so good night unto you all - LIBRARY RETURN

[libraryassistants]

Who: The Editors, one and all
What: The fight is over, the pieces remain... and the Editors head back 'home'
When: Dawn of the Final Day Sunrise after the attack
Where: Leaving Montica, back to the Library
Content warnings: Please make sure to put CW in headers!

By the time morning comes around again, the fires are beginning to die down, thanks to the many efforts of the citizenry to keep them under control. The rebel vampires too have been largely dealt with. These two seemingly insurmountable obstacles were only possible thanks to a combination of factors: the Umbra not being as blind to their human servants as their opposition would have thought, defectors from the Orlocks who were able to counter-act some of their magic, the following Amalia gathered and deployed from Laurelthirst, some suspicious (though welcome) help from suspiciously new arrivals, and of course, House Guildulf throwing their own into the fray to ally with the vampires for this confrontation.

A unity the likes of which Montica has never truly seen.

As the sun rises, there are few left who are able to fight at all; the rebels are beaten, and even the forces built up by both the vampires and werewolves are exhausted or diminished, leaving no one able to take advantage. Citizens of both sides flee indoors, and the remaining rebels are forced to vanish into the woods once more, weakened and unable to strike again any time soon. But there are still repairs to be done, physically and otherwise. Will this unity last beyond tonight? Will young love and youthful hope prevail? Those are the questions that settle over a weary Montica, as light pours into the city once more.

And then, the world begins to fade, static taking over the senses, as the Editors return to the Library.

Welcome back, Editors

It looks much the same as they left it, though the makings of a masquerade are no longer arranged as finely, a few scorch marks here and there, and for some reason there’s some amazing optical illusions on the floor panelling that makes them look like actual manhole covers. Alas, no sewers lay beneath. It may still take Actors a bit of time to shake off the old-new memories, and for some reason the fluorescent lighting seems harsher on the skin than it has any right too. Good thing that the stacks cast long shadows.

The customary tea cart is set up in the Lobby again, and it seems some improvements have been made. The coffee still isn’t strong, but’s far more drinkable than it has been, and there’s an added decaf option now! The tea has still been overstepped, and the stale cookies have been replaced by scones that are hard as rocks, but clearly someone’s getting the message that there are improvements needed. Clearly the tea cart was the place to start.

If someone for some reason doesn’t want stale scones, there’s also a child sized food truck in the lobby, with a sign out front boasting a variety of tamales, including: black beans and cheese, birria, chicken, fire scorpion, man suffering to death via battle wound, and beef. Upon approach, what look like fuzzy puppets pop up to… take your order? They don’t say much, or rather, they make a single noise over and over that seems to be them communicating, but the tamales are good. Just… don’t try to look in the truck. They’ll screech, vanish, and then no tamales for you.

Meanwhile, the bulletin board has a cheerful sign decorated with colorful blocks, declaring: “Join us in the Children’s Area for Lego Club!” Upon locating the room in question, Editors will discover boxes among boxes of legos of various shapes and sizes. There are some ‘how to’ guides for various builds (including a ‘research space ship’ and a ‘vampire’s castle’), but also plenty of encouragement for people to make their own creations! Unlike normal creations, these will actually stick around for a while after they’re finished, and there’s a nice little table where people can display and share what they’ve made.

The Assistants, it seems, are nowhere to be seen: the ‘back in 5’ sign is still in place at the help desk. Still, even without their ‘helpful’ guidance, some facets of the Library may come more easily to some in the aftermath of Montica’s troubles.

[Due to the resolution of the Story, any skills tagged Archivist in the skill tree cost one less skill point (minimum of 1) until the next Story. This can stack with a normal Archivist bonus!]

Comments

MOD QUESTIONS

[libraryassistants]

Re: MOD QUESTIONS

[ordainedbarkeep]

Not a question, exactly, but when I originally apped Iren I was asked to let the mods know if she tried to start soulfusing things in the library. Which she is currently attempting to do

Sanguinius

[angel_of_baal]

last gasp at Montica
He staggers out of the sewers, around dawn. Don't notice the stains on his clothes, the way they stick to him as if (as if?) not all the blood on his clothes belongs to his enemies. He's fine. He's holding up the wall with one hand, leaning over. He's just catching his breath. It's just...really hard to catch his breath right now.

After a long moment, he'll realize the pain isn't getting any better, and he'll look up, to navigate by the sun, and begin the long, limping journey home.

((ooc: feel free to speedrun to him arriving at home as a mild wildcard OR accost him on the way there. ))

Return
Sanguinius is not in the dormitories. He will not repeat the error of last time, and risk others by being in public, and trying to sleep. He almost killed someone last time. He cannot be that unguarded again.

He's not in the kitchens, or the stacks, or even the bathroom.

There's one tree in the garden that's much and suspiciously bigger than the others--that might be a clue, laden with cherries the size of a grown man's fist. That's a good harvest for fans of stone fruit!

