When Sophie finally got to the main road, she paused and glanced back down at the little dragonling who was still following along beside her. It blinked up at her as if to ask why she had stopped.
“I have to go into town now,” Sophie explained. “You should stay in the forest. I don’t know if it’s safe for you out here.”
The creature tilted its head at her, and she had no idea if it could possibly understand her, so she made a shoo-ing gesture. “Go on now. You can’t follow.”
She took a cautious step onto the road and glanced back, but the little dragon stayed put, neither going back into the forest nor following her any further. She walked along the road a bit and glanced back once more, but she couldn’t see it through the trees. She wondered if it would be waiting for her when she got finished with her errands in town, but she couldn’t imagine so.
She turned back towards the gates, nodding politely to the guard, who waved her in without so much as a second glance. First stop was the tailor shop where she was finally able to pick up her new robes. Next, she made her way straight to the bath house.
She was eager to change into her new Tailored clothes, so she showered quickly, forgoing the bath entirely. After she dried off, she carefully pulled out one of the new outfits and slipped it on.
It fit like a dream. The fabric felt like the bag she had found – that frisson of something that felt nice in some way. She felt almost energized just wearing the new clothes. She glanced at herself in a mirror, surprised at how pleased she felt about it. She really felt like a shrine priestess now. Before, wearing Rosalie’s dresses… it still felt unreal to some degree, like playing dress-up, even though she had been growing more fond of wearing the clothes recently. But having hand-tailored clothing that also suited her own personal tastes made it feel truly official.
And the pockets. She was so glad for the pockets. She wasn’t sure what she would put in them, if she was honest, but she just liked having the option. At the very least, her coin purse would go in there nicely. Although she’d probably keep using the bag for other things, just the same.
After she changed, she asked the friendly clerk at the front desk for directions to the Adventurer’s Guild. It was in the same part of town as the tavern that she had gone to before, but a few blocks further down, right past the town’s inn.
As she made her way down the bustling street, she passed the inn and glanced up at it with curiosity. She had no real reason to go inside, but she wondered if it would look like the typical fantasy stereotype if she did.
She decided to save that adventure for another day. Instead, she walked on past to the building with the Adventurer’s Guild sign hanging proudly above the entrance. She pulled open the heavy door, surprised to find a few people milling about at long tables with drinks. Was this a tavern as well, then? She was even more surprised when she noticed a familiar face behind the long wooden counter along the far wall.
And then she remembered – of course, Acacia’s sister was a clerk here.
“The priestess!” Calli exclaimed when she caught sight of Sophie. “I met you at the bakery. Sophie, right?”
Sophie nodded as she approached the counter. “That’s me. Sophie Birch, officially registered as the town’s shrine priestess as of… uh, well, yesterday actually. I don’t think we were formally introduced, but you’re Acacia’s sister?”
Calli nodded, holding out her hand over the counter. “Calliandra, but Calli for short. How can I help you today?”
“Well, I’m not sure if you’re aware of the situation at the shrine…” Although Sophie would be surprised if there was anyone in the town who wasn’t aware. “But, a mage came by the other day and he mentioned that there is a local earth mage who might be able to help with the situation.”
“An earth mage? Well, of course, there’s Linden. But, he’s out on a quest right now. Didn’t Acacia mention it?”
“Acacia? No, why would she have?”
Calli’s smile turned sly at the question. “Oh, I wonder… But, regardless, he won’t be back for a bit, and we don’t have any other earth mages in town. The shrine is really out of mana, then?”
Sophie nodded. “It is,” she confirmed. “I’d like to leave a message for him when he returns to see if he could help in any way. The mage mentioned an earth mage might be able to reroute some mana to the shrine.”
Calli looked thoughtful. “I suppose that’s true,” she said. “Although I can’t imagine why we wouldn’t have done that already. That is, if there was any other mana source nearby in the past.”
