unfinishedlibrary | perhaps you have learned it without a book

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perhaps you have learned it without a book - MOONLIT RIVALS LOG 1

Who: Readers and Actors galore!
What: The Story begins- and so do preparations for the Masquerade!
When: The three days prior to the Masquerade [ooc timeline: 1/23-2/5]
Where: The city of Montica
Content warnings: Please include any warnings in headers!

First Quarter Moon

Now that most of the Editors know what to expect, the draw into the Story is likely more obvious this time. There’s a subtle urge that encourages their feet to turn towards the Stacks; a slight shimmer in the air that thickens the closer they get to the book laying open on an innocuous library cart.

Those who resist the Story’s pull will be drawn in eventually. Whether the compulsion is successful, or whether the Librarian passes by to sweep them in - all Editors will enter, and all will experience the Story’s start together.

(Editors who have gained the skill Ex Media Res will be able to resist the Story’s pull and hang out in the Library. Drop us a note if they’re using this skill!)

Our Beginning

The Story begins as night makes its transition to morning. Montica is a city that never sleeps, and some Editors may find themselves taken aback at how the absence of sunlight has done nothing to deter the nightlife.

In particular, at the hour our Readers arrive, there is a clean-up going on at the centre of town. People are grumbling as they sweep debris from the streets, and those who are familiar with supernaturally-powered fights will recognise this scene for exactly what it is: the aftermath of some powerful entities having had at it. Hang around too long and you may find yourself with a broom or hammer thrust into your hands, the expectation that you’ll help having been made clear.

Those who leave the clean-up will find themselves welcome in the city’s inn, where visitors hover by the windows, chattering excitedly about the fight that had just broken up. Some people think they’re lucky to have seen it - others think they’ll be luckier if they go the next few days without seeing another one.

The inn is warm, full of gossip, and by some marvel still has private rooms available to rent. Readers will find themselves with enough coin in their pocket to afford quite a bit, this time around - but don’t go spending it all at once. Those who are astute will hear the talk of a masquerade going around, and if you want to attend, you’re going to have to dress appropriately.

Welcome to Montica

Montica itself is a city built from stone, with the buildings packed closely together along cobblestone streets. Flowering vines creep along trellises, their gentle fragrance perfuming the air. The sky is clear and smog-free, the water flows cleanly, and a sense of magic drifts comfortably in the breeze.

The city is almost evenly bisected by loyalties, a hard divide running clearly through the centre of the town. Only a small ring in the centre is considered to be neutral territory - though that’s becoming more and more disputed with each passing moon.

To the north, buildings seem to have a fondness for silver. It seems they’ll take any excuse to work the precious metal into everyday items, from cutlery to window fastenings; and some particularly zealous citizens proudly don silver jewellery and pins in their day-to-day wear. In this section of town you will find the dwellings of the old vampire clans, littered with antiquities and casual opulence.

To the south, the people are fond of spices. Garlic flowers pepper garden beds and the dried bulbs hang from doorframes, and there’s hardly a meal cooked without it. Some industrious workers are busy building small moats of flowing water through this half of the city – you’d better mind your step, lest you get in their way. Located amongst these homes are the dens of the werewolf packs, warmly furnished and brimming with life.

No matter where you are in town, whether you’re surrounded by silver or dodging moat diggers, whether it’s day or night or nebulous twilight, there’s one topic that’s on everyone’s lips: the Umbra Masquerade.

It’s a once in a human lifetime event, and the city is abuzz. Some of the elderly may have been once before, in their youth - but likely at an age where they were too young to remember. There are stories about these masquerades, of the favours that can be won and the deals that can be made. More than one wealthy family attributes their successes to parties of the past, and while the werewolves shouldn’t be there – who’s going to stop them?.

The Market

At the centre of the city are Montica’s most dreary buildings. Markets are held here during the day, bright banners and exuberant stallholders calling out their wares. People of all kinds shop here, and it’s the best place to find quality goods. Some patrons give each-other hearty side-eyes, some sneer and mutter insults under their breath - but by and large, this a neutral zone, and the regular citizens treat it as such.

Behind the fuss of the market, astute observers will note the broken and boarded-up windows hidden by the bold stalls. Some buildings are outright abandoned, damaged beyond repair. It becomes even more obvious as night falls and the number of stalls thins, the night vendors setting up with wary looks in their eyes.

Right now the market is bustling with vendors sending goods up to the Umbra Clan's mansion. There is a constant stream of traders passing back and forth, hurrying to get their contributions in place before the ball. Regular goods are still for sale, but the busiest stalls are those selling - of all things - masks with varying levels of decoration. They’ve cleverly set up outside of stores selling clothing; beautiful dresses and tailored suits visible through the cracked and dusty windows. Editors will find they have enough local currency to afford something modest. If their tastes skew toward the more extravagant then, well – they better get to work.

The Umbra Mansion

The sprawling building stands tall, overlooking the city of Montica. Vines budding with fragrant flowers grow up the sides of the building, curling around windowsills and balconies in a curated fashion. A large hedge maze sits at the rear of the mansion, behind the grand ballroom; and the gardeners are in top form today, brandishing tools at anyone who looks like they're about to enter it. It's one of many things being tidied up and decorated for the ball, so you'd better not get in their way.

