Welcome to Gaia! ::

It was a rare moment with not a soul in sight besides the older man at the counter. Probably the nice weather, but less people came to sit in the front window when they could easily do so in a park or on the beach.

Alg looked a bit like his bookstore, not changing much regardless of the season. He had his cheek propped on a hand, the other hand fiddling with his ring while he stared down at a small leather notebook filled with writing.

As the bell rang from Shun's entrance, he blinked up to him with lifted brows, only to realize that as he'd drifted off he'd literally been drifting off, and the older man had been hovering an inch off the seat of his stool... which he seemed to drop back onto as soon as he through about it.

"Mr. Kuroda-" Alg smiled politely, standing and closing his notebook to tuck it inside of his sport coat, "-looking for reading material? Hopefully this isn't some sort of formal inquiry." It was said pleasantly, and as a police officer, Shun probably heard that often. "The donuts said 'free samples' I swear."

Algie chuckled a bit mysteriously, "Nothing on this side of the pond," his eyebrows bobbed in jest, "or statute of limitations hasn't passed on."

He made his way around the counter to motion a bit back into the store, "We do have a fairly good section of audiobooks. Most people don't have time to read anymore it seems. They'd rather load their ipod or listen while they drive." There was also of course those with particular disabilities, and the elderly. "The bigger bookstores have a horrible business acumen of only carrying what's new when it comes to audiobooks. I like to a keep a more extensive stock."

There was a heavy sound of paws hitting the wood floor and a very sizeable white cat appeared from around a corner and looked at Shun with very blue eyes. She approached, sniffed, rubbed enough on his pantleg to leave a nice residue of white hair, and then relocated to the front window to lay in the sun.

"Are you looking for anything in particular?" Algie had a whole room, the building had been a house previously, dedicated to audiobooks. There was a new releases and used section, as well as a small shelf and rack full of outdated media like cassette tapes and rarer - a stack of old LPs of various narrations. "We do trade-ins so if you finish something you don't want to keep, you can bring it to trade back in for credit. Or towards your next purchase."

Alg gave the man a slow regard, rocking on his heels almost as if he expected this to be more than a simple shopping trip, and then simply smiled and moved to dismiss himself to the front. "Let me know if you need help finding something. I can usually find just about anything around here."

Alg almost snorted aloud. His own books featured in the front of the store, behind the counter and his latest release by the register. He didn't fault Shun for not noticing, but he just wasn't very used to people in a book store wondering what he wrote about.

"I am an author." Not just a writer, anyone could write. "You'll find Red Herring Mysteries here as well," He motioned to a shelf, where the covers (at least of the first trilogy) all featured Idris Elba's face as the main character since it had been made into a miniseries, "And the books themselves up by the counter."

The green-eyed man adjusted his glasses, "I've only been in Ashdown two years. My books don't feature anything Ashdown related."

If anything, Ashdown was a detriment to his writing.

"I do carry books on local lore. Mostly native american, though I can't say if audiobooks exist on the topic."

Alg snorted and pushed his glasses, "People continually show up here as if there will be actual published books on real magic.. Why is that? You aren't the first one."

He appraised the younger man's selection, pleased to see that in his lack of really looking at it that he'd picked up something new with a full price tag.

"As far as I was led to be believe for all it's strange occurrences, such a number of them are a new thing." The brit shrugged, "Honestly I'd go looking for old local crackpots- or the elderly who have been here a bit longer-" If there were any. If things worked in cycles, wouldn't those involved has less knowlege of what came before, "-or library archives?"

Don't they teach people how to do research anymore? Alg himself would have gone to the main library branch if he had anything concrete to look into. He'd spent more than his share of time pouring over older newspaper stories for book research and information.

Alg didn't want to point out that Shun didn't seem the type to exude hope.

"I'm not sure if you can separate fact from fiction around here. The mundane is hardly that and the stories, even the extraordinary ones, seem to have a tendency to be true. If this has happened before it's long before any of us were here-"

Alg leaned on a rack with one hip while crossing his arms, "Besides Finn and Aleksy, we all seemed to be roped into this all around the same time. You're getting information from everyone who has simply passed the same tidbits amongst themselves." And he was certainly happy to have Jeremiah left alone a bit. With the more recent news about Michael, and with everyone's tendency to lean and rely heavily on his spouse, he knew he was spread thin and that wasn't a good thing. Alg was naturally protective and possessive of Jeremiah.

"You don't have to go back to ancient times- Besides this being America," Alg snorted, which to him meant the place was hardly what a european would call 'old', "How about the town archives? Most places keep newspapers going back as far as they can keep them. I know the historical society here is strong." Alg idly motioned to the outside, "Or even Sunny's house."

"I've been led to believe the house has caretakers. It's a historic location in town. You can go on tours." There were pamphlets wherever vacationers frequented, including (since Zac had gone) a stack in the front kiosk of this particular store. "I highly doubt Sunny is giving tourists a go-round of her place. We've got pamphlets in the front."

Alg had taken a bit of a shine to Heliodora, though he wasn't sure why or how it had happened. He felt protective of her, especially seeing the visions he had seen.

"Heliodora would appreciate the company I'm sure. Take her some reading material." His glasses were pulled off a moment so he could rub his remarkably green eyes, "Though it's always best in these situations to have definitive questions. No one likes being used like a reference book. She's a teenage girl."