Moving Up in the World

— 10 days until evaluation —

It was now the 21st of the month. Which month?

According to the paperwork Oliver dealt with, it was the fourth month of a ten month year. Every month was thirty days.

Did the months have names? If they did, Oliver hadn’t heard them.

Oliver had woken up feeling a bit differently; a bit more tense, with fresh challenges and expectations.

The constant threat of discovery and execution, somehow both more and less prevalent in his mind.

Oliver was going to power through, there simply wasn’t another possibility to him. Oliver was going to ‘win’.

He drilled a simple self defence routine into Levi. Simple, because simple was best when it came to high octane situations, but also, because Oliver didn’t have the requisite knowledge for anything more.

“Keep this big knife nearby, and if anybody comes a-knocking.” Oliver showed him the best spot to hide, “Under the bed is useless, the first place they’ll check– and compromising. Hide behind the open bathroom door, since it conceals this whole corner.”

Levi furrowed his brows, “Still not very good.”

“That’s why you have a big knife. All else fails, go for the legs.”

Levi looked up at Oliver, and raised one eyebrow. “Have you ever fought with a knife?”

Oliver barked a laugh, “I’ll do you one better, I was on the receiving end.”

That didn’t seem to find Levi’s confidence, but Levi didn’t have a better plan.

It certainly wouldn’t have won Oliver any awards– but Levi couldn’t be caught.

Arguably it was better if he died swinging a knife around, since if it got to questioning… He would die anyway.

With Levi’s moral development sufficiently skewed, Oliver left the apartment with all the electronics on his person, just to be safe. Even if they were all useless and dead by now.

He had some ideas about that, but one thing at a time.

He was also wary on his way to work, holding his head high as if he could fight off most aggressors, though he’d never been in anything more than a light scrap.

It was something of an act, but looking confident was more valuable than anything, so he did.

Oliver strutted up to Emilia’s office, internally celebrating his lack of incident on the way there. He swung open the door, and his smile faltered.

Emilia was standing amidst it, inconvenienced, "Yep. It might be like this until the evaluation.”

Scanning the room, not only were the papers scattered around as usual, but this time there were also swathes of ink strewn across them, making much of it wet and illegible.

Not to be discouraged, Oliver simply pulled up his sleeves and got to work.

They were probably 50% as efficient as usual that day, which was actually impressive, considering they spent more than half the day cleaning up. Neither of them could stay late, so Oliver actually left a bucket of water propped on the ajar door in hopes it might catch someone walking in.

He went on his excursion outside the walls, now familiar with the guards who were murdering his Earthen compatriots. He could barely keep the smile on his face as he interacted with them.

But as with so many other things, he did.

Though they hadn’t actually gotten more than three, the last being Levi’s dad.

Three was too many.

On the whole, the day was relatively uneventful.

More a change in attitude than anything.

— 9 days until evaluation —

He was up before dawn.

Oliver raced through the streets, not because he was being chased, but because he hoped to catch whoever was messing with the office– if they were doing it in the mornings.

He clambered through the quiet ministry, probably waking some people.

Oliver swung open the door with Emilia’s nameplate.

Good news, the office was fine.

Bad news, Oliver was an idiot.

Emilia got to the office an hour later, pleased to find it untouched, and confused to find Oliver wearing finance ministry standard pyjamas.

Hair still damp, Oliver refused to explain why.

And just like that, they had a standard day, not very efficient, because Emilia was pulled into miscellaneous tasks by a certain high official whom Oliver was not glad to see.

Curtis grinned at him with each new distraction. Ultimately though, the workday ended and they achieved about as much as usual.

—

Oliver went with Levi into one of the many entrances to the Scholarium, getting strange looks. After being redirected at least three times, they found a receptionist desk.

Oliver approached with a friendly smile, Levi trailed along with some apprehension.

“G’day, we just have some questions about-”

“Whaat.” The miserly looking wizard lifted his drooping hat, slumped behind his workstation, Clearly not very motivated to work.

“-about enrolment or entry requirements, could you give us a rundown?”

The magic receptionist rolled his eyes methodically, and breathed a looong sigh.

Touch overdramatic?

The wizard drawled in a rehearsed manner, “Any person of any age may enrol, given that they pay the monthly fee and meet our standardised test requirements. The Magus hopeful must provide their own study materials and equipment. Here is a pamphlet outlining supplies and some recommended stores at which to acquire them.”

He handed Oliver a pamphlet, listing exactly what they were looking for.

Robe, paper, ink, all expected. Magical crystals? All a bit pricey, including the fee,

Oliver hmmed thoughtfully. It was doable. If Levi was going to start now, they’d be eating slim, but it was doable.

“The next intake test is three days from now, just come back here. Don’t bother buying the equipment until after you pass, but do bring a pen and the testing fee.”

Oliver nodded, he considered the wizard who’d been strangely helpful. Makes me recall the saying about hiring lazy people for efficient solutions.

