Careful of the stacks - LIBRARY LOG

[libraryassistants]

Who: EVERYONE!
What: A bunch of Editors walk into a library...
When: October 31st - November 13
Where: The Unfinished Library
Content warnings: Please add them as needed in the comment titles!

Welcome to the Library, Editors.

As the new residents drop into the Library, they are bound to have questions. Unfortunately it seems no one (except perhaps someone on the phone) appears to have any answers. But there is a nice little cart with a carafe of too weak coffee, a pot of too strong tea, assorted creams and sugar packets, and what appear to be leftover boxed shortbread cookies. There’s a sign inviting people to help themselves but reminding them not to take any food or drinks into the stacks, or touch any of the books with their grubby cookie hands. But aside from this little display and the nametags they’re all given, which do reappear whenever removed for the first week (where do they keep coming from?), the Editors are more or less left alone.

The Library is eternal, or at least it seems that way, unbothered by its new inhabitants. It certainly does not seem like this is anything unusual within its operation. Are there other sections of the Library with Editors, tucked into a different part of the stacks? Have there been Editors here before, and the ones here are simply a replacement? It’s impossible to say, just that the Library seems quite prepared for them. The refrigerators are stocked with appropriate (if generic) foodstuffs, any tantrums in front of the circulation desk are completely ignored, and attempts to set the Library on fire fizzle out before anything can even catch.

However, after a few days, some of the scenery in the Library seems to be changing. Little singing bowls and white noise makers pop up on various shelves and counters, yoga mats appear tucked under the bunk beds (plenty for everyone, somehow), and some of the rooms have started playing relaxing, meditative music over unseen speakers. More confusingly, there are also small UFOs hanging by string from the lower ceilings of the contained rooms, which on closer reflection are revealed to simply be two paper plates glued together and painted silver. In the beginning they’re quite sparse, but by the end of the second week they are everywhere and impossible to ignore.

At the start of the second week, there is a possible hint as to why, for at least part of it. On the table by the circulation desk there is a sign: “This Week’s Recommended Reading: Invasion of the Body Snatchers!” Next to it, there is a sign up sheet: a waitlist to check-out the ‘reading.’ (There is no explanation or apology for it actually being a movie.)

[ooc note: The Library prompts from the TDM can be considered canon to the game. Remember any of the locations listed in the setting are fair game. Have fun!]

Comments

Konrad Curze | Warhammer 30k

[curzed]

Bunks - A Few Days In

By modern, 41st millennium standards, Konrad Curze's power armor is absolutely archaic. But he can also get out of it unassisted when he so chooses, and he's So Chosen. The rows of beds and neat dividers are all well and good, and now there is a monolithic, distinctly ominous empty armor tucked against one wall, crusted in places with what looks and smells awfully like old blood.

Curze himself, a towering figure somewhere north of nine or ten feet tall, only has on a pair of ragged dark pants (and his nametag sticker stuck directly to his bare chest, currently reading Night Haunter) otherwise, scarred and grimy, sitting cross-legged between two of the painfully small beds, with an array of singing bowls stacked around him or balanced on one knee, swiped from elsewhere in the bunks and the rest of the library.

They were not there before. He didn't see them get placed there. So he took them, theoretically to investigate. Amongst the bowls is a single paper UFO, and a bunch of peeled-off nametag labels.

That both the paper UFO and the bowls seem ordinary is even more suspicious.

Coffee Corner

There's a tiny cart, with tinier little sugar packets and cups and paper plates and other things really not adapted to a Primarch's size.

It hasn't stopped Curze, who seems more bemused than annoyed, sitting on the floor with his knees pulled up, a tiny cup of tea balanced on his knee while he works on opening a sugar packet. This is an incredibly delicate process, and one he's managing pretty well so far.

[OOC: Wildcard options: Curze is going to be EVERYWHERE these first couple of weeks, and never quite bothering with things like ... sleeping. Find him somewhere else! Also will match format.]

Bunks lmk if this is okay

[angel_of_baal]

It's a mixture of relief and concern when Sanguinius ducks his head into where Curze had encamped himself, only to see the removed armor.

Relief, that perhaps with the armor, Curze had left the plethora of weapons (or at least some of them) behind, so he was slightly--SLIGHTLY--less armed. Also relief in that, while it was beneath his rank, and something a blood thrall should ideally be doing, someone could actually perhaps start cleaning that armor. And that someone is him.

So Curze might return to find his brother, using a toothbrush he's liberated (stolen? No. Sanguinius does not 'steal') from the latrine, scrubbing at some...gunk stuck in the ornate inlays on the Night Lord's relic armor.

NOOO THE PATINA

[curzed]

When Curze returns with another liberated (and not stolen) singing bowl in hand, still thoroughly unsure of their purpose, he finds .. the Angel of Baal.

Scrubbing the deeply lodged long-dried blood and viscera from bits of his armor.

It's certain that Curze is still armed, and is perfectly lethal without weaponry at all, but the worst of his weaponry definitely is standing there, idle, being .... cleaned. That's not something he allows the servitors and slaves onboard his ships to do.

"Brother. What are you doing?"

