Having located the entrance to the library, Ryuji left for the money changers and began pulling out the small silver that he would need. He wanted to have the forty-eight small silvers that he would need to get the six large ones and a few extra just for the heck of it but these went in the other pouch with all the rest of his random currency. The library didn’t appear to be open yet anyway. The walk wasn’t long and he arrived in front of the gaudiest building in the city. The money changer’s building was painted with a huge bag of coins on the front that took up most of the front of the building.
Ryuji was relieved again that the inside didn’t match the outside. He looked and once again Shoan was busy. This time, however, Ryuji went over to one of the clerks who was trying not to be too obvious about begging him with her eyes. He sat at the desk of the attractive young elf of a rather indeterminate race. She looked almost like a sun-elf but her ears were very short and her hair was black. All the sun elves that Ryuji had seen so far were blonde with very light eyes and long ears.
Ryuji pulled the latch on his belt that was holding the already prepared amount then sat it on her desk. “I would like this in large silver, please. There is one in there for you also.” As she ran off, Ryuji was left wondering again how the clerks who worked here were usually paid. He guessed that perhaps they survived on tips but doubted that. Maybe they were paid by the city out of taxes collected?
A moment later his musings were interrupted as the young woman came back with his pouch and six large silvers. He finally figured out the obvious, this girl was a half-elf; one of her parents was a human, and the other an elf. This is perhaps what he could expect if he had children with Karen. He realized he was staring when she blushed. “Sorry, your beauty enraptured me for a moment. I hope you have a pleasant day.”
Ryuji left as the clerk in question turned a much deeper shade of crimson. He arrived back at the library without incident. The guards from before just nodded to him as he passed. When he arrived, he was gratified to discover that the booth in the front of the library was occupied. He walked up to the window without delay and was about to address the thin man on the other side when said individual interrupted him. “And what do you want? I don’t know how you got past the Town watch but I can assure you that this isn’t where you meant to go. This is the Great Library of Lyrill! It costs six ‘large Silver’ to enter this facility so unless you have that much you should be on your way.”
Ryuji was pissed and considered accosting the man with magic but he didn’t need that problem right now. Instead, he simply took out the six large silver and slammed them on the counter with such force that the twerp yelped. The man’s eyes widened as he looked at the six large silver. He then looked at Ryuji’s face and almost yelped again as the scowl registered. Suddenly his entire demeanor changed to that of a simpering toady. The guy started to bleat out some drivel and Ryuji cut him off cold with three words. “Open the doors.”
The man came around and opened the doors and was about to continue trying to fix his asinine mistake but when he saw the look he was getting, he obligingly shut his mouth. Ryuji walked past him without saying a word and immediately began perusing the library. The inside of the library was a bit sparser than Ryuji was expecting. There were shelves on every wall but only one shelf bisected the floor space of the wing to either side of the door and there were only two shelves facing him end on in the back wing. Each isle was easily four meters wide and the bookshelves weren’t even that full. The whole place looked to be only about seventy percent full even excusing the enormous lack of shelves. As if to make up for its woeful lack of reading material, each isle had numerous pedestals displaying helmets, swords, crystals, and any number of other random artifacts. There were also a good number of rather plush and comfortable chairs inset into the bookcases with some form of crystals hanging over them.
Ryuji approached the lone man walking about the library as the toady scurried back to his post at the door. The man was tall, exceptionally tall. Ryuji estimated that he had to be almost three meters tall and his arms were rather well-muscled where they came out of his floor-length white robe. Despite the muscle, he was still very thin for his height and Ryuji began to wonder if he was a human who was too tall or a small giant of some kind. This was obviously the librarian since he was pushing a cart of books and was putting them back on shelves here and there.
