of existence?"
"It's Sin."
"We were not deaf to the first claim of this truth."
"SIN!"
"I am about to send you through that portal if you don't either explain or shut up."
"Does Sin even have mailboxes?"
Everyone: "..."
"And if so, why?"

It took some spirits to hold back the others from making good on their earlier threats. A thought that was, while relevant, was a complete waste of time to listen to. They knew it would be something on the levels of stupid and of minor importance. It was obvious there were mailboxes there! There was a portal with the land's name on it so someone had to be getting mail before the whole portal technology was set up!

"Monsters and demons get plagued by useless ads and junk mail too, I guess."
"It is likely there are outposts scattered throughout Sin from the other surrounding countries as well. They too would receive mail."
"I would hate to be the mailguy that has to deliver mail there."
"We've been there before. It's really not that bad to travel through."
"Maybe for mages. A normal regular guy would get devoured the moment he put that junk mail into the box. Even normal people want to bash them over the head with it."
"Ehehe, I think you're mixing normal with crazy violent. Normal people just throw the stuff away."
"After they beat the mailguy into a corpse!"
"Pretty sure that doesn't happen... I know Samira hasn't."
"Nope. Chaac did that for her instead."
"Hmph, I only went after him once and he got away. Do not exaggerate."
"So what this fantastic conversation has concluded is that mail delivery is not a safe profession. Why have mailboxes anywhere?"
"Huh. Come to think of it Sin might be safer. At least there you expect to die. I kind of feel bad for wanting to know how many mailmen and women have died making their rounds there."
"No you don't."
"Hm. Guess you're right. The feeling is gone now. That was fast."

The great lake of undelivered mail made it's way over to the Sin portal with each spirit helping out to sweep it all in the right direction. It helped that some could use their abilities to make it go faster and smoother, provided that they tone down those abilities a few notches so the delicate mail wouldn't get shredded or worse. Why did they really care to treat each package and letter as if they all had the fragile warning? Eh, just in case it all blows up in their faces they can at least say the mail is intact. But that wouldn't happen, would it? Nope! They were the slyest and most clever of lucky celestial spirits ever. So sly and so clever that they just sort of shoved all of the mail into the portal at the same time and giving the magic technology no time to properly process it all. The swirling magic particles of the portal began to slow down and halt, and so did it's acceptance of any and all mail. This did nothing to deter the spirits. They were already that far into the plan and that close to success. There was no possible way that they were going to give up now, or allow themselves to get caught.

"Come on! Just a little more."
"You all are terrible at this. How hard it is to shove it into the magic hole?"
"Well uh..."
"No! Don't you dare answer that! It'll probably lead to a very inappropriate comment that is too adult for the ears of some spirits around here." The volume of his voice then lowered as he mumbled to himself. "Not sure I even want to hear that myself actually." He was "adult" enough but not exactly on the perverted side of the spectrum. With that matter handled aside from some giggles here and there, Susano turned towards the direction of Kukulkan and shot the serpent spirit a glare. "If you're not going to help at least keep your criticism to yourself." The response given back was a roll of the eyes and a careless wave. It wasn't as if that particular spirit cared too much. "Sure thing, boss," she said with a very thick layer of sarcasm on top.

"I really don't know why I haven't skinned that snake yet." The swordsman spirit said to himself while shaking his head. Oh, right. Probably because someone upstairs in the grand heavens of some great beyond decided to make that one much stronger, which meant he would probably be sent flying to meet his maker the very instant he tried. His life sucked. For now, Kukulkan was forgotten so he could go back to focus on the rest of the magic particle parade. "She's right though. It shouldn't be this hard. Keep at it!"

The spirits went to work pushing all of the piled up mail through the portal as if they were trying to close the door to an overly packed closet that would avalanche at any moment. They ignored the sounds that should have indicated something was going horribly wrong. They ignored the mini earth quake shakes the technology was causing in response to the back up and everything being put into the same portal all at once. They ignored all signs completely in favor of their goal.

