"It's more about risk versus reward. The suits don't want to put their employees in supernaturally dangerous places, that way lies huge lawsuit payouts. I might be able to swing you a link crystal, arrange for deliveries, but a branch office is right out."

"How do link crystals work and what kind of sacrifices am I looking at to have a nest egg that will buy me substantial oomph?"

"That depends a lot on what you have available. VIT is a three-to-five day loss or gain in general physical capability. CLA is the same but slightly longer period, and general mental ability. MNA is, magical fuel, if you have access to magic and it runs on a thing you can sell some. AP is the same but represents your permanent magical power. It runs much, much higher. EMO is the ability to feel emotions. Temporary, not removed entirely for the duration. LUK is luck, limited to minor and moderate things because interfacing directly with fate is usually a terrible idea. DIV is divine intervention. I'd know already if you qualified to sell that. And here I thought I was done with work."

"I can't get local magic to work for me, I've tried. I have technically had contact with divine things but they kinda suck so I don't know if they'd be interested."

"I can scan you anyway if you like, to see if you can mint MNA. Oh, link crystals. I can't sign you up to the official network without a lot of paperwork, but I run a private one. Off the books. I'd hook you into that. From your perspective, you would want to send a message and talk at it, or when it changes color want to hear what it has to say. If we're both on at the same time it'll hold a conversation, but that's about it. Very cheap model."

"Very cheap model, he says, about his interdimensional telephone with a will-based interface. Yeah, scan me for mana minting, it's not like any mana I have is doing me any good."

"Not at all. So, there is magic, and there are vampires, and there's an absolutely unfair quantity of demons who are even less humanlike than vampires, and there is me, she who stands against the darkness blah de blah until one day I bleed out against the darkness and am replaced with a different randomly selected non-consenting teenage girl in the mystic destiny. The powers with which I am to attempt to survive my late teens and early twenties and, if I'm really good, possibly even mid-twenties, are super strength and speed and agility, good combat instincts, and prophetic dreams and vampire-detecting powers that alas do not have their own tech support line because mine don't work. Witches are a thing but I can't seem to be one, possibly for the same reason I can't seem to be a prophetic dreamer, which is a terrible pity because it would be way more my style than hitting things. Not that hitting things is not great fun with enough practice."

"...You want a resurrection insurance contract. Those are far above my head to arrange on my own recognizance but I will definitely be submitting your world for branch candidacy, risk or no risk, it sort of needs it. You have at least three different thaumic signatures on you, by the way."

"Three? Can you tell what they - are?"

"Not with any precision yet. Two are similar to each other. The third is probably your strength and combat instincts, it has large VIT potential. I'll figure it soon enough, I enjoy tricky magic."

"Speaking of VIT, is there any reason I couldn't mint one, hang on to it, spend it again if I need to be at full to stab something, and if nothing like that comes up in the three-to-five-day period mint another one and just sort of perpetually have one on hand so I'm never weak when I need not to be?"

"They show up to magic detection unless in an antiscry, and they can be stolen, and there is a 0.5% minting fee unless you purchase the minting device instead of leasing it. Other than that no... VIT scan says you can mint about twenty at a time before being dangerously weak, or sixteen or so before reaching baseline human... One of your mystery magics is very weak, leftover or byproduct or blocked or something. I think the other's a ward of some kind." He changes out his device for a different one. "Ward resonance imager."

"I like how you just have all this on your person. How pricey are devices?"

He smirks. "You can tell a good support technician by his tools. Price depends heavily on the device. A generic thaumoscope is about twenty VIT. A good thaumoscope is closer to a hundred. The cheap link crystals are mass produced, ten VIT."

"And the minty thing?"

"We usually sell them at a loss, standard of a hundred of whatever they're minting, because it encourages future purchases."

"Highway robbery. Some of us sometimes unexpectedly need to suplex six-ton demons on a moment's notice, have a care."

"You'll probably be able to mint MNA or AP to make up for it." His device dings. "Hm... Does the local magic depend on intentionality? Here, hold the link crystal, want to send something."

"I haven't looked into it in extensive detail -" She holds the link crystal and tries wanting to send something.

The crystal does not react. "It should've changed color. This confirms my readings - you have an extremely powerful, very strict magical mental barrier."

"...Well, that explains some things."

"Like your other powerset not working as it ought to?"

"Yup."

"...Wonder if I could fix that. I see where it's sending the information. Install a filter so your barrier no longer sees it as a threat?"