Careful of the stacks - LIBRARY LOG

[libraryassistants]

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!]

Comments

die horribly to prove a point!

[curzed]

"Then, nothing like this." It wasn't, truly, seeking answers about Signus Prime, but about whether they are facing the same thing now. The bowls are considered, and the countless half-finished books.

Invisible powers doing unknowable things. It's not entirely prying. He notes the hesitation, picks out where Sanguinius won't speak on and will remember it for later. "Altering the material world around them." The malleability of the warp, somehow turned outward.

But who would have expected that to begin with? Maybe there hadn't been enough to draw conclusions. He ... needed his cards. But they were in his chambers, far, far away. "That would be a waste of paper." Who writes fiction in their millennium? "It is the first hint of anything that might be a purpose to our being kept here."

Maybe even daemons or xenos knew exactly what sort of resources they needed when.. fighting other xenos.

*sighs and hides your knives*

[angel_of_baal]

"No, nothing like this. Though I do not think that this place is entirely beneficent, either." Just because it wasn't face-flensingly evil didn't make it good by contrast. Just...less awful. So far.

Sanguinius would have to work on lying better, for when that moment arose that Curze confronted him more directly.

"It was a hololith projection. A Remembrancer's work." Which made the effort even more outrageously unexpected. One could write the fantastical, easily. One could not so easily create it with sight and sound.

"If I understood the briefing correctly, most of the hive city appears dead, taken over by these 'body snatchers'. But there may be other hives on the planet who can fight back." His answer to most problems is honorable combat on the field of battle.

nooooo first the patina then the knives unfaiiiir

[curzed]

If there's one thing the galaxy at large teaches, it's that the unknown and unexpected is frequently dangerous, if not outright lethal. "... Agreed." Long have they assumed the risk of warp travel was carried by psykers and navigators alone, and it seems they were ... very wrong. He hadn't, as yet, noticed daemonic incursions but they have apparently been happening. This library similarly either had nothing interesting going on.. or something eluded here too. "This may be no different than our complacency about the creatures once thought only myth."

But maybe.. maybe slightly less malevolent. Especially if they were brought here to do something about infestations on innocent little colonies.

"A remembrancer creating false narratives would not keep their profession long," he mutters, setting aside the bowls enough to slide a little and reach several more, moving the collection one by one from floor to mattress. "The planet might be freshly colonized, the hive looked very small. There may not be other ones to save." That didn't mean they couldn't burn what was there to ash and prevent its spread! ..If they had their fleets.

see, this is why he worries.

[angel_of_baal]

Everything in the galaxy seems inimicable to the Imperium of Man, save the few species who had chosen to ally and accept the Emperor's protection.

"That is a chilling thought." And incongruous to think about, with Curze sitting in a small sea of singing bowls, legs crossed under him. He didn't want to say anything, curious to see what his normally dour brother would do with all his collected instruments.

"They would not dispatch two primarchs to go after one counterfeit remembrancer. Perhaps there's a cult, some dangerous propagandist." It would be chilling to watch a story of an alien takeover, with no resistance--no Astra Militarum, no Space Marines, no one coming to the rescue.

This is perfectly normal for Night Lords. Blood Angels just need more knives.

[curzed]

"The remembrancer is not relevant."

The story told was. Assuming there was some purpose to them being there at all, it would certainly have to do with the pict-feed and not the one doing the recording. "Aside from the behavior of the replaced, no other methods of determining a victim and an alien were recorded." Acoustics of this sort are only a mild curiosity, but it takes only a couple of tests to determine how the bowls needed to be arranged to ring the longest.

The crystal ones are set aside with a frown. Too loud.

Emotionless humans. 'Humans'. Which was in of itself pretty telling. Humans in general were a very emotive lot, and having that stripped away to blank nothingness would be obvious in sight and scent. "If they panic, they live. What a strange reversal. I look forward to it."

trade you some knives for the red thirst?

[angel_of_baal]

"Perhaps." Remembrancer is still on the radar, but perhaps as a secondary target. "None of the briefing showed any significant auspex readings. Which, since we also lack an auspex...is moot."

So there might be a way to tell them apart by some sort of scan, but they lack the scanner anyway.

He reaches for one of the crystal bowls, idly trailing a finger along the rim. Perhaps a gentler touch would work?

"Are you so unused to being seen as a hero?" If so, you are in for a treat. Just...maybe reconsider that armor situation.

:|a .. Ok. Not like half these deployments don't wind up soaked in blood anyway.

[curzed]

The difference between crystal and metal is immediate and tangible. The metal ones have a distinct vibration as well as the notes they produce, felt as much as heard, but the crystalline bowls produce a louder, sweeter sound and little feeling in the air. One might be well suited for larger locations, where sound needs to carry. "I have no wish to be seen a hero, brother. My place is to incite the dread of consequence, not adoration."