"Move out of the way, friends. I can handle the rest." The spirit incarnation of Athena spoke while taking hold of her shield. One would automatically assume that shield would do absolutely nothing. It was just an oversized saucer dish that was much smaller than the portal itself. Those that knew better though, well, they knew what was coming next. Everyone got out of the way and moved to be behind and to the side of the spirit. Being anywhere near the portal once that shield activated was a bad idea unless they all wanted to be sent to Sin with the mail. Athena threw the shield, and once settled near the portal it hovered upright in the air. A pink color barrier shot out from the shield and grew in size until it reached the portal itself. All of the mail that was leaking out and refused to be sent off was forced back in to the portal by the magic barrier pushing it all back in and remaining in place until the spirit was sure it was all gone. The barrier then vanished and the shield returned to her grasp.

Mission complete! Sort of. The portal looked a bit sickly, if portals could even look that way, and it started to make weird sounds. Even the lacrima lights started flickering, as if their small amount of power was being absorbed to fuel the portal. Then another mini shake of the ground. There was some worry for the spirits at first, for most of them anyway. Kuku just kept on with her normal business and no care in the world as to what was happening. But as luck would have it the symptoms of something going wrong passed by and everything was back to normal. The spirits could rejoice! The awful and boring mail task was over! It was completed! It was a thing of the past! Many shouts of merry excited cheer were made and confetti spontaneously appeared from out of no where in celebration of this event. Now they could leave that place and convince their summoner to take on a better job. One that was much more exciting and allowed them to battle or at least something that required more brain functions than putting the body on auto pilot.

The celebration would be short, however. The spirits were caught off guard with Samira's untimely arrival. Alarms went off in their heads as her voice entered their minds to inform them all that she was back and to give a minor apology for not saying anything beforehand. Hunger can sometimes make oneself a bit thoughtless in that regard. The spirits scrambled and scattered to their original places in a panic. "Who the hell brought out the confetti?! Get rid of it!" Tiny pieces of multi-colored paper were quickly moved into a corner and were hidden under a large potted plant. Yay for quick volunteers that knew just what to do with it. They had just got done returning to their spots when Samira's footsteps echoed throughout the now pretty much empty mail room.

"You all got everything done?" Samira asked as she stopped in the center of the room and took a look around, seeing absolutely no mail in sight. No missed packages. Not a single envelope. Not even the paperwork stacks that were laying one of the tables in the room were there. That one was a bit odd, but she made no mention of it. More so she was surprised it had all been done already. From what she had been told it should have been impossible. They were only there to help, not finish everything. For the safety of a complete mishap transpiring much of the more helpful magic technology had been disabled, including the ones that helped with the sorting. Not that the spirits were informed of it. Samira herself had kept that detail from them, afraid they'd take offense to pretty much being called too magic technologically impaired. Only the obvious portals remained active. Those seemed to be intact still. Huh. Just as she thought. The spirits could handle themselves well enough without breaking things or getting into trouble. She was right to put her total faith and trust in them!

The spirits themselves all had innocent faces and smiles as they nodded and answered how easy it was to get everything done, and that they had done so in such a perfect manner that the chance of anything being wrong was slim. This pleased the summoner and she too put on a smile to that relief. She knew they were bored with that sort of task and it was just amazing that they could behave themselves regardless. "Oh good! I admit for some of the time I was gone I was a bit worried something could go wrong. Those feelings were obviously misplaced."

Every spirit could only sweatdrop and inwardly smack their own foreheads at Samira's extreme gullibility when it came to them. "The girlie actually buys this?" Apollo whispered to Susano, who stood beside him. It had been the plan from the start to lie to her and cover everything up, but it was so easy it was baffling. The question earned an elbow jab to the ribs, however. "Shut up. Just go with it."

