His eyes scanned the diagrams on the page. The shapes and ancient words inscribed in a circle on the page were curious to him, though he didn’t know what they might be for. He sat cross-legged between two shelves full of ancient books, on the paper think orange carpet with the red leather-bound tome opened in his lap. The cover had holes and frayed edges, part of the spine was open to the outside from the top. The pages were yellowed and frayed, but the writing was still legible, though in an extinct language.

He would often come here when he had spare time or it was quiet around the shop. His uncle had amassed this, his private collection, over the years and had tried to decode some of the ancient language contained in the books and on the various artifacts he stored in the back room of his shop. In his younger years, he had been an archeologist. He amassed treasures and artifacts, and many of these books, from the farthest reaches of the world. The artifacts and treasures he didn’t feel any great affinity for eventually ended up in his shop. Even all these years after he had (or claimed he had) retired from his expeditions, he still seemed to have an unending supply to stock the shelves of the quiet shop.

His efforts could be seen in many of the books, where he had scribbled in the margins and the top and bottoms of the pages. One book, a black, hardback the size of a dictionary, had over fifty pages populated by many, many words. It was a translator his uncle had made between the ancient language and the modern one. Not only of words, but also of phrases. And it was far from complete. Some words had no counterpart and had extensive definitions or pictures, sometimes both, to explain what the word or phrase meant.

His curious eyes scanned the page for any writing his uncle would have made to explain the symbol, but there was none. Only a small bit of writing at the bottom translating two words and logging them added to the translation book. After scanning the various symbols on the next page, he turned to the next page. The paper ruffled as he gingerly lifted it and moved it, turning the page. The next had two more odd symbols and writing, some from his uncle postulating a possible meaning for the one on the right. Something about wind and fire. He turned the page.

Ding, ding, gently rang through the shop as the door opened and rang the bell attached to it. The young man in the back stood up, setting the open book down on the desk at the end of the bookcase as he walked by. He stopped for a second to look in the mirror over the desk. The lighting was somewhat dim, though light enough to read by. He ran his fingers through his brown hair, trying to make something of a part out of it. He had kept it short enough in the back, though around the sides and front it hung lower, over his brow except where it was parted and a small tuff jutted out into a curved spire that alone curved over that part of his forehead. His brown eyes moved in the mirror as they shifted to looking at the whites surrounding the deep brown orbs. A few cracks of red sat along the edges, probably from all the “reading” strain, though he was more looking than reading, knowing but a small bit of the words contained in the tomes. His skin was pale, though slightly red from sitting out in the sun several days ago. His face was clean-shaven, though some stubble poked out of the skin in front of his ears, just below the trimmed sideburns that stopped about a third of the way down the length of his ear, just about level with his eyes. His orange, short sleeve shirt had his unbuttoned, checkered green and gray shirt thrown over it, normal enough for him. He had finally moved from jeans to blue jean shorts as it had gotten hot enough for even him to make the change. Though his legs were about as pale as his arms and face, though his calf muscles were well toned in that respect, probably from carrying around his backpack full of books. Short white ankle high socks stuck out of his gray and blue tennishoes. He was a little short, always jokingly complaining about being a few years slow if anyone said anything to him about it. He did, in fact, look several years younger than his age, often being mistaken for a high school student concurrently enrolled as he made his rounds at his college. He was trim, and while not really muscular, had a good deal of strength for someone his size. He obviously wasn’t formally dressed and groomed by any stretch of the imagination, but for a college student out for the summer and working in his borderline eccentric uncle’s shop, he was presentable to greet a customer if that’s what the person entering the shop was, and to greet whoever it was if that person wasn’t.

He started to walk to the door which was cracked ajar slightly. He heard voices quietly drifting in the air. So there was more than one person, he thought. The small room he was in was divided into two main sections. The two bookshelves were on one side parallel, making an aisle. One had its back flat against the wall, and the other dissected the room in the middle. On the other side of the room, the walls around to the door had short shelves, each three levels, holding artifacts, pots, platters, a stone slab or two, an ancient horn, a shield, two swords, an ax, various things the old archeologist had found during his expeditions that he felt inclined to keep here with the books. Some had engravings on them that looked like some things he had seen in the books. Perhaps that was why his uncle had chosen to keep them here, for comparison. For whatever reason, there were enough that shelves then extended along the back of the central bookcase to house more of them. Back to the bookcase with its back against the wall, in the corner at its end, toward the door, was nestled the desk with a lamp, chair, and mirror over the back. The mirror also had engravings along its ornamented and carved border. In the corner along the back of the desk opposite the lamp was a small television set, turned on but the volume off. It seemed to be displaying a commercial for a type of cold beverage or another, nothing he was too concerned about as its light flickered off of the surroundings. The green shaded lamp cast a gentle green glow about the room and a brighter white light onto the surface of the desk and the floor around it where he had sat reading earlier.

He just stood there a minute listening. He had found that sometimes if he listened to people talk for a minute, they would say what they were looking for and he’d be able to help them find it quicker. True he could just go out and ask them, but he enjoyed just looking around and found that most other people did too, but as soon as he greeted them their exploration would be cut short. He noticed that people that frequented the shop seemed to like that more anyway, provided he didn’t wait too long.

Mirror, fountain, knowledge, experience, strength, weapon, sword, shield, staff, ect. Choose wisely…

Staff-whip, interesting weapon…