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Oddest Jobs Draft Part 2

Oddest Jobs Draft Part 2

Apr 03, 2022

They made their way past Crown Heights then stopped at a store called Nick’s, it was right on the road. It had a floating hard light sign, its projector locked up in a warded cage above the door.  The owner was waiting for them outside. Bas walked right by the man giving a nod, again he opened the door for Lan to walk through.

Inside the store was lined with every kind of low-end magical item you could think of. purified salt, books visualization training, and physics textbooks of various levels. On the table was a standard home mana capacity test. Lan had never understood the ‘home’ part, these things cost nearly a grand nobody in their right mind would get this just to have it about the house. 

Bas tapped the counter twice, the ower rand behind it to set the MCT up. Lan stood waiting still checking out the store, it was a pretty good collection. Prices were crazy though, ancient oak bark for sixty dollars? That was just tree bark soaked in mana he could do that. He shook his head and turned to a clicking sound coming from the counter. The machine was ready.

“Just put your hand right over it—” the sore beekeeper began

“I know.” Lan reached over and pulled in mana from around him, more than what he passively did. The MCT’s clicking stopped, then the LED on the top started to slowly light up, it had begun to change the color of the counter when Bas whistled.
“That’s crazy,” he said

But Lan wasn’t done, he sharped his focus and not only pulled mana into himself but pushed it directly into the MCT.  It shone even brighter drowning out all other light sources in the shop, the owner actually took a step back but Bas only squinted.
“Check the log.” he slapped the owner out of his daze. “This guy’s a genius with light, this could all be a show.”

Lan raised his eyebrow at this but said nothing.

 The shop owner fiddled with the machine. He checked the screen looked up at them then left the room without a word. Lan had seen this before when he got tested the first time, this didn’t surprise him one bit. Bas raised his eyebrow in question but didn’t say anything. Soon the owner was back with a laptop he took a couple of minutes to attach the MCT to it and then double — even triple — checked the data.

“Twenty-five thousand, four hundred and eighty-six.” He moused out finally.

“Hm,” was Lan’s only reply. 

Bas on the other hand wore an open expression of shock. “Y–you said—-”

“Yeah, fourteen thousand, did that test almost a year ago, been practicing since.” 

Most mages had a baseline of eight hundred as their mana capacity, with continued practice you could bring it up to double that. It was like working out a muscle, the more magic you did the more your capacity to hold it increased. But just like working out, you could overexert yourself and permanently damage your ability to hold and channel mana.

Lan turned to Bas “Your turn.”

“What?”

“Let’s see how much you can hold.”

Bas tried to play off his surprise, it’s clear he wanted to spring the news on Lan. He’d have to work better than that to hide his abilities. He’s been instinctively casting small spells since back at Felix’s office. Another mage would have to be very new to their power to not have noticed the surveillance spell he’s been pining the entire time. Lan would have thought this a bit shady but the way he walked into his workplace and hired him for a job he hadn’t even defined yet had certified his untrustworthiness.

The MCT lit up again, the LED display. The shopkeeper didn’t even check the internal logs with his laptop.

“Four-thousand seven-hundred and two.” For some reason he sounded like it pained him to choke the words out. He looked between the two mages waiting for a reaction.

“Are we done…?” Lan strode towards the door, “You still haven’t told me what hired me for.”

“Patience,” Bas said catching up to him. “All will be revealed in due time.”

Lan stared at him blankly.

“Also, I’m paying you by the hour what’s it matter if we take our time?” He smiled suggestively.
“You’re paying my boss for my services.” Lan corrected. “I’m only going to get eight percent more than a team job for my time. So let's not waste it okay?”

Lan didn’t know if it was the directness or the thought that he was underpaying but all of Bas’ mirth vanished as they got into the car.

“Okay, so the Public Advocate's office put out a call for mages and magic theorists to help with some weird shit that was going on in Brooklyn, I snatched the job up before it went public and I need someone to back me up.”

“What exactly do you need me to do.” 

“We’re gonna check out the latest site, it’s a condemned building in Brownsville. I need to you hold up the building while I check it out.”

“Scaffolding, you need me for hard light scaffolding…”

Bas paused, “Yeah, exactly that.”

“Okay.” Lan tried not to let his annoyance seep into his voice.

This rich brat used his connections to get a job from the city and would probably make thousands if he solved it, while only paying Lan maybe three hundred out of it. Worse if he does a good job he might land a contract and secure a solid job from the city ‘dealing’ with magical problems. All off the back of Lan’s work.

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