A tentative finger traced along the uneven ground, expectant, cautious, perhaps a little excited. With trained hands having repeated the action over and over again, countless repetitions through a decade of false proclamations, Thomas' hands traced what was unmistakably an array of archaic symbols. A singular conglomeration of sigils in circular motions, lining its outer shell were varied sets of symbols acquainted with intelligible words that sat at its center with a singular seemingly familiar letter 'H', its arms bent inwards and the bridge between the two arched from within as smaller, less prominent sigils were drawn around it as the ground stood engraved with the burning heatless flames that caressed the skin from the festering runes.
"It…it..works!!" He shouted, with a swirl of heatless flames, the symbols along the ground coagulated in formation of burning steel. A blade of bright, sparking ember, accentuated by a deep and dark handle lacking in decorations but a braided formation of stone was clasped by his hands.
Nera raised a brow, "A dagger? There's a spell for this kind of stuff?" She asked, to her knowledge, most of the supernatural spells in her calligraphy of expertise centered themselves over protective wards, rituals for the dead, exorcisms and whatnot. The makings of physical objects was only the kind of spells she'd read in fantasy novels, the kind of spell she'd expect these people to have.
"Signing contracts with familiars from harrowed worlds, spells for the mundane. It's basic witchcraft" She evenly heard him answer, twirling the blade with suppressed glee. The handle, though seemingly uncomfortable and impractical from an outside glance, was perfect in his grasp.., maybe..too perfect. It wasn't heavy but it wasn't light either, balanced in a manner that was dangerously efficient.
"Weren't they associated with curses and hexes? You know, the actual vile stuff?"
"Grimoires, tablets holding specific rituals for performing certain tasks. Witchcraft doesn't encompass one part of a specific countries history of it, any civilization in its beginning stages believed in something supernatural and others took it further than most. Particularly this one spell for a ritual knife" She groaned at the explanation and the clear dig at her historical ineptitude in some areas, giving the starfish-like entity on her shoulder a soft pet.
After the dining table incident the two had come to a monumental discovery, their knowledge of spells from earth, accompanied from their years of morally questionable con-artistry weren't completely useless. Coupled with the mana they possessed here and an oddly effective combination was made, just strong enough in actually getting the constructs they knew to work. How this happened was a mystery still racking their rattled brains, unraveling at a box that had no end in sight, much less had they really even started getting any sort of idea.
"It makes one wonder, does that mean you can use magic on almost anything ridiculous you write down?" She heard him muse to himself and found that a little terrifying, if mana was truly that omnipotent then they'd have to be deeply concerned of where the limit was, though there had to be some sort of rule somewhere.
For a split second something clicked at the back of her mind, she dug into her coat pocket were Brentley's paper was still there and felt that familiarity she'd been feeling finally come together; the spells, the runes, the intelligible words she felt she'd heard and seen before was a familiarity she was likening back from earth! Suddenly she felt a piece of something fall into place, no, more to say a few things made more sense when she thought of it this way.
"Brentley's paper has roundabout the same kind of stuff, of course not exactly the same since we didn't recognize them at first glance but when that woman used magic in front of us and then the stuff at the dining table—" She paused, frowning as Thomas lifted his gaze from the ritual blade.
"You mean to say there's a correlation in both and that's why it worked?" He continued for her, her thoughts still frozen in place. There was a problem, why were they similar to such an extent that if they were to assume that magic had a sort of rule denying any sort of random amalgamation of senseless letters to form a spell then why would theirs work? By this world's standards, similar to an extent or not, their worlds 'spells' should've been no different from senseless gibberish.
Thomas lifted himself from the ground and just as it had done back on the dining table, the burning amalgamation of runic letters and archaic symbols, disappeared a few minutes after the intended item or effects had successfully been cast. He twirled the blade a few more times, reveling in its grip and the affinity it had in his hands, "In any case, does it really matter?"
Brought from her daze, Nera looked towards him and raised a brow, "There's an insinuation in there, what are you suggesting?"
"Money" He turned in the direction of the alleyway they stood in, deep enough that a furtive glance wouldn't immediately give away their position as well as the fact it was already well into the evening and the hustle and bustle had suffused to only a few disinterested passersby.
"We'll be lazing in here without some kind of a job anytime soon.." He made a point, they were flat broke(as much as she wanted to tease that his back up laid a few minutes away), Ravinia wouldn't be so kind forever. They at least had some kind of magic to use now, something this world saw familiar and not a total disaster at everything else.
"Need I remind you that we're not exactly using their conventional standards of magic, exorcisms, rituals, summonings and all that stuff isn't going to land us a job here…"
"Oh, come on, we haven't even checked!" She raised a brow, waiting for him to notice and he did, his zeal suddenly faltered and his voice dimmed, "Ah..why would they have it anyway.."
