The door closed behind them, Gluve bowing as it came shut. The man spun back, staring at Norbert. "Do you have a death wish?" he asked Norbert.
Dismissing the man with a wave, Norbert turned around and headed towards the stairs that circled downwards. Feeling a tug on his coat, Norbert allowed himself to turn around on the first step of the stairs, looking Gluve directly in the eyes.
"What is wrong with you," Gluve asked once more, Norbert.
"What do you mean? I'm the same as always," Norbert stated, bristling at the comment.
“The person who walked in through the kitchen is not the same one who left the dining room,” Gluve stated, his voice starting to seethe with annoyance. He wanted to shout but did not dare, not wanting to know what would happen if he disturbed those in the room behind him.
"Realisation, Gluve, realisation in my place on the totem pole," Norbert responded to him.
Gluve stared at the man before him, shaking his head as he walked down the stairs. He did not let go of Norbert’s coat leading the person holding the dishes for the meal. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, he opened the door as they entered the kitchen, the other side still as busy as ever.
"You should be happy to be excluded from the conversations. From experience, you will wish he had it as easy as you do now." the chef said to Norbert, taking the bucket with water again as he washed the rest of the dishes.
"What makes you say that?" Norbert asked him.
Gluve stopped, staring at Norbert briefly, eyeing him up before continuing, "Have you any idea" about the witch Elizabeth was talking to?” Gluve asked him," staring intently, having finished washing the dishes, his full attention on Norbert and the following words that would come out of his mouth.
“That she comes from Grimm, is currently a waitress, and is looking for an artefact,” Norbert said, crossing the things he knew for sure, or as specific as he could, off his list.
Gluve just shook his head. “I’m not going to tell you anything more; I don’t want my own head rolling. But take this advice about the world: If you don’t know who the patsy is, you’re the patsy.” Gluve told him bluntly, not waiting for Norbert’s response—his back to the boy, who needed to finish packing the dishes.
Norbert stood there, thinking about what Gluve had said to him, replaying the conversations he’d had so far with the people around him. It clicked into his head as he realised how many times he had been pointed at a problem, and his only reaction was to charge head first without even a question.
Norbert stands there, mentally on the precipice, with two paths open for him: one to throw everything down and run off to make his own decisions, and the other to continue on the path he was currently on and hope for the best.
Taking his coin out, Norbert tossed it into the air, not even asking for the two options. He caught the coin out of the air, palming it to the other side as he looked down at it. The coin head looking up at him. Staring up at the ceiling, Norbert said aloud, “Thanks for the advice, Luck.”
Gluve turned around at the mention of the word Luck, and the man also looked up at the ceiling as he waited for something to happen. Shaking his head, the old man turned back, whispering, “Those pesky gods "are back at it again.”
Sitting back on his stool, Norbert saw the man close his eyes, knowing there wasn’t anything he could get out of the old man. “Thanks, Old man Gluve, for the meal and the advice. Hopefully, we can do this again sometime,” Norbert said to the man.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Watching for a few moments, Gluve did not respond to what Norbert was saying as he slowly continued to rise and fall. Norbert turned around as he exited the kitchen, once more diving around the chefs as they continued to cook the meals and prepare the drinks for the rest of the casino.
Walking through the hallway, the quietness finally came to him, allowing Norbert to think slightly about his current predicament. Sticking to the left-hand side, he knew the door was over there. Stepping through, Norbert was instantly confronted by the noise of the casino: the chips being played, dealers releasing their results, and the cheers or cries of the gamblers.
He made his way through the crowd, Norbert eyeing down the double doors, the sounds around him fading to nothing as he stared at the two bouncers standing on the other side of the door.
Opening the door up, Norbert stepped through. Both looked down at the weapons on his body, raising an eyebrow in scepticism. Norbert just stepped down and walked to the side, sitting down there. Taking out the coin again, Norbert started flicking it into the air while waiting for Vivienne to come out.
***
“I'm glad you’re here, I wouldn’t want to find you in there,” Vivienne said to Norbert as she walked down the steps, going past him. Norbert followed her with his eyes, getting up as he followed her.
He waved his hand to the two bouncers standing by the door. Norbert followed after Vivienne, wondering what they would be doing for the rest of the night.
The people were once more parting when they saw Vivienne striding away from the stadium again. Norbert saw their reaction as he watched their faces, shocked before instantly looking at the ground, not wanting to catch his companion's attention; Norbert followed behind her, further away from the Colosseum, wondering where they were walking towards. Norbert saw one of the pillars keeping the cavern up in front of them.
Vivienne stepped forward, going inside of it, thinking of someone climbing up a set of stairs. Norbert ducking down inside as he looked up, saw Vivienne already walking up the staircase in the centre of the pillar. Feeling the walls around him, at least a meter thick of stone, Norbert followed up after her, wondering to himself where he would pop out from.
Holding his sword next to him, making sure it wouldn’t rattle on wouldn't, he made his way further up to the top of the steps ahead of him.
Hearing a door creak open, Norbert was thankful that he didn’t need to climb anymore as he rounded the bend. He saw Vivienne holding open a thick stone door, the woman smiling at him as Norbert came to the same level as her.
Looking about, seeing an alleyway in front of them, Norbert took the door as Vivienne stepped through, night having taken the upper city. Norbert let the door go as it slowly swung back into the side of the building, watching as it closed with barely a whisper. The groove where the two pieces of sandstone met slowly faded away until it was just a single wall, no sign at all of the door that just existed there.
Changing his vision to magic, Norbert looked where he believed the seam was but found nothing. No groove appeared, and no runes were plastered around to seal it in or create an illusion of its completion. Running it with his finger, it smoothly went over without being caught anywhere.
Seeing them in a mostly empty alleyway, Norbert sees Vivienne watching, turning around, waiting for him as she stands just before the street so as not to get in anyone’s way—Norbert seeing the traffic behind her much less than before.
Following her, Norbert tried to strike up a conversation. “So, what did you and Elizabeth talk about?” he asked her openly, his curiosity overtaking him.
“Oh, this and that, nothing too important. What about you and that chef?” She asked him.
“Absolutely nothing;" the two of us just worked in silence for the duration of the prep work,” Norbert said to him". He saw that she was going to hide information from him and did not see any reason not to do the same to her.
“Where now?” he asked her as they continued further away from the colosseum. Seeing the houses here more spread out than before, there was less of a crowd here than before as Vivienne continued to go further away.
Turning back around, he made sure that he hadn’t missed anything. The stadium, once grand and ever-present, was now just an afterthought on the horizon. Still, Norbert followed Vivienne, now correctly out of the city, as his footsteps walked through the sand, the grains trying to get into his shoes.
He looked up at the stars and the moon, wondering how much further he would need to trek until the waitress was happy with their placement or finding whatever she deemed necessary in the dunes.