The whispers, movement, angry glares, and the sudden tension of the spirits from having a blabbermouth nearly give everything away went unnoticed by Samira completely. She walked over to the table and placed a few bags that she had been carrying onto its surface. "While I was out I got a little too much ice cream than I needed." One would wonder what made her think she needed a few tubs of ice cream when one might have been too much in one sitting and the answer to that was she ran into a woman that was getting tub of ice cream after tub of ice cream from the broken mail system. Who mailed ice cream? Samira didn't know. It was magically kept frozen though so it all worked out. As a plus the woman was giving it all away for free because of the extreme excess. Not that the spirits needed to know that not a single jewel was spent to treat them. That would be kept secret. Mainly because if she had come back to things in complete chaos she had planned to toss the ice cream all out. "Since you all did so well you can have it." Thank goodness the delicious sweet treat would not have to go to waste! Or so she thought.

Once Samira had placed the bags on the table the portals in the room began to fizzle, spark, go crazy, break down. All of them losing power aside from one: the Sin portal. Unfortunately, just because it didn't break down didn't mean it was a good thing. It too started to spark and make all kinds of groaning noises until it regurgitated all of the mail that had been sent through it, covering everyone that was on the lower floor in a new package and envelope lake, Samira included. At least Geb was able to pull her out of it and set her on the stairs that led to the upper level. Everyone else lost in paper was doomed unless they got themselves out.

It was then silent with not one word being uttered except for one spirit. "Oops! So much for the plan!" Serqet shouted with a wide grin before she went on to swim and play in the new paper lake. With all of their attempts to shut Apollo up they had forgotten to tell Serqet to also put a cork in it. They could have said it was something wrong with the system or something! Anything to prevent suspicion from falling onto them as the cause of the mess in the room.

"What plan?!" Samira demanded with hands on hips and a glare going from spirit to spirit, the ones she could see anyway. Some were still buried, but not for long! Before anyone could give an answer all the portals came back online, a surge of power going from the Sin portal and to the rest by the power connections. They were still going haywire though and it got even worse as the portal began to draw everything towards them. Envelopes, packages, potted plants, confetti, the ice cream. All of it flew around in different directions and through the portals that were acting up. Then they all sparked some more and shut down completely, followed by each one setting off a mini explosion to further indicate that they were a little more than broken.

Smoke began to fill the room from the busted portal technology, and it was now clear that the spirits would be in trouble indeed! Just how much time was left before the real mailman came back to fix up the original problem? Now he had more work to do... assuming he didn't make Samira pay for the new damages! They were not about to stick around for that conversation, or the scolding the summoner would give them. There was only one thing to do. In unison they all decided to go back to the original plan if anything should go wrong. At the same time they pointed to a certain swordsman spirit and shouted, "It's Susano's fault!" Blip. Poof. Sparkle. All the spirits vanished but the one that had been blamed. The one that now had a glaring and eyebrow twitching summoner focused right on him.

"Aw, hell. That's just not fair." Susano commented as his life seemed to get even worse. Welp, time to go with it and see if he could get himself out of trouble. Starting with the infamous line that never really worked out for anyone. I know what you're thinking, but I can explain."

"Mages come in all shapes and sizes. Where one may falter at something, another may excel."

Only half an hour had passed since the mail magitech had exploded. The likely very expensive magitech. The main mailman in charge came back, humming and singing a tune to go with his good mood. The equipment to fix everything that was going wrong was obtained and in his mind it would take no time at all to get it all fixed up and reversed. The mail plague that was infecting the world would have a cure! But it was not meant to be. He entered the room, at first not taking notice of anything wrong. "I'm back!" The equipment was set on where the table should have been. The table that was no longer there. The equipment fell to the floor and he watched, scratching his bald head as he stared at the empty spot quizzically. "Now where did tha- what the blazes is going on here?!" His face rapidly switched expressions from absolute horror at seeing the smoking and broken portals to anger when he spotted summoner and spirits taking one apart to try and fix it. Bits and pieces were scattered everywhere around it. "I can explain," Samira said with an innocent smile and a tilt of her head. That statement went just as well for her as it did for Susano. Not well at all.

