Crumpled pages and fragments of wood rustled beneath the bristles of my broom, the aftermath of the carnage from the day before. The damage actually hadn't been as bad as I’d expected it to be, only a half-dozen different shelves had been destroyed outright. The rest were either just dinged, tipped over, or scratched to some degree. The poetry shelves had been almost completely unsalvageable, with only a few small collections of limericks surviving unscathed. That was no huge loss, in my opinion, honestly, I’ve never been inclined towards poetry. Too much rhyming and whining and harping on about love for my taste. To be fair I am a monster born from the abyssal darkness within the bowels of the earth, so maybe I’m a bit biased.

I’d slept pretty well the night before, all things considered. Complete exhaustion physically, mentally, and magically tends to do wonders for even the most entrenched nocturnal. Thankfully my magic was recovering nicely, if a bit slower than normal thanks to my wounds, but with enough still left over to keep up appearances. Unfortunately, I slept a little too well, and by the time I awoke the morning sun had already crept up over the horizon, making my trip to the street vendors stand down the lane to get breakfast jarringly bright and intensely unpleasant.

I was in a foul mood when I made it back to Mae’s, hood over my head and cloak still smelling faintly of fertilizer, but it lessened as I got to work cleaning up the store. I’ve always found work like that soothing, to some degree, so long as it doesn’t include an overabundance of menial manual labour. The store was its usual dark, cool self, and the number of customers remained reassuringly low, as in there weren’t any. The quiet was reassuring, and I let my mind go blank as I focused on cleaning.

I was still a bit stiff from getting bowled over like a pin, but a good night's sleep can work wonders. By the time Mae got up, I had made good progress towards getting the place looking as clean as it had before. To be fair that’s not actually that clean, but still, it's better than nothing. I had just started mopping up the copious amounts of monster blood -some of it mine- in the storeroom when she came downstairs, looking very much like a frazzled, belligerent, overly grumbly Gnome.

Unlike many elderly humans, Mae is utterly and unequivocally not a morning person. She’ll get up early if she has to, but when it's up to her, she lies in until noon, unbothered and unconcerned with whatever anyone else is up to. Honestly how she ever managed to operate a business before I started working for her is beyond me.

She shuffled around the back for a bit, heavy fur rob wrapped around herself like a shroud, before coming to examine my process, a cup of tea clenched between her leathery hands. She watched me as I mopped, her face its usual ornery self, but with an odd look in her eyes. She followed me to the front after I finished the mopping, and supervised as I began to sort the damaged books.

She walked around the area of carnage, feeling around with her stick, and stopping to examine the odd bit of wood or ruined book that she found. Every so often she found a text that was only partially destroyed. These were briefly paged through, her hazy eyes squinting at their contents, and then placed aside for some unknown purpose.

This continued for a few hours, me sweeping and stacking ruined furniture, her examining the literature for anything salvageable, until finally Mae turned to look at her little stack of semi-ruined books, made a satisfied sounding grunt, and shuffled off into the back. She returned shortly after, holding a leather satchel. The books were deposited haphazardly within, and she turned to me, or at least where she thought I was.

“Corin, got a job fer ya!” she shouted, brandishing the book-bag towards him. “Need ya ta take these to the library.”

I grabbed the bag from her outstretched hand and examined the contents. Most of the books were poetry collections, plus a few on magical history, and a few unidentifiable fragments that were either from an atlas or a history tome. “But, why,” I protested, “These are all broken, shouldn’t we just throw them out?”

Mae cackled, before turning and trudging over to the counter. “Aye, normally, but I owe the head librarian a favour, an he’s either getting’ these or nothin’.”

“But-” I started to protest further but was silenced as Mae waved her cane at me and started hobbling back towards me, scowling heavily.

“Enough bloody question, jus’ do as yer told!” she snapped, thumping the end of her stick into the floorboards. “Hurry up wit’ it, I’m off ta see about gettin’ some new shelves. I’ll be back late.” She grabbed her cloak from its peg and took off, slamming the door shut behind her. I sighed and slung the satchel over my shoulder.

-

Tarrow lane was a bustling corridor of activity, awash with light, people, and noise. Most of the other buildings around Mae’s were other businesses, a bakery, a tailor, a pawnbroker, and a couple of small eateries. We got enough run-off from the crowds on main street that there’s always a steady stream of people passing through, mostly window shopping or getting food, sometimes workers coming to pawn clothes or gear for quick money. I find it interesting, to see so many people from different walks of life, all in the same place, their paths crossing for what may be the only time.

I used to get incredibly paranoid when I saw huge crowds. I also used to get paranoid around small crowds too. Actually, I’d get paranoid around groups of more than five people. Maybe people in general just made me paranoid. The point is, I’m not anymore, ever since I came to Garrowgreim. Living in one place for so long made me realize that, for the most part, humans just care about themselves. I don’t mean that in the sense that oh all humans are self-centred egotistical bastards. Although people like that do exist, they are far from the majority. I more so mean that humans are usually so focused on what they’re doing, and what they think other people are thinking about them, that they really have very little time to actually care about what the very strangers whose opinions they’re so worried about are up to.

