Tsathoggua clamped its procedrually-generated lips around a yards-long pipe ending in what stank of a crack house, reeking of both methamphetamine fumes and the body odor of people who have given up on everything but staving off withdrawal. Saint Toad was a colossal beast, draped with oily fur, body squat and rotund, hind legs too long and too skinny, forelimbs longer yet, the asymmetrical number and shape of fingers on each hand webbed. It said in a low, gurgling voice: "I was told there would be ham."

The image of the god sat at every lunch table in the cafeteria pushed together. It was the best they could do in light of the incident. He was at the far end of the cafeteria, with everyone still present at school clustered at the opposite in fear of incurring his mercurial temperament.

"Apologies!" Chariot said, bowing, "there was an incident with the hogs we ordered. But we do have a very distinct feast ready for you! Presuming you like sweets, Mighty Tsathoggua." She said this through a microphone, safely out of reach.

"Of course I do," the avatar said. "That's like asking if my uncle's name is difficult to pronounce even relative to the names of other beings from higher realities."

"Fantastic!" Chariot said. "I'm sure our chef won't be long, Your Divinity."

Jasminka raised the megaphone spell to her mouth: "You have been born to die nobly for the honor of Mighty Tsathoggua. Are you prepared for this, Jam Buddies?"

The Jam Buddies silently convened amongst themselves. These were truly magnificent inventions of Jazzy's: humanoid pastries built around bones of crispy sweetened rice, stuffed with jam-filled organs and baked musculature, outfits and hair of fruit leathers, and big smiling faces meticulously painted on with food dye.

The Jam Buddies pulled apart, a seeming leader emerging from the pack. It was somewhat overstuffed, browned from coming out of the ovens last and leaking jam from a split in its crust. It dabbed its mitteny hands in its own jam and spelled this on the kitchen wall: " N O . " It squeezed its thumb into the tile as it punctuated its declaration.

Jasminka aimed her wand. "Too bad." She exerted her will on the Buddies and forced them to march, all save the overcooked leader. After a long moment with its pastry boots planted firm, Jasminka got it shuffling forward, resisting the call of the void with every flake and crumb and heaping teaspoonful of its being.

"Good, good," Jazzy said, gently patting the overbaked one's bubble-laced gummy hair. "Just like Soggy likes it."

"You really fought Conan once?" Akko said into the mic.

"One of my avatars, yes," Tsathoggua said from a second mouth appearing on what was approximately its head, as its first was occupied with... let's go with "consuming" his aperitif of stuff cleaned out of the kitchen's grease traps.

Akko's eyes flowed with tears. "I knew he was real."

Tsathoggua groaned, a noise like an earthquake. "Oh, don't be so sentimental. He was just the most physically excellent example of humanity in the Hyperborean age and the only human being capable of looking his betters in the eye and making them blink. His empire has passed and his people are lost. What use is he simply surviving on as a symbol of hope and achievement to millions?"

"I could name a few things but 'cause you taught the first witches how to do magic and represent the masculine aspect of magic I'll respectfully trail off!" Akko smiled. "Thank you for teaching us about magic, Saint Toad!"

Tsathoggua chuckled. "This one has respect. I appreciate that."

A triangle (the instrument) jingled just outside the cafeteria. "Dinnertime, Mr. Soggy~" Jasminka said, stepping through the door with a crowd of Jam Buddies behind her. The pastry people waved at anything that looked like it would appreciate being waved at: students, teachers, Akko, Tsathoggua (who grew an extra limb to wave back).

The avatar threw the grease trap trough through a wall. "This sacrifice I take gladly, child of Earth."

Jasminka herded the Jam Buddies into a vague circle, having to gently pat some of the stragglers into place. "Bon appetit, Mr. Soggy!" She hopped back a few feet.

Tsathoggua emanated a mighty, grasping member perhaps analogous to a tongue, engulfing and crushing the Jam Buddies into a doughy, jammy mess before slurping them into a gaping maw to vanish forever. Even well away from the murder zone Jasminka got splashed with a fair amount of jam.

