Norman ditched his ‘cooking’ outfit, which consisted of the old apron, and the thick dishwashing gloves before heading to his current location.

It had taken a bit of convincing and cajoling for Toby to give up the address, but Norman just kept bringing up the incident with the criminals. If Toby had just kept his mouth shut, Norman wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place. But now that he was, he might as well take advantage of it.

The building in question was located on the south side of town and you could see the new ocean – or was it a sea – from where he stood.

It still creeped Norman out that there was a large body of water where land used to reside. He remembered seeing this new body of water shortly after the change. It appeared like the land was cut surgically across. Like a massive laser had carved out Colorado and plonked it down somewhere else.

After two years of weather and erosion though, the dirt and stone cliffs had less of that surgical cut look. Large chunks had crumbled and weathered away, leaving a slight incline down toward the water far below.

In another decade there would likely be a beach of some sort and the state would have its first port. A port to where? Norman didn’t know. He hadn’t heard of anyone attempting to cross the water, or if they had, they hadn’t returned.

As for the building he found himself in front of, it wasn’t much to look at. It was located in the old run-down industrial section of the city. The structure had no windows and its walls were a dirty brown that may have been tan at one point if not for the layer of grime that covered them.

The only reason Norman knew this was the right place was the little neon sign above the door that said ‘Cold Beer!’. Norman pulled on the handle and a wave of music hit him along with the smells endemic of seedy bars everywhere, old vomit, urine, and stale beer covered up by the smell of cheap industrial cleaning supplies.

Norman didn’t recognize the song playing through the speakers. It was loud and full of bass, meant to distract and disperse any meaningful conversations. This was a place for the downtrodden and miserable. But those who still thought drinking alone was worse somehow.

It was like almost every other bar Norman had ever been in.

Being still early in the afternoon, there were only a few of the regular barflies hanging around and nursing drinks. Norman was glad he had never become one of these sad sacks of humanity.

When Norman glanced at the bartender, he saw the man looking straight at him with a frown on his face. It was the same man that had dropped off the bottles of elf blood. His greasy slicked-back hair and thick glasses made him easy to recognize. This was good. Norman wasn’t sure there would be anyone here that actually recognized him which would have made asking for Mr. Sin awkward.

Norman made a beeline toward the bar and the bartender.

“What do you want, kid?” the sour-looking bartender asked.

“Um, is Mr. Sin in?”

The man looked around the bar in exaggerated slowness before turning back towards Norman. “I don’t see him.”

“Oh… Um, I have something for him.”

“And that is?”

Norman reached into his shorts pocket and pulled out two bottles of the new potion. He set them on the bar.

“It’s a prototype recipe… Um, I don’t know if it works though. I was kind of hoping he knew someone that could test it and verify it works.”

The man picked up a bottle and eyed it suspiciously before setting it back down. “Did Mr. Sin ask you to change your recipe?”

“Well, no, but-”

“Then don’t.” The man slid the bottles back towards Norman.

“The thing is, the ingredients I was using were becoming scarce. So I tried to improve the result with more readily available items.” Norman slid the bottles back toward the bartender. “It should be much better than my old recipe but I can’t exactly test it on myself and my tests on animals were not exactly…spectacular. I just need a human to test it out and let me know if there are any adverse side effects. Then I can tweak it if needed. I figured Mr. Sin would appreciate a more improved version.” Norman knew he was laying it on thick, but he needed this deal to happen.

The man just stared at Norman for a bit before finally snatching the bottles off the bar and tucking them below the wooden surface.

“I’ll let the boss know, but if this doesn’t work out, you better figure out your supply issues for your earlier version.”

Norman nodded, not that he had any plan of doing that.

“Um, how will I get in contact with him?”

“You don’t. If Mr. Sin wishes to speak with you, he will contact you.”

“Oh, um, ok… I guess that’s all I needed.” Norman rapped his knuckles on the bar to hide his awkwardness. Going by the bartender’s scowl, it didn’t work. “I’m gonna go now.”

The man said nothing so Norman turned and walked out.

Once outside, Norman smiled and donned his sunglasses. Norman was pretty sure the substance would work fine going by his own intuition and the fact that it did heal the raccoon, sort of. Barring some unseen issue with giving the potion to another human, he had finally resolved one of his biggest worries.

Usually, he would celebrate after a win like this. But he didn’t feel like doing that alone and he was still peeved at Toby and avoiding Anna. He decided to head back home and go through his journal. Maybe he should start calling it his grimoire now since it contained all his notes on magic and whatnot. That certainly sounded better than a journal, more official somehow.