Bingo, this wasn't just foreign spells, it was otherworldly. Exorcisms, the makings of demonology, spirituality and the whole topic of supernatural discussion couldn't possibly be something present here. They'd found similarities in their spells and the one's here but that was in correlation towards wantonly assuming that they'd find a job with their expertise, what would that job even look like? His shoulders sagged a bit in thoughtful contempt, "There has to be something.."
"And I don't deny that," She affirmed, feeling a slither along her shoulder as the starfish entity that'd slung itself across her slipped from her and plopped onto the floor, not giving it much mind she continued on speaking as at least a few hours with the thing had revealed its knack for a perverse allergic reaction to sitting still.
"But that something isn't coming through this..at least..not conventionally.." Thomas glanced at her, a deep frown creasing his face.
"What's the unconventional method then?"
For a moment she stood silent, shrugging without much thought, "Legal con-artistry"
It was simple really, if it hadn't failed them then, what reason was there to abandon it now? Thomas gave a glance as though seriously mulling over the option, hesitantly resistant of it which didn't go unnoticed, "What? Bad idea?"
He groaned, "Worse, it hasn't been a week and already we're discussing what's obviously illegal!"
She rolled her eyes, "We did something illegal ages ago, using Brentley's paper, keeping Brentley's paper. I don't know about you but if anything, we're already set for the bars and," she made a gesture of the creature tossing and turning all over the ground, "We've got magic!"
"Everyone does.."
"Well not everyone is an expert at what we know, are they now?" of course they weren't, she fully expected that the genre of magic didn't even exist.
"What about just a normal job? The woman at the diner doesn't use magic on a 24/7 basis, a bartender, anything!" She opened her mouth to retort but held back, damn it was a good point. Cursing inaudibly at the logic, she leaned into the walls and stared deeper into the dark depths of the alleyway ahead of them.
"A normal job?"
"Yes." He firmly reiterated, "Nothing that'd get us in a fiasco later, our priority is getting out of this place not getting into trouble in it. We don't understand that—"
"We don't go anywhere, I get that.." What she didn't get or perhaps didn't want to was actually getting the job, though there was no real alternative that came to mind that didn't involve at least something out of line..concerning really but she lightly shook it off and seriously considered what they'd do. The newspapers she'd been reading had to have a dozen job ads somewhere, not that she'd read them anywhere in her indulgences but it was the late 1960s here, thousands of jobs should've been present.
She turned to the creature listlessly flopping and flailing its five appendages with Thomas similarly in thought somewhere else and a wandering curiosity overcame her, in summoning creatures, familiars which were really just lessor devil's to outright malicious entities such as demons and so on, a contractual agreement between the summoned and summoner was of great importance..at least if you were informed enough. The problem or at least where many had the issue of screwing things over was not preparing in the measures of having this end of the bargain readily prepared in their favor, it was always summon the harrowing and ask questions later rather than summoning with a very clear sense of knowledge of the implications behind the entire ordeal or maybe no one took it seriously enough? Well, they definitely hadn't but acting in the role made it so that they had to go the extra mile of actually knowing all that.
More to the point, summoning something was a delicate decision of knowing what you could and couldn't handle. The second mistake of anyone who delved into the genre was wantonly meddling with things, entities, items and the like they had no skills into actually subduing much less taking care of them; know your limitations basically. D'esrania was a lower level devil, not that it wasn't dangerous but a person who knew what they were doing wouldn't have much of a problem subduing it. She'd read up a dozen methods of successfully summoning and protecting herself from the obviously horrible ramifications that arised from even doing this stuff, the spell she'd so instinctively casted at the diner. In short, she was more than curious to test out what a master-servant contract looked like, who didn't want some supernatural familiar to boss around anyway?
Granted it was a rather morally questionable familiar but hey, accidents happen.
"Fetch us a paper will you?" She asked the thing, halting its senseless movements along the floor. She'd noticed a few hours prior but the creature's appearance had taken some drastic changes after its first summoning, for one, the fleshy malevolent amalgamation of dark scales and terrifying veins accentuated in its sheer unholy origins by the singular eye at its center had suffused to something more..cute? The dark scales and terrifying veins had rubbered and turned to a dull orange color whilst the singular eye had become something more…animalistic than the unnerving humanity they once bore.
Like shadows dragged from the alleyway they stood in, the starfish-like creature melded into the darkness, disappearing where it stood. Looking up with a great deal of unreadable emotions, Thomas pocketed the blade and shook himself lightly.
"It's not that bad"
"Vile creatures.."
"You just pocketed a ritual blade! I'll have you know, Renny can be very cute when he wants to be" He gave her a horrified look, "It's already named and you give it a nickname!?"
