His curiosity piqued, Morne pushed open the door and went inside, his steps not making a single sound as he passed over the wooden floor within.
He entered what could only be described as a magical gift shop.
Rows of shelves lined all four walls, the contents resting atop them changing every second. Some were fantastical, others incomprehensible, and yet most seemed ordinary.
He spotted miniature versions of the displays outside, some replicas and some working products; books; pieces of chain with a strange, closed hook on one end and a bauble on the other; carvings; and many other things.
This design allowed the floor of the shop to remain clean, allowing customers to walk around unimpeded.
Morne spotted no desk or storekeeper within, and could only assume that magic would prevent thievery and allow for purchases.
He went over to one of these shelves, scratching his beard as he watched item after item appear and then flicker away, replaced by something else.
'How are you supposed to find anything in here?' he wondered.
"Can I help you?" a voice said behind him.
Morne turned around to find a sharply-dressed old man with slicked-back black hair staring back at him.
His brown eyes contained both wisdom and a hidden sharpness, and his limbs moved with all the flexibility of a man an eighth of his age. His hair and eyes told Morne that he was an Opyekian, like Morne himself.
Slight wrinkles lined his face, but the vigor within his arms and the gravity with which he held himself gave off the air of not a weak old man, but an experienced fighter who had bested many foes.
His back wasn't perfectly straight, containing a slight slouch, but this felt more like it was for Morne's benefit than anyone else's. If the man stood to his full 6'3'' height, the danger hiding behind those brown eyes may very well be unleashed.
"I'm just browsing for now," Morne replied. "I have a feeling that there's something here I'd be interested in, but these shelves make it hard to find what I'm looking for."
"That's a simple fix," the old man replied, palm flipping over to reveal a small ball of smooth black obsidian, barely five inches wide. Blue runes were carved into the orb, giving off a glow that was hard to see in the bright light of the gift shop.
"Hold this, think of what you want, and the shelves will change accordingly."
Morne took the ball from the man's hand cautiously, thinking of what he wanted.
It was a vague idea, as for some reason the Coltha hadn't just directly implanted the knowledge of what Morne needed and where it was, so he focused on what little he knew.
Instantly, the runes on the ball lit up and the air around the shelves turned hazy as the shop cycled through its inventory. Trinkets and practical items flashed by so fast that Morne had to look down at the ground to avoid a headache.
"This might take a while," the old man said. "It has a lot of inventory to cycle through."
Finally, the rapid changes slowed before stopping entirely.
Morne looked up.
The shelves were now full of books, some with covers made of exotic materials. Stone, pig leather, leaves, one even had a cover and pages made of frosted glass.
Morne's eyes roamed from cover to cover before landing on a book on the back wall, nestled between a normal-looking book and a book with a cover of dozens of marbles.
Like the book to its right, it appeared almost completely ordinary. Its cover was made of smooth black leather, and the writing on it was white.
What set it apart from the others, however, was the words imprinted on the cover.
No matter how hard Morne tried, those words eluded him. He was a literate individual who knew how to read, write, and speak Opyekian, and he knew for certain that these words were in the same language, but he couldn't for the life of him decipher them.
They shifted from one string of nonsensical letters to another every moment he looked at it, making it impossible to determine what it said.
But he knew it said *something*, as whenever he looked away, the letters settled into a legible title that he could see out of the corner of his eye.
Unfortunately, it was impossible to read it like this. Every time he tried, his eyes subconsciously went back to the cover, trying to focus on it.
And if he did manage to keep his eyes away, the average human brain wasn't primed to read out of the corner of one's eye.
One could perhaps read things around the center of one's gaze, but without the eye focusing on the words, it couldn't properly piece apart the letters into meaningful form.
And as mentioned earlier, every time he focused on the book or its surroundings, the words changed, so he couldn't trick it either.
There was no way to read the cover. And if the cover was like this, it wouldn't be surprising if the contents within were the same.
So why was Morne interested in this book, out of all of the other ones?
It was because that implanted memory from the Trade finally made itself known.
Morne didn't know why the demon couldn't have just told him about all of this, but he wasn't about to argue with a demon that had been around since before Morne's great-great-great-great grandfather walked Xryn.
Now, the implanted memory was flaring, confirming that this was the item he was looking for, the object that would start him on his path of Necromancy.
Which begged the question… what was it doing here?
He hadn't asked that question before, but now it was ringing alarm bells in his mind.
This was a public place, after all, and as such fell under the laws of the Opyek Empire. One of those laws outlawed the possession and trading of Necromantic works.
Did the empire not know? Or was the person who brought it here and the owner of the museum unaware of its true nature due to its confounding cover? Or was it both?
Morne was shaken out of his thoughts by the old man's words.