That was the first time a customer didn't want anything, John thought. He supposed there was the stronger human who challenged him, but was he really a customer? It wasn't that important, he didn't think. Not everybody who goes into a store is going to buy something.

He shifted his thoughts to his store, his progress was coming along pretty nicely. He had some nice bookshelves, a well-lit environment, he thought. Nobody had complained about the lighting, at least. Some nice windows, and even a new door he didn't expect. The only thing left, he thought, was fixing the base material that made up his building.

Something cleaner than the cobblestone that it was built out of now. His thoughts wandered to the white stone that some of the buildings in the richer district were made of. He liked that, and he wanted to change his building to that. The translucent crystal also spoke to him, but he wanted the contrast with his new windows.

And so, he set out down the road once more, locking his door behind him. The whispers and glances didn't bother him as much this time, as he appreciated the speech for what it was. Sure, they weren't being all that nice, but they were doing so with something John struggled with even now.

His walk took him through the bustling streets, to a different district now. Still closer to the center than John's bookstore was, but not quite in the same affluent district he bought his furniture from. This was more of a commercial district, buildings dedicated to the crafts flanking him as he walked down.

A couple of magician's guilds, each one dedicated to a different branch of magic. In a woodworking guild, some students were watching a master carve something out of a tree stump. A chair, perhaps? The shape wasn't quite there yet but John had no doubt it would form in time if he watched.

And finally, a building dedicated to construction, with far more finesse put into each piece that made up the building. It stood out from the rest with engravings and inspired a certain stability that other buildings didn't seem to have. This was the one, John thought.

He walked into the building, greeted by an older man sitting behind a desk near the entrance.

"Hello," the man said, looking at John with a quizzical expression, "what can we do for you today?"

"I would like to change the material of my buildin'."

"Change the material of your building? Like the whole thing?"

John nodded his head.

"Uhh, okay. We can tear down your current building and then rebuild it out of a different material if you like?"

John shook his head. He didn't want the building to be rebuilt, he only wanted the material to be swapped with something else.

"So you want the building to just be changed to another material, without it ever actually being taken down entirely?"

John nodded his head. That was exactly what he was after, a new material but with no disruption to his business. The loss of an interesting story was a price too great to pay just for some aesthetics. Some pointless gold would be much preferable, however much it would cost.

"That is going to be incredibly expensive, you know? I mean, even disregarding the cost of materials which you will have to cover as well. Just the labour alone for something like that."

John nodded his head again.

"Right. And you want it switched to which material, sorry?"

John pushed the memory of the white buildings he saw near the furniture store to the man.

"Sovereign marble? Are you sure?"

John nodded his head.

"Wow. Okay, this is well beyond my pay grade I'm afraid. My boss will have to handle this herself, but she's out on another job at the moment. I can send her down to your shop in a few days when she has time to go over the specifics if that's okay with you?"

That worked fine for John, and he nodded his head before leaving. He enjoyed his walk back to his store, looking into all the other stores he passed on his way. And he noticed something as he did.

The other stores largely didn't have plain flat walls. They had decorations, shelves, sconces, paintings, and other things hanging off of them, breaking up the monotonous view. Something to keep in mind, he thought. Maybe he would get some hanging shelves or paintings once his building was remodeled.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

His walk back to the bookstore was uneventful, no merchants were pestering him to sell their goods, no fights breaking out, no carriages racing down the street. But it was peaceful, and he enjoyed it nonetheless.

A customer was pacing back and forth outside his door, muttering something to himself. They nearly jumped when they noticed John approaching.

"Hello," John said.

"Oh hi. Are you the owner of this bookstore? Is it really books for stories?" The man asked, racing through his questions.

"Yes." John unlocked the door and led the customer inside.

"Great. I need a book on ghouls, please." His foot tapping on the floor.

John waved his hand, filling the bookshelf with everything he had on ghouls. He watched as the man rushed up to it, his eyes darting from book to book before he grabbed one and brought it to John's desk.

John walked to his desk, the tapping of the man's foot beginning to grate on his senses.