[angel_of_baal]

The bowls are a puzzle of their own, but he is choosing right now to focus on something he does understand and can control: armor maintenance.

"Brother," he says, amicably. "We are among mortals. We need to think of the impression we make upon them." Demigods should not be, how can he say this nicely, stinky.

[curzed]

He draws in a slow breath. Holds it for a measured few moments, and lets it out again in a sigh. "Yes. I am thinking of that impression as we speak, and that is precisely why you should not be doing that."

The impression he wants to make on mortals isn't one of cheerful, friendly safety, that would belie the carefully selected ornamentation of once-living things he usually preferred, or the ominous heraldry, or the very sharp claws.

The point is fear not cleanliness. "Stop erasing my hard work. I have spent years on it."

Know how the Nightmare Mantle gets nominally washed? When it happens to rain when he makes planetfall.

[angel_of_baal]

It's your brother, Curze. Take a deep cleansing breath and use your words.

"Konrad." He hears you. He understands you (sort of. In a way a primarch can understand another primarch, but honestly, no one can entirely understand any of them.) "We must think about contagion. Do you want to start a plague that ravages our new friends?"

[curzed]

"I have no friends here." He turns away with a sudden scowl, to place the new bowl with the others; it makes a pleasant humming sound when it's set down a little too sharply. What ARE they for??

... Concerns for later, once he gets Sanguinius to stop removing the remains of wayward settlers from his sigil. "Are you concerned for these mortals? Ah, no, of course you are. Don't be, they could be our captors."

[aetherweaver]

His nose wrinkles as he enters the bunks. He knows what blood smells like and that is an awful lot of that. He sighs and wanders over towards the source of the smell. He wants to point out that showers exist, but that's a bad first impression.

"... Do those beds even fit you?" That's... slightly better.

[curzed]

Is the old blood and death smell better than the reek of body odor? Almost certainly not.

At least it's not both.

Though Curze is aware of someone else as soon as they enter the area, he doesn't deign to look up from his collection of (totally not stolen, he's not a criminal) bowls until spoken to. Nara'a is a complete stranger, and usually someone so obviously different from human baseline must be weighed as alien--

But the Imperium has similarly feline-aspected mutants among it. Stable, accepted, even useful. But they are rare enough that he studies the miqo'te with interest. Hearing about them, seeing them in picts is one thing. In person is another. "As they are right now, no. They change. A fascinating bit of sorcery."

[aetherweaver]

He's used to being stared at by now - there's no other miqo'te here that he can find. Ah, well. "I see. That's quite useful. I can't imagine a roegadyn being able to deal with beds this small."

Oh well. Not his problem. He's just glad that it's not an issue. "... In any case, what are you doing with those bowls? I've seen some like it before... they're just for meditation, I believe."

[curzed]

Konrad Curze outstrips the tallest roegadyn by several feet, but telling that when he's sitting on the floor surrounded by singing bowls, is harder. "You have your pick, on the other hand. Many suit your heigh."

And weight. If that cat was over two hundred pounds Curze would be surprised.

The bowls are studied, then Nara'a again, expression turning speculative. "Are they? How would one use them to meditate then?" Color him curious. They certainly didn't seem much use for anything besides ... well, being bowls.

[aetherweaver]

"I would hope so. I'm tall for a miqo'te, but there are many races that are taller than us." He sits nearby, tail swishing behind him.

How to meditate... "You strike the bowl on the edge with the small stick that comes with it. Supposedly the sound is supposed to help clear your mind. Holding onto the note in your mind is a good way to start visualizations... at least that's what the merchant told me when I was looking at them in Thavnair." He chuckles a bit. "My own meditations tend to focus on trying to feel the aether around me, but everyone meditates differently."

I forgot a T in the last tag. :( !

[curzed]

Miqo'te sounded better than felinid, he supposed. What they called themselves ultimately didn't matter, what the registrar called them did. He's not going to question it.

There have been no sticks so far to make use of. One bowl, sitting on his knee, is scraped gently along one side with a grimy fingernail, producing both the telltale sweet resonant note of a singing bowl and the squeal of nails on chalkboard. "I do not see how such a thing would clear the mind," he murmurs. "It seems distracting."

There's a scratch on the metal now. "Does it help you, these meditations?" The bowl is offered, almost idly. Maybe Nara'a can make it operate correctly.

Bunks

[scienceofthearcane]

Viktor had no idea what the singing bowls were in the first place. Seeing a variety of them strewn around Konrad didn't help his confusion. He just nudged the paper plates glued together like a flying saucer with the toe of his shoe on his "bad" leg.

"So what is it that these bowls are for, and why have you collected so many?"

[curzed]

"Aside from that which all bowls are for, I do not know."

And they're everywhere. Every day there seems to be more of them. "I collect them because I can, and none have claimed ownership."

One such bowl, made of smooth crystal, is offered in one pale hand. "Would you like one?" The offer is both entirely innocent and sounds utterly malevolent, like Viktor is being offered a trap and not an ordinary crystal bowl.

[scienceofthearcane]

That answer did not make a whole lot of sense on why there were so many bowls collected, but Viktor looked at the crystal bowl with interest. Viktor is a nerd and collects rocks, so he honestly was thinking about accepting it, but thought twice about it, since Konrad made it sound so sinister.