Ryuji was gratified to find that there was at least some kind of order to the place. He was really hoping to find a lot more information contained in a building this big but he would settle for what he could get, provided they had the info he wanted. As he got closer, the tall individual turned a bit and regarded him before turning to him fully and giving him a cross-armed salute. Ryuji began to wonder just what the significance of the salute was since not everyone used it.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
The tall guy just waited patiently for Ryuji to continue. “I‘m looking for a tome on werewolves.” The man cocked his head to the side and got a puzzled look on his face. Ryuji was afraid that he was going to be told that there wasn’t one or that he had no idea what he was talking about. Ryuji figured out why he was looking that way a moment later when the man reached down and lifted the book right on the top of the stack in front of him on the cart and turned back to hand it to Ryuji.
Ryuji wasn’t sure about returning the salute and settled for a verbal thanks. He then retreated to one of the recessed chairs and looked it over. The whole area was rather dim and none of the chairs were close to a window. Ryuji sat in one of the chairs and looked up at the crystal hanging above his head and noticed that there was a spell circle etched into the metal plate the crystal was hanging from. Right in the center of it, where the chain was hanging down, was the glyph for light. Understanding was instant and he reached up and channeled mana into the crystal which lit up in a bright yellowish light.
The book was a thick tome that barely fit in his hand. It was old and had a brown leather cover. The pages were yellowed and the edges of them were rough cut. The layout of the contents was pretty standard for this world though. He was, therefore, able to flip pretty much right to the information he wanted. The informational portion of the tome was after the author’s litany about his, amend that, her virtues as a scholar, and the introduction to the subject matter of the book. The second could be seen as a summary of the book acting as a table of contents of sorts. Then the informative portion was next, this was where the dry information was presented. Later would be the narrative which is where any story elements would be and would be followed by the summation, basically the author’s take on everything.
The way these people wrote books made a bit more sense when you remembered that a lot of books were transcribed from other languages and by different races or even from different cultures entirely. The books must look fairly odd to some of the other cultures too now that he thought about it. And when you consider that a lot of the people who transcribe books don’t have a book on hand to translate all the time, the author’s introduction was their way of drumming up business for future projects.
He quickly read through the fact portion and found out all the most relevant facts very quickly. First, werewolves could only transmit the disease if they were in their final two forms, and then it was by claws as a bite was almost always fatal. Second, werewolves had four forms. The first form was their original form. The second was a half-form that looked much like a wolf beastfolk but usually very feral and a little on the large side. He had already gotten experience with that one so nothing new there. What was new was that the original form could even be a wolf beastfolk and they would be able to be distinguished from their original form.
The other two forms couldn’t be taken until after the first full moon and it didn’t matter if the person was clawed a day or a lunar cycle before the full moon. The third form was full werewolf form and would stand on average half again as tall as the base species. Ooh, he was going to be as big as the giant librarian? The last form was a full wolf form but was almost as large as a dire-wolf in stature and was thought to be the progenitor species of the disease. The final form could neither pass for a normal wolf due to its size nor as a dire-wolf owing to its lack of bony protrusions. Neat, bonus info on dire-wolves there!
The next section left Ryuji feeling a sudden chill as he read it. A werewolf was incomplete till their first full moon and thus couldn’t control their shape-changing. The person in question would slowly lose control of their form until the day before the full moon. On that day, the person would transform into their third form and become wild, reckless, angry, and violent. In this state, a person would attack those around them indiscriminately and would often commit murders and atrocities that caused them to be hunted down and killed.
How much time did he have left? He had no idea how much time there was until the next full moon. As far as he could tell, the people of the kingdom had no notion of months, only seasons and eightday weeks. He went looking for the librarian and asked about the lunar cycle, ‘crap, Japanese, time to try a different wording’. When he asked how long until the next full moon the man thought for a second and then replied in a deep resonant base. The reply made Ryuji’s blood run cold “in six more days”. He only had five more days till he would become a ravenous beast?
Ryuji’s mind was left reeling and he stumbled out the doors. The annoying man in the booth was saying something about having to pay every time you enter but he ignored him. Ryuji went stumbling along the wall of the library, his mind a mess of confusion and doubt. Then he hit upon a horrifying thought, what if he hurt Karen or worse. The imagining of that was enough to send his overfull stomach over the edge and he barely stumbled into the tiny alleyway between the library and his building before he began to empty the contents, violently!