A Falling World: Chapter 7 Slowly starting

For David, the next couple weeks were tumultuous as he learned the ins and outs of his employment. Sometimes his doorway opened to another location and it would take minutes or hours to return to normal. The first time it occurred, after his return, was on the weekend in the early morning as he was leaving to get groceries. It took three hours for it to dissipate. Sporadic as the magic was David discovered the rules it worked by. It only manifested when he was alone, a fact he discovered as on one night when he was difficulty leaving for a date the gateway vanished when his roommate left to work the nightshift as a guard. Following this he also discovered that the doorway would be normal if there was someone on the other side of it. This made for a troubling few weeks as occasionally the portal would activate prior to work and he would have to wait until someone delivered food to his door or his roommate returned from work before he could start the day.

At the same time Richard found himself sitting outside his apartment with Alphonse while Holly continued her investigation on the vampire. They were unable to trace an origin for the dimensional hopping occurring here. However, they were able to confirm that the resident here had dimension hopped to New York and for some reason didn’t do the same thing back.

They followed his movements but whenever a spike occurred David would have food delivered and Richard didn’t know why. David would go to work and back and apart from the occasional night out never went anywhere or did anything. When he was at work the two of them searched his apartment and found nothing. They bugged his computer and apart from learning a few of his fetishes found out the only thing unusual was how much music and Netflix he played. When they managed to get into his phone they also discovered that while he had contacts he spoke to none of them outside work and none of them ever started conversations with him. All in all, this person was a hermit with nothing remarkable about him who was choosing to live a dull and meandering life.

David’s employment was short lived, Richard saw, which resulted in a dramatic uptick in rifts, and David just not leaving the apartment for days at a time. He could see that David was active though as he filled out job applications relentlessly.

A few days later Richard saw David leave his apartment for the first time in a few days. He was dressed up and according to Alphonse it was because of an interview he had. Retreating into a short limousine Richard lost sight of him and as the vehicle made it’s way around the building Richard lost sight of it too.

Olivia, Sarah, and Luther left to Andrews café where they were meeting up with Rose. Marcus returned home for the day to help tack care of his cousins. Over the last few weeks Rose and Sarah started meeting up regularly before going their own way for the day. Recently they began talking about what they did in their personal lives and realized they had more in common than they thought.

The four of them sat at a table as Rose moved a card from one hand to another and spun it on her finger. The display wasn’t anything spectacular considering the space but the implications were obvious – if things went poorly Sarah had an out.

While Olivia was delighted at the show Luther showed more concern. Xotarus had begun going through some common dangers from using magic in this realm from how a practitioner could hurt themselves to how they could hurt others unintentionally. He also went over how laws involving magic were detected and enforced.

Small sparks of energy occurred randomly all over the world from a million different people but it was rare for those sparks to occur frequently from a single person. That was one way a magical practitioner could be identified, the second being the use of magic requiring more energy. In both cases a residue is left on a person that can mark them as a practitioner. However, as Xotarus described it this is mostly a problem for practitioners who stay in one place due to how these things are detected.

“Do you do that often?” Luther asked.

“Do what,” Rose quipped “play with cards? Nah, usually me and everyone else do bigger stuff.”

“Aren’t you concerned about the grimm?” Luther asked.

“Not really sure what that is.” Rose answered, “But I’m sure the priest has that taken care of.”

“You know, like homicidal monsters with black eyes that track down people  who do magic in the open and butcher them.”

“Haha, those are just fairy tales,” Rose responded, “they aren’t real, and if they are they must be so rare that we’ll never see them.”

Sarah interjected then “Actually, I think I’ve met one.”

“Really?” Luther and Rose asked, “When”

“A few weeks ago when Henry asked me to tail some rando.” She answered.

“What did they look like?” Luther asked, “Xotarus, has been describing them for a while now.”

“Well he didn’t have black eyes from what I saw, and he didn’t look like a monster. Just a guy really in his thirties maybe forties.” Sarah answered.