"That could have gone better," Samira said with a soft sigh, previously helpless against the wrath of a man that had his prized experiment be destroyed. He wasn't really particularly interested in the fact that they took one apart to try and figure out how to fix it before he showed up. It shouldn't have even exploded and broke to begin with! After that awkward start of the conversation it was clear to her that she couldn't really argue or come up with a good defense. There really wasn't one given she wasn't even there when it all went down. Blame could have been placed on the spirits, but she was supposed to be the one in charge of them so it would have just made things that much worse to claim such a thing. The least she could do was own up to being at fault and correct it. Somehow. She just wished he didn't emphasize how incredibly expensive it was to repair all of the portals and get them back into working order. It wasn't as if she was about to pay for it. She was one broke Saint! Well, not really. She was well off to a degree, but it still was not enough to cover such an expense. There had to be another way to be of help and correct at least some of the damage that had been caused, but upon inquiring about it she deeply regretted it. The temptation to become a homeless and jeweless mage instead was there, and hard to resist by comparison.

The given task that the main mailman had given her to help with the cleanup was even worse than him trusting her and spirits to complete the original mail delivery job. He now was trusting her to use yet another super awesome mailman piece of magical technology so that she could gather and bring back all of the mail that had scattered throughout the continent. The new equipment added to her bill aside, it was baffling that she was being told that was actually reasonable. There was so much of it! And in random locations! But at least the question a spirit had earlier of what happened to mail when it wound up in the wrong place had been answered. It did not stay in some magical pocket for eternity. After a couple of attempts of finding the correct recipient and still unsuccessful, the portal technology just picked a random spot, person, or thing, and spat out the mail there in all of its magical particle glory. Room had to be made and the main mailman did not want that mail to come right back. That tactic worked for a letter or package here and there and was not much of a problem. When an entire days worth of mail ended up in random areas it was blatantly obvious something was wrong. The amount of complaints would be astronomical!

'Look at it this way. We're doing something a lot more exciting! I think... You know I'm not really sure if this will be any fun at all but at least it changes the scenery a bit.' The voice of one of the spirits played in her mind through the telepathic link she had with each and every one of them even while they were in their home realm. Naturally they were already over the whole thing, moved on with life, and had gone back to their normal demeanor of "don't really care because it's not our problem." Samira could do the boring stuff while they stayed in their realm. Until they were called into battle, of course. There was some hope the Saint would run into something terrible during this adventure around the continent so they could get some exercise and rid themselves entirely of the earlier boredom, but at the same time they were kind of comfy just watching from where they were. Picking on and annoying their summoner was also an entertaining bonus.

'Still mad, huh?'
"You make it sound as if I have had the time to forgive you all for the mess you made."
'It was an hour ago. That's plenty of time to get over it!'
'It was also your own fault. Only someone completely stupid would trust us to do something like that right. That or you don't know us very well. Both are very likely the case now that I think about it. You should be asking for OUR forgiveness for torturing us.'
"From what I have been told you did the least amount of work. You cannot really classify it as torture if you did not even do it."
'Also means I did the least amount of damage. But, here I am. Watching and still being surrounded by morons in this mind of yours. You really should clean this place out.'
'Are you implying that the rest of us should get kicked out as if we're trash?'
'If you mean the part where I said she needed to clean this mind I was actually referring to all the dust and cobwebs in here. Proof that this mind doesn't get used very much. BUT! Now that you mentioned it...'
"Can you all keep quiet? I am trying to focus."
'Oh, is that what that sound was? Brain activity squeaking into action after being abandoned for so long? I am surprised the on switch flipped that easily.'

Samira could only roll her eyes. Not much could be done to the spirits themselves. It was very doubtful they would actually show up if she summoned the annoying ones right then and there. They would know her inner desire to strangle them and keep themselves safe in their little home realm while continuing to mock her. That's just how it was and something she grew accustomed to more and more as the days passed. This time would be no different. She ignored the giggles and added comments and shut off her side of the telepathic link so that nothing more could be heard. The day had already been a very long one, and there was still much time and work to go before it was all completed. Doing it in peace was preferred by that point until the use of magic was necessary. The only magic that was required for now was the use of the mini portal thingy she had been given to do the new step to her current job.

