《Binary Progression》Volume 5 - Chapter 4: Screenshots!
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"Do you think I should get the others souvenirs?" Alex asked standing in the wooden shop with massive windows, shelves of odd items littered the inside.
There was also a till behind which sat a bored-looking ogre, he wore glasses and was reading over the diary he looted of some bandit.
The floors were dusty, the entire shop was in desperate need of cleaning.
"I think you should get back to solving the murders!" Thal exclaimed.
"Wandering around the city aimlessly wouldn't do us any good, right?" he asked with a smile as he picked up a green bucket hat, it had lime-coloured stripes.
His eyes darted over to another object that caught his attention.
It was a small picture frame.
"You guys sell empty picture frames?" asked Alex turning back to the ogre.
"It's a screenshot page, bring it to your eyes and you'll see an ink-recreation of whatever you're looking at, it's like a camera I guess..." the shopkeeper explained.
"Nice! Do you guys have any more of these?" asked Alex.
"Sure, but they're pretty pricy..." replied the shopkeeper hesitantly.
Alex reached into his pocket and pulled out one of several pouches of gold.
"I've done a bit of monster-killing recently," he laughed.
Alex walked out of that shop with a fancy mirror, a binder of screenshot pages and the bucket hat.
Alex walked out onto the street and saw the canal going through the centre of the city.
It was dirty and had floating nests of rats in it.
"Wouldn't want to fall in there..." Alex remarked getting a whiff of the scent.
He backed away from the sewer-like water and continued his way down the town, buildings stood in lines, the whole city had a very square design when it came to roads and placement of buildings.
They walked further, most of the buildings were empty.
"I wonder if there are enough people in this world to fill all the buildings up at some point?" thought Alex.
"Doubt it... a place like Levelgreen had a dozen buildings, and that place is tiny, there are around two to four towns per zone, so that's three times thirty-four, that's at the very least a hundred and two houses..." Thal replied.
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"That's... not that many houses... there are ten thousand players!"
"Now, if we take into account that this city is one of many that have thousands of buildings..."
"Oh... that a relief!" thought Alex.
They walked a bit longer.
"So, if they're at least five cities with two-thousand homes, we could just never leave the city?" asked Alex.
"Guess so..." Thal replied.
After another bit of walking Alex finally saw it, the massive cathedral in the centre of the city.
It too was dirty, pointy, gothic architecture littered its stone frame.
Pointy arches and pointed rooves made the place look almost scary.
Alex propped Thal up against a stone wall and knelt down beside him, facing a mirror towards them and lifting the screenshot page up to the mirror.
"What are you doing?" asked Thal.
"Well, I wanted a picture with my talking sword!" Alex exclaimed.
"..."
"Thal?" Alex looked down and saw Thal was missing, he looked over to his side and saw either a frogman or a child running off with Thal.
The sword teleported back into Alex's hand since they were still magically bound.
The kid clutching the sword teleported with the sword.
They had messy brown hair.
"Yo," Alex said looking at the sword-thief.
Immediately the thief let go of the sword since he was now hanging off the blade, cutting his hands.
"Mmm... since when does this game have kids? I guess there were those few NPCs in Levelgreen."
Alex looked down at the human.
The child all but growled at Alex before running off once more.
With his high-level stats, Alex was easily able to run up to the sprinting child.
"You can't go wandering around this place with open wounds, you'll catch god knows what..."
Alex grabbed the kid by the back of their collar.
"I'll bring them to Bromy to get the wounds closed, I feel kind of bad..."
"Alex, it still is a thief..." Thal replied.
"Still I can't murder a child!" Alex thought back.
"I'm not telling you to murder it! I just wanted to know your reasoning!" Thal replied.
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"..."
"I guess I'm just being nice,"
Alex walked with the sword-thief until he found the office Bromy and Dylan were in.
Alex walked inside the office, in the front sat Felix who was dealing with a mountain of paperwork.
"Hey!" Alex exclaimed upon seeing him.
"Oh! Alex, right?"
Alex nodded, "Yup."
"Bromy and Dylan are in the basement, just go straight forward towards the double door down the stairs," Felix replied with a smile.
"Thanks!" Alex said with a thumbs-up as he dragged the protesting child behind him much to Felix's confusion.
Alex opened the door and held up the child.
"I have returned!" Alex exclaimed.
"That was fast!" Bromy exclaimed reaching for his scalpel and pointing it at the child.
"So that's the killer..." he said squinting.
"What? No!" Alex pulled the kid back.
"It's just a thief," Alex assured Bromy who let out a sigh.
"Anyway, he tried to steal Thal but ended up getting hurt, ya think you could work your healing magic on them before they die of dirty-wound?" Alex asked.
"Sure," Bromy shrugged, he waved his hand at the kid as the wounds on his palms closed with a fizzing noise.
"Awesome!" Alex exclaimed placing the child down in hopes it'd run off where all the poor kids run off.
"Also, I got you a hat!" Alex exclaimed tossing the green bucket hat Bromy's way.
He caught it mid-air and inspected it.
"Nice!" he grinned inspecting the needlework.
"Anyway..." Alex began.
"I'll get back to shopping... oh, but first..." Alex lifted the screenshot page and took a 'photo' of Dylan and Bromy as well as a dozen corpses.
"I'm starting a photo album!" Alex laughed showing the two his picture.
He also showed the picture of Thal and him.
"Huh... have fun!" Bromy said looking back towards the corpses.
As Alex climbed the stairs he spoke up "By the way, there's another demon king in the city," he said coldly.
"Kay..." Bromy said not looking away from the corpse.
As Alex left he forgot about the kid who was still in the corpse-room.
While Bromy cut into the corpse, Dylan kept his eyes on the child.
"Shouldn't we... throw the child out of here?" asked Dylan.
"Hmm?" Bromy turned to the kid seeing his eyes were focused on the corpse, Bromy walked over to the side of the room and returned with a tall stool used for very long operations.
He picked the kid up and placed them on the stool.
"There, now you can see the operation!" Bromy said as he turned back to the corpse.
"The wounds... this once is especially interesting..." he thought looking at the hole in the man's torso.
"The wound suggests a serrated blade cutting into the flesh, but there's no sign of the blade leaving..." Bromy explained.
"The murderer could be a magic-user or they could have a magic weapon..." Bromy explained.
"The flesh isn't burned or frostbitten, so a magic blade is really what I'm going to place my bets on..."
"Judging from the different blades these people were murdered with, I'd go out on a whim and say this person has a magic shape-shifting blade..." Bromy speculated.
"That's great... that you figured it out..." Dylan began.
"But... why is the child still here?" asked Dylan.
"Hm? He looked like he was interested," Bromy replied with a shrug.
"Now then, how about we cut this bad boy open!?" Bromy suggested, the kid nodded vigorously.
"That's the spirit!" Bromy exclaimed as he dug his scalpel into the body.
Dylan had to back away, not feeling well at the gruesome sight.
"I'll be upstairs if you need me..." Dylan said covering his mouth to prevent himself from throwing up as Bromy lifted a heart into the air causing a stream of blood to pour from it much to the amusement of the child.
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