Job: Find the book

Spoiler:

Aayla didn’t get to spend much time at the guildhall this time before she found herself in front of the request board again, all dolled up in her new dress and done up hairdo, courtesy of Lady Yuna, the pop star whose change room she had snuck into. She had gained quite a bit of confidence from that little excursion. Not only had she completed a job on her own, but she had managed to make a new friend! This whole, taking  jobs thing wasn’t as hard as she thought it would be.

This time however, she would play it smart. She would pick a job from a certain town, and pick a few others at the same time, this way, she could do a few jobs while she was out, instead of just one and coming back. This would help her control how many jewel she spent on transportation as well.

As Aayla made her way down to Crocus and arranged for transportation to her new jobs, she couldn’t help but smile at the thought that she didn’t have to steal anymore… she had a way to take care of herself, she had new friends to help her if she got stuck. The only thing she really had to worry about, was running into one of the dark wizards while she was out alone. She wouldn’t be able to do much against any of them… her skills were so limited. Maybe she would be able to find someone in Sabertooth to teach her how to fight… or at least how to increase her strength with magic, and while in her Takeover.

The cart ride over to Peace village was, well, peaceful. She sat comfortably in the back, playing around with Zinneth who was slithering through her fingers, rubbing her fins and scales against her skin as if a cat rubbing up against someone’s leg. She couldn’t help but smile at the thought of having Zinneth beside her, as a partner and not just a friend.

“Let’s do great again on this mission, okay Zinny?”
She asked the snake who gave a hiss and moved up around her neck just as the carriage stopped.

“Here we are little missy, peace village! Beauty of a town ain’t it? When am I coming to pick you up kiddo? Figure I’ll stay around and visit ma pa while ‘m here.”
The driver asked, tipping his straw hat to the girl as she stepped out, looking around the village with a light smile on her face.

“Oh… thank you… you’re very nice… is 7pm alright?”
She asked shyly, handing over her jewel to the man, paying him for the ride here.

“That sounds like a plan little missy.”
He said with a smirk, getting back onto his wagon and driving off, leaving Aayla face to face with her clients home.

She walked up to the clients door, knocking loudly enough for her to hear, and walked in only when she was beckoned too. A cute little old lady was sitting on her rocking chair, cat in her lap and a bag of wool at her side. The radio was playing lowly as she rocked away, knitting whatever she had in mind.

“I’m sorry to bother you ma’am. I’m here about the book you were looking for. I’ll head over to the library right away and find your book.”
She promised, waiting for an answer from the old lady, but the woman never replied, she just continued to rock and mumble under her breath. Aayla couldn’t help but smile lightly as she walked over to the old woman and put the flyer on the coffee table before her. Hopefully, the old lady would see it and understand that someone was going to look for the book.

It didn’t take Aayla long to get to the library, it wasn’t hard to find either as it stood tall above all of the nearby houses. It was beautiful! Almost like a miniature castle!

“There must be so many rooms in there… Guess I’ll have to use an index…”
She muttered to herself, however upon entering the library, her jaw dropped at just how huge the library really was. Books were slowly flying from one shelf to another, some wizards were floating while reading books, others sitting at tables, attempting to read in silent as a few children a few years younger than her ran around the library.

“Oh-boy…”

Her search began at the index cabinet, looking for the book entitled “Heroes of Light”. The title gave her the impression it was a fantasy novel, however as she continued to look through the index, she found that she couldn’t find it under H. It wasn’t under Hero, wasn’t under Light either. She huffed lightly as she closed all the drawers, pondering and pondering where she might find this book. The old lady did say it was here on the flyer… and if it wasn’t in the index, it meant no one could have taken it out… because it technically wasn’t a part of the library. Then, the idea hit her, what if the title was under T? “THE Heroes of Light” ? She began searching and sure enough, there was the card. She giggled earning herself a “SHHH” from nearby patrons, causing her to blush wildly and slink away with the index card. She slipped between one bookcase to another, moving up the letters and moving up floors until she was three quarters of the way through the second floor where she stopped when the T’s started. At least… they started for a couple of books before turning into “s” titles. Aayla raised an eyebrow as she started going over her ABC’s in her head and started to look on the other side of the “T” section only to find “Vegetable magic”.

