ALL NOVEL 61. A Pushy Patron
“Good evening, I have a reservation for the Branford Group for 7PM in one of your private rooms, but since I’m a bit early I was hoping I might be able to wait for my associate at the bar. Would that be alright?”
The woman with a slight look of surprise, apparently recognising the name of Aurora’s family conglomerate responded with a slightly brighter smile.
“Yes, of course, this way, please. I hope you have had a pleasant day so far?”
Appreciating the waitresses’ efforts to assuage an awkward atmosphere from walking in silence, Aurora responded to her small talk while consciously remembering her supposed background that the gods provided.
“I suppose it has been. I returned from Melbourne yesterday and had a chance to meet up with some friends I had not seen in person for a while. It has been a nice bit of a break from all of the work piling up around me.”
The waitress happily continued speaking as she led Aurora up a flight of stairs and to the bar that overlooked the main floor of the restaurant.
“Oh, that must have been quite the change in time zones for you? I hope the jet lag was not that bad?”
Aurora let a slight smile play on her lips as she answered, mentally calculating the difference in time zones.
“You could say that. Thankfully it has not hit me too hard, I was quite tired so managed to get some sleep on the flight back, so the eleven-hour time difference has not affected me that badly.”
The waitress gave a smile in response as she pulled out one of the bar stools for her, wishing her a pleasant night before returning downstairs to deal with the evening rush clearly in full swing.
The bartender who had just finished serving another customer and wiping down the counter behind the bar swung his towel over his shoulder as he walked over.
“Good evening, Miss, what can I get for you?”
Picking up the menu next to her, Aurora swiftly looked through with practised eyes, thankful for the bonuses her now available status provided her allowing her to read through the drinks menu faster than she would have been able to a few days prior.
“Good evening. Hmmm… can you make me a Hemingway Daiquiri, please? And could I be quite brazen and ask for a pen and some paper? Sadly, in the chaos of the day, I had completely forgotten to bring some with me.”
The bartender gave her an understanding smile as he began to mix her drink. Aurora let some of her attention follow the bartender who was skilfully putting the various spirits and mixers into a cocktail shaker, his skill somewhat mesmerising as he began a shaking routine, letting the shaker form arks in the air as he put on a little show.
With an exaggerated flourish, he poured the mixed drink into a prepared glass on the bar and carefully placed it in front of her.
“I present one Hemingway Daiquiri, as for your pen and paper…”
Leaning back slightly he found a pen and a few pieces of blank paper behind the bar and placed them in-front of her.
“… I hope this will suffice?”
With a nod and word of thanks Aurora uncapped the ballpoint pen and started drawing the rough outline of a circle as best she could. She decided that since she had a little bit of free time, she might as well make a start on one of the projects she had planned to start next week.
Magical formations were something that ancient civilisations in Caelus Online had created, and very simple and limited versions of them were used in great rarity in modern times. Due to their foundation of being magic circles, the raw materials that are used in making the formations were fairly easy to obtain on earth, that is however excluding those materials purely magical in nature. Due to this, someone with enough magical knowledge to create a formation could lay the foundation for such magical constructs, and given Earth's manufacturing capability, could with the right resources mass produce them. It would only require items that would be available after the Upheaval in now less than three months to complete them.
To that end, Aurora had instructed her Secretary, Sasha, to organise the acquisition of a list of companies she had known about from the future who had managed to survive the upheaval as well as fit the production criteria she needed. If Aurora managed to get all the base parts needed for the magical constructs manufactured and any additional materials currently available put into reserve for when the magical materials became available, she would have fast and easy access to magical constructs that, while extremely limited in functionality, could effectively protect locations from certain types of enemies.
With progressing this project in mind, Aurora started to sketch out the central magical circle that functioned as the core for the constructs programming, something akin to a CPU. While sketching, thoughts of her current situation ran through her mind, was her knowledge of such topics one of the reasons she was selected by the gods to return to the past instead of say, DemonicGold, a master class merchant, or the now former best Immortal Warrior on earth, Hayden Anderson, An American who had both the combat experience and by extension influence?
Aurora spent about 10 minutes sipping on her drink while pondering her current existence and sketching, getting some slightly odd glances from the bartender who had discretely taken a peek at what she was doing as he occasionally moved past. Her focus was broken when a particularly self-confident man with short dirty blond hair sat down at the bar next to her, resting his head on his hand as he stared at her.
It was clear he was expecting a reaction despite it being clear that she was busy, so she pointedly ignored him as he continued to stare at her. Aurora could tell he was the annoyingly arrogant type that she had on more than one occasion in the past deterred from Roxanne, and from her experience as a guy, this type could be particularly abrasive and annoying, especially when determined to hit on women within their group on a night out.
Knowing her new annoyance was going to keep pestering her while it was already causing her to lose focus, she decided to speak after the perfect opportunity presented itself. That opportunity quickly arrived after he ordered a drink after what felt like a minute of silence, so she spoke up, not taking her eyes off the page as her melodic voice reached his ears.
“Yes? Can I help you?”
Seemingly quite pleased with himself that he had managed to get the attention of the Beautiful woman, even if in a limited way, he continued to speak, not moving his head while displaying a confident smile from where it rested in his palm.
“Well, I just wanted to get to know such a gorgeous beauty who is sat at a bar all by herself.”
Letting out a sigh in unconcealed exasperation, Aurora started to annotate some of the runes around the outside section of the magical circle as she answered, still not looking at the man. If nothing else, the annoying interaction did highlight her apparently new ability to multi task between talking and writing at the same time.
“Well, I hate to be rude, but I am currently waiting for one of my employees and I’m making the most of my free time to get some work done, so I apologise for not having the time for casual conversation.”
Aurora realised her mistake in using the words ‘free time’ as soon as the man started speaking in his overly confident tone.
“Well, if you have free time, you can at least look at me, after all, I can’t appreciate your beautiful face if you spend all your time looking at your drawing.”
The man reached out to touch her, something Aurora noticed from the corner of her eye, so she circulated a tiny amount of magic around her hand that formed an electric charge that as soon as his skin made contact with hers caused him to experience a small shock.
With a slight smirk seeing the man suddenly recoil in surprise, Aurora spoke a slight hint of derision in her voice.
“I would appreciate it if you kept your hands to yourself. I am not interested in your advances, especially since my brother passed away not two days ago. I am neither in the mood nor mental state for such frivolities, so please respect that.”
Finally looking at the man with a scowl on his face, she had hoped with a little expectation her words would discourage him, and seemingly contrary to that, he now sported a deep frown on his face.
“Darling, you don’t need to lie to me, we both know you are lying-“
Much to Aurora’s relief, the man’s impromptu spewing of nonsense was interpreted by a familiar sounding man clearing his throat as he interjected into their conversation, a waitress just behind him.
