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!]
dreamquestion: (Too old for this shit)

Re: Sorry for the delay!

[personal profile] dreamquestion 2025-11-11 07:23 am (UTC)(link)
"Inhuman in a way that I expect more than a fair share of our fellows here would be prepared to deal with, though the creatures on an individual level are less harmful than horrifying."

He sighs gently, adjusting his glasses slightly. "Those I am familiar with have a skill with technology yet to be rivalled on Earth, able to remove a man's brain without killing him and storing it indefinitely. Though my greatest concern would be their use of the reverse, restoring minds into bodies they may well be fundamentally unsuited for and driving them mad."
holiestlove: (sitting on sidewalk)

[personal profile] holiestlove 2025-11-12 12:34 am (UTC)(link)
"Prepared, but perhaps not ready for such a fight." Horror was harder to fight than a physical being. A touch of worry crosses Harker's features as he listens.

Eyes widening. "They can remove the brain? But the man lives on?" He wasn't very knowledgeable about anatomy, but that didn't sound right at all. Certainly not a vampire. "So long as the body had the correct soul, it could work just fine, right?"

Yeah, he's not a student of science.
dreamquestion: (Oh shit for real?)

[personal profile] dreamquestion 2025-11-12 12:41 am (UTC)(link)
"Ah, the philosophy of it is more complicated, no doubt." As it always is with souls. "But whatever their methods, mind and soul both are taken, and the body left to rot. For without a brain, mortal men's hearts no longer function. The Old Ones' methods, or so I've learned, and who's say it's entirely accurate - are so that replacement is fully possible, but more likely the mortal frame would be used as a vessel, a skin for other beings rather than returned to its captured owner."
holiestlove: (black suit looking down)

[personal profile] holiestlove 2025-11-12 12:47 am (UTC)(link)
Jonathan nodded as he listened. It truly was like being around old Van Helsing again. Not his student, and yet learning all the same. "Good god, such things truly exist?" His color paled some as he could easily picture it.

"Would they wear the skin to pass as one of us?" Worst possible thought, and yet, he knew what tonight's nightmares would be.
dreamquestion: (Just /listen/--)

[personal profile] dreamquestion 2025-11-12 12:57 am (UTC)(link)
"Young man, I implore you," he says, stepping in to give Jonathan's arm a little squeeze. "Do not trouble yourself so quickly with the threat of the Old Ones. I answer because you ask, but I would not speak so freely if I thought they were to be a genuine threat here. Surely you've met enough of our fellow editors now to realise that all manner of beings exist across an even greater number of universes - conceivably every single book here might well come from a different world that belongs to no one of us present. The odds are overwhelmingly in favour of these being something I don't have such malevolent rumours upon which to expound."

He gestures to the library as a whole. "Besides which, I don't recognise any of the trappings that have started appearing about the place, which logic would suggest must be relevant to whatever upcoming events we need concern ourselves with. Breathe, sir, and don't let fear overwhelm your capacity for logic."
holiestlove: (close up eye)

[personal profile] holiestlove 2025-11-12 11:28 pm (UTC)(link)
That certainly snapped him from his spiraling thoughts. Thankfully, he only squeezed the paper he was holding a little harder than intended. Jonathan didn't rest his hand on the blade's hilt—improvements!

"My apologies, I fear my thoughts have been very vivid of late. I do appreciate the answers; please don't worry. I am quite alright, simply a little shook at the very idea." Harker is doing a bang-up job of avoiding shocks, but he survived the count. This would be fine.

Jonathan nodded, taking the information. It was true; he had met numerous people. Even his Mina of another world. He had not feared the count appearing before this moment, but he forces those worries down and forces a smile back in place. "True, very true sir. Sorry for causing a fuss."