unfinishedlibrary | Careful of the stacks

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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!]

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Charles acts and speaks as if he expects someone to be there. A friend, a sibling, a lover - he can't guess, but it's very clear from every action, every word, that the boy is one half of a pair, and the other half is absent.

The giant angel Charles spoke with early in the week, bright, kind and friendly, has a brother. Has nineteen brothers, in fact, but only one of them is also in the library, and unfortunately isn't anywhere near as pleasant to be around. Sanguinius' warmth and genuine caring for others is often reassuring, drew people to him like a beacon. Konrad Curze's presence on the other hand is as if someone turned darkness and moonlight into a man, woke it up and taught it to kill.

To the right and not the left this mysterious someone would have suggested, Curze is utterly still, but the scent of old death and blood lingers even if he'd cleaned up a little. It's not pleasant.

Left is the better option.

"Where is your other half, I wonder? You keep looking."

Charles is that dog that needs to be adopted with their bonded bestie, only someone ignored the sign.

And coming face to face with this new stranger? He's honestly pretty glad that ghosts don't have a sense of smell. Something about this guy just makes him think he'd not be very pleasant to be around long otherwise. And he doesn't immediately equate him to the giant not!angel he met earlier just yet.

"Blimey you're a biggun- Whoever's doin' the recruitin' missed a trick looks like, left him back in Port Townsend," Charles couldn't help but worry- would he be alright without his other half? What Esther came after them for revenge, and he wasn't there to defend Edwin? "Weird bein' alone this time, yeah?"

Charles is one of the few who don't get to deal with the smell. It's for the best. "Where is Port Townsend?"

It's almost kind. Almost pleasant. But there's something in the innocuous question that might raise a few unconscious red flags. Nothing is said about his size, and his smile is thin and brief. "I'm used to being on my own, but ... clearly you are not." Someone's left behind.

Wherever Townsend is. "Perhaps they are around here, somewhere amidst the books."

"S'over in the States, Washington. Not sure if that's a place where you're from though."

Charles can't help but huff at the very accurate observation. "It's right strange, mate! Haven't been alone like this more than maybe an hour or two here and there for... oh goin' on over thirty years now at least."

So no, definitely not used to it. He hummed faintly, considering the idea but shaking his head. "Likely not. We've both got spirit stones, and Edwin'dve definitely tracked me down by now if he was here."

"No, indeed not. But there are many planets in the galaxy, and I have only seen a few." Trillions of the things, in fact. Somewhere out there.. is one with States, and a Washington.

Charles doesn't look over thirty. Curze's ability to estimate mortal ages was often a little rocky, there wasn't much to differentiate the various levels of 'adult' until the gray and weakness crept in, but he knew this one seemed much younger. "That is .. unfortunate. You have your relic with you now?"

He has no interest in taking it, there's nothing in tone or bearing that suggests sudden avarice, at least.

"Oh!" Charles' eyes widen slightly, mouthing the word 'planets' with a quietly impressed air. "If we're talkin' planets, then if you've heard of Earth then that's the one."

And he's not thinking of theft here- spirit stones are dead easy to find, just as easy to make if you have a little time and a rock you like the heft of. He unshoulders his little grey-green backpack, flipping it open to just shove a hand... an arm... up to his shoulder inside of it. There shouldn't be enough room for that move in the bag, it looks like it holds maybe three or four books at once, and yet there's no press against the sides or the bottom like Charles' hand has reached either. A quiet little hum emanating from the bag as he rooted around with a considering look before he came out with a palm-sized grey stone.

"There we go- blimey whoever emptied this thing on me made a mess of my sorting, I almost didn't find it!" He held the stone up to his lips, stating the name Edwin in a clear tone, before turning, gaze on the stone, but nothing happened.

"Not here, at least according to this. Was worth a shot at least."

Earth. This takes a moment of rolling around thoughtfully. "Not Terra? Eight planets, countless demiplanets and moons?" An old name for the same place. It hasn't been called 'Earth' in tens of thousands of years.

Assuming it's the same place.