It's very liberating, in a sense, to know that generally, no one cares what you’re doing, so long as you don’t stand out too much or do anything out of sorts. When I stepped out of Mae’s with a satchel full of half-broken books and my cloak around me, I became just a part of the crowd, another nameless human off on some unknown errand that affects no one and is entirely on the level. Well, as on the level as any errand Mae sends me on, I’m still not convinced that she doesn't have some sort of shady backstory, because I have absolutely no idea where she gets her money from. Certainly not from selling books, that’s for sure.

The Library of Garrowgreim was one of those buildings that had been rebuilt from stone, nestled amongst a sea of wood, thatch, and slate that surrounded the mess that was the Garrowgreim city centre. While the city's outskirts may have been organized and neatly arranged, the inner city had no such planning to it. There the roads flowed along the same paths they had followed when they were still but dust and gravel, having become too important to change or relocate over the years. As I got closer to the towering building, I found myself travelling a winding, twisting series of streets that were absolutely thronged with people. The city's main street serves as a thoroughfare into the city centre, but once there it simply connects to the branching, knotted roads of the original town. There is no order, no correct way to traverse that part of the city. For most people it just involves a lot of shoving, cursing, and keeping a close eye on their wallets.

I’ve always hated going into the old parts of the city, but not because they're a complete mess of people and paths. I’m actually quite good at getting through crowds, likely the result of spending most of my life ducking and dodging away from things, and that nimbleness has its advantages. I have a pretty good sense of direction in cities as well. There’s something about the close streets, the tall buildings, it’s cavernous, almost labyrinthine, in a way that sends my monstrous instincts into overdrive. I suppose it depends on the part of my brain that I would use to navigate within caves and dungeons. Thanks to my talents, I actually made good time towards my destination, stopping only to avoid the odd rumbling carriage or horse.

No, I hate the city centre because it's always chock-full of nobles and adventurers, and I try to avoid both groups at all costs. For adventurers, I think I’ve made my point as to why I avoid them. but with nobles, it’s a bit more complicated. I don’t really know why I don’t like them, maybe it’s their haughty attitudes, maybe it's jealousy towards all their luxuries, or maybe I’m just opposed to authority by my nature. Regardless of the reasoning, I always find myself getting a little bitter around them.

One of the good aspects of the inner part of Garrowgreim is shade. All the buildings are two-three stories tall, so they block the sun at most times of day, leaving lots of lovely cool shadows and darker places. A human might think that made the place look a bit dangerous, but to me, it was a godsend. I was even able to forgo using my hood, which helped me blend in with the crowd more. You might think wearing a hood helps, but in reality, it just makes you look suspicious. Do you know who wears their hoods up on a bright sunny day? People with something to hide. And monsters, I guess.

I came to the library grounds from the south, on the opposite side from the main entrance, and started working my way around towards the sloping stone stairs that led up to the double-set wooden doors. I’d been to the building a few times before, mostly before I met Mae, but I remembered the basic layout, at least for the ground floor. It was a massive, hexagonal building, with tall glass windows coloured and mosaicked so that any light that made it through looked as if it had come from a rainbow itself. The stone was vibrant white marble, brought in from the northern mountains, and far juxtaposed to the grey drabness of the local rock. A circular dome rose from the middle of the hexagon, marking the central rooms, while each of the six sides represented a different wing of the interior. Except for the northmost side, as it was the entrance hall. It was built to perfectly line up with each of the cardinal directions and was itself shaped a bit like a large, fancy compass.

Libraries are great when you’re a homeless vagabond with a dark secret. Big, often empty, and quiet, I can’t remember how much time I’ve spent entombed amongst the stacks of books, in various libraries from the coast to the mountains. No one asks too many questions about your presence so long as you're silent and respectful, no one talks to you, since you're supposed to be quiet, and there are always a dozen different reading nooks to sequester away in. It's like a massive, dark, clean cave, with endless reading material, that anyone can just walk into, and people can't bother you. What’s not to like?

I was actually looking forward to having a browse after I dropped off Mae’s “donation,” but I found myself pausing just before I rounded the final corner on the north side, distracted by an odd sight. Two people, both in cloaks with their hoods up, were trying to sneak into one of the lower windows. One was atop the other's shoulders, bobbing and weaving about as their companion staggered under them. They were fiddling with the window latch, and whispering to one another in hushed and heated tones.

I took a cautious step toward them, unsure of whether or not I should intervene. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not opposed to stealing, the gods know I’ve done enough of it myself, but stealing from a library? That’s just low.

“Hey!” I shouted, advancing towards them. They both turned their heads to look at me, and in doing so, tilted themselves off-balance. They crashed to the pavement in a cloud of dust and whirling capes. The one who’d been trying to open the window, a small woman about my height with red hair and green eyes, popped back up again after a moment, looking no worse for wear, while her companion, whom she had landed on, remained wheezing on the ground. The woman dusted herself off, locked eyes with me, and oddly enough, smiled.