Alexander found the act of taking care of his fish aquarium relaxing. The soft hum of the aerator, the gentle splash of the filter, they made for an excellent ambient noise for the apartment. Most people don’t realize just how much work and careful planning it could take to maintain a fish tank. The general population would resort to chemical balancers—which were all well and good—but there was something pleasing about having a perfectly balanced ecosystem in your tank.

  Saturday mornings Alexander would ceremonially pull out his weekly water test kit. Liquid, not the cheap paper strips. He lined up five test tubes and filled each with a water sample using his five milliliter syringe. Then he put several drops from each of the testing solutions into separate tubes with the water samples and shook them lightly. He waited the allotted five minutes and checked his results. Ph levels were normal, no traces of ammonia, water hardness levels were acceptable, but to his surprise he discovered that the nitrate levels were a tad high. This wasn’t a serious issue, but if left alone it could leave the fish more susceptible to disease. Best to take care of it now.

  ^

  You have gained a level in the intermediate skill alchemy.

  Alchemy level 1:

  You have 2 points to distribute to your Alchemy skill tree.

  Alchemy? Alexander recalled that it was an early, failed attempt at natural philosophy. Turning lead into gold and such. He supposed some good likely came of the pursuit, however. This was obviously supposed to be chemistry. He supposed the system could be having a translation issue, but did wonder if there was a link between this and the intermediate cooking alchemy skill he had seen the previous day. Not having the time today he closed the window.

  Having an issue to resolve with his aquarium, however, meant a trip to the pet store. This was gladly added to Alexander's to do list for his scheduled Saturday outing. He grabbed his shopping list before double checking his stocks of food, paper goods, and toiletries. Satisfied with his lists and agenda he headed out for a relaxing Saturday of life maintenance. As he turned to lock his door a voice called out behind him.

  “Good morning, Alexander. No new species of rats this morning?”

  He turned to see Emily. He found it fortunate that they kept running into each other.

  “Good morning Emily. All clear on the R.O.U.S. front. How are you settling in?” He was smiling without thinking again. He guessed charisma put things like that on auto-pilot.

  “Oh, no.” she sighed with resignation. “I told Janelle when we were packing that we should have had a garage sale to get rid of all this stuff. Of course we never got around to it. I’m tempted to throw half of what's left away. So no house warming party yet. Maybe if we set a date for one it will motivate Janelle to pull her weight.”

  “To be honest, I do love a good deadline.” Alexander said with just a hint of self-mockery.

  “You would!” She chuckled. “On top of it all my sister's lizard escaped its cage. It looks like the heat lamp melted part of the screen. So we have to sift through all our boxes carefully so we don’t accidentally throw it out with the trash!”

  “Maybe that could be the party theme, find the dragon and get the treasure. Do you have any gold wrapped chocolates?”

  Emily laughed, making Alexander feel… light. He didn’t have words for it.

  “Are you on your way somewhere?”

  He held up his agenda proudly. “Yes, I have some shopping to do. I need something for my aquarium and of course the other necessities of life.”

  “Oh, you like to keep fish?”

  “It is a long time hobby of mine.”

  “While listening to classical piano? Very classy hobbies.”

  “Listening?” Alexander had to think for a second. “Oh, no. I am terribly sorry. The previous tenant was a lady with poor hearing so she never heard my keyboard. So I never thought to plug in my headphones. I will be sure to do so next time I practice.”

  “That was you!? Wow! You are very talented!”

  “Thank you. Though I am a bit embarrassed to have been so inconsiderate.”

  “Please don’t mind me at all. It was wonderful. Janelle is taking a music course at the college, maybe you could play for us sometime.”

  “Maybe. Though it has been years since I had an audience.” Alexander felt his control of the conversation slipping so he decided to make a hasty retreat again. “Well I wish you success in finding your sisters lizard. I best get my chores done.”

  Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  “Okay, have a good day.” Emily smiled and Alexander noticed it seemed more authentic than it had been when they first met.

  All the employees at the local pet store, Best Pets Plus, knew Alexander by sight. He wasn’t sure if this was a good thing or not as they didn’t often go out of their way to greet him. Some even seemed to shuffle behind shelves as he walked by. He strolled into the expanded aquarium section—the very reason this was his favorite store—and he proceeded to the tanks that held the underwater plants.

  A young man in a red collared shirt approached him, not recognizing the danger Alexander presented to his ego. As Alexander turned to see the young man he did not recognize him. The employee opened with a predictable enough line, “Hi sir, can I help you find something today?”

  “Potentially…” Alexander looked him up and down weighing how far he should go in revealing his situation to him. “Is Charles here by chance? He knows in great detail my current aquarium outfit.”

  “Sorry to tell ya, Charles quit the other day. Not sure why, we think it may have been health related.”

