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

[bashasasdemon]

To be fair, his stride and Kai's are not that dissimilar, only muted on Kai's end from his scouting having been during a war, where being noticed meant death (or, in his case, Unpleasantness. There was a reason the Saredi used demons as scouts a lot). He manages to keep his anger and fear mostly out of his movements, though the frustration is definitely bleeding through as he talks to the very large man in front of him.

"How?" he asks, because that's one of his big questions, "And why? To do this-- I don't know of any magic that would do it, but it would take a lot of power. Why use it on making it impossible to know the floorplan?"

[angel_of_baal]

At his size, and his choice to wear his shining golden armor, stealth was unfamiliar to Sanguinius.

He hopes his frustration, probably palpable, isn't taken by the other as against him. There is no point making enemies needlessly. "I don't know how, either, but I have seen some things, in my world, that defy every law of logic and reality. And yet, they happened." So why not a library consciously befouling their steps. "What seems strange is that I never get lost if I head toward the quarters or the refectorium. Only exploring." SUSPICIOUS? Like he's being watched.

"Have you noticed the same?"

[bashasasdemon]

Kai pauses, considering that. "I haven't tried that," he admits; he hasn't wanted to go back there, not when he could be finding a way out. But he will walk past Sanguinius with that intent in mind, and should the man follow, they will both wind up back at the circulation desk.

The demon stops in front of it for it a moment, the gears clearly turning in his head. "So this is a center location where they want us," he says, "while muddling the rest of it. But-- how can they senses your intention to get here?" He went past Sanguinius intentionally, not retracting any steps. The result was still almost immediate.

[angel_of_baal]

"It's an experiment worth trying. Perhaps we could map exactly where in the layout of this place does it turn into a shifting maze." Or perhaps he's just bored and restless and it's something to do.

He of course follows to the desk, tilting his head at the question, because the answer is so easy. "They are Librarians. Telepathy is innate to many of them."

[bashasasdemon]

Kai nods, because mapping the place out was more or less what he'd been trying to do, and knowing that some of it is stable is a place to start. He is admittedly much more distracted by the second bit.

"I think you know different librarians than I do," he says dryly, looking over at the man, "I don't think telepathy is innate to anyone." Heart pearls are the only method he knows of, and those have to be created.

[angel_of_baal]

"Another thing we should do," because he can see the coffee station from here, and thank you but no, he's not up for more scorched recaff, but he was recalling something his brother said, "is inventory the food. There are food items here unfamiliar to me. I'm not sure what that means."

He's slowly beginning to think of the theory that they were not all from the same place, that all these other creatures were not from just...far flung corners of the Imperium. And the other's comment on the librarians confirms that. "Librarians. Those who study at the Librarius to hone their skills to wield the Warp in combat." Mkani Kano was his Chief Librarian, who was ferocious in combat. And definitely a telepath.

[bashasasdemon]

"It seems many of us are from very, very different places." Kai has learned that much at least. "I'm not sure how, but I haven't heard of anywhere that anyone else has said they're from. And there's magic I don't recognize." Inventorying the food is a good idea, though. They need to know if they need to ration.

He'll head off towards the library, though he looks back at the man when he speaks. "I... no? Librarians work in libraries and sort books and tell you how to find things."

[angel_of_baal]

Well, one way to test that. "I'm from Baal. My brother, who is also here, is from Nostramo. My Father," the capital 'F' is somehow audible, "is from Terra." Let's see if he knows any of those.

"The Warp is capable of many things." He's been listening to his other brother, Magnus, who had tried to defend sorcery at Nikaea. Many things. Some of them unspeakable, and abhorrent.

He had dutifully disbanded his own Librarius, but, well...he owed his life to those very sorcerers. He still hadn't figured how to square that proverbial circle.

"Oh no, that's just the lowest level of Librarians, who keep records and research. As they progress, they learn their combat skills." He should know. His Legion had a powerful enough Library.

[bashasasdemon]

Kai shakes his head. "I don't know any of those," he says simply, "I was last in Benais-Arik." That's not where he's from, nor where he lives most of the time when he's not being kidnapped and then dealing with the political fallout of said kidnapping, but that doesn't really matter. He doesn't think the man will know it.

"Then I suppose higher level librarians don't exist where I'm from." He's pretty sure any librarian would be livid if you said that to their face, but what Sanguinius is describing simply does not exist back home, he's almost sure of that. Now whether it exists here...

