The Stationery Store

When Arcturus stepped into the stationery store, he was amazed at what he saw. The place was small, but it was well decorated. He saw an assortment of stickers, pens, pencils and all sorts of paper goods on all sides of the store. His eyes were glued to the journal shelf as he rushed towards it and looked at what they had. There was an assortment of spiral notebooks, regular hardcover notebooks and some ring binder notebooks. He was interested in hardcover notebooks.

What do you look for in a journal?

Thickness and paper quality. If the paper is thick, it won't rip easily. If the paper is good, pen ink will show up better.

Do you care for color? The journal you finished writing in was black. Are you the type to get the same color or do you get different colors?

I don't pick the same ones. If I need to look back if they all look the same, I find that confusing. I was thinking of getting a plain hardcover notebook of another color.

One notebook in particular caught his attention. It was a red hardcover notebook, but the name of the brand surprised him. "They sell this brand all the way over here?"

"Most of the stuff we receive from outside of the walls are stuff that the bigger city doesn't need. They get their stuff imported from the mainland."

"Is that so?"

"Why? Is this brand well-known?"

"This is a rather expensive brand of notebooks because of how good the paper quality is and what sort of trees they use to make the paper. Avid journal writers covet this brand, but it's super expensive in Lamina."

"I see…" Murphy looked rather fascinated with Arcturus's knowledge about notebooks.

"What can I exchange to get this notebook?" He rummaged into his satchel and got out the goggles he had used to brave through the blizzard. Since he no longer had any use for it, he believed it would be best to part ways with it.

He headed towards the register where a young woman was tinkering with a retro radio. She had short, unkempt sandy blond hair and wore round glasses that befitted her rather mousy appearance. She was dressed in a green knit sweater that looked rather warm.

"Jennifer." Murphy called out to her, grabbing her attention.

"Oh, it's Murphy!" She remarked as she adjusted her glasses. Her gaze was glued to Arcturus. "Oh? Who's this?"

"He's Percival Scarlet. He's a scholar I found drifting across the sea the other day."

"Is that so? It must be hectic trying to lug around a tall unconscious man from the waters to here. I'm Jennifer. I run the stationery store, as you can tell." She reached a hand out.

Arcturus took her hand and shook it. "It's nice to meet you."

She then looked at the item in his hands. "You want to purchase? Do you have anything worth trading?"

"I have these goggles."

"Goggles, let me see…" She took them and inspected them. The curiosity in her face slowly disappeared as she rejected them. "Not interesting enough for me."

Arcturus became shocked. "Are you serious?"

"This is a stationery store. What use would goggles have here?"

She is not wrong, though…

Arcturus then glanced at the radio and had an idea. "What if I fix this radio? Would you let me keep this journal if I fixed it for you?"

Jennifer seemed rather interested. "Can you fix it?"

"I'm from Lamina, so I do have experience with technology and such."

"Please do, then! There's a radio show I really want to listen to and it's going to start in fifteen minutes!" She looked rather eager, which caused Arcturus to become nervous.

Way to put even more pressure on me…

Good luck.

He handed the journal to Murphy as he rolled up his sleeves. Tinkering with retro devices was a hard feat given for someone who grew up with advanced technology. He had remembered a small memory of his mother tinkering with a retro radio similar to Jennifer's as she believed the music quality was better than an advanced radio. He just needed to remember how she was tinkering with it.

If I remember correctly, she did this and that…

The eerie static soon dissipated as audible music replaced it. He heard the sound of trumpets playing in the background and wondered if it was intermission music. Jennifer looked rather pleased as she heard the music.

"Wow, you just tweaked it and you fixed it!"

"I didn't do anything…" Arcturus muttered.

"I can now watch my radio show in peace!"

"Can I keep the journal then?"

"Sure, it's all yours! Oh, hold on a second…" She left the counter as she took some pens, stickers and some memo pads. "Here, have these as a bit of a bonus for fixing my radio!"

Arcturus started panicking. "That feels like too much for some minor tweaks."

"I insist!"

"Then, thank you…" He still felt a bit bad for receiving gifts of large quantities for a low-effort job, but if Jennifer had insisted, he wasn't one to refuse a kind lady's offer.

