unfinishedlibrary | Careful of the stacks

Entry tags:

Careful of the stacks - LIBRARY LOG

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!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Charles may be talking to himself, but he's not alone in his exploration of the stacks. In fact, rounding the corner, here comes Mina, pausing only to scribble a note in her journal with a small pencil she found in the maker space. Pencil is easier when she's exploring like this; she'll sit down later and write everything out in pen when she's got a proper desk in front of her.

"Oh! I'm sorry for interrupting. I hope I didn't scare off your companion," she says politely to the young man when she spots him. "I don't believe we've met yet. I'm Mina Harker." She offers her hand for him to shake.

"Hm? Nah, s'just me," Replied easily, though there was a bit of an uncertain tightness to the edges of a smile that looked like it normally came bright and easy for the teen. "Not quite used to it yet is all, yeah?"

He's more than willing to accept her hand to shake, grasp death-cold, at odds with the cheery demeanor of him. "Charles Rowland, of the Dead Boy Detectives. Don’t worry, I’m mostly harmless.”

Mostly harmless? She raises an eyebrow rather eloquently at that statement, but she's far too polite to prod further. At least, for the moment.

"It's a pleasure to meet you. I'd ask if you're missing someone, but that seems a silly question, given the situation. We all are, no doubt," she says instead. She is just going to assume the "dead" part of "Dead Boys" is a metaphor, or something. Regardless of how cold he is.

He's an absolute angel, Mina! Never done a thing wrong in his life!

"Yeah this seems pretty unsettlin' all around. You haven't seen him around have you?" Maybe- this place was so large it could be that they just hadn't run into each other yet. The idea that he was here alone... "He's just a bit taller than me, green eyes, brown hair; real posh sort, dresses smart yeah? Grey suit, knee socks, brown coat, think it's wool? Bowtie- always tease him about it but he refuses to give it up."

"I can't say I've seen anyone meeting that description, no," Mina says with a touch of regret. "I'm sorry. What's your friend's name?"

Perhaps he'll want to talk about his friend. She knows that sometimes, all she wants to do is talk about Jonathan.

"Ah, was a long shot anyways." Because really, if Edwin was here? He'd have found Charles already, there's no way he wouldn't have.

He does however brighten at the question, smile scrawling easy across his face. "Edwin. Proper brills he is, smart as a whip, funny, never met a bloke that could pick up a bit of magic faster than him."

Charles? Loved talking up Edwin, if the warm sort of fondness in his enthusiastic reply was any hint. "S'my best mate, and my fellow detective. Honestly, we wouldn't even be an agency if not for him, he's absolutely the brains of the outfit."

“He sounds like a very special person,” Mina says with a smile. Charles speaks of his friend the way she might speak of Lucy, or Jonathan.

“Tell me of this - detective agency,” she continues, curious. “Have you solved many crimes?”

"Oh he is! Never met a better bloke in my life, let me tell you." And Mina is immediately going up in Charles' regard, given her clear understanding of how great Edwin is. A woman of clear intelligence and good taste!

"We've solved loads of cases," He's definitely cheered up in the moment. Edwin might not be here, but talking about him, about their afterlife's work, made Charles feel a bit closer to him for the moment. "Started in the 90's, had a little shack behind a manor- ghost that lingered there was a bit of a prat but didn't mind us operatin' out of there until we managed to get ourselves a proper office in London proper. Take all sorts of clients, but the majority tend to be ghosts, given living detectives usually can't see them let alone take their cases. Been goin' now about... cor, been almost 34 years now!"

Mina is happy to let him talk - his enthusiasm for the subject is infectious, she's interested, and it serves as a good distraction from their current situation.

Though, she does have a burning curiosity to clear up one thing.

"So - you are...dead?"

It's really strange in some ways to have people surprised that he's dead. It's just case in point back home, the people who can see him, talk to him, are either dead themselves or magic in some way, in the mix, so they knew the signs.

"Yup! Corked it about a year before we started the agency- met Edwin the night of, in fact!"

"That's - I'm sorry?"

It's almost a question. Charles doesn't seem particularly sad about it, but for Mina, the sharp grief of loss is still near. Death, particularly for one so young, seems a tragedy. It is a tragedy.

And that without knowing the way he had died. If Mina thought it a tragedy before, that would only cinch the matter.

"Oh! No, don't... it's alright, yeah? Happened so long ago now," At least that sounded honest. And it was- it might hit him on occasion, what his life might have been, but he genuinely was happy with his lot. "Wouldn't have been able to have even met Edwin if it hadn't happened, let alone set up the agency."

His reassurance is somewhat mollifying, but still, she can't help but think -

"But you still dwell within the world? Do you have no hope of - Heaven?"

That had been her only comfort, with Lucy. Professor Van Helsing's reassurance that she is at peace, her soul free to fly to Heaven. Mina believes she'll meet her friend there, someday.

Ah. Yeah, Charles can imagine that would be a concern, so he decides against brushing the question off.

"I chose to stay," A faint smile, something fond in it. "Coulda gone with Death when she came, yeah? Gone into the blue light. Edwin tried to encourage me to do it too, but... I wanted to stay with him. So we ran away together."

