Chapter Two - Shelf-ish Shopping

Seven Hills was a small community just on the edge of the territory known as the Flaming Steppes. It was, for all intents and purposes, a trading town.

I found it vaguely amusing that some things have remained the same, even after all these years. The way humanity progressed, at least on the level of cities and towns, seemed to have stayed the same.

This was, as far as I could tell, once merely a stopping point along the road. A place for travellers to pause and rest. Then soldiers garrisoned here, and they required more infrastructure and attention. And with that, the stop became a little village.

Constant traffic, the steady flow of gold, and the need to supply everyone passing by, turned that village into a town, and now it was on the cusp of becoming a city.

The same story, repeated once more.

I suspect that if whatever resources coming from the north dried up, the city would soon crumble. It didn’t have the air of a place that was able to sustain itself.

I ruminated upon all of this while sitting upon a rather comfortable seat at one of the busier intersections. Across from the little table I was sitting at sat the limpet, nose buried in an old tome I’d translated for her about the art of evocation, and between us, some light foods and some teas.

Eating wasn’t something an old pile of bones like myself was keen on, but it helped to keep up pretenses. For the moment, anyone looking my way would see a rather well-dressed, but not too well-off merchant, possibly with his daughter or a young assistant.

Nothing out of the ordinary in such a place.

My goal, for the moment, was two-fold.

One, I was seeking out any stories and tales about something I had heard of in passing. Notably a ‘Dread Knight’ or a ‘Dead Knight.’

I had a few hypotheses about what that might be, but true discovery was more fulfilling than baseless speculation.

Two, I was on the hunt for some of my phylacteries. Not all of them. Leaving some hidden was perfectly fine. Even hiding them from myself was wise. But if the new gods had turned some of my soul containers into tools to increase their own power, then I would have to kindly ask that they return them to me.

I sensed that one of these, the items they called the Five Fonts, was in the Flaming Stepps even now.

“Limpet,”

The girl across from me raised a hand in a ‘one moment’ gesture, then finished the line she was reading. “Yes master?”

“Now that we are effectively within the Flaming Stepps, I think it would be a good time to learn about the region, wouldn’t you say?”

The limpet patted down her dress, then fished out a bookmark from within and carefully slid it between the pages of her book before closing it. “The Flaming Steps... I hear that there are actually parts of the steppes to the north that are constantly on fire. The ground is cracked and filled with boiling earth, but that’s mostly where the undead reside, so no one goes there. Other than that, the steppes are known as one of the most dangerous areas in the Empire.”

“It’s considered dangerous after taking into account the undead and what seems to be the presence of some volcanic activity?” I asked.

The limpet nodded. “The area is filled with beast-people. Dangerous ones that will try to eat travellers. The cultivators from this region, from the four sects here, are all considered kinda crazy. But they’re also really strong.”

“I can imagine,” I said. “Constant practice does lead to increased strength.”

The limpet made an agreeing sound as she took a sip from her tea. “I guess so. None of them wanted me though. They said I was too skinny and weak.”

“I see. Is there a place here where the local gods gather?”

The limpet tapped her chin. “I don’t know? Maybe?”

“Not knowing is fine,” I said. Pulling a silver coin from my pocket, I placed it atop the table as I stood. “I do believe it’s time we do a little bit of investigating ourselves.”

“Will Alex be able to find us?”

“Alex will be fine, I’m certain.” I gestured deeper into the little city, and the limpet hopped to it, following along as I took a leisurely walk towards the markets.

“So where are we going?” the limpet asked.

“Most cities of this size will have a library, or at least a shop that sells books,” I said. I snapped my fingers and pointed to a likely suspect. A smaller storefront, not too gaudy and very discrete. The sign above the door read ‘The Word Playce.’ “Like that one.”

“I’ve been to a lot of bookstores,” the limpet said. “I don’t think I ever found anything with information as good as the books you already have. I mean... they don’t have that much, but they’re, I guess laid out? In a way that’s easy to understand.”

“There’s a certain gift to writing guides,” I said. “It’s important to present the information you want to teach someone, but it’s more important to lead that person towards that information in a way that they’ll understand.”

“Um,” the limpet said. “I think I understood that?”

I chuckled. “I could give you something like this,” I said as I tugged a book out from my breast pocket. It was a simple thing, old well-worn leather, with silver-gilded letters across its spine.”

“What’s that?” the limpet asked.

“One of my spellbooks,” I said. “Twenty-two variations on the Apocalypse spell, each able to exterminate all life and occasionally unlife on this fair planet.’

“Um.”

“The details are quite precisely laid out. Unfortunately, without instruction beyond the recipe, I doubt you could actually cast anything from this book. It’s filled with raw information, not guidance.” I slid my book away. We’d reached the front door of the shop and I opened it to allow the limpet in first.