Norman made one stop before returning home. There was a crafting store that sold higher-end notebooks with leather bindings. It looked better than the cheap spiral-bound notebook you would normally see any student using. Which was exactly what Norman’s current notebook looked like.

The first thing Norman wanted to copy into the new grimoire was his new recipe but he decided to wait on copying anything over until he was sure it was correct. He set the new book aside and opened his old notebook to page one.

The notes and scribbles on the first page made him cringe. Mostly because all of his early hypotheses about the system and how magic might work were just wildly inaccurate based on what he currently knew.

Of course, he had come to those conclusions during the first few weeks. Back when nobody knew what the hell was going on and everyone was still in a state of shock and panic.

He decided to read through those early notes.

Dear Diary –

WTF, this shit is nuts! I just saw a dude get dragged off by a horse-sized wolf creature. Some of those gym bros went after it. God, they’re cool!

Norman ripped that page out and crumpled it up. “Yup, nobody needs to read that.”

The first ten or so pages were much of the same, Norman’s way to document what was happening while trying to stay sane.

Day 41

Toby said nobody has seen the Mayor in over a week. Not that I see the problem, that guy was a tool. But now they got a new guy saying he’s in charge. He's one of those physical classers like the gym bros, but I’ve never heard of him.

I still haven’t had any luck with my magic. Charise and I got into another argument about it again. She said I should try to improve my physique instead of playing around with this magic nonsense.

Ah yes, Norman recalled that fight rather well. Charise said he would look better with some muscle and Norman replied with the only muscle he needed was his mind. To which Charise responded that could use a workout as well. The conversation devolved from there into a full-blown argument. Norman only recalled the argument because the make-up sex afterward was rather passionate. This was before anyone realized you couldn’t change your class.

Norman skipped ahead in the log of events until he came by the first one after the Joriks were encountered.

Day 156

Holy shit! There are blue-skinned aliens on this new world and they are not very friendly. One of the scav – scavenger – leaders went to go talk with them and they used crazy magic to toss the poor dude into the sky. They did not assist with his landing and the dude broke both his legs. We were forced to leave the guy behind as we fled. I feel bad, but better him than me.

This was back when Norman thought he was going to be part of this new group of intrepid explorers. These explorers braved the unknown wilderness and fought off the new wildlife. Fuck that. After he saw how easily that dude got messed up by the magic of the Jorik, he dropped from the scavenger teams and stuck close to the city.

The Jorik continued to make a nuisance of themselves after that, resulting in a few more deaths until the Guild finally ran most of them off. That’s when Norman went to try and join the Guild, only to be laughed off because of his weak body.

The rest of the entries were pretty bland. One marking the first day at the morgue, another marking another fight between him and Charise. Then the day he discovered his potion.

Day 442

I finally fucking did it! I was blitzed out of my mind and looking for something to snack on in the kitchen when I just started putting random shit on the table. I mixed the shit together and viola. Anti-necrosis potion. That’s a bit of a mouthful. Really it just speeds up healing a bit, but it fucking works. I drank some and I could feel my whole body tingle, then I quickly lost my high. That part kinda sucked, but I’m so excited I don’t care. If I show this to the Guild, They are sure to let me in.

Norman rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I was so fucking naïve, holy shit.” Although, that lesson was quickly realized by Norman when they just made fun of him even more. He wasn’t even able to sell the stuff to them directly, he had to sell it through Toby. Of course, Norman’s new feelings on the Guild were reflected in that last entry where he crossed out the Guild name and scribbled in assholes instead. Norman still got a chuckle out of that bit of pettiness.

Everything after that was just entry after entry of failed attempts at raising the dead.

Norman sighed, he wasn’t sure going down memory lane had been a good idea. It was just a long list of every failure of his from the last two years, with one exception. Even that was not based on any talent of his. Except the ability to smoke copious amounts of drugs and waste time.

The last entry Norman had in the notebook was the day Charise called him to steal the brain. That was what…he had to pause and think, eight days ago already. In that short amount of time, he had been fired, Charise had left him for good, Anna had gone full two-face on him, he had gotten beaten up, Toby had sold him out, and a biker gang had dumped a corpse on his kitchen table and said he was now working for them.

It was enough to make a sane man weep.

Then again…Norman had also discovered the magical properties of Jorik blood, created his first actual working spell, and upgraded his potion for the third time.

When life gives you lemons, stick that shit in a blender and add some fucking sugar. Norman couldn’t help smiling at that thought. He flipped the notebook to the first spell page. It was time to stop being a lazy useless pile of shit. It was now time to see what he was truly capable of.