She was about to retort when the shadows coalesced once again and Renny's otherwise cutened visage appeared from them, dropping onto the floor as the shadows became shadows once more all whilst a newspaper, two of them in fact, wrapped with rubber bands and plastic fell flat on the floor. Surprised at the fact that it'd read her intentions so clearly all whilst with the added bonus of common sense to bring two newspapers instead of one and she was colourfully impressed which didn't last long as she unwrapped the newspaper from its bindings and flipped through a variety of uninteresting articles(as in she had no business reading them now).
Rightfully expected, it didn't take long till they found a section of the paper dedicated to vacant job positions. The daily nurgle hosted a variety of ad sections simply brimming with opportunity and as one would expect it in trend with the times, the opportunities were vast and varied. Mundane positions of general occupation such as waiters and house service were present along with the average expected pay, ranging from a good 20-40 copper quills an hour. They had a general gist of the world's currency or perhaps to put it more aptly, the empire's but seeing as how it took upon the position as one of this world's superpowers, its currency held a sizable amount of sway.
There were orichalcum, Adamantine, Mythril, Gold, Silver and Copper quills with copper quite obviously standing as the lowest value of money, a singular silver quill was worth about a thousand copper quills, one Gold was ten thousand silver quills, one Mythril was fifty thousand gold, an adamantine while was a thousand Mythril and orichalcum..was..something.
They hadn't lived a day on the backs of this world's capitalism to know what salary was reasonable and what needed the assistance of a second job but whatever spoke of copper quills as payment was temporarily ignored from view out of sheer fact of its position down the ladder.
A little more of ten minutes passed in the silence as Nera lifted her gaze, "Locksmith"
"You're bad at precise coordination with your hands, much less are you patient" She heard him simply answer, still glued to the paper as a pang of shame struck against her at the truth of that statement.
"Alright, a bartender!"
"Short tempered"
"Tutor"
"Unconventional magic"
"The military?"
"Six years of service"
"Fuck!"
This back and forth continued for a little while longer till standing in the alleyway had become exceptionally suspicious and honestly exhausting, they'd acquired knowledge on what they'd wanted to test out anyway. What were the limitations of what they could do? For one, seriously dangerous spells were of similarly dangerous and took exhaustive levels of mana they both didn't have. She'd tested this out before Thomas had shaken off his own hesitance and had a go but a sizable chunk of their more..lethal spells in this regard were a one time use for a resting period of who knew how long, she hadn't fully went along with the idea as soon as she started feeling a very rapid sensation of exhaustion and likened it to the cost of performing some of their more dangerous spells.
They exited the alley a good two or three hours after the incident in the diner towards the grey Porsche parked a ways ahead at the side of the road. Come to think of it, when was the last time she'd filled the damn thing? The thought passed haphazardly as Thomas' gaze lingered over the city lights and high rising buildings coupled with the vintage elegance of this world's version of 'modern' architecture.
"Something's on your mind" His gaze shifted rather quickly, "A lot of things are, quite a lot"
She nodded, at this point they'd made it back. For a reason she couldn't really explain much apart from the fact of a lingering exhaustion perhaps brought by their otherwise sad excuse for mana reserves was the inexplicable feeling of stillness. It hadn't been a week, it hadn't been a month, it hadn't been a year so of course their integration (although having fully accepted their current circumstances) was slow. A tired sigh left her lips as she leaned against the car door, one never really took in the beauty of it when it happened did they?
"You ever read some of those transmigration novels?" She glanced at him, similarly taking in what was ahead of them as he chuckled, "High schooler, salary man, depression. A wide variety I must say"
She scoffed, laughing in between, "It's really just straight to business for them isn't it? I mean, waking up in a world like this a century or two back? That's jarring, you don't really just..let it sink in.."
There was silence for a while before Thomas spoke, "They're too busy fighting monsters and we have a job to acquire, it'll sink in along the way"
"Along the way~" she tiredly recited, clasping at her head. Her gaze sat glued to the city once more, a concrete jungle, a gold veil shrouding the beauties of the night sky yet in its own way was it soothing to the eyes. The architecture or the fact that it so jarringly contrasted Earth's perhaps played a role in the intriguing curiosity and comfort she felt from it, perhaps similarly the fact that it was a world of magic, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
Perhaps it was just beautiful…
She groaned, what was she saying? Sifting in her pockets for the keys, she tossed them over to Thomas as he caught them rather awkwardly, having barely been alerted of the fact.
"I'm driving?" She shrugged, "I think I've figured out what completely wasting away at your mana reserves does to the people here, you think Renny can drive?"
Not wanting to find out, he quickly urged them to switch places and opened the door to which the keys were inserted and the car roared to life. The low growls of the engine shuddered along the vehicle as Thomas' gaze stood caught by a dial at the dash indicating fuel.
"How is this thing still full?" She heard him ask, glancing at the dash and shrugging in disinterest.
"As long as it drives, Tom. As long as it drives"