Alexander woke up to total darkness. He sighed as he pushed the covers off of himself and reached weakly to the right of his mattress, with his hand near instantly finding purchase against a glass bottle. He placed his thumb over the neck of the bottle and focused as much as he could as he pushed mana into the bottle through his thumb. The mana gathered in the bottle and began to shine a light blue light throughout the room. He kept channeling until he felt a distinct pressure pressing against his thumb, signaling that the liquid inside couldn't hold anymore mana. Alex finally opened his eyes to observe the room he was in as he leaned up from his laying position. It was the same bland room he's woken up to for the last seven days, with nothing but some scattered papers covering a trapdoor in the corner of the room and the glowing triangular flask to his right.
"Yep, ugh, I will never know why they decided to not put a window in the loft. How does one even see what's up here without lighting a candle?" Alex rose from the mattress he slept on, quickly hitting his head on a support beam going horizontally across the room. "AH! son of a- am I bound to hit my head on that beam every fuckin' morning? Fuck, what time even is it?" Alex walked to the trapdoor across the room, carefully making sure that he didn't slam his head against another beam. Climbing down the folding ladder, he found himself in the half set up workshop that he would be working in from now on. He looked to the roof to make sure each of the magic-lights he hung around were still working and not leaking mana. He then passed by the large wooden desk pressed against the wall to his right, making a mental note to properly move all the tools and equipment that littered across it later on in the day. Opening the door to the shop in the front he could easily tell that it was sometime in the morning as a pleasant orange light shown in from the two store front windows. He had removed the curtains that he put up during the little excursion that happened yesterday after everything died down, allowing the full morning light to wash in from the street out front.
Alexander quickly looked over everything, from the shelves to the floorboards, for anything he needed to clean or fix. Everything was, shockingly, in place and perfectly fine. Aside from the boards nailed to the interior doorframe to cover the cracked and splintered mess, everything was in place and ready to start the day. Alex opened the door of his shop and removed the closed sign from the door and replaced it with new sign.
"Alexander's Utility and Specialized Arcane Equipment Shop"
"We take commissions!"
Alex closed the door and walked behind the counter, placing a smaller paper sign on the counter top.
"If no one is present at this counter, please ring the bell located to the right of this sign. If you are (for some reason) in a hurry, please ring the bell three times. I will try to be with you as fast as I can. Thank you for your patience, and if you think you can easily steal from the shelves; you are very, VERY fucking wrong."
Alex sighed as he gave one last look over the shop, then retreated into his workshop. Alex spent a good hour on organizing the tools tossed about his desk, with another hour wasted by assorting various journals and books he keeps around to write his findings in. With everything in place, Alex went to setting up a miniature Arcane Forge against the wall opposite of his desk. Long story short, most of the cool and interesting facets of magic are locked behind a small amount of chemistry and the abuse of some of the fundamental states of matter. An Arcane Forge is just a regular forge, as suggested in the name, but due to it having a magic flame instead of a regular one it can do some interesting things. Ever wanted a liquid to stay a liquid for as long as you want? Now you can! An Arcane Forge is also needed to make all the lights hanging about his workshop, like that liquid in the bottle that stored his channeled mana by his bed side.
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Alexander has also not passed up the commercial potential of such a thing either. He has a few vials of that special liquid under his counter to sell to people who wish to save on constantly needing to have a torch on your person at night. Not that anyone has actually bought one before thought, but one of these days someone will eventually realize how neat and useful something like that would be! It's not like the light goes out either, if you just seal the top of the bottle with a cork then the mana inside just stays in there and constantly produces light. If Alex was a competent salesperson then he would have sold tons of them, but this is sadly not the case.
As Alex finished inserting the metal disk with a basic flame sigil into the underside of the forge, the bell at the counter of his shop sounded off. Alex was caught off guard, usually no one shows up for the first few days, so this was a genuine shock to him. After collecting himself mentality, he walked over to the door to the front of his shop and stood halfway through the doorway. A cloaked figure was standing near motionless in front of his counter, but Alex could care less about how sketchy the person looked. He walked behind the counter with a smile on his face and greeted the person heartily.
"Hello! Welcome to my store, are you perhaps looking for some specialized equipment?" The figure seemed to sway in place, with the hooded head of the person looking Alex up and down. After a short silence, the figure responded.
"You classify yourself as an artificer, do you not?" A masculine voice spoke from the shroud of the hood.
"Well, of course. How else would I be able so sell such specialized magical equipment?" He gestured to the artifacts collecting dust on the shelves. "These things are only for show, between you and me. I wouldn't dare risk any actual equipment being able to be stolen so easily." The figured seemed to nod in agreement. A gloved hand slowly came forth from under the cloak and rested on the counter top.
"Let's get to the point of why I showed up, then. I wish to make a deal with you, Alexander." Alex gave the figure a sideways glance. Out of a mixture of confusion and intrigue, Alex leaned onto the counter and signed for the figure to continue.
"If you haven't noticed yet, there are very few magically aligned folk in this city, whether it be a weapon enchanter or a spell caster. There aren't many openly magic based shops here. The group of people I represent are one of the reasons why this is." Another gloved hand revealed itself from under the cloak, bringing a sealed note with it. "I represent the entirety of the magically inclined folk of this city, and I want you to join us. Even before you officially opened this store front, you peaked the interest of multiple members of our society." Alex gave a sigh as he remembered the day before. "The amount of information you spoke of in that argument was overheard and transcribed by one of our members. Almost everything you spoke was something we are debating hotly about, yet you seem to have some mighty knowledge on such vague subjects. There is a multitude of other reasons for us approaching you, but your innate knowledge of mana is truly what we seek."
Alex was experiencing a multitude of emotions, and he was nearly tempted to just flat-out agree to join right then and there. A society dedicated to answering some of the most intriguing questions mana provides is short from heaven for him. Imagine the debates! So much information... it's truly the most tantalizing offer Alexander has ever been given! The better of Alex came through, though, and he cleared his mind. He straightened his back and cleared his throat. He can't just join random shady groups of people without asking basic questions, Including the most important...
"What's in it for me?"
"Funding for all research you do as well as free resources to do experiments with, along with multiple benefits and pay for any impressive feats you accomplish regarding the exploitation of mana."
"Where do I sign up?"