"Yeaaaah, but the government doesn't know that. Gotta go to school until you're eighteen. ...Or at least sixteen or seventeen, maybe, if you drop out. I forget. You're not supposed to drop out."

"That so much school!! You need sleep this night, if you no can sleep in day?"

Wobbly hand gesture. "Maybe." Yes. "I probably can't stay up all night every night. I guess it might be better if we had a system for - you keeping watch and waking me up immediately when there's trouble, but I haven't practiced that and I don't know if I'll be fast enough. And - I don't want anyone to die, you know?"

"I no sure how fast vampire die someone. People also can't stay up all night every night, they have to work. - I going to not work in Sunnydale, live off money from work other places, but no can have everybody do that."

She stands up abruptly from the stake-making. Paces. "- I don't know. God tell you?"

" - uh. I mean. I can ask Him, I guess."

"I think we are small be deciding. Holy orders say how deciding this but I not in one and my tutors no."

This is... true... she's just never been very confident in her ability to hear and interpret what God is saying to her. Not that she doesn't have it! Just that she's not very good at it. Like proofs, or speaking Latin.

But she can try it. She can sit down and take off her backpack and close her eyes and pray about it.

Dear God. I don't know how to protect these people and also sleep. Also there are a bunch of other people I'm not protecting when I do this, but I'm not going to think about that because there's no way to protect the entire town and there seem to be more vampires here than anywhere else. Anyway. If I sleep during the night then someone might die, if I'm not fast enough to save them. And if I sleep during most of the day, I'll miss school. I guess theoretically school lets out around three thirty and sunset is at, like, six? That's only two and a half hours, which is not enough sleep. 

...I get that saving people's lives is more important than doing well in school. But I really am supposed to go to school, right? And if I don't go to school, the teachers will notice, and Azalea will get in trouble, and the cops could come looking for me, and that would get everyone else here in trouble, too! Admittedly if they were in trouble with the police they might be safer from vampires, but it's not very - trustworthy - to get people in trouble with the police because they asked you for help defending themselves and their children.

...there just aren't enough hours in the day. If we try to do it with just us, then people will die. We need more help. We don't have enough people.

....okay. So. Please send us people. I will look for people who can help us, tomorrow. Please help me find them.

"I think tonight I can stay up and do homework, which is less of a problem than being asleep. I did sleep during the day, today. Tomorrow, I think we have to look for people who can help us after school, because - eventually I am going to have to sleep. And if it's just us, then eventually we're going to lose someone. So - we need to look for help, and trust that God will help us find the help we need. I think."

"I don't know 'homework', but the rest make sense. And the people here learn fight, but slow learning, and vampires hard fight even with lots people, if they no warriors."

"The work from school that I'm supposed to do outside of school hours. And - yeah. We should definitely tell them about vampire weaknesses and - see if we can get some holy water from somewhere else - but I'm worried that you'll lose some people before they get very good at fighting them." If they get very good at fighting them. There are presumably ways of fighting vampires that normal humans can pull off, but Karen doesn't know them.

"Yes. That what happen fighting monsters too strong, some people get stronger and some die. I not strong enough save all. I think if we all fight better chance. We try while you do homework?"

It's a bit hard to practice staking things in the heart but she was thinking maybe they could use weak sticks that'll break before they injure the target and then spar with each other.

"You can try. Uh, let me know right away if any vampires show up."

Karen will... practice some Latin.

They practice trying to stake each other with sticks Iomedae's cut a ridge in so they'll break easily. They're not, in fact, good at it, but they're strong and in good shape and highly motivated to learn. When the sun sets Iomedae stops practicing because she needs to concentrate on Evil-detection, and most everyone else stops because they need to sleep. They offer Karen dinner again, the same dinner as last night. Iomedae hands someone three dollars for Karen.

There's no vampires, for the first few hours. Possibly they noticed it didn't work out well last night.

Karen hasn't eaten dinner this time and will accept food, even if the food is kind of meh. Possibly she should bring some money to pay for it next time. Actually probably she should pack herself a dinner to eat while she's out hunting vampires. 

Latin homework is dumb. Except that it's distinctly possible that knowing Latin will unlock the ability to learn a bunch of stuff about vampires, which isn't at all why she picked it but does mean that she kind of can't dismiss it as probably useless. Geometry is dumb, probably.

Around four in the morning there's two vampires coming together. Iomedae jabs Karen with her elbow and limps off to go try fighting them Karen-style with a stake. This gets her thrown hard against the nearest trailer, leaving a dent in the metal. 

Karen will fight two vampires alone, which isn't trivial even for her - she does get punched and thrown around a fair bit - but Karen can just get right back up, with very little obvious damage. Eventually she succeeds at ramming her stake into both of them.

...then she checks on Iomedae. "Are you okay?"

She is on her feet, which would not be true of most people. "Nothing broken, I think. They strong. Maybe need wood spears, stay out of reach."

"...yeah, maybe. I'm still kind of worried that if I'm not around they just win."

"Probably," she says flatly. "Holy water help. Maybe we try other church."

"Yeah. I feel like if you had a bunch of people spraying holy water and, like, some super soakers, or something? It would probably at least go a long way in making the camp a lot less of a soft target. ...maybe we should try the other churches, even if it might be more of the same."

"I just need know what to say. I no can lie to a priest, but can maybe say, two people die, we think it evil spirits, the holy water will make us know God with us, we think it make us safe, and not say vampires?"

"Maybe. I don't know. It - sounds a little less likely to get us kicked out. But I don't know if they'll believe that evil spirits kill people these days, or that holy water would help with it."

"Why even make holy water if you no think there is Evil and you no think holy water help??"

"You know, I'm not entirely sure. Mostly people use it for baptisms, and they dip their fingers in it before and after Mass when they cross themselves, but I don't know... why... we do this? I guess people think of it as a generic blessing that God can act through? Maybe? - probably a long time ago people knew it helped with evil things, and then they stopped believing that the evil things were still around, but they kept using the holy water for some stuff because it was traditional."

"Holy warrior no can let people die but I want not die of vampires so I can fix devil plot to evil Church. I think devil plot to evil Church more - more people."