Morning never changed and the weather hadn't seemed much different from before, it still held a dull grey, shrouding the sapphire sky's above. The two of them stood in the confines of a dilapidating building being led through its failing structures by a man twice their height and double their own width, his skin was a sickly colour of faint yellow shifting towards something else but not quite discernable. A list of possible jobs suitable to their current expertise and not asking for much had been chosen among the many newspaper ads on vacant job posts, one of which was demolition clean up. For payment, the job sounded good with five silver quills an hour and an expected work day going for five to eight hours. The creature in front of them which Thomas' had quickly discerned as an orc was their employer, Y'horn.
They turned into a room down a hallway half buried under rubble and a door that seemed to have had its frame nearly cleaved in two, Y'horn led them through, smashing the door open because well..it was the remnants of a previous demolition project so trying to keep something intact was a little counterintuitive, "Clean up crews 'ave been 'ard to come by, y'er both the cheapest we could find" they heard him comment, now in what seemed to have once been a lounge area, "Got any experience with magic? Y'er look fresh from the academy"
Not sure whether to take that as a compliment to the fact that at the precipitous of thirty, they still looked no older than nineteen or to the possibility that the academy was a hellhole of long winded learning, Thomas replied simply, "Partially, it's been a long time though"
The orc didn't seem to take that into much suspicion and pointed across various areas of the room as they were taken on a tour of the inside, "No problem, much of it's menial labor. Five to eight working hours a day, give or take. Most of these buildings won't be touched for a year at the minimum so go wild I guess, 'ave it finished in the following year though"
"Won't be touched for a year?" Nera cut in, she didn't remember any construction project working like that, at least one under proper management though the orc replied sagely and turned to a wall.
"Building's been expensive," He tapped at the wall that caved in mere moments after and led to another room, this time taking on the appearance of some sort of swimming area, "Lots of unnecessary space taken by these flimsy constructions, remnants from at least fifty years back and as you can see. Not very practical"
She nodded to which he turned back to face them, smiling which was a little hard to discern, "It used to be owned by some big shot noble outta country, owned at least a dozen or so other places like these," walking over the sloping pile of bricks and into what was undeniably an exorbitant yet scarily impractical swimming area with enough extravagance that one might've probably seen it as a water resort if anything else, Nera and Thomas followed Y'horn down the slope of bricks and onto the cracked ceramic tiles lining the floor below, "Then came the parties, over spending, a list of questionable activities and public out cry till the emperor cracked down on 'em"
"Arrested?" Y'horn shook his head with a scoff, "Like they'd ever do that, the places were simply barred from entrance and a fine that had as much impact to a noble as paying a beggars fee was given.
The two of them wondered how much that was, Nera being the one to ask as a means of gauging how far up the summits of wealth even started in this place, "And that amount was?"
He gave a little bit of a surprised look, perhaps expecting the information to have been common knowledge but shook his head exasperatedly, "A hundred adamantine quills"
Their eyes became saucers, a hundred adamantine quills!? Wasn't that a little much? Having read over history books, the conversion of quills from Copper to adamantine had been mentioned, Orichalcum sat at the highest but it was labeled as such an exorbitant amount of money that the only people known to even possess a dozen or so were King's, Queen's, Emperor's and Empress's. Buy the world with it? Of course not, that was impossible no matter where you looked but it was more than enough to serve a person for generations regardless of expenditure. The second highest value of quill were Adamantine, normally possessed by the nobility but any really successful business person had a good chunk of these. To put one into perspective of the sheer enormity of a hundred adamantine quills, that was five billion gold quills.
That amount of money could set an individual for life, two maybe and it was pennies? Who'd allow an individual—a family to hold so much money!?
"I..see…" That was all that left her lips, shocked at the enormity and jealous of the fact it was piled up in someone else's vault, comparison was truly the thief of all happiness.