“Vegetable magic… what the…”
She scratched her head as she began re-arranging the books in front of her into alphabetical order, but even then, it seemed that EVERY book was not where it was supposed to be, or books were turned backwards so that only the pages were showing.

“They aren’t very organized.”
She muttered, and almost as soon as she said those words, the tall form of the librarian was behind her, leering down at the girl.

“My library is perfectly organized my dear, in alphabetical order by genre, by author, my magic and number, by guild an by… is that a sn… a snake?!”
The library gasped as she spotted the small blue form of Zinnith around Aayla’s neck.
“my dear, we don’t allow… pets… in the library… please bring it outside and come back without it. I can help you find your book in the meantime.”

Aayla wanted to protest, but faced with confrontation, her heart began to found very fast, causing Zinnith to glare at the Librarian, hissing as her fins raised like the hairs on the back of an aggressive dog. Aayla took hold of zinnith, moving her from her shoulders into her hands as she quickly made her way away from the librarian after telling her the name of the book she was looking for.

“I’m sorry Zinny… can you stay out here for now..? I think you’re scaring the librarian lady… Here…”
She set Zinneth down in one of the nearby garden fountains and moved back into the library. The sight she came back too made her pause. What on earth was going on!?

A group of three children were laughing and dancing around the librarian, each had a book in their hands with a rubber band around them so that the books didn’t keep opening.

“Keep-away keep-away!”
The kids chanted excitedly, tossing the books between one another, causing the librarian to attempt scolding the kids while trying to catch the books and keep them out of harms way. However every time she caught them, the kids got it back as soon as she tried to catch another one. Aayla watched this nervously, biting her lower lip as she fought with herself. Should she go up and help the lady, or just stay out of it? The librarian lady had just made her put Zinneth outside and was rather annoying. Well, that wasn’t really any reason to let her get bullied by a bunch of kids even younger than her!

“Hey you guys stop that!”
Aayla spoke up as she stepped forward, placing herself between two of the kids and catching one of the books.

“Book’s are meant to be read not thrown around. Why do you have to be mean to this poor lady? She’s just doing her job”
She told them, holding on tight to the book she had caught. She gave all the kids a stern look although it didn’t seem to deter them.

“come on we’re just having a little bit of fun. My mom says you’re supposed to have fun with books. Well we’re having fun.”
the One of the boys protested, throwing one of the books high above Aayla and the librarian, where the second boy caught it.

“Yeah. Besides. We’re not going to take orders from a little girl. What are you like, 10? We’re 11 so, we’re older than you so we make the orders.”

“Yeah we make the orders! You girl, throw that book back to me.”

Aayla’s eyes narrowed on the boys, her lips unwillingly shifting into a pout.

“Listen here… im 14 years old, not 10. And I am a Sabertooth Wizard. Please stop throwing those books around. Put them down and go home. This game isn’t funny, someone can get hurt.”
She continued to protest.

The boys stopped for just a moment, all three of them suddenly scanning the girls body until they found the sabertooth tattoo emblazoned on her shoulder. All of them knew about guild wizards… only the really good wizards could get into a guild, let alone a guild like Sabertooth.

“Okay… okay fine… here we’ll stop throwing the books.”
The first boy said with the slightest bit of hesitation in his voice. He put the book down on the table, followed by the second boy who did the same, causing the librarian sigh in relief. The title shone brightly in the reflective light of the Library, emblazoned in black and gold writing was “Heroes of light”.

“That’s the book!”
She exclaimed, quickly placing her hands over her mouth in surprise at her own exclamation. She moved to reach for the book, but the boy who had just put it down, quickly picked it back up again, a big smirk on his face.

“This is the book you want? Well if you want it, and you want us to stop having fun, then you have to catch me! It shouldn’t be a problem for a Sabertooth wizard right!?”
Without even waiting for the girl to answer, the first boy booked it out of the library as fast as his little 11 year old legs could take him.

Aayla huffed in annoyance, turning around and taking off after the first boy, calling after him as she ran.

“Hey get back here! It’s not funny!”
She cried out at him, getting ready to cast a waterlock on the boy. Water began to build up over her right hand as she began casting the spell.