The trumpet noise in the background suddenly died down as a shrill voice took its place. "Good day to everyone! It's your girl, Ri! Welcome to the latest episode of Believe It, Ri-lly! Today's topic is about the Charlatan! As you have seen on the news, he has escaped the tower called Castle Lavender. This is an emergency to the people here on Sirius! How serious is this? Very 'sirius'." She giggled at her own joke.

Ri's usage of word puns caused Arcturus to grimace while he heard Souhait snorting in his head. I like her jokes.

The radio show's segment on Nova felt like a rehash of what he saw on the television. Murphy, on the other hand, didn't seem to like this show. "Jennifer, why are you listening to stuff relating to the mayor? You know Ri is one of the reasons why we were deemed as Opposers and got sent here."

Relating to the mayor…? Souhait, did you know about a woman named Ri when you and Nova came here?

I have never heard of her.

I see… Souhait had no reason to lie to him, but he did wonder why he heard a rather rattled voice from him. It was as if hearing her voice was slowly causing him to remember something unfortunate.

Jennifer remarked, "Well, I need to be informed of what's going on in the city. Ignorance may be bliss, but I still want to know. Besides, we all still watch the news channel on television. Why are you hounding me about listening to a mere radio show? You think I'm in cahoots with the government or something?"

"I don't think that."

She then gazed over at Arcturus. "Percival, since you're new to this city, let me tell you something important: don't trust anyone here. Don't trust me. Don't trust Murphy. Trust no one but yourself. The moment you lay trust into someone, they'll betray you instantly."

"Why are you telling me this?" Arcturus had his guard up.

"Because there are some spies here in the Outskirts. Sometimes, these spies will disguise themselves as government opposers, but in a flash, soldiers will be after them and then they'll be sent over the wall."

Her words got his interest. "What do these spies do? Why do they disguise themselves as opposers?"

"They're after people they deem 'useful'. If there's someone in the Outskirts with impeccable knowledge of technology, they'd take that person over the wall and ask them to work for them. If there's someone who's strong enough to carry heavy loads, they'd find them useful too. They disguise themselves as opposers because that's how they can gather information about people."

"Why are they doing this?"

Jennifer leaned close to his ear, as if she wanted to keep this a secret between them and exclude Murphy. "The Lady Mayor is searching for useful people to serve her grand plan. What's her grand plan? That I do not know."

Arcturus pulled away as he locked eyes with Jennifer who was giving him a rather sneaky smile. She did say for him to not trust in her, so he was rather wary of her intentions.

Is she a spy?

It would be best to not jump to conclusions, but still keep an eye out on her.

Souhait, are you okay? You don't sound good.

Do not mind me. I just cannot stand that shrill voice from the radio.

When Arcturus focused back on the radio, Ri spoke about something he hadn't heard on television. With that shrill voice Souhait detested, she informed, "So, I heard from authorities that the Charlatan is somewhere in the Outskirts. Where, exactly? I don't know! So, to all the people in the Outskirts, if you find the Charlatan, you will be highly rewarded! What does he look like? He's a beautiful man with golden hair and lavender eyes. Find someone like that and good things will happen to you for the rest of your life! I guarantee it!"

Murphy scoffed. "Why should we listen to a government dog?"

Jennifer just smirked. "Percival, I recommend you conceal your hair for the time being. Your hair isn't gold, but you are the most suspicious looking person here. While not everyone listens to the radio, there will be people trying to engage you into confessing your true intentions and identity."

Arcturus narrowed his eyes. "You're not just some stationery store owner. Who are you?"

Jennifer rested her head against a hand as she used the other one to wave at him. Murphy forcefully got Arcturus to leave the store. He looked rather unsettled once he stepped foot outside. He quickly put Arcturus's coat's hood over his head.

"Sorry about all that. Jennifer is a rather kooky woman."

"No worries. I got my new journal, so let's go find Constance."

"I'll take you to Hilbert's!"

Murphy led the way as Arcturus followed. After what Jennifer said, he couldn't help but to scan his vicinity constantly to see if there were people wanting to interrogate him. Fortunately, they just stared, but did not engage with him. He then looked at Murphy's back profile. He trusted Murphy after the kindness he and his family had shown to him, but he did wonder how he knew she was a government dog but Souhait had no knowledge of her. He knew they'd both tell him eventually, so he did his best to not get swayed by Jennifer's warning.