Sophie totally agreed with that assessment. But it was currently the best lead she had other than the endless amounts of training she’d likely have to do. “Do you have any other ideas?” she asked. “Or know of anyone else who might be able to help?”
“Hmmm…” Calli replied. “Honestly, no. I’m no expert, but relocating an existing source of mana sounds like your best bet for something like a shrine. Shrines are built on naturally occurring mana sources for a reason, you know? You could check at the library, though. We do have some archives, and someone there might be able to help figure out what happened in the past and whether they already tried something like that.”
“Ah, okay. Thanks. I’ll try that,” Sophie replied. The unspecialized mage had mentioned the library as well. “Can you point me in the right direction?”
“Sure, it’s just a few streets over, actually. You mentioned you registered as the town priestess, right? The library is near the administration building.” Calli gave Sophie some more specific directions, and Sophie thanked her and turned to go.
She hadn’t paid much attention to the interior when she first walked in due to the surprise of seeing Calli there, but as she was walking out, two things caught her eye. One was a huge bulletin board full of some sort of postings, and the other was a map.
“A map! You have a map here!” she exclaimed.
“Well, yes,” Calli said, sounding obviously confused. “Of course we do. It helps people decide which quests to take.”
Sophie walked over closer to the bulletin board and peered at the map. It was a zoomed-in version of the surrounding area. She couldn’t see the entire landmass, but she could see an ocean to the east – not far from the little dot marked Caulis. Her eyes traveled up the coastline and eventually landed on a little star with the word Sentus next to it.
An ocean! And Sentus was right next to it. She wondered if it was a port city, then. Were there other cities and landmasses across the ocean? How big was this new world she had found herself on?
“Sentus…” she muttered to herself, trailing off. Apparently that’s where everyone had been going to get their classes before she arrived at the shrine. It was hard to tell how far away it was, judging by the distances on the map. People seemed to mostly travel by horse here, although there might be other magical ways of travel. The shrine and the town did have portals after all. Either way, Sophie had no reference for how long it might take to go any sort of distance.
Calli came around the side of the desk and pointed to one of the slips of paper on the bulletin board. “Are you looking for a quest?” she asked.
Sophie shook her head. “No, just seeing what’s nearby.”
Calli looked at her strangely, but shrugged. “Well, if you’re ever in the market for some quests, we get a lot of good ones that need a priestess in the group. We end up having to send them to other guilds nearby – usually all the way to Sentus.”
“Ah…” Sophie replied noncommittally. She still wasn’t sure how into the idea of quests she was, especially if it meant she would be dealing with all of the corrupted creatures Elowen had been talking about the night before. Euan at the Crafter’s Guild had mentioned purifying objects, and that sounded a lot safer if she needed work in the future. But, either way, she wasn’t able to purify mana yet, so she could wait to look into it more when she learned the skill.
Calli tapped on one of the slips of paper, continuing her explanation. “This one’s nearby. Each quest has a rank requirement on it along with the classes that would be best suited for the job.”
“Rank?” Sophie asked. She had heard of classes and levels, but not rank, yet.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Calli nodded. “Oh – rank is just based on your previous performance through the guild. You start out at the lowest rank, taking smaller quests, and work your way all the way up to S class.” She grinned. “If you’d like, we could get you registered today.”
“Oh, I’m not quite ready to take quests, yet,” Sophie hedged. Calli was definitely a great saleswoman. Sophie could see why Acacia regularly got roped into doing the mana loaves, even if it was her sister, but – “There’s still a lot of work to do at the shrine, and –”
Calli leaned against the front of the counter, waving a hand at Sophie. “Fine, fine,” she conceded. “You don’t have to explain. I understand. It’s just been so long since we’ve had our own priestess. I’m really looking forward to working with you in the future.”
Sophie nodded. “Well, I’ll be sure to stop by again and register at some point. Maybe once things are a little more… settled.”