They'd reached a part of the swimming area where the pools which measured concerningly deep and a testament to once again, a nobles wealth was all filled with caved in cement and deteriorating structures. A dark sense of glee burned in her for a fraction of a second, no matter how expensive, it was still a mortal construction of wealth and pleasure; ever yielding to the passage of time. Till of course she was reminded that the only reason it looked this way was because it'd been forcibly abandoned, that no matter how much she found joy in the fact that in the grand scheme of things they were all equal to the forces of nature; money still ruled the world and in this one, they had none.
"Emperor's finally made the go to 'ave 'em replaced with something productive to society," He turned back towards them, brightly in spirits and obviously happy about the entire ordeal to which she felt a great deal of kinship for the orc and herself; they were both, senselessly bitter poor people.
"That's about all there is to it, the details can be polished off later if you'd like that is," He laid out a hand, "So, how about it? Good for ya?"
They shot each other a glance, was it? Before coming here they'd had the self awareness that a singular job within their own bubble of expertise which really weren't much by this world's standards meant that one job wouldn't really suffice. They hadn't spent a month on a salary of their own here so getting a feel of the expenses was impossible but this was demolition clean up, requiring no magic if need be, nothing else but the fact that they were adults(probably). Five silver quills an hour sounded good but that was roundabout the second last note in value, it probably valued no less than five bucks by Earth's standards..or even less.
In fact, hadn't the meal they bought with Ravinia's money been roundabout twenty to thirty silver quills a piece? Nera was the first to ask the important question, "We're not contractually stuck here are we? Like..getting another job somewhere else but also working here?"
Y'horn blinked, stared between them and laughed, "Like I'd said, it's a year ye'r expected to finish this. More than enough time, too much in fact. If y'er smart ye could finish it within a month and get paid the rest of the year for doing nothing! 'course ye could earn extra somewhere else, this is the bloody city we're talking about"
For the two of them, that settled things in their minds rather neatly. The place was a mess, there was rubble, dust and dirt almost anywhere one could lay their eyes upon but who said they'd be the one's dealing with all that work? Renny was far from a helpful servant in the essence of the physically tasking but their assortment of other summoning spells weren't bound to just that and if all else really got boring, they'd test to see whether the rubble could be sent somewhere else as.. offerings of sorts to some lower class spirit if anything else.
"Then it's a deal" Thomas answered for them, broadening that odd smile as his hand tightly clasped around his, thankfully not enough to crush it.
"Ye can start roundabout tomorrow, still one part of this place the rest of us 'aven't thoroughly cleared off yet" Y'horn spoke as the three of them turned around, back to the opening made earlier.
"It's still not been fully cleared out?" Nera asked, half cursing beneath her breath that once again, someone had THAT amount of money to begin with.
"The nobility fancied secret rooms and all, it's a bloody maze down those basements and not a map to guide us on what's hiddin' where" He spoke through gritted teeth, "Be smacked silly if that wasn't on purpose, six god's can 'ave my head 'ere that that noble burned those damn documents in hope's we wouldn't find some o' those places"
She nodded and shrugged, equally bitter, "Probably filled with sex dungeo—"
"Anyway, we'll start as soon as tomorrow!!" Thomas cut in, his hand covering over her mouth as Y'horn nodded.
"We'll fill in details later, you two's don't look as though y'er in any mood for the do's and don't's. Nothing too complicated anyway"
They really weren't but in the light of politeness and the quite easy acquiring of a job, they spared smiles of genuine apology that they couldn't be here for long. Thomas had already made it thoroughly clear in the car ride preceding this meeting that stillness was the first requirement towards losing a possible job position, a multitude of people were probably gunning for the same roles they were, although they were quite literally the only ones not spectacular in any branch of magic than the one they really didn't want anyone knowing but hey, the man had had a pretty lucrative job before ultimately going criminal so she didn't complain on the matter of urgency,"We just got into town and might be here for a while so do pardon if it's a little rude"
Y'horn didn't seem to care at all, in fact, they felt there was a weird feeling of kinship he was exuding towards them, "All's right, shoulda seem myself back in eighteen"
She wondered if that meant the 1800's or 1918, either way, it revealed the man as mind bogglingly old. After a few more minutes of senseless chatter and smoothening out smaller questions of concern, the two had exited from the building unsurprisingly situated a far cry's away from the city's more beautifully vintage, 1960's old souls appeal. Nera glanced back, noting the sign although aged but still readable, 'Desire's Hotel'. Exceedingly blasphemous she thought, although the name of the Goddess Of Desires was unknown, surely this was a homage to the more lustful inclinations of her authority.