  Alexander was not pleased to hear that the most qualified staff member was no longer here to help him, but he decided to give the young man a shot.

  “Patrick.” He said after seeing the employee's name tag, “I have diagnosed the problem with my aquarium already, the biochemical cycle is off by a small margin. I decided I need an additional plant to help accelerate the absorption of the nitrates. I am having trouble deciding between the Cryptocoryne Undulata, which is easy to care for, or the Anubis Frazeri, which takes a bit more attention to the conditions it will flourish in. My favorite fish the Beaufortia Kweichowensis, I call her Daisy, likes to hide in the soft growth of my Vesicularia Montagnei. I wonder if she would also enjoy the foliage of the Cryptocoryne Undulata. Though I doubt that will be the case, as the Cryptocoryne Undulata’s leaves are more rigid. What are your thoughts on the two?”

  The boys face betrayed his hesitance to answer, “Well, I have to say. I don’t know much about the underwater plants. However we have a nitrate balancer that could also help you.” Patrick said attempting to move to a topic he was more familiar with.

  “Ah, chemical balancers. Well as you are working in the aquarium section of the store that would also include the underwater plants, would it not? If employees understood the plants a bit more people would not need the crutch of a half dozen chemical balancers. I have a suggestion. Go do a bit of research on underwater plants so you can give your next customer a larger variety of solutions to their problems.”

  Alexander found no issue using his new spell suggestion in the event someone needs to increase their knowledge to meet the demands of their job. In the end it only benefited the subject and all his future clientele after all.

  Patrick's eyes glazed over a bit, “Yes sir. That sounds like a good idea.” And he turned to leave.

  “WAIT! After work young man! Do the research after work.” Alexander said lowering his voice.

  On second thought, this spell could be dangerous. My carelessness almost certainly would have caused this young man to walk out on the clock. A fireable offense to be sure.

  Feeling the burden of responsibility Alexander wondered if he would continue the use of the spell at all.

  “Ah, of course.” Patrick replied. “Do let me know if I can help you any further.” He walked away hastily after that.

  Help me any further? Maybe he meant that facetiously.

  Alexander really wished Charles was here. His knowledge on underwater plants even surpassed Alexander’s own. When it came to salt water plants Alexander's knowledge was downright plebeian by comparison. He guessed he would just have to go with the Cryptocoryne Undulata.

  Daisy is a picky one, but she will just have to deal with it.

  As Alexander headed to the counter he reached into his pocket for his wallet. Then he remembered that he had yet to look at the silver he had earned. So he opened his status window to see his silver count at twenty-one after completing various work related quests. He clicked on the silver icon and it brought up two options.

  ^

  Do you want to:

  Withdraw | Shop

  Alexander clicked shop for a second, it was still greyed out but it still brought up a window with a list of images and description but they too were all greyed out. On top of them was a large banner that said ‘coming soon’. The few items he could make out looked like they needed additional research as he had no clue what an elixir was. It sounded like an early nineteen hundreds remedy, when they used to put cocaine in everything.

  A thought occurred to him, “Oh dear, I hope there are no paraphernalia in this supernatural shop. That could cause drug trafficking issues.”

  He backed out of that window and selected withdraw instead. It gave Alexander another screen asking for him to select the quantity of coins and the currency he wanted.

  “Very convenient. I wonder if it will support bitcoin in the future?”

  Alexander was big on saving, and diversified savings are very important. He selected only one silver coin to be withdrawn as U.S. Dollars. A small stack of bills with a few coins hovered in the air surrounded by a transparent blue orb appeared. Alexander grabbed the stack out of the air and the blue orb dissipated. He wondered if the blue orb made it invisible until the point he grabbed it.

  Alexander counted out $25.47. Knowing inflation was running rampant, and this was approximately the price of an ounce of silver, he was willing to bet that the price would fluctuate. Doing some mental math, Alexander currently had made $534.87 from the quests. Quite a handsome reward for doing a handful of extra tasks. Most of which were job related.

  The Cryptocoryne Undulata was ringing up under list price. So not only did he have a small windfall of cash he was also under budget. Alexander decided to treat himself and looked at the clearance section. To his delight he found some activated carbon filters and a twenty gallon terrarium screen. He thought it would make an excellent move-in gift for the neighbors as it seemed theirs was damaged. What a delightful turn of events.

  After the pet store was grocery shopping. He had his binder of coupons in hand and slew the prices down to their lowest possible. As he checked out he had the feeling the cashier and people behind him in line were growing impatient with his thriftiness, but that is one of the burdens coupon warriors everywhere must bear. All in all he was having an exceedingly pleasant Saturday. That was until, on his way to the car, he happened upon the scene of a small group of teenage girls. They seemed to be arguing with a red-headed middle schooler. Not a terribly unusual scene, but when the high schoolers pulled out their baseball bats, Alexander got the feeling this wasn’t just some school drama.