The mansion's front doors open to a foyer that is connected to an upstairs level by two grand staircases. A gilded chandelier hangs down between them, casting rainbows across the wooden floors as the sunlight strikes its crystal ornaments.

Those wide, curved staircases lead to a mezzanine that overlooks the ballroom below. Doors to private rooms branch off from here; all of them locked.

During the daylight hours, the mansion sports large windows covered by thick curtains that are drawn firmly shut. Those who try to peer through them will find an additional layer of security in the form of tightly-fastened metal blinds that block any slivers of sunlight from eking through.

On all three days the mansion is crawling with people setting up for the masquerade. Over there, someone’s hanging strings of lights. Over here, a florist is carefully arranging flowers. The kitchen is busy, human cooks overseeing the production of hundreds of canapes – and on the third day, over in the ballroom, are a band of musicians getting prepared for the night.

Security is lax everywhere except the underground floors, where the clan sleeps. The doors that lead to the underground complex are barred from the inside, and human guards keep watch outside of them to redirect any wanderers.

[The info/plotting post can be found here!]

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"Easy now, easy. Nothing permanent, nothing painful. I need a way for the spell to 'stick', and a sigil made from ink or oil works well enough." They gesture to the doorframe and if the drone would like to take a look, there's chalk markings above and around the casing.

"If that doesn't work for you, I can try something else, but it's more difficult, more prone to failure, and I'll....I could use sympathetic magics, make you smell exactly like another person." Illumination is already mentally working out how to get what they'd need. "It's more dangerous. If they're afraid or angry or anything else really, and you're visibly not matching it, that's likely to spook a wolf."

The drone doesn't need to look; it had already noted those strange markings earlier. SecUnit just hadn't realised what they meant. It hadn't realised that something similar would need to be on it.

(Its expression is flickering through a series of complicated emotions. It doesn't want to be marked. It doesn't want anything like a symbol to be on it, even temporarily. But it also doesn't want werewolves to keep finding it, keep smelling that it isn't human.)

"Does it need to be...on me?" it says, trying to wrestle its expression under control. "Can't it be on something else? Something I can put in my pockets?"

"Possible, but significantly less effective. It won't hide you, personally, but can make a stink that'll keep everyone at a distance." There are ways to make a physical token that can chance a person's scent, but Illumination doesn't know how to do that. They're fairly sure that on a long enough timeline they could tease out the principles of the thing, but here and now? No.

"Your options are either a sigil so you smell utterly uninteresting and vaguely human, or a charm in your pocket so you'll smell like a tannery. It's the best I can do."

Its face twists. Smell like a tannery (whatever that was)? It didn't like that idea either. Humans always noticed other humans that smelled excessively bad. SecUnit didn't want to be noticed.

Shit. Shit.

"The...sigil. What substance would you draw it in?" it says. It looks like it's about to be sick. It hates this.

(Up near the ceiling, the drone is staring at the sigil. It's not exactly like a logo. But isn't not completely not like a logo either. Could it really tolerate willingly allowing something like that to be put on it? Even temporarily?)

"Charcoal would be best. I'd make a paste of it, and the sigil itself would be no bigger than the palm of your hand, and you could choose where to put it." Illumination can see the discomfort rolling off it, and they don't know if or how to offer comfort. "Truly though, darling, if you can't bear it, give me time and I'll work on something else."

"Or, if you can, you can tell me what is the particular problem with the idea, and we can work together, to try to find a way around the worst aspect."

Charcoal. That wasn't something that wouldn't come off. It wouldn't be permanent. So that would be...fine. It was fine.

(It was not fine.)

"I don't want symbols on me," it finds itself saying. But if symbols were going to keep werewolves from sniffing it out everyone, it was going to have to suck it up. "I want to see one on you. I want to see it come off."

"We can do that. I can show you exactly the one I use on myself, and that with minor adjustments will work for you." As Illumination speaks, they get up and gather their supplies - a dish, a bit of charcoal from the kitchen, a little bottle of a neutral oil, and a handful of other, equally mundane items. (Along with a bowl of water, soap, and a rag for later.)

"Do you want to know how it works or is it enough that it does?" SecUnit can ask anything of Illumination, and generally speaking, they'll either answer honestly or say that they refuse to speak on it. There's little point in lying to another from the Library; after all, this isn't Yesh my-Ayin.

The drone flies down from the ceiling, and starts following Illumination around. It gets right up in their space, watching closely everything they are doing. (SecUnit, though, is still sitting on the chair, not looking at them. And in fact, it has episode 167 of Sanctuary Moon playing, just to help calm itself down.)

"...I guess," it says making a face. It doesn't really care about 'magic', which was bullshit, or how it worked. But since apparently some magic was going to going to put on it, it did want to know exactly what was being done.

"There's two important aspects of magic at play here: will and adhesion." Making sure that the drone can see just what they're doing, Illumination gets to work measuring, grinding, and doing rough sketches.

