After talking to Karen again, Ryuji was reminded that even though he had managed to allay her fears, he still had to figure the whole werewolf thing out. Ryuji then got worried about what he would do if he turned into a werewolf while he was in the library. He considered this for a second then asked Karen if there was any ham in the cold storage cellar. When she confirmed that there was some cured ham there, he asked to buy a bit of it. She looked at him a bit strange till he followed up by asking if he could also get a couple bread loaves and some cheese since he would be busy at lunch.
Karen agreed and he pulled out a small silver. She started to say it was too much but as usual, he was already headed to the stairs. He ran up the stairs and went into his room just as Dorn was leaving the privy with a look of relief on his face. Ryuji grabbed his smallest satchel that would be too small to put a book in and was about to leave the room when he thought better of it. He took out the notes from last night and stored them away in the drawer of his bedside table.
He then went down and Karen had everything he wanted wrapped up in a linen that he stored in his small satchel. He pulled out his map and had Dorn mark the library on it then got up to leave. He gave Karen one last passionate kiss that drew whistles and jeers alike before leaving.
It didn’t take long to find the library. He headed down the main highway as though he were going to the city’s south gate exit. When he got close enough to see the rusty iron gate in the distance, he separated from the crowd that was headed out of the gate and made his way to the left edge, and turned down a wide lane into the midst of the noble’s district. He got a lot of looks from the lumbering crowd as he did so.
Ryuji also attracted the gazes of a couple of the guards from the town watch who made directly for him. The pair were wearing the familiar monster leather armor with half-plate grieves, gauntlets, and breastplates but they weren’t familiar to Ryuji. So he did the smart thing and stopped, waiting on them to walk up to him. The one closer to him took on a bored attitude as he gave his challenge. “Halt, What’s your business here?”
Ryuji couldn’t help but smirk at his choice of wording and decided to have a bit of fun. “Oh, That one there.” At which point, he pointed to a slightly dilapidated building just a little ahead on the left. His actual goal was the library to the far left just past the building but the one he had pointed out would prove a funnier goal for the moment.
The guard looked over his shoulder at the building in obvious confusion just as the other one got there and asked the obvious question. “What’s going on?”
G1 “He says that he’s going to the building over there.”
G2 “Then run him off. That place is abandoned. He’s got no business there!”
R “But I do have a business there, or at least I will in the future”
G2 “Listen sir. There isn’t anything there for you so just go back the way you came!” Ryuji could tell that the man didn’t want to say sir at all and was getting frustrated. Best to end his joke quickly.
R “No, no. You see, that is my business there. I own it, the building that is.”
Suddenly, Ryuji heard a voice from behind him. “You guys have a problem here?”
Ryuji turned to see another guard strolling up and this one seemed to be a higher rank. Did he look familiar? Yeah maybe. Just then the first guard spoke up. “This guy says that he owns the building over there. Have you heard anything about this captain?”
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The new guard’s eyes opened wide when he got a look at Ryuji. “Hey, It’s you! You were the guy that caught that mangy-murdering merchant with some magic potion! Wow, you own that building now? I don’t want to seem like I’m being suspicious but do you have any proof?”
Ryuji smirked at him. “I don’t have the title with me but would the key to the building do? Or maybe if I were to swear by this?”
Ryuji pulled up the gold and silver pendant on the gold chain around his neck and he could hear the other two gulp and saw them look at each other out of the corner of his eye. “You two move and let his lordship through. Be sure to tell all the rest of the watch that his lordship owns property in the noble’s district when you change shifts. I’ll go with you and test the flooring for weak spots milord.”
Ryuji chuckled and started to walk off but then stopped and turned around. The guys from the town watch stopped too and Ryuji could just see a sinking feeling on their faces. The first two were getting ready to either get chewed out by a noble or something worse. The captain was preparing to step in and try taking the heat off of his men even at the cost of his own hide.
Ryuji looked between the two and waved dismissively. “I was teasing you. It’s not your fault… or at least not totally your fault. Be more careful about being dismissive of people. Some nobles enjoy baiting people into saying things they might regret and most of them that do that kind of thing don’t just want a bit of a laugh. Oh, and ask the orc guard about what it means to be guarding the gate while you’re at it. I sincerely hope you have a better day from here out.”
Ryuji turned just in time to see the captain replace a contemplative grin with a look of total seriousness. Ryuji couldn’t help calling him out on it with a grin. “You’re not fooling anybody. Come on, let’s go see what my new building looks like on the inside.”
The inside of the building was actually very sparse and in a lot better shape than the guard captain had expected. There were half a dozen thick marble columns spaced in a double row down the middle of the building basically trisecting it. There was also the anteroom that was half the size of the main portion of the building. Ryuji saw so much potential in this design and there was almost nothing he would need to do to the building to get it ready. He did want the door to connect to the anteroom instead of the main area but that was about it.
He thanked the guard captain and told him that he wanted to look at a few more things before he left. The captain had asked about the techniques of questioning prisoners while they were looking. He apparently thought there was some magic involved and was disappointed when he was told that it was just looking for people’s bad habits and tells the same as a gambler would. Ryuji suspected that he wasn’t a good gambler and wasn’t able to memorize all the tells and was secretly hoping that he could learn some inside trick.
Once the guard captain was gone, Ryuji unwrapped and ate a bit of the ham. He used his dagger to cut off two thick slices and then ate the rest. He was feeling overly full but decided it was still better than the alternative; no need to be turning into a werewolf in the library, after all. Now he just needed to get a look at the actual library and then go to the money changer.
Ryuji exited the old building and made his way over to the library that was practically adjoined to it. Ryuji saw that the two buildings were only separated by a meter or less as he passed, barely even a crawlspace. As such, it didn’t take him very long to reach the front entrance of the library. The library had the most artistically creative window shutters he had seen in the whole city. Each window shutter was taller than the window on top and bottom and the pair was made to look like an open book with the center cut out to frame the window. The rest of the building was the same melted rock with wood above it and since it was the nobles' district, it was topped in the corroded bronze-like metal roofing.
The front of the library was split in the center by the entrance. The entrance itself was almost as tall as the building and recessed into the face of the building with a column on each side, as much for decoration as support. Just to the side of the entrance on the left side was a booth that looked like it had to be entered from the inside of the building. The front of the booth was open with a grate in front of it where a person could reach through a bit but not far and those inside could see out and could be seen. The huge ornate double doors were carved in a relief featuring a bunch of books and was painted and plated with bits of peeling goldish metal. The setup reminded him of the front of a movie theatre. This was definitely the main entrance meant for nobility.