Calli smiled in reply. “Alrighty, well, let me know if you ever need anything. But, I’m sure I’ll see you around either way.” A group of three people were heading towards the counter, so Calli made her way back around to the other side. She tapped on a slip of paper. “I’ll make sure to get your message to Linden, too.”
“Thanks,” Sophie replied and stepped away from the counter. She waved goodbye as Calli turned to help the newcomers. On her way out of the guild, though, she paused in front of the map again, just staring at it.
Sentus. She stared at the little city on the coast, something like nostalgia welling up inside her.
Sophie waved goodbye, although Calli was no longer paying attention, and headed back out into the street, ready for her next adventure. The library.
***
The library was in the same part of town with all of the bland, stone buildings. Sophie passed the administration building she had gone to a few days ago and found a larger two-story building with the library sign on it.
She made her way through the heavy wooden doors into a large open space with long wooden tables and a large librarian's desk over to one side. There were two people sitting behind the desk and they looked up curiously as she entered. A few other people were sitting at the long tables and appeared to be reading or studying.
On the other side of the floor, there were rows and rows of books as far as the eye could see. Okay, maybe not as far as the eye could see, but it was pretty big for a little town library, and it seemed like there was even a second floor. She wondered where all the books came from. It’s not like the library was as big as the huge library in downtown Seattle, but it was definitely more comparable to the one in her college town than she expected it to be. How did printing work in this world without technology like computers? And why would a town this size have a library like this?
“Can I help you?” A man at the librarian’s desk asked, interrupting her train of thoughts. He had curly red hair and large, round glasses. He reminded her a little bit of an owl.
Sophie nodded as she approached the desk. “I heard you might have some archive records here?”
“That we do!” the man declared, proudly. “They go back for nearly a century, in fact.”
A century! Sophie wasn’t surprised given the amount of books in the library. She thought back to the dates on the letters. “Perhaps something from Caspian 28? Regarding the shrine or even just the surrounding area?”
The man gave her a strange look at the request. “Caspian 28?” He shook his head and glanced over to the woman sitting next to him. She shrugged. “We lost almost everything during the Mage Wars,” he said. “You’d be hard pressed to find any records about those years.”
Sophie felt a chill slide down her spine. A war? And hadn’t the man said almost a century? She almost began to ask about it, before she realized her mistake. “Ah…. Well, if there’s anything at all related to the shrine… I guess the oldest records you might have would be fine.”
The man nodded and came around the side of the desk. “Here, let me show you what we have.” He began to lead Sophie into the book stacks towards a stairwell in the back. “The archives are on the second floor,” he explained.
Sophie followed behind, eyeing the rows of books thoughtfully. She wondered how they kept track of where everything was without computers. She also wondered, yet again, if they had romance manga in this fantasy land and, if not, surely they at least had romance novels. She thought, perhaps, she might investigate once she took a look at what was in the archive.
The second floor was even more packed with books than the first. There were small desks along the edge of the building, and even a few people with what appeared to be small mana lamps reading at them. Sophie supposed it made sense to use mana lamps here, as well to prevent potential issues with fire. She wondered if people had to light them individually, or if there was some source of mana that kept them lit.
“The shrine…” the man said, almost as if to himself as he led her through several more rows of books.
He finally stopped at a small section full of heavily worn books. “As far as I know, we don’t have any books specifically about the shrine itself, but these are the oldest volumes we have about the town’s history. There are also newspaper archives, but those only go back for a few decades…”
Newspaper archives! Sophie didn’t even consider that the town might have a newspaper. But that sounded like it would be even more difficult to wade through than a couple of history books.
“If there’s information on the shrine, it should be available in these volumes,” the librarian continued. “But you might have more luck talking with a Historian if you are looking for specific information.”
“A historian?” Sophie asked.
“Yep,” the man replied. “You just missed him, actually. The town’s historian is here most mornings.”