"As a wizard, my magic doesn't come from bargains with shitty gods or stupid luck. Mine is the sort anyone can learn, but that only has effect if you can apply enough force of will to make reality bend." Consistency isn't smooth enough. More grinding. "Adhesion is the other principle. How do I make my will act upon the world around me? Force is one option, and not my preferred choice, so a mark."

"The problem is like a great stone that I can't move, and my will and magic are the lever to push it, with the sigil as a wedge, to keep it all working safely as it should."

Illumination returns to sit by SecUnit, rolls up their sleeve, and offers it charcoal paste, a brush, and a detailed diagram. "Do you want to draw it on me or shall I?"

...Yeah, SecUnit's regretting having asked for that explanation. (It marks most of what Illumination for later deletion from its memory.)

And now they're coming to sit next to it. Ugh. At least they're not so close that there's risk of them touching, but...still.

It stares, balefully, at the detailed diagram. It can't replicate it. Literally; it doesn't have the education models for using its hands to write.

"...You do it."

If Lu ever learned that SecUnit wasn't given the option to write, they'd be utterly incandescent.

Ahem.

That aside, their own hand is steady and practiced. Clean lines, swiftly drawn, and once it's finished, they look back up at it. "And here's the magic bit."

A shimmer, a sniff of the air, and Lu makes a face as if they're viscerally uncomfortable. "Fucking rank, but that's humans. They smell like bad milk to me, but I'm told they can't tell."

"Can I take it off now?"

(Hey, it can write perfectly well. It's written all sorts of things. Reports, its personal logs. An entire documentary script. It just didn't know how to write with its hands, and didn't see the point in learning.)

It watches the closely, with a guarded expression. It doesn't look like they're doing anything permanent. Then Lu's smell shifts, and it wrinkles its own noise. It's not exactly keen on the smell of humans either, though it's not outright disgusted by it. (Except when humans don't bother to keep themselves clean. In which case: ew.) But it is weird, observcing the shift in Illumination.

But it can sympathise with Lu's dislike. It reminds SecUnit of when it changed its configuration. How it looked more human afterwards. How it didn't like it. Lu clearly feels the same way. It...actually reassures SecUnit, just a bit.

"...Take it off," it says.

A bit of soapy water, a rag, and scrubba-dub-dub. It doesn't come off easily, but if it did the charm wouldn't be safe to use while out and about. Once done, there's a faint smudge of charcoal and oil, but the mark comes cleanly off.

A few moments later, the false sent fades away and their natural, vague citrus scent rises. It shifts in time with the colour over the base of their throat; if there were others of the Get, they'd know it for relief (for themselves) and concern (for SecUnit).

"How's that?"

Illumination won't see it relax just by a fraction, but it does. The sigil comes off. It has proof of that, now.

It still hates this. There's a reason it doesn't even like having logos on its clothes. But it likes having werewolves somehow sniffing its inorganic components even less.

"...Okay," he says.

It'll do it.

"Without washing, it should last a day or so." Illumination washes their hands, checks the brush, and their supplies.

"If you need me to stop, we can do that." Wherever SecUnit points to, that's where they'll paint on the sigil. "Or, really, whatever makes this easier."

Edited 2026-01-29 02:54 (UTC)

Right. Now it just needs to...pick a spot.

Anywhere that's already visible is immediately out. It doesn't want to see the sigil, and it doesn't want anyone else to see it either. That means it has to be under its clothing. And it's not going take any clothing off for this. Just, no.

So it goes with the inside of its wrist. There, at least, it's mostly organic after it rolls its sleeve up a little. But it still hesitates a little, because it's not ideal. Even after rolling the sleeve as little as possible, part of the plates covering its gunports are still visible on the outside of its forearms. But there's no getting around that.

(There's also something else that Illumination might notice, if they look closely at the gunport. There's the edge of something that looks to have been scratched off. Like there was some sort of symbol there once, which has now been thoroughly defaced.)

In order to get the best results, Illumination shouldn't focus on much beyond the drawing of the sigil, but they take note of what they see and will mull it over later. They have a couple of competing theories - fReemade vs houndskeeper - but confirmation is academic rather than necessary.

Despite the complexity, Lu works quickly and confidently. They've done this, or something like it, quite often. A little puff of magic, and then the new scent rises from SecUnit.

"Come and go as you like, and you are welcome to stay, but whatever you choose, it'll need touching up once a day."

It looks at it, for 0.4 seconds, when its done. Then immediately covers it with its sleeve, so it can't see it anymore.

Yeah. It still hates it. But it'll tolerate it, because it has to.

To Illumination, it nods, taking note of the information. It didn't really have any specific plans for what to do next. Though just staying in this abandoned building for the entire Story was, honestly, really appealing right now. But realistically, it can't stay here the whole time.

(And it does want to see some of the live performances. They seem to have a fair few on offer here.)

"...If I'm out, and someone approaches, one of the drones will alert you," it says, an awkward thanks.

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perhaps you have learned it without a book - MOONLIT RIVALS LOG 1

Our Beginning

Welcome to Montica

The Market

The Umbra Mansion

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