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!]
unsheathedfromreality: (and realize i know nothing)

[personal profile] unsheathedfromreality 2025-11-13 03:18 am (UTC)(link)
"Stars and Saints," Illarion breathes. There's no relief in his voice despite the oath. Because--

"He can't reach me here, can he? I'm free?"

Give him a moment. He'll have his own opinions on the King's Domain once he's sure of a few things.
unsheathedfromreality: (spent among the slain)

[personal profile] unsheathedfromreality 2025-11-13 05:20 pm (UTC)(link)
This telephone's a far cry more sophisticated than the sort they've got back home, but he knows enough about the breed to know he should cover the mouthpiece to avoid sending the noise he makes at "define free".

So they don't know the particulars of his situation, despite having somehow contrived to kidnap him. (Or rescue him. Maybe it was better to think of it as a rescue, if he was stuck depending on them anyway.)

Or -- they can know. Objectively, he should be very concerned at that. Subjectively ... nothing. There's nothing. His dead flesh is somehow responding to emotions he's not experiencing, taking actions of its own accord.

But he does need information, here. To make any kind of decision on what to do (even if it that's "give up and hide until he's inevitably returned to captivity").

He takes his hand off the mouthpiece. There is static on the line from his end when he replies, "I was -- we were. His puppets. Mentally free."

Pause. "Yes. Look at my card."
unsheathedfromreality: (wandering among the ghosts)

[personal profile] unsheathedfromreality 2025-11-13 08:55 pm (UTC)(link)
He presses the handset against his forehead, silently absorbing this information. Yes.

Yes.

"Thank you," he manages, after a long minute spent trying to think of other words. Other questions. "...Thank you.

"Why me?"

What had he done to deserve it, when a million others remained trapped against their wills?
unsheathedfromreality: (wandering among the ghosts)

[personal profile] unsheathedfromreality 2025-11-13 09:57 pm (UTC)(link)
Yes. Well.

He's not sure if he expected anything else, given the capricious nature of the Library itself. But it bore asking.

"Do they take requests?" There might be the faintest wistful note in his voice.
unsheathedfromreality: (that i have made)

[personal profile] unsheathedfromreality 2025-11-14 01:38 am (UTC)(link)
"No harm in it." Only a possibility of disappointment.

"My daughter. If they're willing. She would be better at this."
unsheathedfromreality: (as we make our way through starry night)

[personal profile] unsheathedfromreality 2025-11-14 02:41 am (UTC)(link)
"I won't." I can't. Hope was a cloud that felt forever out of reach right now.

But at least he'd asked, for Nadya's sake.

"Thank you. That is all I wanted to ask."