[angel_of_baal]

"How is this possible? That we are not even from the same...reality?" This goes beyond everything his Father has said. The Emperor was infallible, wasn't he?

Or was he, and he was trying to protect his Sons and the Imperium?

"It's a shame. We have had to close our Librariuses, also, which is something we might have in common."

[bashasasdemon]

"I don't know," Kai answers, perfectly honestly. He's never heard of such a thing before, and he would be lying if he said it didn't scare him a little. He feels too much like he's been ripped away from his home again, old wounds threatening to reopen if he thinks too much about it. So he's trying not to, to think about anything else, or better yet, not think at all. "All I know is that we're trapped here until we can find a way out."

[angel_of_baal]

Sanguinius ducks his head. "I'm sorry. I did not mean to burden you with expecting to know all the answers. We all seem to be similarly trapped here," he agreed.

"I just...it does not redound to my honor or skill that I was caught in this net." It's embarrassing, honestly, to have been plucked out of the war and popped here with the watery recaff and these paper plate sculptures.

[bashasasdemon]

Kai waves off the apology, almost more annoyed by the apology than any assumption of his knowledge. "There's no harm in asking, is there?" he says, "Maybe someone will actually have learned something."

As for his honor, Kai definitely cannot help with that. "Until we know how or why it grabs us, I'm not sure it says anything about any of us at all," he says, "Maybe it wants us in specific. Maybe we were just in the wrong place at the same thing. We have no idea."

[angel_of_baal]

"We should find a way to compare what we've discovered. And find out why they brought us."

Surely not to curate books. He's no Librarian. "I'm just concerned for my men. I'm sure they can be fine without me, but..." But maybe they wouldn't.

[bashasasdemon]

"We should." He's not holding out for much, but it would be worth at least cross-checking what little they do no.

"Your men? Are you a cohort leader?" That's the Arike term for it, and considering the library translates things it doesn't occur to him to try another language's term.

[angel_of_baal]

'Cohort leader'? He hesitates for a moment. "I suppose you could say that. I lead the IX Legiones Astartes, my sons." It's...a big family?

[bashasasdemon]

'Legiones' is close enough to 'legion' for him to think it's an accurate answer, but there is that other bit. "You have enough sons to form a legion?" ...Maybe it's metaphorical. Either the sons or the legion.

The research I have to do to play this clown....

[angel_of_baal]

"I do. At full strength, we are over 100,000 strong." A little moue. "We are not at full strength, however." Recent events have kind of messed that up.

[bashasasdemon]

Ok. That is definitely a legion. A very, very, very big legion. "They can't all be related to you," he finds himself saying, like that's the biggest problem with what he's just heard.

[angel_of_baal]

It's an average sized legion--they do things BIG in the Imperium, ok? "Why not? They all bear my geneseed and share my blood." And its, and his, flaws, and he bears the guilt of that heavily.

[bashasasdemon]

...Kai finds that he simply does not know what to say to that. "You... must be very busy," is what he settles on, because either he is missing something or Sanguinius has been very busy indeed.

[angel_of_baal]

"We are quite busy." Despite how tall Sanguinius is, it does not prevent the point from sailing right over his head. "And we need to make up for our recent losses." Five hundred of his Blood Angels died at the hands of Kyris and Ka'bhanda. Those don't get replaced overnight.

It takes a least a year.

[bashasasdemon]

...Ok. He has to be missing something. The math simply does not work otherwise, and he is going to drop this because he doesn't really care to know.

"You're in a war, I take it?" That is generally how legions lose people.

[angel_of_baal]

He seems nice, so perhaps he should spare himself the horrors of hearing about how Blood Angels are made.

"Always. The Imperium is beset on all sides by enemies. Half of our missions are to rescue ancient colonies who have fallen in thrall of these evil xenos species." That was why he was created, after all. "And recently we may have discovered a new threat."

[bashasasdemon]

...The Imperium. He's heard that before. The 'evil xenos species' just confirms it, and he only barely manages to maintain a groan. There are two of them, then. Are they are this stupidly tall?

"What's that?" he asks, because he's not interested in showing that he has any kind of knowledge about this. He's not good at being underestimated when it comes to his strength, but his knowledge and intelligence is another question.