Young Writers Society

"Perfect," said Harry, "there is certainly more than a few books that would have that. Very common stories, those. Well, then, try and hold onto each other, and make sure you don't lose sight of me or James or Vankous. Its not dangerous or anything, but getting lost in this crown would do no one any good."

With that, Harry stepped into the throng of beings, containing life forms of all shapes and sizes, dressed in everything from the living fabric of animals to armored suits, although they'd all been de weaponized as per resort policy, not everyone got permission to carry those around like their team did.

Mage grabbed onto Soul's hand before he even took a step forward. For a moment, Soul mistakenly thought that Mage would be letting him lead. Then Mage took off after Harry into the crowd, and Soul quickly realized just how wrong that assumption was. He followed behind Mage. Mage was shorter than him, but he was fast. It was difficult keeping up.

It didn't help that he kept getting distracted by all of the people they were passing. Soul hadn't ever seen people like some of them before—they hadn't even appeared in some of the stories he had read in Zogin's old home.

Seeing how different the people here almost made Soul think he didn't have to go around in his armor. It could be safe showing himself.

And yet...

He was an oddity, and he wasn't sure he could trust that things would be different in a place like this.

Harry waded through the sea of people, moving with a slight uncertainty to his steps, a rather rare occurrence but being around so many people in a setting that was not a battlefield and actually going shopping with the masses wasn't something they did too often. In fact they'd last done this probably last century when they'd had to investigate that possessed ice cream truck.

Somehow, Harry did remember the way to this particular bookshop however and soon they were standing in front of one of the flashier shops in town. It was a pretty large building, stretching about seven stories into the air. It was all metal and glass, quite unlike some of the other bookshops that tended to stick to more older styles. This one being about new worlds was designed to be more along the lines of a building from the present timeline. It was still an old design compared to the technology in use for some places but from what Harry had gleaned from Soul and Mage's reaction to the cabin, this would still be new to them.

Inside of course, the latest in air conditioning tech was at work, not to mention everything was in fact completely automated. Harry led them down the history section, looking for something that wouldn't be overly boring but covered the recent histories of some of these worlds. There would almost definitely be a few about this resort, but perhaps there were a couple of other detailing other interesting worlds too.

After a minute or so of walking Harry pointed out a couple of titles that caught his eye.

"So you wanted stories from this world and others, these are a good place to start," said Harry. "We've got The Making of the Planet Sized Resort which is a bit over the top, but it details the history of this world quite nicely. Then there's From Hydrania 27 to Earth 27: A Comprehensive Guide of Reality's Most Powerful which is about arguably the most interesting worlds out there."

Mage's eyes were wide from the moment they entered the library. They had actually been wide since they saw the bookshop, since Mage had never seen a building just like it before. The libraries and bookshops in their home world were nothing like the ones that Harry had shown him.

"I want to read the second one," Mage said. He wanted to know more about this world, but he wanted to know about the other worlds Harry had undoubtedly visited even more.

"Can I read The Making of the Planet Sized Resort?" Soul asked, tearing his gaze away from the metal walls.

"Sure, just grab those, and we'll go buy them I think. You might not want to stand here and read in the middle of everyone," said Harry, "also oooh, I completely forgot, but Mage, that book does in fact contain the story of the place I grew up in. Hydrania 27. Its not a 100% accurate, but, most of it is, and its a cool story, or so I like to think."

Mage's eyes widened.

He took the book from the shelf and held it close to his chest. "I can't wait to read it, then."

Next to him, Soul reached for his chosen book. He held his less tightly than Mage did, but it was still with a lot of care.

Harry gave him a small smile. "It was a good place. It was so long ago when I was actually small and used to actually age, but I still do remember. Uhh...do you want it packaged or are you going to carry it?"

Soul wasn't sure how to respond to that comment, especially when it was more directed towards Mage, but he still couldn't wrap his head around how different Harry was from anyone he had met before.

"Can we package mine?" Mage asked.

"I'm okay with carrying mine," Soul said. Zogin always made him carry their things; he was used to it at this point.

"Suit yourself," said Harry, with a smile. "So, is there anything else you want from here? I completely forgot to ask?"

Soul and Mage looked at each other before both shaking their heads.

"This is good," Mage said. He hugged it even closer to his chest. He couldn't wait to read it later. He didn't think he spoke or read the language that this world did, but something told him he'd magically be able to do it as soon as he opened up the book.

"Alright," said Harry with a nod. He proceeded towards the cashier, plugging in the required code for the book before producing a thing red card and swiping it through. A few seconds later there was a pleasant beep and receipt along with a small black button emerged from the cashier.

Harry placed the button gently on the book in Mage's hands and tapped it. It burst into action, slowly expanding and crawling its way around the book, packaging it with remarkable speed and efficiency.

Once that was done, Harry turned to the two again. "So, where to next?"

"That was so fast," Mage managed to get out.

Soul, meanwhile, kept staring at the cashier with wide electric blue eyes. "I can't tell if that was magic or automation."

It was unclear—even to him—if he was talking to himself or to the others.

After another moment, he finally tore his gaze away. Whatever that had been, Zogin would have certainly loved it. He couldn't wait to tell her about it as soon as they were reunited.

"Could we try on clothes now?" Mage asked.

Harry smiled at Mage's expression. "You should see the ones one our ship sometime."

"That's a bit of both," chimed in Vankous at Soul's thought. "Its some very neat technology, helped along by a teeny bit of bending of the laws of the universe courtesy of magic."

James nodded. "And hmm, if we are going for clothes next, can we also get something?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "Yup. Okay, so you two. What sort of clothes are we talking about? There's over a hundred shops in here with clothing, so you'll have to be a teeny bit specific."

"I wan..." began James but Harry raised a hand to silence him.

"You'll be here for the next week, let them have a say first," said Harry.

Mage's eyes widened—not for the first time that day and not for the last—at the number of shops. He couldn't imagine that many clothing shops ever existing in one place. He couldn't even imagine how many clothes would be in all of those clothing shops combined.

Mage crossed his arms and thought.

"...We should probably get new clothes that we could wear in our world," Mage decided. "So maybe a place that has a similar clothing style? But I also want to try other clothes, too..."

"Maybe we could do both?" Soul suggested.

"We can definitely do both. The team's on a one week vacation and today is still day one, so we have pretty a much a week to wonder these shops if we wanted to," added in Harry. "But um, which type would you want to visit first. I will definitely have to call Shania or Jennifer to figure out which shops to go to, but there is definitely a ton of places y'all will love."