Evren stood in the magic shop with a scroll case in his hand. It was a simple one made from copper and leather with a cap that slid over the end. He played around with the cap, sliding it on and off of the tube. He was making sure it would stay in place but was still easy enough to remove. He had found that he didn't need to look at the target, as long as he had an idea of where it was, or some other sense, he could cast the target wherever he wanted. He peeked into the tube, and then looked away casting, "light" into the bottom of the tube.

He then pointed the tube away from him and it illuminated a circular area on the wall in front of him. He put the cap back on the scroll case and the light disappeared. No light leaked from the scroll case either. "Yay! I've got a flashlight." He said, removing the cap and going to the back of the store. "It is a narrow beam though. Maybe I should put it closer to the end." He dispelled the light and looked inside the tube. He put his fingers about midway between the top and bottom of the tube and focused on a point between them there. When he cast "light" again, the light shining from the tube had a much broader beam.

"One more thing." He dispelled the light, closed the tube, and held the tube in his hand by his side. He focused a little and chanted "light", then took the cap off the scroll case to find the light to be working. He thought if he could get the patina off the copper, he might be able to get a brighter beam coming out of the end. "Ooh, I've got vinegar still."

He dispelled the light in the scroll case and cast it on the ceiling above him. He was now glancing through the books he didn't bring with him and trying to find one that may help him to translate some of the other ones. Not having any luck, he packed the books up in the sack and brought them back to his base. He had remembered to fix the stairs this morning. While he was out getting wood for the risers, he recalled there were bookshelves in some of the upper-class houses that seemed like he could move.

He had brought two back to his shop that morning and placed them in the apartment. The shelves took quite a bit of space and there was nearly enough space for all the books. The remaining books he stacked to the side of one of the bookcases. He might have enough space left in the apartment for one more bookcase, but he held off on that for now. After he read through the books, the lesser useful ones would go down the shelves in the shop,

One of the books he glanced through last night was on alchemy and potion creation. He was bringing that book with him to pick up what he needed for the most basic of potions from the magic shop.

"I wish there were labels on these things. What is a retort?" Evren said as he referenced the book showing the needed supplies. "I've got one of these, but this set looks better than the one I have." Evren set the mortar and pestle down on the table behind him, where he was collecting the tools he needed.

"And this is a crucible, it says I'll need one of these separate from the one I'm using in the forge." He picked up a glass container that looked like a smoking pipe upside down. "Probably need this thing, whatever it is." He set the retort down on the table with a stand that seemed to fit it. He then grabbed some alcohol burners and set them on the table, "Guess I'll need to find some fuel for this stuff."

"Oh, a mini cauldron! I'll need this thing." He set the cauldron on the table and set the mortar and pestle inside of it. "This double boiler with the spout will probably be needed for something. Oh yeah! I'll need scales! Probably that bubbly thing."

Evren paused and looked at what he had gathered already, "I have a bad feeling about all of this. Maybe I should just leave all this stuff here and read about it instead." He put the items he had set aside back to where they originally were, just deciding on the mortar and pestle, a milling stone, and the scales, with a set of weights.

"Yeah, this is probably better. If I change my mind later, I can grab this stuff." Evren put everything he was going to take with him into the sack, including the book on alchemy, then set the sack on the table.

He then went to browsing the shelves with jars full of things he couldn't tell what they were, as the labels had faded to be illegible. He found some small ingots on the shelf, lined up neatly. There were several different colors there, including one that had no color at all as it was a milky transparent. There were two black ingots, three green ones and a smaller pink one. He figured the green ones were the same as the metal inscribed on his bow.

He gathered up the ingots, hoping he would find a use for them, but when he touched the black ones, he stopped. The metal seemed dusty, but the surface was very slick, as if it were wet ice. And when he touched it, his fingers felt a tingle, as if it were charged with a low current electricity. It didn't hurt, it just felt strange.