Although, technically the mini portal device was useless for its base function. She had her own summoning spirit that was quite capable of making portals to various locations whenever she desired. The only reason she bothered with the idea of using it was because it could somehow lead her to all of the random mail that was wrongfully delivered and scattered around. How could it pinpoint each and every letter, package, shopping ads, and tub of lost ice cream? Hell if she knew. Samira was not about to ask and pretend she cared enough to take the time to understand things about technology. The poor woman was not up to speed with such things. All she knew and wanted to know was that it worked and would help her get the job done as intended. The mailman could send her a manual or something that went into great detail on how it worked later on when things were all over. For now Samira just wanted it all to be over so she could get to her room, disappear into the blankets of her bed, and ponder how her shopping day went so wrong.

Samira took a firmer hold of the small device and held it up to get a better look. There were a few buttons on it, none of them labeled actually. At least they were color coded... possibly. They were different colors but whether it was just to be decorative or if they meant something was still unknown. Maybe she should have asked for that instruction manual. It was hard to listen to the quick run down of how it worked completely with spirits talking so unusually loud in her head. She often could listen to them and the outside world at the same time, but they just seemed to have it in for her that day. Annoying little puffs of dust particles. "Lets see..." Which button to choose to get started? She shrugged her shoulders and just decided to stop analyzing and choose one. Click. Nothing. "Wrong one, I suppose." Another button press. Same result. By the fourth button a flash of light appeared in front of her, causing her to cover her eyes and look away. When she could see clearly again a human sized portal was there, shimmering and swirling with magic energy and waiting to be used before disappearing back into whatever existence or scientific theory portals came from. "Oh, there we go. Easy enough." She told herself with a small victory smile as she put the small device back in her pocket, ignoring the fact that it took her four button presses to even find the correct one to make a portal. To where? Who knew!

"Mages come in all shapes and sizes. Where one may falter at something, another may excel."

Collecting the mail that littered countries across the entire continent was actually not all TOO bad. It was easier than it should have been. At least at the beginning. They were all easy to find in some way or another. Being right there when Samira ported in, randomly being in someone's yard, part of the newly built paper fort constructed by some kids, between the teeth of a gigantic monster. That sort of thing. It was a matter of swipe them all and place them in the mailbag that hung over her shoulder. There was an issue when it got full but after pushing more buttons on the mini portal device Samira found out that she could throw the bag into a portal that led back to the Magnolia post office and a new one immediately came threw to replace it. Awesome. Most convenient! The job would be over in no time!

Wrong... It was an easy yet tedious task and the bright afternoon became dark as night settled in. She was no where near done, and it was expected that it would take the rest of the night if not longer. To make matters even worse again the mail was starting to became more scarce and difficult to find. One was even the puzzle reward inside an ancient set of ruins. How was that even possible?! It felt like a big prank that someone altered along the way to keep her suffering going. Now it was night and she was exhausted. "How much more was there to go again?" Samira asked of her spirits, the telepathic link having been activated again several hours ago. With it so dark she needed their aid again, especially when it came to a simple basic thing as a light source. The mailgirl outfit had been switched out for an armor set that belonged to her spirit Amaterasu, and with it came a light better than any common magic flashlight.

Samira leaned against the trunk of a tree somewhere in the middle of Seven. A country she had been to once before but not exactly one she intended to visit again under the current circumstances. The residents didn't really appreciate her climbing through the trees of their homes in the dark like some strange thief in the night. It would have been a good idea to ask first before taking it upon herself to be a tree climber and get labeled as such a thing but well... Too late now.

'Hmmm, if we look at that device and go over every button.... I got nothing. We tried them all earlier and the best we guessed was that the yellow one did something that COULD be some type of indicator. Try it again and see if it's different.'