Curze watches, unblinking, as it seems that bag has much more room in it than it should. This would be far more alarming if he hadn't spent a few hours with a door who's room changed location every time he closed it, but it's still strange. Especially the sound it makes. The rock, on the other hand, looks remarkably ordinary.

After a moment, he holds out one blood-flecked hand, palm up. "May I see it?"

"Eight-" Charles seems to puff up slightly, then deflate again as sense catches up. "Right. Right, they demoted Pluto few years back, didn't they. Can't say I know of any 'demiplanets' but there's lotsa moons in the solar system and eight planets so... probably the same?"

Charles would likely be more uneasy around Curze, but... sometimes ghosts were just like that, so the whole bloodied mess look? Not a new thing. He shrugged lightly, plunking the stone down in the massive hand, watching with curiosity. "It's only so specific- trackin' spirits, and it only does straight lines, but dead useful for gettin' a general bead on someone to start, yeah?"

And it didn't look strange. Just a smooth grey rock like anyone would find in the woods. A vague sense to anyone with magic ability of the enchantment, but it wasn't anything complex or powerful.

"Pluto is a demiplanet, yes. It is round and orbits the sun, but has not cleared its orbit of other objects." He makes a so-so gesture with his hand. "It seems we are at least, speaking of the same solar system. I have only visited Terra once, to see a building my brother was fortifying in Jermani."

It could be his accent that changes the name of the place. He hadn't been impressed with the fortifications, but such things weren't really his area of interest.

The stone!! .. Is disappointingly ordinary to his senses; while there's a faint sense of something different about it, he can't quite pin down what, his psyker abilities utterly untrained and mostly instinctive. The stone is rolled around in his palm thoughtfully. "Quite; if one wishes to track something then a direct line to that target would be very useful. Will it notify you somehow, if your companion arrives?"

It's offered back, a little grimier than it was before. What's a little dry blood, honestly.

"Gives a startin' point at least. If you're in a labyrinth for example, you're at least knowin' the person you're lookin' for is there too without wastin' loads of time."

Charles accepts the stone back, for the moment just dropping it into a coat pocket rather than back in the bag. If he was going to keep attention on it for Edwin, then it'd be better to have it there for now. Grimier to be sure, but not the worst he's dealt with. A little dried blood is way better than some ways a ghost can make your day disgusting.

"I'll have to check it every so often. There's charms to make a spirit stone linked to watchin' for one specific ghost, where it'll like alert if they show up, but it's kinda fiddly and I'm not the best at it."

Curze's disgusting tends to be on very mundane axis. Dirt, blood, viscera, the usual - no ectoplasm or spookier things to be found. "What is the expected range on such a stone?"

He can't help it, he's a bit curious. He's no psyker, at least not of the sorcerous sort, this kind of thing is beyond him, but it's worth knowing about if nothing else. "How big can your example labrynth get before you lose track?"

...And. And. "I wonder if 'ghost' means the same thing to me as it does you."

Charles is not gonna argue his luck with that. He's sure if he could smell things he'd not be nearly so sanguine about this guy's general everything, but the same could be said of a lot of people in the supernatural circles. It just attracted Weird Folk.

"You're lookin' at... it's gonna be real reliable at about half a kilometer or closer usually. If there's lots of magic or lots of ghosts around that might make it less so, but you'll at least know they're there even if the direction wobbles some. Past that, it's absolutely a crapshoot, you're better off with a proper trackin' spell or sommat then," The next bit wasn't really expected, Charles tilting his head with a thoughtful hum. "I suppose it might be different. Back home it's folk like me- died, but the spirit, soul, whatever you want to call it kept on, left the physical body behind. Usually only stick around because of unfinished business, or if you're real good at dodgin' Death."

A small labyrinth, then. But plenty for narrowing down where one's target is, which was all it needed to do.

Curze doesn't generally believe in undeath, spirits, ghosts and the like. It's all nonsense as far as he's concerned, his brother's claims of what lies in the Sea of Souls notwithstanding. It does however, sharpen his attention; Illarion was a thoroughly dead but still moving creature. He hadn't thought to see if Charles was too. And it's usually easy - just listening for the sound of a heartbeat.

And there's no prescience itching at the edges of his vision, writing a future yet to be had of Charles' ultimate fate. "...And which might you be? Unfinished business, or dodging death?"