Evren held one of the ingots in his hand and examined it. It slid around in the palm of his hand and gave him the strange sensation wherever it touched. He dropped the two ingots in the sack and said, "Yeah, I'm probably cursed now." He shrugged and grabbed the transparent ingot. "Is this a crystal or…" He drew out one of the metal daggers he took from his base, not the blue metal one, and dragged it across the surface of the ingot. It made a scratch, with a little sliver shaved off.

"It's soft, like gold. Is this a metal?" He asked nobody at all as he moved the ingot to the light to better see. After examining it for a while, he shrugged and tossed it into the sack. He came across some bins with different colored crystals in them, and he reached in and grabbed a few. "These must be those magic crystals." He held them up to the light and then dropped them back into the bin, "Still don't know what they're used for, but I know where some are now.

There were also some mana cores, but only a few of them, and none as big as the ones he got off the monsters he fought when he first got to Plinth. He reached his hand into the mana cores and swirled it around, "Aaaannnnd, I touched them. Moving on!" The rest of the shelves were filled with curiosities of varying kinds. Some were lizards in a jar of fluid, some were a bag of bugs. There was a terribly stuffed animal that might have been a cat at one point.

Towards the back of the store, he found sticks in varying sizes from 20 cm to 200 cm in length. He guessed they were staves and wands, so he picked one of the wands up and swung it with a flourish. He dispelled the light spell he put on the ceiling and pointed the wand at the same spot and cast "light". "I looked at the light again." He said as he blinked his eyes waiting for his vision to return. He looked around the inside of the shop and shrugged. It didn't seem brighter. He threw one of the cleaner looking wands in the sack with the rest of the items he was bringing back to his base.

He found a shelf of potion bottles. Some of the bottles were empty, as if the potion had dried out, and some of the bottles were full. Evren looked to the sack, where the book on alchemy was and then back to the shelf. He shook his head and moved on.

On a shelf by itself was a mask. It had a heavy design, with thick leather straps that went around the back. It was studded with black metal rivets, and the only openings were the eyes. As there were no items near it except for a set of black manacles, Evren decided, wholeheartedly, to forget he even saw them.

This aisle seemed to have items, possibly magical in nature. All of them seemed to be of a sinister design. A gauntlet made of some translucent red material. A dark cloak that seemed to move but didn't. He couldn't tell the color of the cloak as it seemed to change to a dark version of different colors depending on how the light hit it. One angle it seemed a dark red. Another angle appeared to be black. Getting in close to look at it, it was a deep purple color.

There was a silver shield with a skull on it that seemed to emit a sickly greenish yellow smoke, that dissipated about 10 cm away from it. As he approached the shield, he felt like something was looking at him. He found that it wasn't the shield, it was the jar of eyes on the shelf above it. And those eyes did follow him. When he waved his hand in front of the jar, some of the eyes followed his hand, while the others stayed focused on him.

Next to the jar of eyes was a bottle with what looked like a storm inside it. There was water in the bottom that seemed like rough seas. Rain fell from the clouds at the top, occasionally it would light up with tiny lightning strikes. At the top of the bottle was a plain wooden cork. Evren wasn't sure if that was a good idea or not.

One shelf had a tea set with tray on it. There were two cups with saucers and a small kettle. Next to it were some rings and amulets set in a display case. Continuing on was a mummified hand. The nails on the hand were long and sharp, and there was a ring on the little finger. The hand was curiously free of any dust, dirt or debris, as was the area of the shelf around it. Above and to the side of the hand was a conical hat with a huge set of elk antlers on it.

Evren turned around and headed to the table with his sack on it, "This is getting too weird, even for entertainment." As Evren grabbed the sack, he saw on the ground underneath the table was a leather backpack with pockets on the sides. Evren thought about grabbing it, but remembered he was in the back room of this shop, filled with questionable items, so he left it where it was.

As Evren left the store, heading back to his base, he said, "Perhaps I shouldn't have grabbed those unreadable books from the back of the store."