Chapter 31: Hitting the books

Alex made his way up the stairs with as soft footsteps as he could muster, finding the bookshelf the librarian had been talking about rather quickly.

The worn and beaten old bookshelf was filled with books about geo-politics, the internal politics of countries, and some other miscellaneous political topics.

As Alex began to move to the corner of the bookshelf, thinking of reading a particularly heavy book that caught his eye, something made him stop.

It was as if hundreds of voices where calling out to him in hushed whispers. Intrigued, Alex turned around and quickly located the source of the strange feeling.

...

The soft flicking of pages filled the baren library, Alex sat alone at a table, practically buried in books.

He had only just begun, but it was a small habit of his to bring as many materials as he could before he began to study. As such, he had nearly half the library piled upon the poor desk.

A mad glint shone in Alex's only uncovered eye as he began to dive right into the massive pile of books.

Alex quickly picked up the first book he wanted to read, a rather large book titled 'forsaken cities: a study on bound cities', the very thing that gave him that strange feeling earlier.

A quick introduction gave Alex a good understanding of the cities situation.

"The term bound city, is one many have heard, and many use, but one that not many truly understand, so for clarity's sake, I shall explain what the term means.

A bound city, is a settlement, that for whatever reason, has entered a contract with one or more holy being.

while many more zealous people may see this as a blessing, it is closer to a curse.

To truly understand bound cities and their nature, you must first understand the ones who make bound cities in the first place, holy beings.

Holy beings themselves vary greatly, from 'the god that leads all to their second journey' that barely interacts with his followers due to their high workload, or 'the goddess that dances across the stars' who practically makes all of her followers prophets, each holy being lead vastly lives.

Due to the fact that many holy beings hold dominion over aspects of our world that require very little personal attention, they tend to live most of their existence in a state of complete apathy.

When making a contract with a holy being, two main factors must be noted, the first being the importance of the holy beings dominion, and the nature of it.

A holy being with a naturally malicious domain, such as war, will be more likely to put malicious clauses in their contracts to further the relevance of their dominion. In some extreme circumstances though, when a holy being with a highly important dominion, such as death, may actively try to reduce the reduce the relevance, as holy beings, while gaining more power with the increase in relevance of their dominion, also comes with an increase in responsibilities, meaning some of the more lazy gods will actively dissuade their dominion from expanding in relevance.

The other important factor is to look at the relevance of the holy being's dominion, as, the less relevant their dominion, the more likely they are to create a bound city, simply for their own entertainment.

Entertainment for holy beings vary greatly, but one thing usually stays the same, they do not care about the mortals that are on the receiving end of their unending apathy"

After a reading through the rest of the introduction, which was mostly just what had already been said but stretched into an essay, Alex prepared to put the book down, not really knowing why he felt such a strange attraction to the book, when the feeling hit him again.

following the weird feeling, Alex flicked to a random page seemingly by chance.

"Chapter 105

Latdon

Latdon, the city of waste, the revolutionists paradise, and the border city is a text book example of a bound city.

It is not common knowledge which holy being latdon entered a contract with, or what the exacts conditions are, but we can make educated guesses.

Firstly, every five years, there must be a revolution of some kind, one that must change the power structure of the city, secondly, though this one is entirely speculation, it seems that the revolution must succeed. These are the two most likely clauses in the contract, as for the rest, they are merely up to speculation.

This means that many of the citizens wealth is on a time limit, and will be stripped from them when the next revolution rolls around, as such, compulsive spending is a common trait in all inhabitants.

who can blame them, their life style is on a constant timer, no occupant has ever kept their wealth for more than ten years. For some reason, mostly likely due to the contract, no one that has ever amassed a fortune has left the city.

As for the economy in the city..."

Alex continued to read, not really noticing when the librarian placed a burning candle on the table he sat at, as the lateness of the hour called for it.

Only when he could no longer stand the growing pangs of hunger, shooting off all throughout his stomach, did he finally leave.

But before he left, a small, innocent little notification popped up in his field of view

[Did you like my gift?]

...

He wandered through the moonlight city, taking in the drastic change from the streets paved with gold, to the squalor of the outer city.

Along the way, he found a small stall selling meat skewers, the smell of barbequed meat enticing him like an old cartoon character being led along by the whiff of a cooling pie.

After a short negotiation, he managed to get a dozen skewers at a good price.

The town at night was a depressing sight, all those who had the strength too had already left to find shelter, those that remained either could not, or would not leave the street corner.

A small child, no older than ten sat on a street corner, matted fur covering its entire body, a feeble tail lying limply by it side, ears drooping forlornly on its head, bones the seemed to be trying to escape their fleshy prison pressed themselves tightly to its skin, and eyes looked blankly at the street corner, staring intently at nothing in particular.