Oliver and Levi left the Scholarium, and opted to find a bar trying to listen for any interesting news, and finding a place was easy enough, but as Levi already partly knew, people didn’t simply talk about sensitive information all the time.

“Sheryl’s finished her apprenticeship at the 10th street forge, competition just keeps getting more fierce. Good prices for normal folk, but she’s going to have a hard time getting her own base of customers with such little profit.”

“They’re all young too, it’s not going to get easier. Seems they all jumped into it with the war shortages a few years back. Too late now.”

Well, at least that was something. Metalworking was cheap, and there was a war a few years back.

That was pretty much all they got out of it though, aside from some drama among the ruling families. A broken engagement with a neighbouring city or some such.

On the way back to the apartment, they stopped past a bookstore and picked up one called ‘magic for the uninitiated’, hopefully Levi could read through it.

Scratch that, he would. He was a driven kid, and it’s not like he had much else to do.

They ate, they slept.

*BANG*, *BANG*, *BANG*

Oliver leapt out of bed and scrambled to the front door, grabbing a cooking pot off the kitchen counter as he went.

He swung open the door and found…

Nothing. He looked around, nobody, had he dreamt it?

He could see Levi peeking out at him, probably not.

Oliver huffed and went back inside. He told Levi to go back to bed and that he’d sit out in the lounge for a while.

He didn’t have the time, but it was too long in the middle of the night.

He eventually went back to bed, getting tired again, he’d need his sleep for the next-

*BANG*, *BANG*, *BANG*

“AAAAAAAALLLRIGHT, SHOW YOURSELF!”

He swung the door open angrily, again finding nothing.

He closed it again, and stood there for an hour and a half.

The first *BANG* rattled the door.

Oliver swung the door open instantly. He didn’t see anything at first, but the second rock hit him in the stomach, and the third skimmed past his leg.

He doubled over in pain, but managed to spot a figure on a roof nearby as they ducked behind a chimney.

“GET DOWN HERE AND FACE ME, ASSHAT.”

No response.

What am I supposed to do to stop some idiot throwing rocks.

He closed the door again and told Levi, who’d woken up again, to go back to sleep and ignore the noise.

— 8 days until evaluation —

Tired, Oliver arrived to work later than usual. Many of Emilia’s documents were destroyed overnight. Somehow, even taking much of the day replacing what was lost, they were still as efficient as usual.

“Hehehehehe.” Oliver, dark under the eyes, chuckled as he loaded a pile of documents into his bag.

Was it illegal to take ministry documents home? Sure, but did Oliver or Emilia care?

Not at all.

When Oliver turned up at the gate for his daily excursion, he was practically a zombie, but he still went.

Even in his state, he managed to buy some scrap fabric on his way home to the apartment. Delirious, he chuckled all the while.

The woman selling sixth hand clothing saw much of the bottom rungs of society, but Oliver was unsettling.

He mumbled throughout the whole purchasing process, smiling weakly. “...ehehe your rocks aint shit-”

“One silver? Sir?”

Oliver handed it over. Barely present. “Oho, didn’t think of that, didya buddy, hehehe…”

—

Oliver got home and realised he had nothing to secure the cloth to the walls with.

He and Levi slept with cotton in their ears.

— 7 days until evaluation —

“Good morning Mr. Crest.”

Oliver snapped awake.

Where am I? Who is this?

He pulled cotton out of an ear, but still didn’t catch all of what the person said.

“Mr Crest, you weren’t – the door, so we had – landlord let us in. There have – noise complaints.”

Oliver’s vision swirled into focus, and he saw a guardsman in his bedroom doorway. “Huh, wah.”

“Bangings in the night, and occasional yelling. Whatever is it that you are doing up here Mr. Crest. You are in fact Oliver Crest, correct?”

In the subsequent time it took to talk down the guardsman, and write a report of his own, he’d missed some hours of the workday.

These saboteurs of Emilia were starting to wear Oliver down, but was he going to stop?

No.

—

Emilia wouldn’t say why she was unable to arrive earlier in the morning, or stay later at night.

She hadn’t done so for the past week or so. Oliver was under the impression she was under pressure from her family, given that she had so many ‘family matters’ to attend to.

That could just be an excuse too, but Oliver couldn’t complain outwardly given his own blatant facade about his background or personal details.

What he was certain of, though, was that it was restricting their capacity to work.

The constant sabotage meant Oliver worked on pillaged documents into the night, and spent most mornings cleaning an office.

Emilia had tried to weakly raise the issue with certain Officials she had interactions with, but seemed to know it was pointless. It never went further than small sympathies.

If Oliver was caught taking government documents home, he wasn’t even sure of the consequences, but he would probably have his background looked into.

After work, along with general information gathering, Oliver and Levi spent some more time listening around – but also went shopping for some more general supplies.

However inconvenient their lives were at this moment, nothing had stopped the two Earthers.

They weren’t getting too comfortable.

Levi sat on the couch, rereading the magic book again. Sweating.

Tomorrow, six days until the evaluation, the entrance test for the Scholarium.