Welcome to Gaia! ::

Having found the Archives closed, Mal had wandered over to the classrooms. Classrooms used to have books-- or they did while he'd been in them. Maybe these classrooms, as odd as the classes held in them might be, would also have books.

Any other place and he would have tried the locks on the Archives; he's pretty familiar with locks, any Detective had to be at least somewhat familiar with them. He could probably get through most locks. But here?

The locks could be hiding something like that tap tap taping and he's just not ready for it. Not yet. In fact, of all of the Chosen here, Mal's willing to bet he's one of the few who could absolutely do without a visit from their God. He didn't want anything to do with Zeus, at least for a while. Until the memory of charred lungs heaving stale breath in his face fades, he'd just rather not.

So he looked. Wandering through classrooms, picking up a book here or there to open it, glance through, and put it back on the shelves. He wasn't sure what he was looking for, only that he was looking for something by doing it.

Mal moved out to where he could be seen. The voice had made him stop for a beat-- but that was alright. He waved at the woman. She was vaguely familiar, in the way that meant he'd seen her lately.

"Hi. Just poking around. The Archives were locked." He had a book in his hand, fingers marking a place; he knew better than to dog-ear a page. Someone had taught him to be more respectful of books than that.

Mal studied her face for a long beat. "Snail mail question, on the tour. Your name starts with an M, right? And you have a business." He had a good memory for people, and while he knew her name started with an M, and it was unusual, he didn't remember the name exactly.

"Classroom libraries. They're not comprehensive, but they're reading material." He waved at the shelf he'd been looking at.

"Mal Gherig, Zeus." It was still strange to introduce himself that way. It had been detective for too long, and suddenly he was a -- what? Hero? Civilian? He didn't know, and that was just as bad.

"I suppose we can't, unfortunately. I've only hit the one classroom so far, though. We could keep moving." Even if each classroom only had a double handful of books, they'd manage to find enough, maybe.