I licked the last crumbs off my fingers and sighed in contentment. Call it fry bread, elephant ears, angel wings, or whatever -- the virtual version of classic fair food was just as good as if it had been the real thing. This had been lightly dusted with a cinnamon-sugar mixture and had still been warm from being made on the spot.
Ace and Ka’Moni were staring at me. Ace was still eating their candied apple, but Ka’Moni had already finished her first skein of cotton candy. She hadn’t been able to decide between green and blue, so I had paid for both.
“What?” I asked.
“That elephant ear was bigger than you are,” Ka’Moni said.
“Hey, I paid the same amount for my treat as I did for yours. Why should I settle for a tiny treat?”
“You ate two of them,” Ace pointed out.
“They were good.”
“It must take a lot of calories to keep those little wings flapping so quickly,” Ka’Moni said. “Oh well, video game logic.”
If NPC-made fair food was this good, then …. “Now I can’t wait until Mom and Dad open their patisserie.”
Ace shook their head. “You are going to get fat, Rie!”
Ka’Moni laughed. “Hey, Ace, just a tip, but you shouldn’t talk about a lady’s weight, even if she is your brother. But, really, a patisserie? I’m interested.”
So we explained Mom and Dad’s plan for a business, at least what they had shared at the family meeting, plus a little speculation of our own. We didn’t, however, mention that Mom’s character was a guy and that Dad’s was a gal.
Finally, we made it to the ping on my minimap, the coordinates that Mikachu had shared. It was a small plaza -- paved with large, smooth, flagstones of various shades of dark grey. In the center of the plaza was a small fountain surrounding a statue of a woman reading from a scroll of proclamation. Throughout the plaza, with no apparent underlying plan, were little stalls and booths. The two closest to us were selling pen nibs and little bottles of ink, but we could also see vendors hawking scrolls, ribbons (for bookmarks, maybe?), leather carrying cases, and quills.
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“We’re here.”
“Here is where?” Ka’Moni asked.
“Here is here. Mika sent me the coords to this place. She figured if anyone knew where a library in town was, that the people selling scrolls and the like would.”
“Seems like a good guess,” Ka’Moni nodded. “Well, then, Ace. Ask around, I’m going to go look over there real quick,” she said, inclining her head toward the stall selling ribbons.
* * *
“Nay, lad, there be no call for libraries like that ‘round these parts. We’re too isolated out here on the western frontier, and any books be a right royal penny. I do hear tell the mayor has a mighty collection of five books, more than just his tax rolls and book of judgements. Mayhap if you found a temple, you might find a book or two in their possession, but a library? Ach, not in Chipac.”
Everyone Ace asked, from vendors of quills and inks to vendors of parchment and scrolls, the answer was basically the same -- there was no library and no formal school anywhere in the city. Some private citizens -- important NPCs -- might own a few books, or a small collection of scrolls, but there was nothing like the large collection of knowledge and stories that Ace was looking for.
But if there were few books, no library, and no formal school -- why was there a whole plaza of vendors selling inks, scrolls, pens, and paper? A small plaza, granted, but still….
“Ah, little lass, ink is the lifeblood of bureaucracy, and scrolls its sustenance,” a different merchant replied when I asked. “And how do you think housewives keep track of their recipes and merchants their inventory? Not to mention all the budding young mage apprentices.” He shook his head, “There’ll never be enough ink and scrolls in Chipac to sate that hungry beast.”
“Housewives keep track of more than just recipes,” Ka’Moni said.
“I never said they didn’t. Now, are you buying or pestering?” His voice turned gruff. “Because if you’re not buying, I’m done talking. There’s other folk a-waiting to shop.”
“Well, someone got up on the wrong side of equality this morning,” Ka’Moni said as we stepped away from the vendor. “No luck finding a library for Ace?”
Ace broke off from the vendor they had been talking with and answered for me. “Unless you count five books in one place, a couple dozen scrolls in another, and a warehouse full of old tax records. These people barely know what a book is, almost.”
“Now, that’s not quite fair,” I said. “This is a low-tech, fantasy setting. If they don’t have the printing press -- or some magical means of duplicating things -- then of course books are going to be more rare.”
“Someone should invent one, then,” Ace frowned. “It can’t be that hard. They did it back in the, what, thirteen-hundreds?”
“Sounds like you might have another goal to work toward,” I said. Unbidden, an image of tiny little wooden golems as a special sort of self-movable type popped into my head. “You might even be uniquely suited for it.”
“Hmm. Maybe I will. I’ll look it up tomorrow at lunch time.” Then, shifting the topic, Ace turned to Ka’Moni and asked, “So, what did you find to buy?”