Chapter 39: Chapter 39: Black hearted revelations

Despite how long the lines were, they moved quite quickly. It was far more enjoyable than dealing with clerk whats-his-name. Soon enough Toby was standing in front of the booth.

There seemed to be a bit of concern from Toby as he spoke quietly with the gron behind the mesh window. Whatever the concern was about, Toby seemed to have lost the argument as he started placing his items on the tray, then placed his hands tentatively against the large metal orb.

Anna went next, she didn’t hesitate to place her items out on the tray or put her hands on the orb.

Then it was Norman’s turn.

He approached the window. It reminded him a lot of the little shack that he broke into outside the dump.

“Please declare any weapons, food, or magical items by placing them on the tray,” the gron replied in a bored tone.

Norman set the pistol he still carried onto the tray, then he emptied the food from his backpack, and after that came his necklaces followed by the orbs. The man didn’t so much as blink at him, giving him the same bored expression as before. Norman thought the man had a lot in common with the undead. It was the eerie stillness of the man.

Some sort of scanner ran across all the items he set out. Norman hadn’t seen this part of the process from his vantage point in the line. He was curious about the scanner's function but not enough to ask the taciturn gentleman behind the glass.

“Place your hands on the orb.”

“Uh, what’s it do?” Norman asked.

“It will remove any active magical effects on your person.”

Well, at least Norman now knew why Toby was hesitant. Especially if he thought his current status as an undead was a magical effect.

He placed his hands on the ball and nearly fainted as his head started to spin.

“Wha- what the hell was that?”

Instead of answering, a little slot printed out a paper ticket. “Please retrieve your items and the ticket. Enjoy Grothlosburg.”

Seeing as the man wasn’t going to answer Norman’s question, he stuffed everything back into the bag, then slipped his necklaces back on. He could sort everything out later. Norman began to walk toward the turnstile before remembering to grab the printed ticket. He stuck it in his pocket and promptly forgot about it.

Once through the gates, he quickly located Toby and Anna standing off to one side. Norman had to push his way through the throngs of aliens to get to the small zone of sanity on the other side.

“This place is awful. Where can we get the hell out of here?” He asked, taking a moment to breathe.

“I’ve seen people take a few different hallways since I’ve been watching. But judging by the signs hanging above them, I think those are only for residents of the city. Everyone else is getting cycled through the hallway over there,” Toby pointed.

He saw a faded sign with graffiti covering most of its surface but he could just make out the words ‘Migrant placement and Bureau of Work Affairs’. He groaned upon seeing that, and where the hell did people find the time and space to graffiti a sign hanging ten feet off the ground in a crowded atrium?

“Screw that, let's just go the other way,” Norman stated, sick of this bureaucratic nightmare. So what if they skipped the migrant work assignment, it wasn’t like they were planning on staying here. He figured the chance of getting caught was low enough to risk it. In his eyes that was an acceptable risk for just getting the hell out of this nightmare. Toby and Anna followed behind him. Toby didn’t have much of a choice in the matter if he wanted to be cured. It also seemed like neither wanted to be assigned jobs in this Gron Bureaucracy.

He was wrong.

Norman sat shackled to a desk, much like the kind you would find in a police interrogation room. Only this wasn’t a police station, it was much worse.

The door off to the side opened and a beardless gron in some sort of official uniform walked in. It took Norman a moment to realize this Gron was female. She pulled out a chair opposite him and sat down comfortably on the shorter seat. Unlike Norman who was hunched over with his knees sticking up due to his height. It felt like he was sitting at the children's table.

The officer opened a file and quickly browsed the contents. “Mr… Norman?”

“Just, Norman is fine.”

“Very well, Norman. You were caught trying to enter the city without a valid work license. Did you perhaps miss the signage in the atrium?”

“Um, no. But I don’t need a job, my friends and I were just passing through.”

“I see,” she paused to write something in the air.

It must have been that magical interface the gron seemed to utilize for everything.

“Your friends are being interviewed as well. Your entry paperwork indicates you are healthy, able-bodied, and capable of reading. Is that correct?”

“Uh, yes.”

She jotted something else down. “I am unfamiliar with your job, necromancer? Tell me, Norman, what does a… necromancer do?”