Alex looked at one of the skewers in his hand, one couldn't hurt, right, it would keep the kid going for a while at least.

As he began to step forward, another boy stepped in front of him, holding up a small puppy in much the same state as the boy sitting on the road.

"Why did you bring such a dirty thing into our house?" A booming voice resounded in Alex's head.

The little boy only hung his head, looking at his shoes, cradling the dying animal in his hands.

"Will you take responsibility for it, will you feed it? Clean it? Train it? Because I won't"

"I will" the young child said excitedly, thinking this was his chance to save the dying creature.

"Then will you take care of all the animals you come across on the side of a road? Will you take responsibility for every single unfortunate life you find? Put it back where you found it, or I will"

Alex turned away, only sparing the child a quick look of pity, it was a game after all, why should he care.

The rest of the walk was a tedious trip, the confusing layout of the city, and the evident distain for the concept of signs did not help either.

Alex found the trade centre after what felt like ages, his eyes becoming bleary from tiredness, he half felt like just heading back to the inn and flopping into bed, but he was already here, and he didn't particularly want to waste the trip.

The hustle and bustle of the trade centre from when he had first been here had disappeared, he no longer had to squeeze his way through bustling crowds, but instead walk undisturbed through the large gates.

Alex started to make his way to the terminal, but noticed a clerk sitting behind one of the desks, beckoning him to come to her counter.

As there where only three other customers in the shop, none of which where using the clerk's desk, so Alex saw no reason not to go over.

"Thank you for stopping by the trade centre" The clerk greeted him in a bubbly tone, "how can I help you today"

The woman was about average height, flowing golden hair, a friendly smile, light blue eyes, and would be what many would consider drop dead gorgeous.

Now that Alex looked around, most of the clerks where abnormally good lookers, as if each of them had been hand crafted to be as conventionally attractive as possible.

"I have some things to sell" Alex began to explain.

"But there not anything special", he corrected himself, feeling slightly guilty at the expectant look the clerk was giving him.

"Oh, that doesn't matter" the clerk assured him, "We don't get many customers at this time of day so I'm just glad to have something to do"

The clerk busied herself with the few bit of equipment he had gained from the newbies, and a few random plants he had found in the forest.

"With the few pieces of gear, five herbs with minor healing effects, and ten poisonous herbs, that will be, hmmmmm, how does one hundred silver sound, we would give you more, but the gear is not in the best shape, and there is not much demand for low potency poisons right now"

"Sure", Alex had no idea whether he was being scammed or not, but as he had no idea of the current market.

As Alex picked up the stack of silver coins, feeling them jingle satisfyingly in his hand, a thought passed through his head.

"Hey," he whispered to the clerk in a secretive voice, leaning in closely much to the intrigue of the clerk, "is there a privacy policy on asking questions?"

"I do not know what you mean" The clerk responded with a sweet smile.

"You know, will the fact I asked a certain question get leaked?"

"Oh, I see," The clerk replied with a small chuckle, "yes, there is indeed a policy of complete anonymity, but I doubt there would be any questions that would warrant such a response"

"Well, how much would an ego weapon go for?"

The clerk gave him a strange look for a minute, "A broke bit- I mean a valued customer with financial issues like you could not hope to afford one, I would suggest you look for a cheaper alternative"

"No, I mean if I was to sell one"

The clerk blinked slightly, as if not taking in the what Alex had said, but soon, the glazed look in her eyes where replaced by a capitalist gleam.

"Dear customer," she said in a honeyed voice, "such an item is not a good thing for you to keep, I am afraid at your level, such an item will only bring you potential danger, not something you would want to deal with, don't worry, the trade centre will take this burden off of you for an extremely reasonable price, free of charge"

"I'm good" Alex replied, he never did much care for business types, "but say, what kind of services do you run for promotion of other stores"

The store clerks smile did not change one bit, as if frozen in place, "Blatantly promoting competition is not something our store can offer, but maybe we can cut a special deal if your store is a niche store, but we do not support general store competitors"

"Don't worry" Alex said reassuringly, "my store is most certainly niche"

"So tell me, what are you selling?" The clerk asked, "I'm assuming weapons, but I'm guessing there's a catch"

"Ego weapons" Alex replied confidently.

"Can you grantee a steady supply?" the clerk ask, unperturbed by Alex's claim.

"Yes"

"Come back here tomorrow, preferably when there is not a crowd, but if you can't use this, I will require it back though"

Alex caught the small barouche that the clerk had thrown him, quickly placing it in his inventory.

"I will try to set up a meeting with my superior, this deal is not one to discus at such a time, we will expect full cooperation in this negotiation when it comes to the truth, while you don't have to give away all your secrets, it would be nice to at least have an idea of what materials you need, and for your own sake, keep it a secret"

"Thank you miss?"

"MIII"