"A lot of people think they're a bit much, yeah. It's a fun way to spend an afternoon sometimes, though, visiting one of their villages. Do you have other species with unusual traits like that?"

"...elves hate children?"

"Huh. How does that work, do you know?"

"Poorly, I would imagine, but they're pretty reclusive, so I don't know the details."

"None of our common species are reclusive enough that I'd expect someone who grew up in a city not to know at least a few; that's humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, and gnomes. Dwarves are the least likely of those to live in non-dwarf places individual by individual, but they're also the most common after humans, so it evens out." He abruptly takes out his notepad to write something down. "And I need to remember to look into bringing you to the dwarfholds, most of them don't like to let humans in so I tend to think of them as a special event sort of place but I bet they'll make an exception and they're as densely populated as any human city."

"I - am not aware of any reason I should wish to intrude into a dwarfhold?"

"For channels, I meant. I don't think there's a reason to leave them out of your rotation, if they agree that it's worth having you there. It's your decision, though, of course."

"Oh, for channels, absolutely, the context of the conversation was - distracting."

"Ah, sorry," he chuckles at himself. "No, I'm still thinking about how best to do that, a city tour is a good plan but I'm sure we'll come up with improvements."

Nod.

"They should be back with the first of the books any second, anyway, the games section isn't far." And indeed as he's speaking the first of the runners gets back. The rules for cloud chess come in the form of a small book rather than a pamphlet, and she also brought Chess among the Common Species, Chess in the Outer Realms, and Chess Puzzles, all by one Sarnan Shordisi. Raafi takes the cloud chess book and gestures for Blai to have a look at the others.

Chess books! "Is it legal to copy these for myself while I'm renting them?"

"Yep."

"Then when we're at the market picking up my clothes I'll want to collect some blank books!"

"We can definitely do that. This is clever... if I'm reading it right there's a story that goes with the game, and the story tells you how the transformations go. No wonder it didn't make sense. We'll take all four," he tells the librarian, "for a week, that's probably enough time to get started with everything? We can renew any that you aren't done with."

"That should be plenty of time to Scriven some copies unless the text is very small."

"I think a halfling wrote this one but I'd expect the rest to be human-scale."

    "May I see your membership card, sir?"

"Yeah, of course," he fishes a small card of stiff paper out of his belt and hands it over. "I know you'll need a deposit from me."

The librarian reads the card and retrieves a second one from a drawer on the far side of the desk. "We will, and you're otherwise fine to check everything out today."

"Good."

The next book to come out is the one about divine magic; Raafi thumbs through it before approving of it. Next is a pair of books on gods; they didn't have one that both explained how gods worked and gave details on even all of the major ones, so the runner brought back one of each. "Do you want both in this batch?" Raafi asks.

"- yes, I think so."

"Alll right." Onto the pile they go.

The last runner takes longer - Raafi picks the cloud chess book back up to read while he waits - and eventually comes back with a copy of Dwarven Kingdoms: A Comparison. "I recognize that one, it should do the job," Raafi says approvingly, and produces a pouch of coins to pay for the rental and a  mesh bag to carry the books in.

"Thank you very much."

"It's no trouble." He steps away from the desk, back toward the bench on the other side of the vestibule. "So, from here, do you want to get your new clothes first, or wait while I ask about the necklace and get them afterward? I'm also a little hesitant to leave you at the temple; there's a chance someone will figure out who you are and make a fuss again, and I'm not sure if they'll have a private room you can use. How do you feel about that, should I try to come up with something else?"

"I'd be inclined to get the clothes and blank books and ink, and then if there's anywhere out of the way to sit I can start on the copying while I wait for you."

He nods. "What do you want to do if they don't have a private room?"

"It won't ruin the book if I'm interrupted at the scrivening."

That's not what he asked, and he spends a brief moment visibly thinking about whether he wants to make an issue of it before deciding that he doesn't. "I'll try to be quick, in that case, I guess."