“neener neener neener, you can’t catch me wizard! Don’t use water magic, or you’ll ruin the book!”
The boy laughed as he continued to run, dodging into alleyways, between houses and running around into high gardens.

Aayla grunted, knowing the boy was right. If she used any of her water magic, then she would just ruin the book… the only real option she had was to be faster than the boy, which wasn’t the case in this situation. She did have one way to catch up to the small boy though… mind you, it would terrify the villagers if she did her take over… maybe… maybe she could use the garden to her advantage! She took a deep breath, concentrating hard on her Sea Serpent Takeover. A yellow light surrounded her body just as she ducked behind one of the houses, and disappeared within seconds. The form that was left behind would be terrifying to anyone who wasn’t used to this type of magic. Her forearms were now covered in greenish blue scaled, her nails turned to claws, the same look adorned her feet with large clawed toes digging into the ground, boosting her speed. Her skin had taken on a pale blue hue, her hair pushed back out of her face by scales and small little horns, her ears having morphed into fins. There was even a tail that had grown from her tailbone.

It didn't take much to scare the boy off of his feet. She ran as fast as her modified legs would take her and reached forward, grabbing the back of the boys shirt and stopping him in his tracks. When the boy turned to face the demon that grabbed him, a scream escaped the boys lips, immediately alerting nearby adults of something that was happening. However, the hedges in this garden were huge, and she took that opportunity to grab the book that had fallen to the floor after she had grabbed the terrified little boy. She quickly changed back to her normal self, and held fast to the book.

“I told you, books are to read, not to play with.”
She said as she stormed back off towards the library. When she walked back into the building with the book in hand, the two boys pouted and left the library grumbling. Girls were no fun to play with anyways! There were more fun things to do in town anyways!

Aayla walked up to the librarian and handed her the index card.
“I… I’m so sorry for all the trouble ma’am… This is the book I’ve been looking for… it’s for Mrs. Henderson… she really wanted to read it… can I take it to her?”
She asked, her nervous and fretful demeanor quickly returning to the young girl.

The librarian sighed and nodded, taking the index card and putting down Mrs Henderson’s name onto it. The old woman was well known to her, so she wasn’t worried about loosing it. She was more worried about having to go and get the book herself in a few weeks when the elderly woman was done with it.

The young girl bowed politely to the librarian before turning around and running towards the water fountain she had left Zinny in. The snake was still swimming there, way at the bottom of the fountain to avoid being spotted by passers by. She put her hand into the water and Zinny quickly zipped towards it and slithered up the young girls arm. The serpents tongue hissed and moved for quite a while, almost as if the serpent was trying to talk to her.

“I know Zinny… I’m sorry I didn’t mean to leave you there so long… Let’s bring this book back to Mrs Henderson and get onto the next job… I promise you can help okay?”
She offered the snake with a smile. Judging by the suns position in the sky, she still had a few hours before she had to go and meet the wagon driver to get back to Crocus.

When Aayla got back to the old ladies house, she knocked once more, and waited to be beckoned back inside. There sat the old lady, in the same chair she had been in since she left. The only difference to the scene was the length of the scarf the old lady was knitting! It was quite long at this point, touching the floor in a cute little wave of pinks and purples.

“here you are Mrs Henderson, “Heroes of light” J…Just as you requested.”
She stated, putting the book down on the table for the old woman. Finally, the woman stopped her rocking, leaning forward and peering through her large bifocal glasses.

“Oh my my~ deary you are such a good girl. Oh my yes. Ooh this book brings back so many memories. Oh but I’m afraid I can’t see all that well anymore… dear, maybe you can read the book for an old woman?”
Aayla paused, a sense of dread sitting in her stomach at the old woman’s request. She watched as the old lady sat back in her chair to continue her knitting. She sighed lightly. She couldn’t just leave the old lady… maybe she could read to her for a little while… at least until the old lady paid her or asked her to leave, or even fell asleep.

“Yes ma'am… I can do that.”
The young girl stated as she took the book back up and sat in the sofa that was next to the rocking chair. She sank so low in the seat she feared she might fall asleep in it’s comfort. Opening the book, she began to read it’s contents, and wasted away the last hours she had before her ride back home…