He's genuinely fine with that. Someone needed to be the monster, the claws behind the pretty words and reassurances. It might as well be him. "Terror will prove them human still, not castigation but a lifeline. Not the usual way such a tool is wielded. These .. replacements feel nothing."

...valid

[angel_of_baal]

The bowls and the way they rang seemed to resonate with parts of his bones. It was at once enervating and relaxing at the same time. It was certainly entrancing, and very different from the music he knew.

"You have no wish, or you have no experience, with being seen as a hero?" He looks up from under his eyebrows, face tilted down toward the bowl in his lap. "You might find that you like it." Is he teasing his brother? Perhaps. But also, it might change something, some deep wound in Curze, to be looked at with more than fear.

"These xenos are no replacements, but abominations, wearing the mask of humanity." Sanguinius seemed mannered and polite, but this is duty, and he cannot keep the hint of a snarl from his voice.

:D

[curzed]

Konrad is not used to anything even remotely like relaxation. It'd probably do some good if he bothered.

But it does sound nice. He preferred the metal over the crystal, but neither were bad. Just.. different. "When Father calls my Night Lords, it isn't because He requires the morale of the people to rise in adulation. I will leave the adoring audiences to the rest of you." Some of them were SO well designed to be just that.

Sanguinius. Guilliman. Horus, of course. They all struck bold, inspiring figures. What he wished to inspire was fright. "Of that I have no doubt, brother. I ... misspoke. The alien will be purged no matter what guise it wears." There's little else that every primarch could agree on without hesitation, and that's one of them.

Such threats are to be erased, with prejudice. "I would simply prefer to be able to tell them apart, and our information is ... so limited." Scent might be an immediate identifier. Sound. The lack of heartbeats raised with adrenaline and alarm, the lack of the sweet scent of terror, the tang of sweat.. "The remembrancer has at least documented their means of propagation. Easier to deal with than orks."

[angel_of_baal]

"Heroism is not about parades, Konrad. But doing one's duty well and being recognized for it." Perhaps they need to find the Apothecarion around here. And perhaps someone working there would have some, well, drugs that will at least temporarily blunt Curze's sharp edges. Or for the likely inevitability of one of them getting hurt.

Though, that hadn't always been helpful in the past. Apparently Primarchs were different, even, from the strange anatomy of their sons.

Sanguinius would be here, even so. He was his brother, and they were in this strange place and he would stand by Curze no matter what. "Perhaps we should contact their librarian through the...strange vox, for more information."

But it wouldn't hurt Curze to...take a deep breath. So if he gets any enjoyment out of the sounds, Sanguinius is not going to interrupt.

[curzed]

The chances of finding drugs that'll get past a primarch's physiology enough to do anything, besides perhaps a certain drink favored by certain canine-leaning space marines, is pretty small. "A task seen to properly is its own reward."

Recognition. He had that, in all the ways that mattered. The Emperor's token complaint of his methods, the lightest of slaps on the wrist, evidence of His approval in doing nothing more than putting on the barest show of negativity. Required, of course, to appease the more delicate members of the Terran Lords. His endorsement was subtle, for being overt would upset too many. Politics.

It's the only recognition Curze requires. A spark of warmth, in an otherwise lightless duty. "Allow me to be ... grateful that you and our brothers take the hero's role, Sanguinius. I may admire it but I do not wish to be part of it."

Almost gently said, that. Almost. "You only get assistants through that archaic device. Mortals, near as I can tell. The Librarian remains ever elusive." But ... maybe the assistants knew something about these body snatchers. "Something is better than nothing. I will do so tonight."

[angel_of_baal]

New sidequest: acquire some wulfsmeade. For entirely pure and virtuous reasons, of course.

And that might be the approbation Curze is familiar with, but truly, there's the approval and respect of your brothers that also matters.

But his words grate, gently. "I do my duty. Not to be lauded as a hero. Such would be to seek glory, above honor." Sanguinius has his flaws--he knows them well--but he holds honor above glory.

"I will attempt to find some sort of armory. It must be through one of the changing doors." They had their own weapons, but surely they would need more.

[curzed]

"No, you perform your role admirably, as you are meant to." He can agree with that easily enough. Sanguinius didn't seek glory, it wasn't about the accolades. It wasn't about the crowds, it wasn't about the devotion.

It happened anyway. Because Sanguinius treated individuals as they could be, not as they are. As if they were better, brighter, nobler, as if it were already a certain thing, as if it were already true - and people responded to it like a sunflower to the dawn. It wasn't ignorance of the terrible realities that faced them, but a choice.

Curze treated people as they were, as he knew they'd become. He knew the difference, between choosing to believe in the best and choosing to remain certain of the worst. For a moment, it seems as if the Night Haunter intends to add something, but decides not to, refocusing on the array of bowls.

Weapons were simpler. "I wonder what weaponry a library would have. If you find anything, I'll be curious to see it for myself."