“It works with bodies.” Norman probably shouldn’t have said he was a necromancer, what if it was illegal or something here?

“Like a healer?”

“Um… no. Dead bodies.”

“Ah, like a mortician.”

Norman decided not to correct the woman.

“Well, there are always openings for people who enjoy body disposal.” She waved her hand over the file and a spectral stamp appeared then pressed down leaving an imprint that classified Norman as an entry-level corpse disposal technician, joy.

Norman supposed it could have been a worse job.

“Thank you for attending The Bureau of Work Affairs. Every role is important and we appreciate your devotion to your field. Someone will be along soon to release you and show you to your work site. Enjoy your stay in Grothlosburg.”

Norman gave the departing woman a false smile, dropping it the moment the door closed. After she left, he hung his head and cursed silently. He would have been better off staying back in Colorado. At least there he wasn’t forced into some shitty job, he at least got to choose the shitty job. Well, that was before Toby got him mixed up with Sin. If Norman ever did go back, he probably wouldn’t enjoy his work accommodations.

He tried to look at the positive in this situation, he got to work with corpses again, and that was something. But he somehow doubted they were going to allow him to experiment on them. He would need to feel out this new job and see what he could get away with. He wondered what Toby and Anna were going to be assigned to do. Would they get to stay together? Toby and Anna would probably get to stay together, being they were part of this family unit. But Norman doubted he would be as lucky.

Toby wouldn’t be happy about that. The man had control issues and he would want to keep an eye on Norman if only to ensure he was working towards the goal of fixing him. Toby was persistent and Norman knew he would use everything in his power to find him as soon as possible if they got separated.

Not that Norman blamed him for wanting to get fixed but maybe separating from them for some time might be for the best. Anna was starting to get clingy again and Norman knew how well that panned out with Toby the last time.

Norman was almost to the point where he wanted to just cut ties with the pair, despite Anna being like a little sister to him. The headaches those two brought into his life couldn’t be overlooked. He certainly hadn’t forgotten or forgiven Toby for what he did. The only other reason that kept Norman tied to the duo was the fact that Toby was – Norman was going to say a living and breathing example of undead but that would just be silly – a unique specimen that he wished to study further.

Someone eventually came by to uncuff Norman and returned all his items. Then the unnamed gron led him out of the bland-looking room into an equally bland-looking hallway. It was the first area Norman had been to where the walls weren’t plastered with advertisements and graffiti. Although, he could swear he saw hints of possible graffiti beneath the layer of off-white paint.

He was led out a door and into another atrium area. This one didn’t have the same press of bodies as the earlier area but there were still quite a few people milling about. The biggest difference is that there wasn’t a single gron among them.

Norman saw humans, a few jorik that maintained their aloof air, and at least a dozen other species that he didn’t even recognize.

A human wearing a large turban approached him and started speaking in a dialect that Norman had no hope of understanding. Norman thought the man might be a Sikh, but he wasn’t good with that sort of thing.

“Um, do you speak English?”

The man just threw up his arms and started talking even faster, sounding either angry or annoyed. Norman slowly scooted away from the man, who seemed fine to just stand there and rant.

He hadn’t spotted Toby or Anna yet, but this area had a hallway that led off toward another room. Norman could see people vanishing into thin air so he figured it was the teleporter for this area. Norman was glad his first experience with a teleporter was by accident, he didn’t think he would have been able to talk himself into stepping into something that made it look like it was vaporizing you.

A few other things caught his eye as he walked through the area. A food stall was one but as he approached it, he spotted a sign that said it only accepted Grothlo. He assumed a Grothlo was the gron equivalent of money. The problem was, Norman didn’t have any of those. But he spotted a sleazy-looking shop that had a sign above it that read ‘Exchange’.

It reminded Norman of those check-cashing or fast cash places, that were all over the country until the government actually stepped in and shut a lot of them down. Only this one was designed like a mall kiosk with just a shallow area off of the main atrium with two cheap-looking plastic chairs on this side of a beat-up desk. A desk with more chips and dents in it than it had any right to have.

A grey-haired gron sat behind the counter, hands steepled and a predatory grin on his face. This was a gron who enjoyed their job a little too much. Norman sighed and sat in the chair across from him, which creaked alarmingly under his weight.