The mailbag fell to the ground to give her shoulder some relief from it's weight. "I doubt it will be." Samira replied with a hopeless breath following. "But I suppose it is better than nothing." The device was pulled out from her pocket and she pushed the yellow button that had been mentioned. A half circle symbol appeared in the air with a small arrow that went left from right. A type of noise was made as if it were the sound effect from a minigame and with it the arrow moved. From the red side it left, and past the orange it continued. Then it hit yellow, shifted slightly to the green, and then stopped. There was an actual moment where they all thought that would be it. That was surely the sign that they were done! Then their hearts sank as the arrow flew back to the orange side and made a low disheartening sound as if they had lost a game. They were not even close to being done at all.

You know there is a good chance this is just some kind of game that was built into the thing. Next time we're taking the manual.'
"Were you going to help me by reading it?"
'Hell no.'
Samira sighed and put the device away before picking the mailbag back up. "New plan. Some of you go with Janus and search for some random lost mail."
'And we're supposed to know where to go how? That thing has been taking us right to them all each time.'
"Just go to places we have not been to yet. It should be a little obvious if the mail keeps standing out as much as it has so far."
'You're trusting us again already, huh? Wow. That is one dense brain that never learns.'
"Right... Very well. I will select the ones that are capable of doing what I ask correctly and not cause more damage." And with that a few more mature spirits were selected and set out on their own to find some lost mail. That should speed things up a bit!

It had to be around the very very late hours of the night when Samira found herself in the land of Sin. Shockingly, even though nearly all the mail that had been in the mailroom had been shoved through the portal there earlier there was not a single envelope or package to be found. Strange really. The now confused summoner stood there and glanced around, pondering and wondering why the mini portal device had sent her there. Surely it hadn't broken. She didn't really want another expense or broken piece of magitech to her name.

'Whoa, hold on! Don't leave yet.'
"Why?"
'Just turn around.'
"Whatever for?"
'I thought I saw something. Just do it. It'll be quick.'

Why did her spirits have to work in such a way that they could see everything she did even when not summoned? There was already a general lack of privacy as it was and that was added to it. Samira could only shake her head and sigh. She'd humor him. Maybe there was something interesting he saw, or maybe something dangerous that had been tailing her. A reasonable conclusion for someone to make. However, reasonable expectations were hardly ever met with some of her spirits as had been proven many times already during that one single day. Still she was gullible and thought more of them. She turned and looked around once again, allowing the glow of Amaterasu's light on her armor to shine on everything nearby. Then she saw it. She blinked. She stared. She allowed the verdant colored orbs to widen. "What on- no. Out of everything here just seriously? This is what you notice?"

'Heck yes! Sin has mailboxes!' Apollo exclaimed excitedly, his thought from earlier now having an answer. Now his mind was free to wonder about something else!
'Mailbox. Singular. In the middle of no where. Not a single living thing, house, or ominous creepy hell demonic thing around. Not suspicious or weird at all.'
'Maybe they were all sharing the same mailbox and they come to pick up their stuff whenever?'
'Lets open it!'
"No."
'Aw, come on! I wanna see if there's anything in there. Hey! One of those letters you picked up earlier even has a Sin address on it. Just stick it into the box while we're here. Good excuse!'
"Our task is to collect the mail that was you all foolishly allowed to scatter. Not deliver it ourselves."

This obvious remark did nothing to sway the spirit from his curiosity of what was in that mailbox, or from his nagging and request that she open it. If not for her willing his gate to remain closed then he most likely would have come on out and done it himself. Such consistent pestering was annoying though, and even unbearable as other spirits joined in because they too were annoyed. They were all in agreement that it was just easier to open the damn mailbox than it would be to be around him later on while he sulked and kept wondering about the super special mailbox in the middle of no where. "Fine. I will open the mailbox if only to keep you quiet for the next few hours."

