Freeport has a vast guild hall near the center of the lower half of the city, with the higher half being reserved for the rich and the like. The guild hall has several vast rooms that people, usually organizations of some form, can rent out for extended periods of time. From what Alexander was told, the largest room is rented out every so often and the whole society shows up to discuss various things. Alexander was told this a day before one of these events was to take place, so after the cult guy left he immediately began to prepare a satchel bag for the excursion. Alex had high hopes for the society, even if they don't know fuck all about magic.
The satchel held an old journal from when Alexander was first beginning to properly understand how mana worked at a base level and its basic uses outside of magical spells. He had also stuffed some spare notes and pieces of paper into the satchel, each covered in writing about something or another about the basics of mana. Alex could never find it in himself to throw away old work, even if it was out of date or plainly useless, so finding things to take with him was exceedingly easy. By the time he looked over what he had shoved into the satchel, he realized that it was nearly bursting at the seams with paper. Alex personally wished to take more with him, so he did the most realistic thing in this situation.
Alex pulled out his heavy backpack which he used for hauling resources to his shop and filled it with journals, notes, and just about every piece of paper laying around his workshop. By the time he was finished he had a satchel bag and backpack full of just about everything a person would need if they wished to learn about mana and its uses. To top everything off, his leather coat has an internal pocket that's big enough to hold a tiny notepad and pencil. He was set for the next day, and happily awaited the time in which he would be able to exhaust his archive of information.
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"IF, what you say about this man is right," A elegantly dressed man sat in an even more elegant chair on the opposite side of a finely engraved table, a silver mask similar in design to that of the one Alex had seen earlier blocking his most of his face. "I have heard so much about this man that I might as well write a damn biography about him, and now I have you coming here to inform me that he has an archive of books just sitting in his workshop?" An not-so-elegantly dressed man standing opposite of where the man was sitting had muttered something under his breath before removing a hood from his head, revealing not a mask but a half-burnt face of a man with striking red hair.
"While that twink fumbled about, I had snuck through a window and into the loft where Alexander apparently sleeps." He picked at a scab on the back of his neck, remembering being inside that place. "The amount of god damn traps in that place was enough to make even the most well trained imperial spy want to die, but luckily I learned how to dispel most magical traps from my time in exploring old ruins and such..."
"I don't want your life story, I want information." The masked man spat out with annoyance.
"Well, after escaping that hell-hole I managed to get into what was apparently a workshop where piles of nondescript books and journals were thrown about with seemingly little care," A mad grin split across the mans face. "But I found this." He tapped a very innocent looking book that was laid onto the table before sliding it over to the other side. "The only reason why I know it was important was because it was partially opened already, laying just under a table pressed against the wall. It seemed to have fallen, so I picked it up and took a gander at what was inside. I thought you would really enjoy the book, so open it up and take a peek, see if you like it."
The masked man looked silently between the hired thief and the book, slowly opening it to a bookmarked page. He studied the pages for a few seconds in either shock or confused silence, then quickly flipped about the pages as an air of disbelief curled around him.
"These... these are, what are these? Blueprints? And this next page is talking about some mathematical equations for... weighing mana?" He turned to a page with an incredibly detailed drawing of what appeared to be a gyroscope with some form of crystal in the center. "Power... conjuration... the fuck? Mana crystals? What would any of this have to do with jewelry?!" He prodded at the necklace he was wearing with a shining crystal imbedded in it. He closely looked at the shining crystal as it seemed to glow a faint lavender in the palm of his hand. "what does he know that I don't?"
"Well," the thug brushed his red hair out of his face and stood victoriously straight up with a smile that only a thief could have emblazed across his face. "That there book seems to have caught your fancy, and with all of the hassle I had to go through to get it-" He was cut off by the loud closing of the book, with a dense clap sounding out through the room.
"Your pay is in the chair by the door, take it and leave. Your boots are dragging dirt all over the place..." The masked spoke as he stood up and approached a window behind the chair he was just sitting in. The thief scoffed as he turned away to leave, taking with him the sizable sack of coin sat on the stool next to the door. The masked man looked out the window, towards the setting sun.
"Tomorrow is going to be a good day, a damn good day at that."
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A mixture of yelling and threats rang throughout the rented guild room. Alexander had just settled into a stool in a corner and began looking over some of the papers in his satchel bag. The room wasn't filled to the brim with people, just around sixty or so with the occasional straggler showing up. The room was made up of rows of chairs with some spare stools resting in one corner of the room, to the left of a small stage which most of the people were busy arguing at. The arguments were over a multitude of different subjects, some were talking about how runes 'truly' worked, whatever that means, while others were about spells and the like. A trend Alexander had noticed was that none of them really talked about how they were using mana. When one person says they get one effect when they cast a spell or sorcery, another would say something different.
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The folks that are talking about runes seem to be the more intelligent of the bunch, whether it be by accident or otherwise. They are currently comparing rune designs in their section of the room, some of which have actually brought real runes and journals to back up statements they make. Alexander, on the other hand, was busy going over some documentation on mana's effect on casted spells to refresh himself with matter before seeing if he could help calm the ongoing debate. As he placed his backpack down and pulled out a journal with the number five inked on the front, he noticed a small group of people looking at him. He tried to pay them no mind as he flipped through the book to see if he had grabbed the one he wanted, but noticed one of them begin to walk over to him.
