libraryassistants: (Default)
Unfinished Library Mod & NPC Account ([personal profile] libraryassistants) wrote in [community profile] unfinishedlibrary2025-10-31 06:42 pm

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!]
extrasaltypotato: (deep exasperated sigh)

[personal profile] extrasaltypotato 2025-11-08 10:33 pm (UTC)(link)
"Because many are still under the Tyrant-Queen's control," he says with a sigh, "and many who are not are old, spiteful, and loathe to change the bad habits of centuries."

He shakes his head. "It is not true for all of them. Some shook off their shackles early, along with as close to all the Orcish folk, that they became fellow champions of the free namers; these are the Shenlung, one of whom blessed the Yao Dynasty. But She Who Must Be Abjured made the five, hah, WUBRG -" he pronounces it 'woo-BERG.' "- species of dragon later to serve as her right hands."
aetherweaver: (concerned)

[personal profile] aetherweaver 2025-11-10 04:16 am (UTC)(link)
"I see. Them being hesitant to change is familiar with most of my experiences with them as well." Nidhogg, most of all. Though he had his reasons, as well... a shame they couldn't come to an agreement. "Are there... mm. There might not be an equivalent, but are there beings powered by faith where you are from? And if so do they temper mortals to their sides?"
extrasaltypotato: (disgust)

[personal profile] extrasaltypotato 2025-11-10 04:36 am (UTC)(link)
"Temper. I don't like the sound of that."

As it's something done to malleable steel in a forge. Shaping something to your desires.

"What is tempering?"
aetherweaver: (tilted up)

[personal profile] aetherweaver 2025-11-10 06:08 am (UTC)(link)
"You're right to not like it. Tempering is when the aether of a primal, one of those beings formed by faith, alters the aether of another person. It tends to cause slavish devotion to the primal in question, to varying degrees. The only cure used to be death, though we've recently found a solution to the aetheric imbalance."

Thankfully, porxies to the rescue!
extrasaltypotato: (well I am a genius)

[personal profile] extrasaltypotato 2025-11-10 06:23 am (UTC)(link)
"Thankfully, only the Mother of Monsters, Whose Name Must Be Abjured, seeks slaves instead of sacrifice," Hikaru says. "Where she shackles to her will, the other gods reward Namers for their service to those in their domains with boons. Every Adventurer I know has earned at least the Least Boon of one of the great gods, though lesser ones exist, as well as pointless and pedantic debate over whether the lesser gods are truly divinities or better classed as angels and spirits."

He smiles.

"My studies and my zeal in applying them to bettering others attracted the admiration of Gnomon, That Which Knows All That Is Written, and they granted me a fantastic memory for whatever I've read."
Edited (Gnomon is they/them) 2025-11-10 06:25 (UTC)
aetherweaver: (confusion)

Endwalker Spoilers

[personal profile] aetherweaver 2025-11-10 07:30 pm (UTC)(link)
"Boons of the gods? ... Hm. There are the kami of the East and the Twelve of Eorzea. I don't know much about the former, but the latter are dead now, returned to the star. So they can't exactly give boons, though most don't know of their demises. I have to get my good memory on my own, heh."

He idly doodles a scroll-like symbol on the whiteboard. "Each birth moon is associated with one of the Twelve where I'm from, though. My particular patron happened to be Thaliak, god of knowledge and wisdom and ruler of rivers. Though while I was learning black magic, I was also amongst the followers of Nald'thal, god of commerce and death. And my clan growing up, as a Keeper of the Moon clan, worshiped Menphina, goddess of the moon and love."
extrasaltypotato: (Default)

[personal profile] extrasaltypotato 2025-11-10 11:13 pm (UTC)(link)
“Are they worthy of your sacrifices and devotion?” Hikaru asks. “Do they honor the vows you make to them?”

Any god who doesn’t is not, in his eyes, worth worship.
aetherweaver: (rising fury)

[personal profile] aetherweaver 2025-11-11 12:09 am (UTC)(link)
"... If you power it with enough aether, yes. Otherwise, their policy had been to keep their hands off of the world for the most part."

He shakes his head and sighs. "I should point out that the tempering part of summoning is a nasty little addition put in by a group that opposed the current order of the world. Technically the ability to do so is the remnants of a very old type of magic called creation magic."