"Is it very heavy? Most crystals would be, but I've never seen one that's been fashioned into a bowl."

[curzed]

"Not to me."

It might be perfectly safe. There's only one way to find out. Go on, Viktor. Take the crystal singing bowl from the creepy giant, who's now outright grinning.

... It is in fact perfectly safe. It's got weight to it, but isn't more than would be expected of a chunk of carved up rock.

[scienceofthearcane]

Konrad, you aren't making this sound any less sinister. But Viktor did eventually accept the crystal bowl in his good hand. It did have weight to it, but no more or less than one would consider a bowl made from a crystal to have. He eased himself down to sit on the side of one of the beds that Konrad was between with the crystal bowl beside him. He leaned down to pick up one of the pairs of paper plates that was made into a flying saucer.

"I doubt this will make sense without the context that the "required reading" would provide, either. I don't suppose you have viewed the video?"

[curzed]

Relieved of the crystal bowl, he picks up one of the metal ones and balances it carefully on his knee, then draws one ragged nail across its side, producing a strangely hypnotic single note. "'Video' is another word for pict-feed, I take it. Yes. Nowhere in it was these bowls. Or the mats under the beds."

He gestures slightly to the bed Viktor's currently sitting on. Viktor's new bowl continues to be astonishingly ordinary. Probably it can make a similar sound. "I'm not sure they're connected."

[bestofall]

Well that sure is an enormous man with an enormous blood stained suit of armor. Festival, in contrast, is a slender little cat-man, short by human standards. He's dressed in a much less impressive, if more sleek, set of black leather armor, and his attention was arrested the moment he went to walk by this alcove and spotted its current occupant.

"Stars above--!" he gasps in a very convincing show of surprise and awe. "Are you the Razor Knight?"

He knows full well Curze isn't the Razor Knight--any of the half dozen Razor Knights. He met two of the bastards, after all. But he's making a big show of being star-struck all the same.

[curzed]

Curze, singing bowl in hand, pauses whatever he'd been doing with them to study Festival for a long, long silent moment.

Felinids came in more forms than he cared to think about. This one is obviously more beast than man, but they were permitted, and so ... he does nothing about it. "I am not," is the eventual response, tone pitched deliberately pleasant. "I have little use for razors when a knife is much more versatile." What's the difference? The thickness of the blade, and what can be done with it. "It is the heraldry of the Night Lords. Come. Tell me about your Razor Knight."

Maybe approaching the guy with the armor covered in dried blood and bits of viscera is NOT a good idea, but the invitation sounds so pleasant, a stark dichotomy to appearances.

[bestofall]

Festival, for his part, lets himself be eyed with nothing but a look of doe-eyed admiration in return. He looks rather soft (and soft-headed) despite being kitted in armor with a rapier at his side, holding himself more like a lazy, slouching town guard than a readied warrior.

"The Night Lords--now there's something that sounds grand, even if you're not the Razor Knight. Or the other Razor Knight. Or the other other Razor Knight...."

Step closer he does, showing no sign of trepidation when any sensible person might reasonably spot the incongruity of the friendly tone and the...everything else. "It's traditional, I suppose," he says, finally getting around to the request to share more. "If a man wants to reshape the world, he takes up the mantle of the Razor Knight. There've been a few; I thought perhaps you were one of them--or a new one."

[curzed]

Sensible people don't go anywhere near the Night Haunter. There's something written somewhere about cats and curiosity, but Curze makes no move to change position, reach for the armor, or for the throwing knives around his throat on a long string. "Hmm, it sounds as if you may have met several."

The slim sword the felinid wore, the leather armor don't look new-bought or for show. "You admire them, these Razor Knights? They are champions of the people, or merely greedy for power?"

The latest singing bowl is set down with its fellows. He'll determine their purpose eventually, but first..

[bestofall]

"Oh, me? Never have I been so fortunate. I've only seen the museum, that's all."

He's right about the armor and sword--his gear is well broken in and has seen more than one battle, though it's also clearly been well cared for. Whether Curze can spot any other signs of a lie...well, Festival is a consummate actor.

Festival is busy taking in the giant in return--the knives are an interesting touch, he thinks. Prefers them, the man had said. Sounds a bit Razor Knight-ish. Speaking of which--

"I--I don't know that I could say? Perhaps some of them the one, some the other. But dread powerful, all of them."

He puts a bit of a covetous gleam on that last phrase, like he's wishing he could only be so strong and vicious himself.

[curzed]

"A pity." The pale figure sounds almost disappointed. "No stories to be had of such powerful knights? No grand tales?"

Festival hasn't said he was weak and vapid, there's no lie yet, and Konrad's content to observe. Another person trapped in this library, it DID seem to be taking all kinds.

But he is half Curze's size.

And very fuzzy. The primarch is not, though he is scarred and .. could definitely use a bath, the blood smell isn't just all over the midnight blue armor. "This is a library. I suppose I could alleviate the tedium and see if a book exists on the subject. Where.. are you from, little felinid, that I might have somewhere to start..?"