A victory "yes" came from the spirit, of which Samira rolled her eyes and questioned what was wrong with so many of her spirits. Not really the type of personalities she would have originally expected of beings copied from gods. The summoner walked over to the common stereotypical mailbox. A strange design for the country of Sin, but not much thought went into that detail. She pulled the door down and leaned forward to peer inside it. Not a single thing was in there. "There is nothing." She stated bluntly and immediately heard the disappointed sigh after. Just what had he been expecting? There probably had not been a mailman or woman able to get that far into Sin in a very long time. The fact the mailbox itself was in good condition and still standing completely upright was astonishing all by itself. Since it was already opened, Samira took a letter that was meant for someone or something in Sin from the mailbag and placed it inside and closed the door. Side mission complete? She shrugged. There was some satisfaction she supposed.

With that done and no mail in sight Samira decided to try a new location. The device had to have just miscalculated and sent her to the wrong location. She took it back out and pressed the "portal for the transportation challenged" button. Nothing. Again with the same result. For some reason it was not responding. "Hmmm," her face scrunched up as she stared at the device. Then she shook it. "Why are you not working?!" Cursed magic technology advancements. She had the brilliant idea of hitting the thing against a rock to get it working again, but before the thought could be put into action an envelope flew by. "Huh?" She went for it, grabbed the neatly packaged slip of paper, and put it in her bag. Then another one spun in the air and landed on the ground in front of her. Then another. It was raining envelopes one by one.

'This is starting to get just a liiittlllee bit strange. Are we just going to ignore where that all is coming from?' Samira following the envelope trail was a good indication that it was going to be ignored indeed. Like a child picking up candy after candy in a straight line so did Samira but with enveloped letters as the lure. At the end was an obvious trap, perhaps activated by touching that mailbox or by putting the letter inside it. What was there were many blank envelopes scattered around. Clearly not any that were hers to pick up like the rest and for good reason. As soon as she got close and knelt down to pick up and examine one it flew from her hand, as did the rest from off the ground. In the air they swirled around until they gathered and combined into a giant envelope. A truly monstrous creature indeed! So terrifyingly impressive and ferocious that even her own spirits, the more powerful ones included, were afraid to come out and fight it when summoned!

Nope. Not doing it. Don't summon me.
'Pass.'
'Sorry. Something just came up in my schedule.'
'Will pass too.'
One by one every spirit put in their refusal in much the same manner.
"Excuse me?! You all have been complaining about your boredom and now that there is something to fight you are all refusing to help?!"
'Pretty much.'
"What?!"
'Look. Samira. The thing is, is this is just too stupid to take seriously. I will not be the spirit known for taking down an envelope. Forget it.'

Samira had to calm down and see reason with that. It... actually was kind of ridiculous and stupid. Why did such a creature even exist in the first place? Was it supposed to be like one of those monsters that took on the form of treasure chests? If so what logic was there to be used on how it obtained victims? Traditional mimics lured with treasure. The envelope monster lured with... mail... actually she did kind of fall for it. A detail that she was sure never to tell anyone about. Only the thought that other mailmen and women had to have fallen for it by taking their job too seriously made her feel better about that sudden case of idiocy. "I suppose you are right. I do not want to waste time with this either." As far as she could tell all the mail that took her to that location had been used as the lure and had now been collected. Defeating the monster was not necessary whatsoever. So, she didn't. As a test she quickly pulled out the portal device and pushed the button to create her escape. Just in time to avoid the blast of postage stamps aimed at her. After that, Samira spent days collecting the rest of the lost mail even with the second group that consisted of some of her spirits helping out elsewhere. In that time the mail plague affecting the continent had also been repaired.

"I better not see another package or stamped letter for the next year and a half." Samira told herself once she was back in her room within the guild hall. She jumped onto her bed and relaxed, prepared to fall asleep there in her normal everyday clothes and all.

"Mail for Samira Nassar!" The message from the new and experimental mail delivery service declared before a mini portal opened right above her and dropped several dozen pairs of socks right onto her. "What the-"
'Wizard Saint discount.'
One painfully defeated sigh followed.