There’s a trick to walking in New York City. You gotta keep your head up, face forward, and keep a determined pace. If you don’t you become vulnerable. Well, it’s not like you’ll be attacked or anything, I guess. Just it’s that everyone has a place they have to be and if you get in their way, heaven save you! Or damn you, depending on who you’re in the way of.
Such has it always been in the Big Apple, and even The Change hasn’t changed that. Only now people tend to keep in mind what they might run into as they go from one place to the next. After all, having magic all the sudden punch everyone in the nose with its existence, (and all the upsetting snarls of hexes, curses, ghosts, and creatures of supernatural and magical disposition) is just a little world changing. Heck, before The Change, I rarely, if ever made the hour something train ride into the city. Not only is it fairly expensive, but cities are not really my cup of tea. Because before The Change I was just your average reclusive bum staying in my parents’ home. Now, as I’m heading through the city, after getting out of the underground asap, (man, not only does it stink down there, it is full of people (and I’m including the not human people in that)) I’ve got work in a warehouse down somewhere in the parts of the city no one really wants to go. Not because it is a slum, but because the other inhabitants make it a little hard for regular folk to be there. And my work is to make it so regular folk can work, and do whatever it is they want to do. I like to think of myself as a magic manipulator, because I’m not a magician or mage or whatever. No chanting spells or the like, thank-you-very-much. I might accept being called a wizard, or more aptly a witch, but I don’t use wands, but I do try to accumulate knowledge and brew potions. Or maybe a sorceress since I do deal directly with the manipulation of magic and don’t really need words to make my spells work (or if I do (like in the Belgariad) I just need the will and the word).
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But enough of my thoughts on what I can be classified as now. I’m a person people hire nowadays for a little help to make life easier. I’ve got my bag of tricks that also helpfully has my contact info, what I do, and my prices written right on it.
ANTONINI’S WARDINGS
STRONG - $60 AND UP
MEDIUM - $45-55
NORMAL - $25-50
WEAK - $10-20
STRD CHRMS - $5
Which brings me to an other reason one should keep up a good speed when traveling through NYC. If you have something people want, and you are beginning to run a bit close to your meeting time, you don’t want to be stopped.
As to how I do what I do? We’d need to go back to how things were for me before The Change, and how I’ve adapted after. It has been something like 3 years now, maybe a little less, but still enough for people to get used to magic being apart of their lives now, though not they are still unsure on how treat people who can use magic.