The Stercusville Library

It was sometime in the afternoon. I was standing in front of a wooden table. On it, there was an assortment of books and newspapers laid out. The room was quiet and empty, other than some bookshelves. This place was the Stercusville Library. I was completely alone other than an old lady, who I'd assume was the librarian. She was fast asleep at the front desk... Or at least I think she was asleep.

It's really no surprise to me that I'm the only person here. Considering the type of people who live in this village. They didn't exactly seem like the type that spent their free time at the library.

This wasn't by any means the most grand library I've ever been to, but it had the resources I was looking for. After speaking with Brandy and her being suspicious of me, I realized that it would probably be a good idea to get caught up on current events. I was in the process of trying to piece together the current state of the West Kingdom and the continent of Circino as a whole.

On the continent of Circino, there are four nations, which include: Northica, Southan, the East Kingdom, and of course the West Kingdom. In the past tensions between these kingdoms were quite high, which led to on and off conflict over the centuries. From what I’ve managed to gather though, the continent seems to have had an era of peace since I died. I noticed there wasn't any mention of the Hydra Incident seventy years ago. I'd imagine that was swept under the rug by a number of different groups.

I had to admit, this was quite a productive afternoon...

*SLAM*

The front door of the library was obnoxiously thrown open, disturbing my peace.

"I'm back from my quest, Mr. Arno!"

Erika spoke loudly. If this had been any other library, she would have been thrown out immediately. The sleeping (at least hopefully) librarian lady didn't even react. She remained slumped over her desk.

*Clunk*

Erika dropped a very dense looking bag, about the size of a pumpkin, on my table.

I opened it up to look inside... I closed the bag, paused for a moment and reopened it to make sure I wasn't seeing things.

"How did you get all this?" I asked.

"It's from my delivery quest. Everytime I delivered a package, I got a huge tip."

Interesting, I wouldn't have expected the people in this town to be such generous tippers. Maybe this was an effect of her high luck stat. Overall though, all that really mattered was our money problems were over.

"It seems your quest went exceptionally well."

"Oh yeah, it was way easier than I expected it to be… Are you proud of me, Mr. Arno?"

"I guess you could say I'm something along those lines."

"That response seemed a bit cold, but don't worry we'll work on that... Anyways, what exactly is this place?" She asked.

"It's a library... You don't know what a library is?"

"No, I'm guessing it probably has something to do with books."

"Yes, to put it simply, a library is a place where you go to borrow books to read."

“Seems kind of boring…”

Erika seemed to have lost interest in our conversation because she abruptly changed the subject.

"So what are we going to do now that we have money?"

"Since you managed to complete this basic quest so easily, we should get some actual gear. I guess we'll take a look at some of the stores in town." I said.

Erika's eyes sparkled with excitement.

"We're going shopping!"

"Yeah, like I said we need ge-"

"Enough chit chat, Mr. Arno. Let's get going!"

Erika proceeded to drag me out of the library before I could even put anything away... Not that it really mattered.