Fight. Level. Survive.

Chapter 14 - Ee-lec-tis-ity

As the bell tinkled softly above the door, the first thing that struck Mason was the cosy atmosphere of the shop. The air was thick with the scent of old books and wood polish, and the walls were lined from floor to ceiling with shelves, all groaning under the weight of their contents.

Despite the narrowness of the shop, there was a sense of spaciousness, as if the walls were somehow expanding to accommodate the vast array of books within.

The shelves were a patchwork of sizes and styles, some made of dark mahogany, others of lighter woods, each bearing its unique story of wear and tear. The books ranged from more modern-looking paperbacks to rare leather-bound tomes, some with their spines cracked and worn from years of use, while others appeared to have never been touched.

A ladder leaned against one wall, ready to be wheeled around as needed to reach the higher shelves. In the corner of the shop, an old man sat in an armchair. “Feel free to look around, do let me know if there is anything you can’t find.”

Mason was in his element. He had always felt most at home in bookshops and libraries, anywhere with books, really.

He picked up a random book and held it to his chest.

Mayry, who was staring at this unfold, commented, “You know you have a perfectly good Inn room if you two need some privacy.”

Not seeming to hear her, Mason started running from shelf to shelf, picking out interesting titles and adding them to a pile.

Mayry picked up a random book and started flicking through it.

After a good half hour, Mayry approached Mason putting a hand on his shoulder, pointing at the towers of books Mason had created, saying, “That’s probably enough for now.”

Coming out of his book trance, Mason looked at the pile of books, and his eyes widened. “Oh wow, I don’t remember picking up so many.” In the last 30 minutes or so, he had picked out over a hundred books and piled them as high as he could before starting new piles. He had gotten books on History, Geography, Politics, Family Magic, General Magic, Chaos Magic and many others. The three books that stuck out as being the most interesting to Mason were:

The Beastiary: a non-exhaustive guide to Beasts and Monsters. Volume one - A guide full of monsters and beasts, with their general locations around the world, descriptions and drawings. Some entries even included weaknesses.

The Others: Fact or Fiction? - A look into all the legends of the ‘Others’ and whether they existed or not.

The G word - This one was the only book out of all the ones he had flicked through that had even mentioned gods. Just reading the first page, it looked to be a retelling of the story of what had happened to the gods and why the word had become such a taboo.

At some point, the old man sitting in the armchair had gotten up and started watching Mason build towers with his books. “I do hope you plan on buying all of these?” He had said, eyeing the hundred or so out-of-place books.

Replying to the old man with a grin, he said, “Of course! I’ll probably be back at some point for more, but this should do for now.” Mason took out his trunk and placed it on the floor.

Returning the grin, the man exclaimed, “Excellent! It will take me a while to come up with a price for all of these, but I shall endeavour to be as quick as possible.”

“Of course! No worries, take your time. We have more shopping to do, but we will return.

Turning to Mayry, Mason asked, “Any preference on where we go next?”

“I think you should check out the Hunters Association, see how you sign up, and then Viv’s shop; you still need to give her one of the Basilisk scales and maybe stock up on some potions.”

Mason nodded as he moved towards the door, waving to the shopkeeper, who was currently taking notes on which books Mason wanted.

Once outside, they walked to the town centre, discussing the differences between their worlds. Apparently, there were 25 hours in the day and 32 days in the 12 months of the year. Mayry was intrigued by the idea of there being no magic in his world and that everyone was so reliant on Technology.

“Surely this ee-lec-tis-ity is just another type of magic?” She had already presented this idea twice in the time it took to walk from the bookstore to where they were now.

"No, it's science. Electricity comes from burning gases and coal, and then… Well, actually, I don’t really know how it works, but it isn’t magic. There are no incantations or runes; its just science.”

“Hmm, okay…” Mayry said very unconvincingly.

It annoyed Mason that he didn’t know how it worked. He felt a pang of sadness as he felt the urge to just google it.

Just as Mason was going to make up a sciency reason that proved electricity Magic, they passed by a shop selling Magical items. This distracted Mason, and they ended up popping inside ‘just for a moment.’ Mason saw there wasn’t a whole lot on display. Mayry explained that any sort of magical item worth buying was ludicrously expensive.

Throughout the shop, there were windowed cases displaying the item, with handwritten notes explaining what each item did. Out of a dozen, Mason only found three that were interesting.

A ring, The note said it vibrated when the wearer was in danger.

A small rock covered in runes. The note described it as a single-use item that emitted a loud noise and a flash of light. Based on the description Mason assumed it to be a magical version of a flashbang grenade.

Lastly, there was what looked like a pair of sunglasses. There was no note, so Mason used ‘Identify’.

Wearable Item - Night Shades (Rare) - A pair of sunglasses found in the remains of an abandoned assassins guild.

Effect: Allows the wearer to see in the dark. Makes you look like a knob if worn inside.

Buying these three items set Mason back a whole silver coin, but in return, he got a new danger sense, an emergency flashbang and a new pair of sweet sunglasses, which Mason thought made him look very cool.

Leaving the shop, they walked the rest of the way to the Association without much more discussion.