“What can I help you with today, young man?”

“I need some local currency.”

If anything, the man’s grin grew even wider at hearing that.

“Excellent. We accept precious metals, gems, or magical items. Which will you be trading with us today?”

Norman was glad he had been paid in gems now. If all he had was old US currency, he doubted they would give him anything for it. But he was curious about the magical item thing.

He plucked one of the weaker orbs out of his backpack and set it on the table. “What would you give me for that?”

A mechanical arm reached out from a hidden pocket in the desk – that Norman had completely overlooked – and held the orb in place as a large lens filled with rainbow-hued glass swung into place in front of the gron’s face.

The geriatric gron peered through the lens at the small skull held by the device, his face distorting like he was looking through a magnifying glass.

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“Hmm, a weak attack spell of some sort. Oh, it causes rapid aging, that’s nifty. It appears unarmed?”

“Uh, yeah, you just have to rub a bit of blood on it to activate it.”

“So anyone can use it? That seems rather foolish. What if something or someone accidentally bleeds on it?”

“…”

Norman hadn’t actually thought about that possible issue. He was now really glad he hadn’t had them back during his fight with the rycor. And Norman was just wearing them around like accessories.

“No matter,” the Gron continued. “It will make selling them easier. Do you just have this one?”

“Uh, just the one.” Despite the possible danger, Norman wanted to hold onto the rest of them.

“Very well. I can give you,” the man bobbed his head back and forth like he was trying to think of a number, “ten, no, eleven Grothlo for it.”

And here was the problem. Norman had no idea what a Grothlo was worth, so he decided to ask a question that might help him determine its value. “How much is a meal at the stall,” Norman thumbed behind him.

The man behind the counter leaned over to see what Norman was pointing to. “Depends on what you get.”

So the man was trying to fleece him. Otherwise why not just tell him? “I couldn’t sell it for less than twenty Grothlo.” Norman figured that was a good place to start.

“Deal!” The man said without a moment of hesitation. He then handed Norman a clear plastic card that looked somewhat like a credit card.

Norman just stared at the card, realizing the man had indeed fleeced him. He decided he was better off not knowing how much he was out.

“Now, anything else to exchange today?” The Gron asked happily.

By the time Norman left the exchange place, he had a Grothlo – which was the name of the currency, and the card. No, not confusing at all. It held a balance of seven hundred Grothlo on it. That amount had come at the expense of half of his gems. When Norman made his way over to the food stall, he found a meal to cost between five and eight Grothlo. Which meant the currency was worth more than the US dollar was before the fall or food was far cheaper here. He estimated the value of those gems he exchanged today to be close to twenty-five hundred dollars.

The thought of how much money he had just thrown away made his stomach turn and he almost, almost, lost his appetite.

Anna must have spotted him in line because she waved and called out to him. Norman waved back and pointed to the food stall. The girl nodded vigorously and Norman gave her a thumbs up. It looked like he would be buying three meals.

He kinda wished Toby didn’t need to eat, being undead and all. But it seemed like his body still required nutrients to maintain itself somewhat. Norman bet he also needed a regular intake of mana, hence why the potion worked to not only fix his body but eliminate the odor of decay.

Norman carried the food over to a small table off to the side that the others had found. He set the food down and took one of the seats built for an average-sized gron. Did they not know, or simply not care that other species varied in size? The only person that looked comfortable in the seating was Anna and even she was pushing that limit.

“Well, did they assign you a job?” Toby asked as he snatched one of the wrapped meals from in front of Norman.

“You could at least thank me before grilling me for information. Or is that not in your training?”

“Thanks,” Toby grunted in reply as he unwrapped the food.

Norman looked down at his, not even sure what it was. At least it smelled good. And he had eaten plenty of alien meats without getting sick so far. He decided to answer Toby’s question before he dug into the food.

“Yeah, entry-level corpse disposal technician.”

Toby just nodded, his mouth full. Norman turned to Anna to ask her, but she had already dug into her food as well. He wanted to ask the girl where she put all that food, but thought better of it. Women could be touchy about that subject.

“What did you tell them to get stuck playing with corpses? Not that I’m mad, it's probably the best outcome we could have hoped for.”