At Henry’s estate a small white limo pulled up to the side and from it emerged David ready for his interview. He was surprised to get a response back so quickly, and while he didn’t like contract jobs due to their volatility he was definitely inclined to find employment somewhere.

As he walked through the estate he began to feel uneasy at the long term prospects of his employment. David was starting to get the feeling that the position he was interviewing for was of a personal matter for someone who had cash to spare. Most likely this meant that he would be putting in a lot of hours for a few weeks before completing his role and going back to where he was right now – trying to find employment.

When his escort finished leading him to Mr. Brickenden’s office and opened the David nearly left. While David couldn’t remember his name he certainly recognized Mr. Brickenden. Any excitement David had in his eyes were gone as his expressions dimmed and his movements dulled.

“Am I in New York?” David asked.

“You are.” Mr. Brickenden replied, “I can only imagine how much of a shock this must be for you – to find your way back here again. But as I understand it you are looking for employment. You may find this opportunity to your liking.”

As the moments passed the Sorcerer didn’t know what David was going to do. It would be frustrating if he chose to leave again.

Eventually David did make a move, one he punctuated with a statement. He stepped gently into the room saying “Mr. Brickenden, you’ve shown your hand. I imagine this won’t be a conventional interview. You want me here, so let’s assume I already have the job and skip the round about. Instead let’s discuss why I should stay, what my role will be exactly, and what my compensation will be.”

Mr. Brickenden stood tall behind his desk, “what I’m offering you is the ability to bend reality to your whim. Why is that not enough for you?”

“Because if that offer was really as advantageous as you’re making it out to be a lot more people would be using it for their own ends.” David replied.

“And what makes you think they aren’t?” Mr Brickenden asked, “There are billions of people in this world with clear boundaries between one class and another. Is it so hard to believe that some of them are where they are through means other than their hard work and due diligence?”

“No, that’s very easy to imagine,” David answered, “but the only thing more worldview shattering than the ability warp reality is the idea that a bunch of rich assholes have the ability to warp reality and keep that tool a secret. Listen, I have zero fear of missing out with learning this magic because that is an unknown thing with a shape I don’t even know enough to picture. However, whatever shape magic does take in this world I do know that it twists and curves to be outside the view of damn near everyone and the only thought that comes to my mind when I think about that fact is there must exist a reason why – a reason I will need to conform to as well. What I need is money and skills that I can use at my next job. It isn’t a romantic topic compared with magic but that’s what I need and that is the direction this conversation is going to go if you want it to continue at all.”

“Then take a seat David and let’s discuss the options in front of us.”

Olivia, Luther, and Sarah made their way back to the estate. On the way Luther discussed his concerns with Rose. It bothered him that she was practicing magic repeatedly in the same area. From their conversation it didn’t sound like there were any wards in place to dissipate their casting so it was only a matter of time until a grimm found her and her cult.

Sarah countered that Xotarus was getting under his skin. “The world is a big place and not nearly as centralized as it use to be. They have to keep every misbehaving fae under control so unless Rose starts doing some massive unhinged shit no grimm is going to waste their time on some fledgling group of casters. Besides, don’t you see what this means? We now have more than one source to learn magic from.”

Luther was skeptical and prodded into why Sarah was so interested in joining a cult when Henry was already putting so much effort into having them learn. Sarah responded that it wasn’t about joining a cult just making sure that none of them are keeping all their eggs in one basket.

When they made it back to the estate the space seems smaller. They entered from the front and the entrance room was wrong. Sarah never saw the mansion do this before. What they saw wasn’t the normal entrance, nor was it a room she had seen before but a strange amalgamation of different rooms clustered together.

On either side of the room there were stairs leading up to a pair of white doors. About halfway up David leaned on a wall next to a window staring at his phone until he heard the door close in front of him. Looking around he said hi to everyone and let Sarah know that Brickenden wanted to see her about something. Apart from that he also let everyone know that the mansion kept bring him back to this room and that he would like to know the secret to moving around the building if possible.