Alex had noticed them walking over in his peripheral vision but still tried to not look directly at them. With all of these people wearing masks he knew that one of them would probably be inquisitive and wonder what this one random mask-less guy is doing here. This one person wasn't saying anything though, just standing and staring as Alex knelt onto the ground and went through his backpack after laying the previous book onto the still bloated satchel. As Alex opened up another book, this one with an inked seven on its cover, he decided to speak to the random staring beside him.
"So," Alex spoke without looking away from the pages of the book in his hands "Are you just going to look at me or are you going to ask me something?" The masked person seemed surprised, looking back towards the group they originated from before answering.
"Um, uh..." A confused light female voice tried "You seem new, could I perchance have your name?"
"Alexander Damascus, you can call me Alexander if you so wish." Alex closed the book and tucked it under his arm, picking up the book with the five inked on it and stuffing it into his backpack before finally standing up and looking at the person he was talking too. They wore a pleasant lavender dress with the same mask the rest of them wore, only difference was it was decorated with a small yellow flower.
"Well met, Alexander. And if I can ask, why have you chose to forsake the wearing of the mask? Do you not fret over the eyes of these people judging you?"
"To be honest..." Alex looked over to the massed group of people still discussing by the small stage. "I could care less about what these people say. None to very few of them seem any competent in what their doing, so I'm not going to be frightened if one of them asks me a dumb question."
The lady looked over to the group she came from and back to Alexander. "Would you mind if my friends came over here? They've been full of questions and are relatively new to this whole society, where you seem competent enough to help answer some of their questions."
Alexander looked over towards the group she was mentioning. It was two people, one of which was a kobold and the other was using an easily noticed spell to cover something on their head. "You have quite the friend group there. Sure, I'll try to be of assistance."
"Thank you, I was starting to worry if I was going to have to explain the more complicated side of magic by myself." She gestured towards her friends and they shortly walked over. After a quick hello, Alex looked at the person with the spell lingering on top of them.
"Before I answer any questions you folk might have, can I quickly ask why you are using a 'hidden' spell on you head?" The lady and kobold exchanged looks before looking at the person in question. He shyly muttered something under his breath and looked at the ground. "I mean, it's fine if you don't answer, I just wanted to know is all."
"I-I... um," He stuttered for a bit, before sighing and dispelling the spell from his head. Two small, pointy fox ears fazed into existence on his head as he stared at the ground. The group seemed surprised at this revealing, with the kobold letting out a small gasp.
"your... oh damn, what was the name of it again? Fuck, now I feel bad for not remembering the name of that race." Alex scratched his chin as he looked carefully at the poor mans ears. "Well, that explains why your quite small anyway. In hindsight, I could have guess that you were..." Alexander snapped his fingers together and let a small victorious smile cross his face before whispering "vulpine-kin."
The man seemed ashamed of himself, not saying anything and just looking sadly at the ground in front of himself with his arms crossed. His friend group, however, seemed to be shocked that both Alexander noticed the spell and the fact that their friend wasn't actually a human like they appeared to be.
"Well now," Alex spoke "With my question answered, you guys are free to ask me any questions about something or another. So who wants to be the first person to ask?" Each of them look at Alex, seemingly in shock.
"Y-your, not..." The man cleared his throat. "Your not, um, shocked? Confused?"
"What? Why would I?" Alexander asked innocently. "What, do you think I'm going to judge you because you have better looking ears then me? If anything, I'm more jealous then anything else."
"...you think my ears... look... cool? Most people look at me funny, or say something stupid about them when I show them..."
"Do I look like most people?" Alexander answered with a smug grin on his face. "God, I always wanted to say that... uh, can we just ignore the ear thing for a minute? Your friend wanted me to help you people by answering some questions, so what is it that you wanted to know?"
"Uhhh..." The kobold of the group scratched the back of her neck, then turned to their vulpine-kin friend, "You know you could have told us this sooner, you know?"
"Well, it's... just..." He couldn't find any good standing in his sentence, just muttering. Alexander, however, spoke up in the pause in his sentence.
"Hard to talk about? Hard to find trust worthy people to share this information with? All of the above?"
"...All of the above?"
"You remind me of a friend I once had," Alex smiled and placed a hand on the mans shoulder. "She was also a vulpine-kin, except she wore a heavy suit of plate-mail over herself so no-one would know she was one. She had a nasty habit of knocking the teeth out of the people who said bad things about it to her face. Rest assured, I know by proxy how annoying it is to hide your ears, be lucky you don't have a tail to hide because those unlucky fuckers have to deal with that shit all. damn. day."
"I have a tail, actually." He raised his face to meet Alexanders now shocked face. Alex blinked a few times before lifting his hand off of his shoulder and rubbing his chin with said hand.
"Just... forget that last bit then. Point being, your in good hands with these two, they seem like good people." Alex pondered a thought for a second. "I don't think I've gotten any of your names now that I think of it, I've shared mine so I don't see why you cant share yours."
The lady with the flower on her mask spoke up "Oh, yes, well my names Melody. I believe this mans name is Bellamy, and her name is... uh."
"Skarrie, SKA-RE, it's not that hard to remember, Melody." Skarrie crossed her arms and glared at Melody, who seemed to take offence to Skarrie's remark.
"Well, I'm forgetful! you know that!"
"You guys seem to be great friends. But lets get back on track, shall we?" Alexander untucked the book from under his arm and opened it to a bookmarked page "What questions about magic and mana do you have?"