Application garnered from qualification, you couldn't start something if convoluted rules, physical or financial limitations made it impossible to entertain the idea. Although on more occasions than not, the cornerstone of belief was that a little hard work could propel an individual anywhere into any field they so desired, barely true but the issue was magic. Neither of them had seen the mystical art of imaginative beauty put into practice, unless they countered the spell from Ms.Brentley's late father and their trip through hell but a good read on the historical textbooks lining the shelves and stacked in piles between the both of them made clear fact that the stuff was real.
The glaring barrier between themselves and the idea was how it worked? Back tracking, the most prominent and only real example of a working spell came from Brentley's father, the paper of jumbled words, archaic runes and small arrays scribbled along the aged paper. Nera wasn't foreign enough to the genre that in cases of a spell, mana or whatever kind of magical energy was needed to invoke it to have it happen. Basic fantasy knowledge that similarly made its way into modern supernatural sorcery, using a spell, conducting rituals and other spiritual means towards either exorcizing, speaking or sensing the damned took a mental and otherwise spiritual strain on the body. While anyone could technically dabble in the supernatural(though in itself having the gifted believed to have the ability to directly communicate or properly sense the dead) since spiritual energy existed in almost anyone, novels had informed the both of them that the same couldn't be said for mana.
The question then came to how they'd managed activating the spell in the first place through no added effort but reading it out loud, was mana not a definitive requirement for a spell? Legulous Unglaus, a renowned mage of the world's third aeon was hailed as having possessed the largest mana pool ever documented, also an astounding figure in magical development, spellcraft and a list that just wouldn't allow itself to end as a statement that'd quelled the idea sat below one of the very few illustrations of the man on a deeply matted textbook mired by ugly tears along its sullen surface, 'Magic is simply the use of mana in bending the world to one's will'—essentially, no mana then forget about the idea, plain and simple; written in cursive bold as though to instill the idea deeply into the heads of whoever was reading it in hopes quelling any hopes if ever they found out they were completely talentless in the field..
Thomas snapped another book shut, embarrassingly echoing in the silence and briefly calling someone upon where they'd been seated against the shelves, both apologizing as Nera closed her own. She leaned forward and placed the book back into a part of the shelves she'd retrieved it from as the smile that'd crept along her face from earlier had almost completely dimmed to a bitterful grimace, "What's on your end?"
"On magic? It speaks about it, sure but nothing detailed. All I've read about is a Legulous and well…" Nera nodded, "Nothing exciting"
The original beating exhilaration had suffused, replaced by a realistic apprehension of skepticism. Firstly, did they have mana? The question came as soon as it dawned on them of their current foreign predicament, for all either of them knew, both of them were talentless. What constituted a person's chances of having enough of an affiliation to perform a spell was obviously not written in a history book but neither was it hard to deduce. Unless you've been swimming in the sea, have been taught or had an experience through childhood, dropped in an ocean and by no means are you swimming. In a world of no mana, why would they have any when brought to one that did? They could humbly rummage over their chances, which..sat staggeringly low..
"It's not the end of the world right? We haven't even properly checked"
"Between you and me, Tommy, logic will tell you a pretty fine answer to that question without outside confirmation"
He threw a tired moan, "It was exciting for a moment, so what? What if we can't use it and what does that change?"
She gave him a raised brow and a searching look, as though wondering if both questions would wander into a distasteful joke but they didn't, "Crises, are you mad!? Tommy, I don't know about you but I know damn well that a dozen of those things written along that woman's aged paper from who knows when are most definitely not readable to me!" she hissed in a low whisper.
"And what does that have to—"
"How are you planning on getting home exactly?" He paused, opened his mouth for a moment, closed it and looked away in short thought. When something had finally come to mind, he turned back to her, "We say it again, yes, the spell that brought us into this mess in the first place. Crises, Nera, what stopped us from using it again this entire time?"
His eyes widened in divine revelation and for a moment, she herself was left stupidly stumped. The same spell that'd brought them here, what was stopping them from using it to bring them back home? It was such a simple answer drawn from such a simple and short use of basic human thought that the stupidity that either of them felt was astronomical. For a moment however, for a short and brief moment. Yet, the contents of the rest of the stuff written all over Brentley's gift were still unknown, what'd it entail to use the spell wantonly without fully understanding the implications? They knew it worked so there was most definitely no excuse towards innocent ignorance or blind naivety. For all they knew, the spell had a one time usage with a smattering of ambiguous consequences to using it again with the desire of going home(it not working would be the best case scenario in such a situation).
Then came the issue of what the actual part of the spell that they'd managed to get working actually meant, it felt ironically and perhaps morbidly amusing that she was using her knowledge as a conning spiritual, demonology expert but saying and whispering phrases you didn't know what the hell they meant didn't always yield the best consequences. Hell, the more she thought of it and the luckier it seemed that the working spell hadn't killed them on the spot, sold their souls to a devil or summoned an ancient squid. Then again, she was flooded by the annoyance of self doubt. That simple, the answer could well and truly be just that..; repeat the phrase..
"What? Don't tell me you've actually grown attached here right?" pulled from her own thoughts, she stared at him bluntly and rolled her eyes, "I'm not the one with a woman to miss when I'm gone. It's..fine, before we start jumping into conclusions we'll try out just testing out saying it over again and getting home"
He nodded, "Nothing too complicated, right?"
