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

[angel_of_baal]

He gives a deep sigh. "Curze. Brother. Why you keep referring to yourself as though you are a blight upon the Imperium?" While it was true, it was not easy to 'enjoy' Curze's company, he was observant, and keen, and that was its own good.

He shakes his head. "Letting our captors perish without witnessing their suffering?" He tsks. Are you running a fever yourself?

But still, if it means that much to Curze, he relents, after one last wipe at the patch he had been cleaning. He was trying to help, not make things more uncomfortable for his brother, after all. He'll try to change the subject, to smooth the metaphorical feathers. "What have you brought back, then?"

[curzed]

That patch of now suspiciously clean armor is bright, lightning-etched midnight blue edged in gold. Without the grime, it'd probably be a work of art, as beautiful as it is deadly. ...It probably would be better for the morale of the mortals around them if there wasn't a blood-encrusted war machine just sitting where everyone sleeps, stinking of the slaughterhouse. "Even uncomfortable truths are still truth." He doesn't dislike any of his brothers except perhaps Corax, and he's still not thrilled about the idea of taking orders from Horus, but ... pretending things were not the way they are for someone else's comfort was an alien idea.

"Disease will mean they are still alive when they are handed over to the Warmaster or Father," is the very mild counter as Curze folds long legs beneath himself and settles on the floor amidst his collected (and not stolen!) bowls. And one paper UFO. "Whatever power they used must be understood before they are made examples of."

Look, he's capable of practicality! "These bowls keep appearing all over this library. These little toy spacecraft as well. Always more. It seems ...more deliberate than coincidental." The bowl that had been set humming when it was set down still hums, a serene low note.

[angel_of_baal]

"I would rather Father than...the Warmaster." He hasn't quite made peace with Horus and what had seemed like betrayal. Perhaps it wasn't. But it was credible enough that, well, he would rather not get Horus involved. More innocents might die.

Sanguinius will keep working on Project: Makeover for Curze. Imagine him, resplendent in his venerable, ornate armor, gleaming and magnificent, hair washed, and...well, something done with it. Something other than a curtain of stringy strands.

A smile was too much for even Sanguinius to imagine. But still, a clean, shining Curze might surprise himself.

"Indeed?" If he has to not keep his hands occupied bringing order to Curze's armor, he will lean over and look at the small collection of bowls. "Are they for food? I thought there was a warning sign?" That whole thing about not bringing food near their precious codices?

"Curze. I increasingly think this is not our world. This place is not part of the Imperium, or the xenos spaces beyond." It's a lot to think about.

[curzed]

Curze glances up from the collection of singing bowls at Sanguinius' hesitation over involving Horus. This idea that their brother might have been behind an attack of daemons beggars belief. The best of them, turning to such underhanded, not to mention heretical, methods? "He may be better suited to unraveling the mystery," he allows thoughtfully, certain it's not any such thought that motivated Sanguinius.

Nothing flickered at the edges of his awareness with portents of what that decision might cost. Or who brought them here.

Or how to leave.

"No. There's not a trace of any food or drink." Their senses would be sharp enough to pick up on it if there were. "They are almost more like malformed bells. Each sounds different when struck."

He could, and has before, presented a clean and deliberately polished appearance when ruling Nostramo, as befitted a ruler of men. But it seemed pointless to otherwise bother with the effort. "Indeed not. This library and all within it is too ... mutable. Even the beds change size depending on occupancy." He gestures towards one of the nearby ones, perfectly sized for a human. "Have you tried it?" EVERYTHING changed size, scaled up or down depending on who was present.

[angel_of_baal]

Sanguinius knew he didn't have enough deception in his body to be convincing in his demurral, so he was relieved that Curze didn't challenge him.

For once, he didn't challenge him.

Which was perhaps worrisome in itself as a precedent.

Still, he let the moment pass, glad to feel it recede, leaning closer over the bowls. "I suppose music is not beyond the people here, but they just suddenly appeared?" He reached over, tapping one gently with a finger. Sure enough, it gave off a pure, steady tone. "A weapon of some sort?"

"Tried what, the beds?" He had noticed how many things did stretch to accommodate them, but not everything. "Your observation does not seem to extend to food." Those sugar cookies were miniscule. Surely Curze had noticed.

[curzed]

It'll almost certainly be brought up later, once he's rolled it around in his mind long enough to draw more conclusions. "They're not weapons. They're just.. what they seem to be."

There is no doubt at all that he's put one to the test somewhere. Sonic weapons were a thing but this seemed too ordinary, too uncontrived, and who would lace a library with weapons? He hasn't figured out what they are, but dangerous... not so much. "Although every time I take one a new one appears. Fulgrim could probably make something lovely of them." Or any one of the Blood Angels, Sanguinius included. Art of the musical sort was not his purview.