"Beautiful," Jasminka said, wiping away tears and some jam with a hankie.

"Wow," Akko said.

"Well, all's well that ends well!" Chariot said. "We're glad to have had you as a guest, Tsathoggua, but I'm afraid we'll be ending the ritual in just a mo-"

The avatar held up several limbs. "Wait. There's one more."

Indeed, a well-baked straggler was creeping into the room, hand over a wound in its side.

"I'll take my leave once I finish my dinner. That's to be expected."

"Of course," Chariot said, trying to will the flop-sweat from coming out.

The last Jam Buddy approached Tsathoggua. The avatar shifted its bulk towards the baked good-and as it projected a crushing tongue, the Jam Buddy leaped over the grasping limb and ripped a good-sized knife free from its side and attacked.

"Oh, dear," Jasminka said. "Sorry, let me calm her down!"

"No," Tsathoggua said, thrashing at the Jam Buddy with a bloom of meaty limbs, "this is fine! I like a little fight now and again!"

The Jam Buddy and Tsathoggua's avatar battled for a good few minutes, the living pastry emerging victorious after plunging its blade into one of the avatar's eyes.

"Oh, dammit!" Tsathoggua said. "Hziulquoigmnzhah won't ever let me hear the end of this o-"

The avatar swelled with a bleak anti-light before collapsing in on itself, leaving behind a pulsing orb of darkness that decayed into the familiar green glow of magic. The Jam Buddy fell to the floor, wounded in a dozen places, its left leg completely gnawed off and leaking grape jelly.

"Well," Chariot said, scrubbing her brow with the brim of her hat, "that's one way to end the conjuration."

"We'd better not be getting fined for that," Badcock said. "...that was Tsathoggua's avatar getting ganked we all just saw, right?"

"Yeah," Finnelan said.

"I wasn't asking you, that's like... that's like tasting more yellow snow to see if you just ate yellow snow."

Jasminka approached the victorious Jam Buddy. "Hey there, pal," she said. "That was some display you just-"

The Jam Buddy stabbed her in the gut.

"Ow! Jerk!" She jammed (get it?) her wand into the Buddy's smiling face and blasted its baked head into oven-fresh chunks. "Nuuuuurse! She got me where my food has to go!"

"Step back, bitches, I got this," Nurse Horowitz said, hefting a concrete saw over her shoulder.

The cafeteria emptied out with a quickness.

Headmistress Holbrooke sat on a bench and watched her students enjoy a snowball fight which rapidly escalated into displays of wintery sorcery. Witches on floating snow platforms threw plump snowballs over icy fortifications firing back with flurries of snow. It made her old heart swell with pride to see such sport.

Jasminka settled in the bench next to her, her midsection wrapped in entirely too many layers of bandages that were duct taped in place over her uniform. "Hey, headmistress," she said.

"Healing up, Ms. Antonenko?" Holbrooke said, offering her a bonbon.

"Getting there," Jasminka said. "Thank you." She unwrapped the chocolate and popped it in her mouth, chewing slowly. "Weren't there s'pposed to be some boy witches visiting from St. Joe's House of Witchmen?"

Holbrooke giggled. "Is that the nickname for it, now? In all seriousness, I haven't received a phone email from them yet, I'm not sure where they could've gone off to."

"Hope they won't be long," Jasminka said. "I baked up a whole mess 'a pies for some healthy boys to enjoy..." She licked her lips as complex scenarios of intimacy played out in her mind.

"You sure this is the right place?" Antony said, checking his phone.

"It should be," Micha said, checking the knob on the door. "Not sure why they'd want us in a specific dorm or anything, but-" He opened the door.

Inside were Wangari and Sucy. Wangari wore a classic red velvet dress with white faux-fur trim, Sucy an indigo kimona with a golden lotus pattern embroidered across the chest.

"Hey there, boys," Wangari said.

"Wanna get scarred for life~?" Sucy said.