Mayry stopped as they approached the huge building so Mason could fully appreciate the sight. Even in relatively small towns, the association building was almost always the biggest and grandest, as it was usually a town’s biggest source of pride and respect. The Sparksford branch was no different.

The building itself was massive. It boasted huge stone pillars that supported the entranceway—each one carved in intricate detail, depicting beasts and monsters slain by the hunters the building contained.

As Mason stepped inside, it was full of other hunters shouting and jeering, some looking to collect new contracts, others trying to get paid for completed ones. The first thing Mason noticed was a leaderboard that displayed the names of the association’s top Hunters. It was made of polished wood and currently held around 50 names on it. Currently, the top spot was held by someone named Malika.

Mason felt chills as he saw that more than a dozen of the names we now crossed off and in red while the others were in black. These must have been the names of those who died fighting the Basilisk. Mason lowered his head in respect for those that had died… apart from that one guy who just had to go and look in the snake’s eyes right after Mason had shouted, “Don’t look in its eyes.” He was still mad about that. It had taken ages to get all the blood and guts out of his clothes before he had left to shop, which reminded him, he really needed new clothes….

Distracted by his thoughts, he hadn’t realised that the entire hall had gone deadly silent. Looking up, he saw all the occupants of the hall staring at him.

He remembered Mayry had said some of them were annoyed that he had gotten the majority of the XP for killing the Basilisk, but he didn’t think they’d be this pissed.

Calmly approached one of the desks and asked the receptionist, “I’d like to sign up to be a Hunter, please. What’s the process?”

She spoke slowly and casually as if the person she was talking to wasn’t getting dirty looks from everyone else in the room, “Well, usually we would send you on a basic quest to kill a minor monster and have you bring back part of it as proof but… going by the silence and all looks you're getting, may I assume you're the one who killed a basilisk?”

“Well,” Mason said loudly, “It was a group effort.” He gestured around him. “I just did the vast majority of the work.”

Mayry, standing next to him, put a hand to her forehead and muttered to herself, “This man is going to get me killed.”

Surprisingly the receptionist just laughed and said, “Oh, don’t mind them. They’re just mad that no one can claim the reward. You can’t as you aren’t currently a member, and they can’t because the bounty that was set specified the person who struck the killing blow would be the one to receive the reward.”

As the receptionist finished speaking, Mason saw a tall, stunningly pretty Elf woman walking in their direction, she was wearing armour, so her figure was hidden, but her face reminded him of the elven features that the elves in movies had. She walked over and gripped Mason’s shoulder tightly. In a deep masculine voice, the Elf said, “Ah, now that you’re here, you can admit that it was I that killed the beast, then I will gladly accept my rightful reward.”

Mason stared hard at the Elf, “Damn, you’re a pretty man. You had me feeling things that I will not admit in public,” he wiped the sweat from his forehead” I mean, Jesus, you are a man, right? No offence! You just threw me for a second there. What were you saying?”

Looking away from the very pretty man, Mason noticed the hunters that were staring at him before were now doing their best to be looking anywhere else. Several looked to be holding back laughter.

Turning Mayry’s trademarked colour of pink, the Elf man stepped away from Mason and scowled at him. “How dare you! Don’t you know who I am? I could destroy you.”

“Yeah? Like you didn’t destroy the Basilisk?” Mason turned to the receptionist and said, “sorry about him. Where were we?”

Before the receptionist could answer, he felt his new ring vibrate; he ducked and felt a wave of heat move over him; looking up, he saw a scorch mark had appeared on the glass that had thankfully protected the receptionist.

“How dare you turn your back on me. I am Malika. Number one ranked hunter and son of the High El…” Mason cut him off as he spoke; standing up, he said, “Okay, let me cut you off right there. I don’t care who your father is. I don’t care about any of these people, so I don’t even care that you could have killed the receptionist. What I do care about is my hair, so I swear to” he cut himself off before he said ‘god’, “I swear to all that is good in the world, if even one hair on my head is singed, I’m going to do to you what I did to that Basilisk and crawl inside you and… wait, no… I’ll fuck you up.”

Malika’s hand glowed with green flames, but before either of them could do anything, Mayry stepped in between the two, her own hands glowing with red flames.

“Malika. Mason here, is with me. This is a public place. If you two want to measure dicks, you can do so later, but If you start something here and now, I will be the one to finish it.” Mason had never heard Mayry sound so scary before.

Malika held up his arms, saying, "Mayry, darling, this was just a little scuffle between friends… my business at the association is finished for the day. I was leaving.”

As Malika left, he shot one last glare at Mason.

In return, Mason turned back to the receptionist as if nothing had happened and asked, “So, am I a Hunter yet?”

The receptionist, who was looking extremely flustered, just handed him a form and a pen.

Looking at the form, it just needed his name, abilities and address. He filled it in and handed it back.

He looked back up at the receptionist. Handing back his form, she said, “You’ll need to pick up your badge tomorrow before you can do any contracts. You’ll start at the bottom of the leaderboard as the Basilisk doesn’t count, as again, you weren’t a member.”

Saying his goodbyes to the receptionist, he left without incident.

The second he left the association building, Mayry turned on him, ready to start yelling, but Mason spoke first. “Did that guy call you darling?”