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Old Elmar Barthen ran the finest shop in Phandalin, but there was one thing he'd never stock.
Books.
"Too risky," he'd mutter.
The adventurers laughed. "Books? Dangerous?"
Barthen nodded gravely.
"First it's 'May I borrow this?' Then it's 'I forgot to return it.' Next thing you know, there's a wizard arguing over footnotes, a bard reading poetry aloud, and someone finds an ancient curse hidden between chapters three and four."
One day a traveler offered him a dusty tome titled One Hundred Safe Ways to Handle Magic.
Barthen wouldn't even touch it.
"No thank you. The last fellow who bought a book started asking questions."
"What kind of questions?"
"Questions with answers! That's how trouble begins."
So the party bought the book instead.
By sunset they'd awakened a mimic disguised as a bookshelf, argued with a ghostly librarian over late fees, and accidentally summoned three floating dictionaries that corrected everyone's grammar.
The next morning they stumbled back into Barthen's shop, singed and exhausted.
He folded his arms.
"Told you."
Then he pointed proudly to the empty shelf where books might have been.
"Rope, lanterns, rations... those are honest goods. Books? They've got ideas in 'em—and ideas cost more than gold."