No heartbeat in this one. No breathing either, no sound of a pulse depending on how keen Curze's ears are. Even when he's corporeal, those things take conscious effort to mimic generally. All Charles tends to do is remember to blink, to fiddle and fidget like he did when he was alive, rather than standing stock-still and unblinking as some ghosts tended to once they either forgot how to, or lost the care to continue those little living habits.

"Oh I'm an expert in avoidin' Death by now mate, been at it over thirty five years now!" Replied cheerily, with a sunny grin.

His hearing is sharp enough to pick up on it from a couple dozen feet away if he'd bothered to pay attention, and now that he is, there's a whole slew of invective rolling around in his mind.

That makes at least two. One was an elf, he didn't care about those. But a human.. they're supposed to nominally be keeping an eye out for those, and dead ones still moving around just didn't normally happen. "How does that work, precisely?" The question is a low, thoughtful rumble. "Your appointed fate arrives and you simply skip the terminal breath part..?"

"Dunno if it was 'appointed' or not," He replied with a one-shouldered shrug. "But I died, yeah? Wasn't so bad really, didn't even realize until I turned around and saw my body still where I'd been layin' felt... well okay didn't feel much of anything but that was way better than before. I could've moved on, Death was gonna show up in a minute or two to pick my soul up and take me to y'know the great beyond or wherever. So I took off instead."

"Caught by surprise?" Curze can think of many, many ways someone might die so suddenly they might not realize it happened, and most were terribly messy.

Souls still seem like nonsense to him. He could allow that perhaps psykers could leave an imprint of themselves behind for a while, or the new possibility of daemons, but was that really ghosts? "How peculiar. I have only heard of such things in tales to frighten children. Even that death may be a person to show up or not, and be late of all things, is ..."

Utter bullshit. "Odd."

"Kinda? I think I was just a little too out of it to realize that was it." Hypothermia wasn't especially quick, but it definitely addled the mind enough that a person absolutely could miss the idea that they were dying.

And Curze certainly wouldn't be the first person to have trouble wrapping their head around the idea of souls and ghosts being real. Even back home, there were plenty of skeptics. "Oh yeah, back on Earth most people don't know, yeah? Like they have a lot of stories, but science hasn't hit the point that it can really find us, so lots of people think it's just some spooky stories, yeah? Don't think Death is ever late though. She's..."

He furrowed his brow slightly, considering. He'd never admitted as much to Edwin, but... "She let me run, I think. Can't tell me a- how'd Edwin put it- 'physical avatar of a primordial concept of existence' would be baffled by a door if she really wanted to catch me."

Earth was Terra, by a different name. Washington had been in Merica. And if this young man is stone dead then what era he was from was almost more important than where. Pre or post Unification?

Death is seen as a 'she'. It must be pre-Unification. "No, I imagine the physical avatar of a primordial concept would not be baffled by doors. I wonder why you were allowed to escape." No implication there of something ominous, it sounds like curiosity at best. "Even in my era, detecting such things is ... mmm, if possible, then beyond my senses, or technology I know."

Which is fascinating. What would a normal, trained psyker detect? "Detecting death itself as a being is also an interesting and foreign concept!"

"S'hard to say really. Endless don't really see things like mortals do, so even if we had a chance to hear her explanation, it might not even make sense," Charles didn't mind pondering it though, a tilt of his head accompanying the considerations. "Could be a greater good thing. Done a lot of helpin' other ghosts take care of their unfinished business which can make it easier for 'em to move on rather than risk 'em becomin' poltergeists or sommat like that."

A slight softening of expression before his smile brightened. "Or maybe she knew Edwin needed backup, and knew I'd think he was brills."

Does Curze believe anything about an actual embodiment of Death going around doing death things? No. But could he consider the idea that ghosts might be a thing, some kind of post-death psychic impression that still thinks it's alive? Sure.

He's seen weirder. That's probably what's going on. Maybe. "It seems you and Edwin do make an effective team, if you are successful with settling that 'unfinished business' you speak of."

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Careful of the stacks - LIBRARY LOG

Investigation

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