"This one, please. One story. Uhh, keep it a secret but I found this really intricate chest in a dungeon I was exploring. But it's guarded by a ghoul so I couldn't get to it. Just the chest alone would make me live a life of unlimited wealth let alone whatever must be inside it. I knew exploring random dungeons would pay off someday but I really gotta go and figure out how to get past this damn thing. And I swear to god if you tell anybody about this I will find you and I will kill you." The man grabbed the book and ran off down the street.

Out of curiosity, John extended his awareness a ways outside the city, looking for a dungeon nearby. There were a few, and he looked through them all, searching for a room like the man described. One did fit the description, a small stone room deep underground. An ornate golden chest sat in the back, with a ghoul standing dead still in front of it. Not quite a ghoul, John realized. A mutant of some kind, it seemed.

Well, perhaps the book would help the man, or perhaps he would be greedy and overextend, losing his life in the process. It wasn't John's problem, though. Funny, he realized. This was a customer as well, about to face certain death and he wasn't bothered at all. He wondered why the vampire girl being in danger bothered him. He couldn't understand it, he valued both of them the same, and yet somehow the girl had this strange pull to her.

He pushed the thought aside, focusing on the chest that pushed the man to such lengths. A mimic, he realized. Perhaps that's why the ghoul had mutated, the two monsters growing together. The mimic lured adventurers in to fight the ghoul, thinking the chest must be real as mimics were almost never seen around other creatures. And then when their guard was down, the mimic would leap in to finish them off.

A fairly strong strategy, he thought. Until they bit off more than they could chew, the distraction wouldn't work if a particularly careless mage threw a large area of effect spell into the room hitting both of them. It seemed they'd at least claim one more victim though, if the man didn't realize that something seemed off.

It was pleasing, he found, to view the dungeon and think about how its denizens would handle the invaders. Not something he wanted to spend all of his time on, but something he had never done before and found enjoyable.

Another customer entered his store. A larger elven woman, her dark skin contrasting her short blonde hair. Her ears pointing up through her hair.

"Hello," she said as she wandered over to the bookshelves. John nodded at her.

She browsed through the books for a while before she came up to John's desk.

"Not really sure what I'm looking for. Got anything you think might be interesting?" She asked.

John hadn't thought about it before, most of the books he had he never read, and the few he had weren't particularly interesting to him.

"Interestin'?" John asked the elf.

"Yeah, you know. Adventurer, mystery, horror? Something that keeps you on the edge of your seat? Excitement, I guess."

John waved his hand, filling the bookshelf near him with what might be considered exciting.

The woman browsed through the bookshelf, placing some of the books next to her as she did. She let out a groan after a while and picked one of them up, bringing it to John's desk.

"This one, I guess. I dunno man, it all seems so boring but oh well." The book was about a younger man in school, trapped in time, destined to save the world from some ancient horror.

"I was walking down the street one day, reading a book and not paying attention. When this elven man just runs into me, knocking us both down. His hat falls off and reveals his ears and he seems to panic, looked like his entire world ended. I've never seen a man exude such despair before. So I leaned in close and showed him my ears too and he almost died laughing at it. Couldn't shut up about how unlikely two elves running into each other like that was.

"It always kinda stuck with me though. He had a point, y'know? Not something that happens every day. Never saw him again after that though, so maybe he ditched town anyway. Wouldn't blame him, people weren't as nice back then as they are now. Still aren't, get plenty of stares walking down the street but I'm sure you can relate to that. I'd like to see him again someday though. Maybe we'll run into each other again in the street." She smiled.

"Anyway, thanks for the book. Have a nice day." She took the book and headed out the door.

How interesting, John thought. He had met another elf who had an identical story but from the other perspective. Perhaps they had met before, and John had somehow met both of them as customers, sharing the same story. However unlikely it was to have two elves run into each other like that, John thought it was even less likely that both would come to this bookstore and share the same story with him, years apart.

Was that irony, he wondered? He never really understood what made something ironic. What separated irony from a funny coincidence? Perhaps one day he would learn properly, but it never seemed to be used consistently anyway. He wondered about what that meant for the word. Meanings changed with time, how long would it take for the meaning of irony to shift to something else? And would that scale matter to John?

He supposed it didn't matter. It was just a word. Whether their story was ironic or coincidental or some other term didn't matter. John found it interesting, and that's all that mattered to him.