for all the world's a stage - LIBRARY LOG

[libraryassistants]

Who: The Editors
What: The Library changes once again...
When: January 9- January 22
Where: The Library
Content warnings: Please put them in the comment headers!

The Assistants have vanished into their backroom once again, leaving only the increasingly unbelievable “Back In 5” sign on the Help Desk, but at least they have attempted to impart some knowledge on the Editors before departing (or… attempted to do anything but, depending who you ask). The customary tea cart with drinks and increasingly stale biscuits is parked in its usual spot, though it seems that the quality of the tea at least has improved some. (Still waiting on coffee improvement.)

There’s a new crafting setup in the Maker Space, a table with an iron and machine for making vinyl designs, along with the instructions on how to use it, and a stack of t-shirts in various sizes. Usually there’s something in the correct size, but, well, mistakes happen. While this addition to clothing is a boon, there is the problem that the t-shirts can’t be taken out of the room until some sort of design is put on them. Get creative! Show off your style! Or maybe just steal one of the shirts that are there for display purposes. It’s fine, the Library can make more.

In the second week as the Library begins to change once more, the Lobby’s wooden floor shines with extra polish. The walls make an odd creaking sound as they shift, warping into brick covered with velvet drapings in a rich, dark red. Gold thread twinkles in the stitches, a sense of opulence woven through. The sound of ballroom music drifts by and, while in the Lobby, characters will be taken by the unusual impulse to dance.

Outside, in the Garden, the day/night cycle has paused firmly on a cloudless night. A full moon hangs in the air - literally. About the size of a basketball, it follows the first person who enters the Garden; hovering a couple of meters above their head. A white aura spreads from them, powered by the moon, and those who are caught in its light will find themselves unable to speak anything but the truth.

When the person to whom the moon is attached leaves the garden, the moon and its aura will leave them; and the moon will attach to the next person to enter instead.

On the circulation desk, there is a sign: “This Week’s Recommended Reading: Twilight!” The accompanying sign up sheet waits next to it for those wishing to check it out- though some will receive the movie instead of the book, with no particular rhyme or reason to it. Periodically someone might also receive something else entirely. Whoops? The Assistants at least will fix that quickly. Richard will be embarrassed, while Phillip will be trying not to cackle.

While not advertised, various iterations of different stories will be available throughout the Library. In particular, someone seems to have left the projector in one of the meeting rooms running, with a variety of different recorded plays. These range from professional productions, to parodies, to what appear to be high schoolers (of which one production features a sixteen year old version of Phillip running around being an absolutely nuisance.

Comments

[codeswitchcraft]

She nods. "Oh, I met one of them, I think. He had wings? And then I ran into him again when he was a Bodysnatcher in the Story."

[guilliman]

"Sanguinius," Roboute confirms. "I have heard a little of that, but him and Curze are both quite upset about whatever occurred. Would you know any more about it? You may say no," he makes sure to clarify.

[codeswitchcraft]

She shrugs. "I suppose I know a little more. Sanguinius was cordial to me when I met him outside the story. When I found him later on inside the story, he was inside a story character known as Tsang, who was one of the Bodysnatchers. They were a group of people from other planets who had decided collectively that the minds of Earth's humans, particularly in this one town, were not healthy. They thought they could cure them. So they kidnapped various humans amongst the town and replaced them with doubles disguised as them, but who were patently not them. Then they took them to their 'space ship' lair and did various kinds of 'therapy' to them. From what Hikaru has told me, their therapy was beneficial to him, but their kidnapping him and replacing him with a substandard double caused a great deal of worry and trouble for his parents.

"I'm not sure if Sanguinus was the one who kidnapped Hikaru, but he kidnapped at least one other person who was hiding in the shed at Hikaru's house and when I found him, I forced him to take me back to the Bodysnatchers' lair so that I could rescue Hikaru. I suspect that he might not want to talk about it because he's ashamed of how Tsang behaved--but it wasn't his fault he was placed inside of a kidnapper."

[guilliman]

Roboute listens, increasingly troubled by this sequence of events. Throne on Terra, that sounded like a nightmare.

"The loss of identity would trouble any of us, I expect. To encounter psykery so strong that you lose yourself entirely is no small thing. As well, though... hm. Have any of my brothers told you much about our Imperium? Our history and laws?"

[codeswitchcraft]

"Not at all," Siobhan says honestly. "Should they have?"

[guilliman]

Roboute shrugs. But while the gesture is casual, the words are carefully chosen.

"It will make little difference for the most part. But humanity has struggled... for millennia before the establishment of the Imperium, and in all the millennia since... in wars with xenos, and the Imperium's laws and expectations reflect that. To be absorbed into the mind of one, so fully you could not discern yourself, is doubly the violation that being forced into another human psyche would be. Especially for us, held to a far greater standard than the base Imperial citizen. It does not surprise me that he has been so troubled."

[codeswitchcraft]

"Xenos?" Siobhan repeats, frowning a little. "Xeno is Ionian for strange or foreign-- People outside your empire? Outside Earth?"

[guilliman]

"Nearly. Those who are not human or abhuman in origin," he clarifies. "'Aliens' oft times, in Low Gothic."

[codeswitchcraft]

"I'm not human," Siobhan says, frowning.

[guilliman]

"No," Roboute agrees easily. "And were I or my brethren to come across your world during our travels, it would be unfortunate for you. Having come to know you here, I hope that we will not."

[codeswitchcraft]

"I don't think that's fair. Humans made us, all of us on Mundus. Even those of us who aren't andrax—ah, those are Mundanes that look like humans," she explains.

[guilliman]

"Humans made you?" He asks interestedly, and gives her another once-over. She's not just another strange kind of Eldar, then? "You would not necessarily be xenos. The details would matter a great deal. It would also depend on who discovered your planet, and when, and how useful you could be to the Imperium."

He says every single bit of this plainly. Perfectly normal, sane statements of fact.

[codeswitchcraft]

"Humans made us," she says, firmly. "An Earth corporation known as the Other Worlds Tourism Bureau made us to inhabit Mundus, which they also discovered."

(She'll just not mention that they were created to be characters in the story of a simulation.)

[guilliman]

"A resort world with engineered natives? Our ancestors would have been capable of such a thing. Do you follow the common era Terran dating system? Millennium three, year two-hundred and seventeen, for example?"

[codeswitchcraft]

"Our year is two thousand and forty seven," Siobhan says. "We don't use them on Mundus usually, but I know how to translate the years."