Norman just shrugged. “I told them I was a necromancer, they had no idea what that was and I just said they worked with dead bodies.”

Toby choked out a laugh, spitting up some of his next bite of food. Norman found the act extremely odd since Toby didn’t need to breathe. Maybe a remnant tick from when he was alive?

He shook off those thoughts as Toby started to reply.

“I got stuck as a junior compliance officer. Whatever the hell that means.”

“You think we’ll get to stick together?”

Toby just shrugged. “I wouldn’t count on it. We will have to figure out a way to meet up in the city.”

“What about Anna?” Norman glanced at the ravenous girl who seemed oblivious to the current conversation.

“She was deemed an adolescent. Apparently, they are required to attend some sort of academy.”

“That sounds fun,” Norman lied.

“Somehow I doubt it. The place is called the Academy of Bureaucratic Intricacies,” Toby said in derision.

“Ugh.”

“It's bullshit,” Anna finally chimed in. “I’m almost an adult. I’ll be seventeen in a week. But these stupid dwarves don’t consider anyone under twenty-one to be an adult.”

Norman was glad he made the cutoff for that. He was not a fan of school at all.

“We need to get out of this nuthouse as soon as possible,” Anna grumped.

“Now hold on,” Toby cut in. “This might be the best opportunity for Norman to improve his magic. We should at least stick around long enough for that.”

Anna crossed her arms, a bit of what looked like rice falling off her face. “Why the sudden interest in Norman’s magic?”

“What, I can’t want what’s best for my friend?” Toby replied with a deadpan expression.

Yeah, he wasn’t fooling anyone with that explanation. Even Norman thought it was a weak excuse.

“Alright,” Anna replied, going back to her food.

What? It seemed both Norman and Toby thought the same thing going by the surprised expression on both of their faces.

“Oh, they did tell me where I would be assigned.” Norman fished around in his pocket for a pen and a piece of paper to write it on.

He pulled out the piece of paper that had been printed at the customs booth. It had writing on it that he hadn’t looked at so he read it now.

“What the fuck.” He stared dumbly at the paper.

“What?” Toby asked.

Norman handed him the slip as he sat back and rested his hands on the table, his appetite having entirely disappeared after reading the contents of the little ticket.

Toby held the slip in one hand as he read it. “What does ‘removed magical effect from lungs – mana siphon ongoing’ mean- Oh.”

It explained so much. Except for how Charise had managed to lace her weed with the magical effect. Norman knew she had unlocked her class early on. It allowed her to tweak plants. She had poured all of her efforts into improving her weed sales. Norman hadn’t questioned it at the time but maybe he should have when she kept giving him free samples even when they weren’t dating.

The heartless bitch had essentially magically castrated him, and he never would have known. It helped explain her fixation on wanting him to switch to being a physical classer. This was before it was common knowledge that you couldn’t change. Was this specifically targeted at him, or did she do this to others? If he wasn’t on the run from Sin, Norman would go back and demand an answer from the woman. It was probably a good thing he couldn’t do that.

It also meant this whole business with the jorik blood would have been unnecessary. All the pain and suffering he went through just to have a little bit of mana to play with. But wait, Toby smoked the stuff as well?

“Didn’t you get a notification like this too?” Norman asked Toby.

He shook his head. “I think the effect might have been removed from all that blood I lost.”

Left unsaid was that he died but Norman knew he didn’t want to say that out loud or in front of Anna. He also knew Toby wasn’t the one responsible for this. Simply for the fact that he would need Norman at his best to fix him, and not telling him about something like this would hurt those chances.

This was the first time Norman was seriously angry with someone. Even the shit that Toby had pulled didn’t make him angry, it mainly just made him annoyed and very disappointed in his friend.

Setting these feelings aside, Norman pulled his grimoire out and flipped to the page with his spells. The feeling was back. He snapped the book shut and smiled, the smile must have come off as a bit menacing as Toby and Anna both flinched back.

“It appears I won’t be working with a crutch anymore.”

“…That’s good. But what about your spells, don’t they need the powder?” Toby asked cautiously.

This time the smile that crossed Norman’s face, was a happy one. “I have an idea about how to fix that problem.”

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