Having separated from the group Swift walked into the centre of Town, a glint in his eye as he looked at the stone buildings around him. He was excited. Exited to explore and investigate, see the wonders only possible in a magical world. He wanted to find out its history, its conflict and why he was there. More than anything he wanted to find out about magic.

He passed some signs for the general store, a clothes store and even apothecary. He checked his pouch of coins and looked back at the stored, contemplating about how he was meant to buy some clothes. He looked over past the shops and instead to a relatively large building that was slightly secluded. The building appeared open and seemed to be built partly into a lower ground with space around it to clear drainage. A building that seemed like a library. He could tell from a sign saying so, it was written with strange wavey triangular symbols that he could somehow actually read.

He walked in through the front and was greeted by the sight of an old man trying hard to peer into whatever ledger he was looking at.

"Hello?" The man asked looking up from his work.

"Hi," Swift said.

"Do you have any business here or are you just going to stand in the doorway?"

"Yeah, I might want to read some of your books."

The man furrowed his eyebrows and inspected the boy. "Well, you can go down to the bottom and read if you pay for entry.. you can read can't you?..."

"Last I checked." Though he wasn't entirely sure. Swift threw a coin to the old man, the old man looked at it and then quickly clasped it in his hand.

"Well, wipe your feet before you go downstairs. And please put the books back where you found them."

The man shook his head as Swift walked passed and went down some stairs to a small chamber underground. The books appeared to have been stacked high across a number of bookcases. Swift wanted to find something on history and also some things about magic, but he didn't want to appear too unknowledgeable of the world's basics in case the man came walking down, so avoided children's books.

Swift looked through and found a number of books that he wanted to read through, Origins: Snowball and the great beyond, a dusty 'History of magic', 'The Glorious History of the High Church'. 'Mythos and legend: the story of the heretic mage'. 'Expeditions to the Dark Lands vol II'. The stack of books Swift was making seemed unreasonable for him to even be able to read but he felt a thirst for knowledge and couldn't quite seem to put them back. Feeling slightly nostalgic for a room filled with books he hadn't gotten round to reading. A homely yet somehow torn feeling of something long gone, somehow more unattainable than a place he had just left.

As Swift read he felt like a craving of knowledge was being fulfilled, everything went in like his brain was a sponge, he could even read from memory as he looked at the page and thought about it in his mind. In under an hour, he had gone half the way through the first book, Origins: The world of snowball and the great beyond. Swift realised his skill point in enhanced memory must have done this, and thus growing new reverence for the strange system he seemed to be in.

The Origins book seemed peculiar and strangely contradictory, coming up with theories that didn't seem to make sense. Swift managed to find that the world was covered in ice roughly six thousand Snowball years ago and that humanity didn't really exist back then, likely giving its name of Snowball. Further, the book describes an endless chasm of darkness that constitutes some sort of eternal void of death though only mentions it as somewhere seeming pretty out of place to the rest of the book. The theory is that the energy or mana within the void had been the route cause of the cold disappearing, the landscape giving strange appearances as mana melted the glacial ice and terraformed the landscape.

After this, the book detailed 'unknown times' a period of savagery with no known records, where the people of the land were visited by the greater beings, the 'high elves'. These great saviours helped sculpt the world to what it is, as the kingdoms were otherwise unable to rule themselves and resorted to 'savagery' and 'wandering without purpose'.

The high elves further helped by warning the people of the dangers of magic, how it could only be controlled under their influence in their church. Only certain people blessed by the elves could better control the magic which would otherwise poison them. The magic bringing forth luminous blue veins across the skin of those that used it making them sicker as their internal source of mana leaked into the outer world ultimately ending in their death.

This was a religion that seemed to be centred around the belief in the higher beings instead of a theoretical God. These almost all-knowing beings, the high elves seemed to run the kingdoms of the west, which by counterbalance were not the 'heretics' of the east. Further, according to the book, this was because the high elves allowed the creatures of the land to have free will. This took Swift for a turn, he had to pause and think about it, contemplating what he had just read he thought:

*The people of the west were controlled and restrained by the church according to their will, yet they used the excuse of free will to explain the limits of their control. So, they have free will, but only when the church is not helping them, but the church doesn't help them because they always have free will, but the church still helps them so they couldn't have free will. But they do because the church doesn't help them?*

This seemed like a contradiction to Swift and he was getting intense cult-like vibes from the whole thing.

The book did subtly address this, highlighting how simple beings could not understand the greater plan the high elves possessed, but then Swift came across further sort of convoluted contradiction. There appeared to not just be one 'different being'. The book described 'tainted' species of elf amongst the people of the land. The dark elves, an antithesis to the high elves regarded as below even humans, and there were dryads a great higher people in tune with nature. Though all dryad passed a long time ago, it was strange how the seemingly convoluted and tangled religion appeared to still stand strong. These almost higher beings seemed to highlight a lack of absolute superiority, that their existence should have shown the elves to not be that omniscient.