A chuckle, warm, a bit wry. "Granted it means we gotta hide whenever we help a client finish their business so they can move on, so Death doesn't see us and scoop us up along with them. But it's worth it."

This young man made the choice to remain on Earth with his friend - to help other lost souls? That is a concept that Mina can understand. Impulsively, she reaches for his hand. Still icy cold, but it doesn’t put her off.

“That is very noble of you,” she says earnestly. “It takes a true spirit of compassion, to make such a sacrifice in order to aid others.”

Charles can't help but smile sheepishly, ears tinging a bit of a ruddier color- ghost or no, he'd never quite unlearned the little physical markers of emotion, whether by choice or by nature.

"Not a sacrifice to me, not really," A brief little duck of his gaze. "At first it was just... wanted to stick with Edwin. Bein' around him feels right, and I'm happy there. Then we figured out we were good at investigatin' and well, why not help?"

There's nothing to be implied from the idea of Charles meeting Edwin the night he died, and immediately deciding to run away from Heaven forever with him. Nothing at all, what gave anyone that silly notion?

If there is anything implied in his words which would offend Mina’s Victorian sensibilities, either she doesn’t notice or chooses not to comment on it. It wouldn’t be any of her business, anyway.

“I understand,” she says after a moment. “And now, you’re here, and your friend is not. A cruel twist of fate that I know all too well. We shall have to assist each other, as best we can.”

"Yeah, you're probably missin' your family and all too," He smiled warmly, reassuringly. "They'll muddle along until we figure out gettin' you home though, I'm sure of it. Until then, we absolutely stick together."

Both because of the idea that it's harder for unseen bad actors to get to them if they're working as a group rather than apart, and because Charles likes Mina so far and thus? Might be a little bit protective.

"I can only hope," Mina says quietly. "My husband has been through so much, lately. I worry for him."

"Well, he had the good sense to marry a smart lady like you, so I'm sure that sense'll keep him in good standing until you can get back to him, yeah?"

And he's a charmer, too. Mina smiles demurely, accepting the compliment for what it is. "Come, show me what you have discovered so far," she says by way of response. "I've been keeping a journal of all I've seen, surely I can't be the only one."

There were so many situations where charm was all Charles had to go on, so he'd learned a long time ago how to use it. But at the same time, he liked being charming, so it wasn't typically an active manipulation tactic.

"I'm not usually the note-taker so I'm sure mine aren't quite up to par," Admitted with a wry smile as he fished out the little battered spiral notebook from his pocket, along with the pen he'd swiped from the circulation desk earlier. Flipping past a few lists and many, many random doodles, he came across the things he'd jotted down here. "Thought maybe I could see if there was a pattern to what books were here, and what was missin' from 'em right? Except I'm not much of a reader, so if there's a pattern it's sommat obscure."

He couldn't help but huff, glancing at the nearest wall of shelves. "And I've figured out they're blockin' my walkin' through walls. Not all of 'em, but like... the fence in the garden area, the door behind the circulation desk? Can't go through either. And some walls, so I figured I'd find all the walls what I can't go through, maybe get an idea of the shape of the place, even if the inside changes around yeah?"

A poke of the pen tip towards a... start of a map. He had a decent skill at doing quick sketches, but the confusion of what he was describing was clear in the attempt here. "But what walls stop me change. Almost at random. And sometimes it's like a freestandin' part of the wall, definitely not perimeter, at least like you'd think."

He can walk through walls? Of course, he is dead (so he claims), but he seems solid enough to Mina - they shook hands, after all. He doesn't seem particularly ghost-like, aside from the cold and clammy touch, but perhaps that's an effect of being brought to this place? She's willing to chalk it up to another strange difference of origins.

Still, though, what he tells her - when she begins to parse it - fits with what she already knows of this place.

"I suspect this place is less a physical, geographical place that can be escaped from and more of a - hm. Well, I'm not sure what, precisely, my knowledge of the arcane and esoteric is very limited. But some powerful magic seems to be at the heart of it. Certainly, it is not of the natural world as I know it."

"S'gotta be some kind of pocket dimension. You can do all sorts of wild stuff with those-" Charles can't help but perk up at the thought, something occurring to him.

"Cor, that book Edwin had me put in the bag for the Blockbuster Caper might still be in there!" Halfway through the sentence he was already unshouldering his backpack, eagerly flipping it open to shove a hand into- followed by his arm up to the shoulder as he rummaged around, though there were no signs of it on the bag itself, just a strange humming coming from it as he was hunting. "There was a chapter on dimensional spaces, he was goin' on about that for at least an hour, got so excited about it..."

A pause. A confused frown as Charles shifted his grip on the bag, drawing his arm out to peer into it with an uncertain furrow of brows. "Hold on a tick... s'a lot smaller inside than it should be. And... a lot of the books are gone."

Mina can only watch, a little surprised by his antics, but finding it a bit funny (though she bites her lip to keep from smiling too much). She doesn't quite understand what's going on here - not that she's understood much of anything since arriving - but clearly something is wrong, as the look on Charles' face changes.

"I can only guess that anything that would be remotely helpful in escaping would've been removed from our persons if we arrived with them," she offers thoughtfully. "This is, after all, a prison of some kind."

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