She shook her head, not paying it any more mind as Thomas tossed the keys back her way, flinging the doors open as they entered the grey Porsche.
….
"I got, critter exterminator, orchestral bookkeeper and an academy janitor" Thomas sounded next to her, newspaper and pen in hand from a glovebox within the car. He was leaned into the seats and comfortably yet intently in close examination of the newspapers varying job posts without the added fact of having to drive around a city, senselessly and without aim with the only redeeming quality that by some odd machinations she dared not to look into the source of, had rendered her Porsche 911 1960 Turbo SC an inexhaustible amount of fuel.
"Critters..as in bugs, right?" Thomas shrugged, "We probably shouldn't go in with that kind of naivety.."
"Then no"
"Two hundred silver a job"
"Still no, Tom"
He groaned and with the pen in hand, scratched off a line of text probably describing the critters' extermination post. No matter how down in the dumps, facing bugs was her absolute last resort of action, if not at all. She'd commit murder before she wantonly entered a room swarmed with the eldritch machinations of nature, besides that, critter extermination was on a necessity to payment ratio; if no one wanted them, no payment was due.
"orchestral booking? What is that anyway?" She asked, pulling him from his thoughts as he chuckled at the keen interest hidden within her tone, "Trust me, it's nothing spectacular"
She rolled her eyes, "Of course dimwit, orchestral sounds nice though"
"It sounds fancy is what you mean," he chuckled, staring up from the paper, "Just think of it as being a theaters know-where, how many instruments, how much of this and that and what'll be needed for a scheduled play and if it's all there"
Her face quickly became sour, "Fuck that, anything else?"
"Janitor?" She glowered and he laughed, revelling in the annoyance it caused her as a pen scratched of another line of text.
It was a few minutes of back and forth chatter whilst aimlessly sifting through the streets and highway systems of the city that Thomas eventually revitalized his focus on the newspaper article, glancing down with a dim smirk as his gaze met the paper, empty..
A majority of everything they'd found worthwhile before, now ruthlessly found itself covered beneath a layer of dark ink. Job post advertisements were perhaps the worst place of proactively finding something one would passionately entertain with some semblance of happiness, of course they were. On the fringes of desperation, they weren't for those who had a choice and currently, they had none. He grumbled at the end of the line, maybe they'd been too picky, maybe some weren't so bad or maybe they had to suck it up somewhere. He couldn't know but as they pulled over at the side of a road similarly parked with a variety of other vehicles, the keys twisted back and were pulled from the ignition. Thomas only glanced with half lidded retaliation at being forced to stand on his feet again as the door beside him clicked open, she noticed it as well but for the purposes of the fact that choice wasn't a privilege for the desperate there wasn't much that could be said.
On more occasions than one, in the past, being stumped for a job had been the back and forth, ceaseless consistency for a good portion of her life. She was young but nobody started in the same piece of machinery, the world was ruthless and in finding some way to hold a foot through its doors was a task she'd abhorred the most out of it.
You never really appreciated the work a customer service provider did till you were stuck at the forefront of quite concerningly creative insults with the only viable option being kindness.
Point was that there were avenues of repetition that she'd like to have broken, the warmth of the afternoon was cindering enough that her jacket laid draped over the driver seat and what remained was the dark tie and white shirt rolled up to her elbows. Thomas himself however was as unperturbed by the weather as she'd expected him to, that or the coat had grown on him somewhat. The streets were seamless and not void of activity, they'd driven as well as travelled a good portion of the city if not all of its surface level extravagances to know a few places by now as well as where they were.