Even against this Swift felt he knew that a 'religion' could be crazier than that, especially when so ingrained in society and without... Internet? what was that... Internet... strange... There was a creak on the stairs.

"You're still here," the old man said, seeing the piles of books next to Swift. Though he must have known as there was only one way out.

"Yep," Swift replied, refusing to look away from the book.

"I didn't take you for a scholar. There aren't many in this hick town," The man added.

"Sure," Swift said.

The man came strolling down and looked at the stack next to Swift. His eyes grew wide and he went to grab one of the books. Swift caught it in his hand. 'History of Magic'.

"I was reading that," Swift exclaimed.

"This shouldn't be here, I'm sorry you saw it just please let go," the old man with surprising strength said.

"I just want to read it, ill give it back after I'm done."

"You know you could be charged just for touching it?" The man asked. A slight gleam of interest in his eyes.

"So what. You had it." Swift said.

The old man let go of the hand and it fell back to Swift. He looked across the stack of books.

"If you're going to learn at least do it properly,"

"You don't want that one, it's bullshit propaganda," he said grabbing 'the glorious history of the high church' and then replacing it with a book titled the 'history and origins of the western continent'.

"That one is forbidden but not as much as the other, don't go telling your friends about it!! ?!?! %"

"Can I take this outside?" Swift asked without looking up.

The man was exhausted by the implication, he clearly didn't want the authorities to know about the book.

"If you have the coin, but I doubt-"

Swift threw him a couple of gold francs.

"Tell you what, you can keep those books if you say you never got them from me, no one in this hick town can read anyway."

Swift didn't say thanks but instead had carried on reading, ignoring the old man. This didn't annoy the man but instead made him almost welt with pride. "let me get something," he said aloud.

The old man disappeared whilst Swift carried on. He brought back some clothes, some bits dusty and some clean. The assortment matched a fashionable leather set designed as though for a kind of explorer, it came with two satchels.

"If you're going to act like a scholar you might as well look the part," he dropped the clothes in front of Swift.

"That'll be two more," he added with a dirty smile.

Swift feeling like he had been ripped off felt bad about throwing away Seras's money, but he handed the man the coins regardless. He was happy that everything worked out, he even had the clothes he needed to get. swift got changed into them behind a bookcase and then walked back with what he changed out of, the armoured explorer set well-fitting.

"I'll burn these out the back," the old man said reaching over and snatching Swift's old clothes out form his arms.

Later that day Swift arrived at the guard post, greeted by Adil and Seras. His clothes looked newer, even almost fashionable. A few straps of leather shone out with a pattern that looked to hold it all firmly together. Another thing different though, was the large pile of books under his arm, in his new pack and the one he was reading on the way.

“Hey yo,” Adil said, Swift looked up from his books and gave a smile.

“Got some books fam, give me a bit," He said motioning to the book he was reading. The book's title was *Mythos and legend: the story of the heretic mage*

“Yeah sure” Adil replied, slightly confused at his new-found interest in reading history books.

“Did you get anything for me?” Adil asked.

“Yeah” Swift threw Adil a rucksack.

Notification

Obtained - adventurers gear rogue set.

includes

*Backpack, rope, camping equipment, trap disarming kit, lock pick, black cloak.*

Swift set down his sack and started cramming more books inside. It made him appear more like a tourist with guides than someone about to go on an adventure. He shone with a new aura about him, one that seemed to emphasise a thirst of knowledge, possibly inspiring or maybe just annoying.

Seras came close to Swift and playfully punched him on the shoulder. “You didn’t spend all my money on books did you”

Swift rubbed his side and gave a smug smile to Seras before saying “Take it up with the librarian, that guy is a rip-off," Swift replied, dropping a pouch with only a few coins left in them into Seras's open hand and getting a stale unentertained look from her. From that Adil concluded what change he saw in Swift might be more annoying than, inspiring.

“Next time, drinks are on you,” Seras added and scuffed the top of his head.

Swift walked off from Seras then and went back to reading. With that Seras turned to the guards, going about their duty at the post and said:

“Hey Bernie, we're going on an expedition. I'll be back in a few days so report to Ray or Eudis, tell them I've gone on a walk. They'll get it.”

One man shouted, “Go get em, Captain!”. With a smirk, Seras gave a nod of acknowledgement to the guard.

“Let’s go.” She said and instead of going through the gate, she lowered a rope ladder down from the side. Swift and Adil followed suite, down the ladder before it was pulled back up.

“So, where are these goblins?” Seras asked. Clear of anyone else that could hear their conversation.

“Oh uh, we were knocked out close to where we started, spawned. I have no idea where they took us.” Replied Adil.

“One of them had bone armour.” swift spoke up, still mostly focusing on his books.

“That’s not a bad start, we can find some tracks then ask the locals.” She replied. Her stance and expression bore an element of experience and confidence that seemed to shine in the rising sun.