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

[curzed]

Konrad Curze outstrips the tallest roegadyn by several feet, but telling that when he's sitting on the floor surrounded by singing bowls, is harder. "You have your pick, on the other hand. Many suit your heigh."

And weight. If that cat was over two hundred pounds Curze would be surprised.

The bowls are studied, then Nara'a again, expression turning speculative. "Are they? How would one use them to meditate then?" Color him curious. They certainly didn't seem much use for anything besides ... well, being bowls.

[aetherweaver]

"I would hope so. I'm tall for a miqo'te, but there are many races that are taller than us." He sits nearby, tail swishing behind him.

How to meditate... "You strike the bowl on the edge with the small stick that comes with it. Supposedly the sound is supposed to help clear your mind. Holding onto the note in your mind is a good way to start visualizations... at least that's what the merchant told me when I was looking at them in Thavnair." He chuckles a bit. "My own meditations tend to focus on trying to feel the aether around me, but everyone meditates differently."

I forgot a T in the last tag. :( !

[curzed]

Miqo'te sounded better than felinid, he supposed. What they called themselves ultimately didn't matter, what the registrar called them did. He's not going to question it.

There have been no sticks so far to make use of. One bowl, sitting on his knee, is scraped gently along one side with a grimy fingernail, producing both the telltale sweet resonant note of a singing bowl and the squeal of nails on chalkboard. "I do not see how such a thing would clear the mind," he murmurs. "It seems distracting."

There's a scratch on the metal now. "Does it help you, these meditations?" The bowl is offered, almost idly. Maybe Nara'a can make it operate correctly.

oh no. oh well.

[aetherweaver]

"Well, just because people say it does doesn't mean it works for everyone." As for meditations... "Sometimes it does. Especially if I'm preparing to go into a battle and cast magic."

He taps the rapier at his side, and then the focus on the other side. "Not that I don't manipulate aether in my other capacities, but magic requires a very specific kind of mindset. It's familiar to me, so it's easier for me than for others, but it still requires hard work."

[curzed]

So many here were ignoring the apparent ban on sorcery. Either he's been pitched headlong into a place full of people in thorough need of being made examples of, or Sanguinius is ... a bit mistaken. His brother had certainly seemed sure. And disquieted by it. "Ah. Sorcery I imagine requires a different mindset indeed."

Curze: not a sorcerer. "Meditations aside, do you consider yourself adept at your craft?"

[aetherweaver]

"I do. I've traveled far and wide in order to learn from the best that I can. That's how I even started my journey - by seeking out instruction in magic. It's kept me alive, and more importantly kept alive the people I care about." Most of them, anyway...

But he pushes that aside. "I have to stay versatile, which means that I have a number of different things I can do in battle. I can fill most any role aside from... well. I can't heal very well and I'm useless with a bow." He shrugs a bit. Even he can't be perfect at everything.

[curzed]

Bows! That's outright archaic, but not everywhere had access to lasguns. "I see."

Curze's idea of roles in battle might be different from Nara'a's own, but he doesn't sound like he's questioning it. "Flexibility in war is very useful indeed. What do you make of our little prison?" it seems like a sudden topic jump. It isn't, but he's taking a circular route to what he wants to know.

[aetherweaver]

"Of this place?" There's a slight frown at his lips, but he does his best to keep his expression even. "Frustrating. Not useless, but not useful either considering how many of the books are blank or unfinished. Maybe all of them, I don't know. No place that seems to have a dedicated training area, and given my experience with libraries in the past I'm loath to anger any librarians that might work here. Besides, if they have the power to transport us from our worlds - especially bodily rather than simply our souls - they have tremendous power."

[curzed]

"Why do you believe a library would need a training area?" It's strange how such words should sound scornful, but Curze sounds mildly interested as opposed to derisive. Certainly they COULD, psykers needed somewhere to hone their craft, but this was an archive.

The permitted went to archives to exercise the mind, not the body. "...Are you familiar with means of transporting across planets that only moves the soul?"

[aetherweaver]

"Because I've been to a library run by thaumaturges, and if you don't give them a space to explode something they'll start exploding the books or each other." Also he's already starting to get bored because he can't go outside - much as he loves research, there is a limit.

The second question gets a nod from him. "I don't know the exact spellwork needed, only that it requires a massive store of energy to even get the soul and memory across the rift, let alone the body."