“Ah…” Sophie replied. She glanced back at the two thick volumes of history that the librarian had pointed to earlier. She really didn’t want to read through all of that, but she supposed she had to for the good of the shrine.
“Can I borrow these?” she asked.
“Oh, no,” the librarian shook his head. “Unfortunately, we can't lend these volumes out, given their age, you understand. But you're welcome to stop by at any time and do the research you need.”
Right. Of course they wouldn’t hand over precious volumes of history to just anyone.
“Oh that’s alright,” she replied. She was tempted to sit and look through the volumes, but thinking back to her previous adventures looking for her mysterious plant in Rosalie’s little library of botany books, it seemed like it would be better to just try the historian first. “I'll come back another morning.”
The librarian nodded, seeming to understand, and led her back through the stacks to the staircase. Sophie was a little bummed about not finding anything helpful here. She would just have to come back to talk with the historian.
She followed the librarian down the stairs and through the rows of books on the first floor. Before they made it back to the entrance, the librarian stopped and turned around. “Is there anything else you need help with…?”
Sophie glanced back at the rows of books, longing for her romance comics. “Um, do you have comics here? Like, books that are mostly pictures, with potentially a romance story or –”
“Kahmiks?” he asked, in that way that immediately tuned Sophie into the fact that he had never heard the word before. Her heart sank. “Well, we do have a few picture books, but they are mostly for children. There are definitely no romance stories in them.”
“Ah…” she said. “Well thanks, anyways.” She turned to go, but the librarian stopped her.
“We do have many popular novels that feature romance stories,” he said. “If you’d like, I could show you to the section.”
Sophie’s ears perked up at that. Novels! She fell out of the habit of reading romance novels recently after she discovered online comics, but she used to adore reading them when she was still in school. “That sounds perfect.”
He led her over to a set of shelves close to the entrance of the library. “This is our popular novel selection,” he explained. “Just come up to the desk to check them out when you’re ready.”
“Okay,” she replied, and he left her to explore the shelves on her own.
Sophie was delighted to find that there were actually titles on the spines. She wondered why none of the ones in Rosalie’s possession had them. Maybe because they were boring old textbooks about plants?
She pulled one of the books off the shelf at random, automatically turning it to look on the back out of habit, but alas, there was no description. She really didn’t want to spend too much time here, so she decided to pick three based on their titles alone and take them up to the library desk to check out.
The man who had led her up to the archives earlier was busy helping another person, but there was still another librarian sitting at the desk – an older woman with her curly grey-black hair pulled back in a long braid. She gestured for Sophie to step forward. “Are you new here, dear?”
Sophie nodded as she placed the books on the counter. “Yep, I am. Do I need to sign up for a library card or something?”
The librarian chuckled as if it was some sort of joke. “We just need a bit of information to get you in our ledger,” she explained.
After Sophie recited her name and current address, which elicited a few, further excited questions about Sophie’s priestess status, the librarian began opening each of the books and pulling out a small card, doing something to it with mana that Sophie could almost sense.
“Taming the Ice Mage?” the librarian read out loud with a smile as she picked up the last book. “Oh, I love this series. I hope you enjoy it!”
Sophie felt her face heat at the ridiculousness of the title. She did miss the benefits of ebooks and comics on her phone where no one else could see the ridiculous things she was reading. “Thanks,” she choked out, as the librarian handed the pile back to her.
“The card will let you know when to bring the books back, dear. Please come again soon!”
Sophie scurried towards the exit in her embarrassment, shoving the books into the little bag she had found in Rosalie’s chest of clothes. She paused in surprise when suddenly the books seemed quite a bit lighter than they had before. Not weightless exactly, but perhaps reduced by half. She stared at the bag in amazement for a moment – it hadn’t even expanded as much as she would have expected. She shook her head in disbelief and headed out of the library at a much more sedate pace, ready to make her way to the market.
Apparently Tailoring could do a lot more than she imagined.