She bowed then scampered in.

I followed.

There was a certain feel to bookstores that I enjoyed on a purely emotional level. They tended to be quiet places, where knowledge, or at least the receptacle of knowledge, were cherished and loved.

The shops from back in my day, that held scrolls and magical tomes, tended to give off that impression in the weave itself. I didn’t feel that now, but... I supposed it was a certain level of nostalgia that I felt.

“Hello,” said the gentleman behind the counter at the far end of the room. “Welcome to my humble shop, great customer. How may I assist you?”

“We’re looking for books,” I said.

“I may have seen some,” the man said. “You seem like the sort of person that took one look at my shop and booked it over.”

I grinned. “The building interested me. It’s not every day you see one with so many stories.”

“Glad you came over then,” the man replied. “And with such good timing. Sometimes we have too many people over and become overbooked.”

“Even with all this shelf space?”

“Indeed. Lots of customers at times. It can be stressful. Perhaps I ought to treat my shelf.”

I nodded. “Perhaps you should open a library instead? It would be better for your circulation.”

“Master,” the limpet said. She sounded as though she was in some degree of pain. “Please stop.”

“Oh hohoho!” I cackled. “I think I can stop. We were just prefacing our business. I hope I wasn’t being too forward?”

“Nonsense,” the gentleman said. “It was a perfectly warm welcome, which is handy, this place has a few drafts.”

“Master!” the limpet whined.

I patted the limpet’s head. “Do forgive her, she doesn’t have a mind for humour. I was looking for books on the Flaming Stepps.”

“All of my books are on the Flaming Stepps,” the man said. He seemed appropriately proud of that one.

“Oh hoho! Indeed. Do you have anything on the local gods?”

“Only some gossip and a few tomes,” he said.

“I’m glad we’re on the same page. I’ll take both.”

The limpet moved out from under my hand and shuffled to the corner, hands over her ears.

The shopkeeper stood up and waved me over. “We do actually have a few books that touch on the subject of our local deities. None of them are strictly about them though.” He moved towards one shelf in particular and tugged a book off. “This is an accounts of a general in the army to subjugate the region. It’s a great historical text from the point of view of a very methodical cultivator. Not much in it about the general’s secrets about his power, but there are detailed retellings of meetings with some of the gods that inhabit the region.”

“Interesting,” I said as I took the book. It was leather-bound and surprisingly thick. “I assume that’s not all it’s about?”

“No. There are some tales about battles and troop movements. Some praise for officers and nobles that participated in the subjugation. It’s why the book was reprinted so often, a lot of noble clans can trace their ancestry back to the people mentioned here.”

“Propaganda?” I asked,

“Plenty, though not much on the subject of the gods.”

I tucked the book under my arm. “Anything else?”

“A few odds and ends,” he said as he moved to the front of the shop and opened a chest. There were stacks of scrolls within and he picked one from the lot. “This is a detailed map of the region. It should help. There are some locations marked on there that have the temples to some of the local deities. Some are a little more secluded, I’m afraid.”

“I’m mostly looking for the more powerful ones,” I said.

“Then you’ll probably want to visit the Ashen Forest. It’s a large temple just to the north. The sect there is relatively polite.”

I thanked him, but was interrupted as the door to the shop opened and Alex stepped in. “Thank you,” I said as I fished out a couple of gold coins. “I’ll keep on perusing things for a while. Give me a moment?”

The man nodded, eyes widening just a little as the book and scroll he’d given me both fit into my jacket’s too-small pocket. The widening increased as he inspected the coins. “Certainly, honourable customer.”

Alex waited quite patiently until the shopkeeper moved back before joining me. “Hello Daddy,” he said.

“Hello Alex. Did you find everything you needed?”

“Not yet,” my butler admitted. “I found a place where we can stay, and a few of the supplies we’ll need. I came back sooner because I will need to start preparing lunch for the limpet, and I was ambushed three times.”

“Oh? What do you plan on making?”

“They have a sort of chicken here that’s very small and delicate. I think I’ll make a chicken kiev with some of the local herbs. They seem a little bitter, but they also have a sort of lemon that grows nearby that is very strong. I think the contrasting flavours will be nice.”

I hummed in agreement as I scanned the books. “And the ambushes?”

“Oh. I was attacked by some sort of mantis person.”

“A... mantis person?” I asked. That was curious.

“Yes. She was green, with long scythes for forelimbs. Fairly strong. I didn’t kill her, since Daddy told me to be subtle.”

“I see. If she attacks you again, do capture her. It might be interesting to see something so strange.”

Alex nodded. “Of course. Are we going to be staying here for long?”

“A day or so,” I said. “We’re not in any hurry, are we?”