She didn't answer, after about an hour, they'd both read through as much as they thought was important and what they'd easily be able to recall before stacking the books back into their respective shelves. They emerged from the area and made their way towards the middle aged librarian as the rumbling of both their stomachs ruthlessly reminded the two that they hadn't eaten in the past twelve hours or more, a bubbling issue they'd completely overlooked whilst asking the man for directions to the cheapest restaurant around was money. Between the both of them, they had a good two hundred bucks, normal occasions that'd be more than enough for a good meal and yet they'd decisively seemed to forget that the currency revolved under something called quills.
Thomas had asked the librarian to brandish a simple copper quill in front of them, swiftly disguising the matter with the fact that they were foreigners and lo and behold a coffee brown, bronze like yellow note was pulled from his pockets; a fifty note bronze quill. Nearly true to its word, the front side of the note, at its center was illustrated with the exquisitely drawn, printed, who the hell knew at this point, image of a dragon decorated in sharp quills and on either corner of the note was a quill. The other side depicted a crowned king, a sharp looking old man in regal robes, eyes with the slits of a viper and either corner of his side of the note similarly decorated in quills.
Why had they paid such close attention to detail on the damn thing? Not a single ounce of it could be wordlessly mistaken for their own money stuffed in their pockets. They exited the library sullenly after that and grimly clutched at their stomachs, "Wouldn't they be able to simply create food, why even give it a price?"
Thomas gave her a tired look of surprise, "You don't even know how their magic works"
"Magic is magic, Tommy. Some old lady's dead father whisked us away to this god forsaken place and you're telling me that they can't just make their own food?"
"Probably exhausts them I guess"
"Oh, don't defend the sorcerer's! That's like defending the rich and their woes about depression like they can't just spend their money on something they enjoy" She grumbled as they made their way up the same city block they'd come from, into the paved plaza and out the narrow entrance too small for cars. In a moments notice they were back on the slightly less busy streets and crowded street walks, the hustle and bustle had crawled to a reasonable flock of noise and passing vehicles. The weather hadn't changed, still mostly its grey lit color and gloomy atmosphere as they passed by a few stores and areas now permeating with the steams of delicious foods. They gulped, their stomachs tearing at them like a ravenous wild animal starved for weeks and teased by the scent of nearby food, unfortunately for it, the food in question was a large alien looking wild beast that it had not the slightest idea nor the ability of how to approach with its current skill set. They swallowed, placating the starved animal by the fact that there was a Chance they'd be back home in no time.
The grey coloured porsche sat parked on the side of the road adjacent a small drug store, the added suspicioun of the car they drove hadn't come to mind only after a few hours of driving in their search for the library and they were given the spectacle of witnessing this world's version of modern day machinery which was..surprisingly not any different to what they'd had in the 1960's as well.
Long body vehicles with strikingly uniquely driven designs, the stout and the shorter for sportier cars with tail light designs and headlights that shockingly quite resembled those on earth at the time, it almost fit right back into their earlier theories of a parallel universe..almost. Really they were just glad they didn't have to drive around with heads turning at where exactly they'd procured what their driving, at the present moment, though the car didn't exist in this world there were a dozen ways they'd found to quell the question.
Producing the keys as they crashed inside, Nera turned on the ignition with the wild roar of the engine. Just before stepping on the accelerator, she gave Thomas a glance as the latter sifted through his pockets and pulled out an aged, coffee brown paper littered in archaic runes, odd symbols and complicated arrays. He sighed, for some reason his body was shaking and the nervousness was practically written all over his face in bold and bright colours. She would give a sign of encouragement but it wasn't her idea in the first place, hell, if anything went wrong then at least she hadn't endorsed it.
"Hailneris.." On an honest note, if this did end up killing them then was she mentally prepared for death? Well, that depended on the kind of death, the quick and painless? Just darkness? The painful? Now that she thought about it, she hadn't even prepared a proper will for anyone, she hadn't experienced love, Thomas had at least been flirted on the other day and what about her? Hell had she even partied? Made a silly little harmless mistake back in her youth? Crises, had she even lived!?
"Feyshire!!" She closed her eyes, squeezing them as though blinded by a flashing explosion of blinding light and gripping at the steering wheel tighter than the she had whilst traversing down the hellish rocky grounds in a test of her ten years of driving. Shed braced for the shaking, the rattling and the sudden boosted roar of the engine anddddd…nothing..
…
Further moments of silence passed in the motionless vehicle but the low rumbles of the engine and the soft chatters of people walking by, Nera slowly opened her eyes first and glanced around at the lack of changes followed by Thomas' own looks of subtle confusion as they glanced around. A minute passed in the confusion as a disgruntled curse and a sigh of relief echoed inside, her hands slipped from the wheel and fell limply beside her and by the window.
"It didn't work.." Were Thomas' first words as she glanced back at him, still in the graceful pleasure of relief that for the most part she hadn't been killed, sent somewhere else or worse and for that reason, the trepidation was far from visible on her face that regardless of all that, the simplest answer had yielded no results. She sunk into the seat and stared back outside, "Alive at least, let's just be happy over that"
He shot her a betrayed look in a narrowed gaze, "Are you taking this seriously..?"
She let out a nervous chuckle, the saying really was true, ignorance was bliss. She lifted a finger and shrugged, "Of course I'm taking this seriously" she let out a soft sigh, "We're fucked, Tommy, Royally fucked but at least we're fucked with all four of our limbs, our human body and our souls intact"