When the Night Haunter uncoils to rise again, it's only to take a single step to the side and then settle on one of the beds as if it won't shatter under his unexpected weight. It doesn't. In fact, it is quite suddenly, the size someone of their size would actually need for some modicum of comfort. After a moment he pulls his legs up and settles there, dark eyebrows raised. There's no transition, it's just one thing one moment and another the next. "There is triglyceride gel in the back of one of the cold storage units, and at least one carboloaf. You could put it on the tiny crackers."

the elites don't want you to know this but the singing bowls in the park are free vibes.

[angel_of_baal]

"What is it they seem to be?" Simple strange bells? And there's a follow-up question: "Why are you collecting them?" Is this some reminder of Nostramo? It would be nice if Kurze had at least one fond memory of his home.

He laughs at the mention of Fulgrim. "I wonder how he'd respond if he were one of the ones stolen away to this place." The unfinished books, if nothing else, would irk him. As much as the quiet tedium of this place.

He watches Curze and the bed, puzzled. "Sorcery seems to imbue the very fabric of this place. And we have no choice but to engage with it, it seems. Have you tried, by chance, trying to find an exit?" Tautological question: of course Curze has. It's some comfort to hear about food, but also strange--that someone knew of their dietary needs. Odd.

is it stealing if nobody owns them

[curzed]

"To see how many replace themselves." All of them, so far. "...Because I can." From here he can just barely hook a finger on one bowl without getting back up, and pull it back to himself, then tries for another. They're small in his hands, but quite a bit is in this place, especially with mortals around. The sound they make when he drags one ragged black nail across their brass-looking rims are sweet, pure notes in different tones.

And it just keeps going. The sound takes a long time to fade. There are no fond memories of Nostramo. Few fond memories at all. "We'll find out if he ever is snatched away too, I suppose." Nothing told him this might happen, but nothing had told him he'd be here either.

It's a strange blank spot. One of the bowls is silenced only by closing his hand over it entirely and stopping the vibration. "Yes. There are none that I've found, but there is a door that opens to different locations every time it's opened. The one that led to the garden. If no-one is inside, then the location changes."

Magnus would be the best suited here, he suspects. "If our ships weren't shielded, I wonder if this is what would be experienced every time a vessel traverses the warp."

kinda sound like a criminal there, pal.

[angel_of_baal]

"But," he reaches over, to hand Curze another bowl, because the last thing he wants is for his brother to pitch off the bed headfirst. "Who is replacing them? And how?" There'd be some sort of massive closet of the things, and someone doing regular rounds to find the missing ones. "Also, that they expect the bowls to be taken."

This is all very strange. It seems every time he asks a question, four more spring to life. He and his legion have fought a xenos race like that once, cutting one down, with seemingly more just arriving.

Perhaps the problem is not the xenos, or the bowls, but him asking questions.

"I know no such sorcery, even among my Librarians, who could do that, or any of this." The strangely changing room, the mysterious bowls, the size-altering furniture, any of it. He settles on a bed opposite Curze, flicking his wings out of the way. In recent years he's spent so much time with furniture, and armor, and clothing, designed for his mutation that it was like having to relearn ancient habits to do without them.

"I suspect that without Geller fields, our journeys would be much more dangerous than this. Or at least, more overtly dangerous."

welp. there's only one to do then.

[curzed]

And now there's three, one on the bed, one balanced on his knee and the other in hand, and each has a different sound. It's ... almost serene, a ghoulish counterpoint to the creature holding onto them. "No-one that I've seen replaces them." Someone had to be. Or something. "..Nor do I follow much of sorcery at all, there are very few in the VIIIth who wield it. Can daemons be seen? Smelled? Heard?"

This isn't the lethal danger Sanguinius had spoken of. The second bed immediately adapts to its occupant as well, no longer suitable for an ordinary mortal's proportions.

Curze watches it, one moment small, the next moment not. Suddenly he wonders how on Terra Sanguinius actually slept with those vast wings without pinching feathers or winding up uncomfortable.

Things he doesn't often dwell on. Doesn't often have the leisure to dwell on. "Take some small comfort, brother. Based on the 'recommended reading', something more to our skills may be needed soon."

Aliens taking over an innocent human colony? They know just what to do.

lighten your stance on crime and embrace nuance?

[angel_of_baal]

Some time goes by before he speaks, because he's just as entranced by the sound of the bowls, the way the sound seems sometimes to echo as though reaching for eternity.

But the sound does eventually fade, even below his and his brother's preternatural hearing, and he gives a long exhale before he speaks. He had known it would only be a matter of time before Curze brought the topic of the daemons and the horrors of Signus Prime to the fore again.

"The two I encountered were very present. They could speak. And strike. And bleed." And goad and taunt and threaten, while tearing their way through his men in the Cathedral of the Mark. "But they could also wield forces that assaulted us. That nearly kill--" he sucked in another breath, as though trying to erase that phrase he had just spoken. The daemons and thrown him into a deep coma, that his Librarians banded together, knowing they were violating the Nikaean edict, to save him. He knew enough of how Curze would view them, and maybe even him. "That nearly killed many of my legion," he said, lamely, busying himself with studying one of the bowls, very closely, as if the fine striations in the metal were a secret code.

"You think so, too? There was one there who was insistent it was all some sort of...fabricated nonsense."

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."