Up high in the tree, hard to see through the leaves, is a shadowy bulk, one of the grey woolen blankets from the dormitories on a high branch, wrapping his wings tighter to his body--no accidental wingslaps here

Sanguinius is up there, his white wings hidden and held tight against his body by the blanket, back against one of the crown's heavy branches, one leg along the length of another, staring up at the false sky..

He has much to think about and this is as close to solitude as he can get. Even the wrapper for the fire scorpion tamale resting in his lap, twisted into a tight rope, does little to steady him.

wildcard
((ooc: hit me up for a starter OR tell me to tag into your stuff! ))

Return!

[curzed]

Daytime had been for sleep in Montica, and he .. hadn't been entirely aware of the transition back into the Library until it was done and over with. What cleanup there had been wasn't his concern. Not even cleaning up himself.

That at least has been handled by returning to the Stacks, leaving him as clean as when he'd left, and the first order of business was finding his brothers. One of which is .. elusive.

Enough so that it takes time to find the right path through crisscrossing scents to determine where, precisely, Sanguinius had gone.

The giant fruit tree is its own tip off, really, and he considers it for a long moment, weighing whether it can hold both their weights or risk shattering it.

"Are you coming down or do I have to come up?" There's not a trace of animosity, mockery or amusement, he's also.. not leaving. Aside from not being as revoltingly filthy as they - or well, him and Sigwulf - crossed paths, not much has changed. Ignore the shadow-and-gold winged serpent necklace wound around his neck, it's always been there.

Kaiisteron | OTA

[bashasasdemon]

Return

Well. That was terrible.

The Story, all told, ended better than it probably should have. People died, but not the entire city. But the smoke in his lungs, the fighting all around him, and the fact that he'd had to face people he once considered his own-- well. It brought back some of those bad old times that he tries not to think about too much.

Which means, like many others, Kai is trying to find himself a corner to hide in for a bit while he gets his emotions under control. For him, this means curling up in a chair with his veil over his eyes. He's definitely sleeping. So leave him alone.

Tamales

After he's sulked enough to get himself back under control, Kai will be back out in the Library. The weird... creatures are not the strangest thing he's seen, and while he's not sure what tamales are, the smell is pretty appetizing. ...He'll just stick with beans and cheese, though. He's pretty sure those won't have any potentially people-contaminated meat in them.

Maybe someone tell him he's not supposed to eat the wrapping.

Lego time

As with so much of this place, Kai hasn't a fucking clue what these things are, but after making some of the simple designs... he can see the appeal. There's something very soothing about the way these blocks click together. He's working on something- some kind of building, probably- but he'll look up at someone approaches. "Careful where you step," he says dryly, "These are surprisingly painful."

Return

[aetherweaver]

Nara'a sits down next to Kai - or sits on the floor, at least. He rests his head against the side of the chair. He doesn't say anything. He doesn't have to, not right now. Not unless Kai wants or needs him to speak first.

Nara'a Sunvara | OTA

[aetherweaver]

Return

Nero is exhausted - and then suddenly he's no longer Nero. Nara'a is suddenly back in the library, and for a bit he just stands there, getting used to his body again.

He feels rather than hears a bunch of grumbling from inside his soul - between all three of his 'roommates' he's not surprised that they've got a lot to complain about. He can practically hear Ardbert swearing in surprise and displeasure - and he can feel Fray practically staring at him.

Meanwhile his voidsent is just hungry. He'll... he'll get to everything in a minute.


Kitchen

Nara'a needs food, but more than anything else he needs a distraction. The kitchen is full of the sounds and smells of cooking - stuffed cabbage, pies, omelets, soups - if you come in he'll shove food at you.

"Eat." That's all he says before he goes back to cooking.

Occasionally you might find him sitting down with what's probably too much food for most people, but he's attacking it with the speed of a starving man. Anyone who comes in will get a glance up from him and a tilt of the head.


Wildcard

He's easily found most anywhere in the library, so it's not hard to find him if anyone wants them. He's not trying to hang near where most people are, but even with how big the library is there's only so many places one can be.

Kitchens

[ohaiyo_isekai]

Hikaru has been giving Nara’a a wide birth for a while, at least until both of them have had some time to, if he will pardon the phrase, let the dust of battle settle.

But they WILL need to speak, and a chance encounter in the kitchens is as good a time as any.

“If you’ll have me,” he says. “I can recommend the tamales, too.”

And then, he sighs. “Hail and well met. Did you keep the shield bracelets and the skill at warding, or did that melt away when you became yourself again, Nara’a?”

Hisako

[steelfeathered]

one last Montica moment
Most of the night is a blur. Jadis slipped away from the manor, helped keep the lower city from burning, got shot, was rescued, and returned somewhat worse for wear. She should check the stores of burn ointment and other useful potions she's brewed ahead of time - and she will - but first she has to confirm the survival of the family. Of her family, what's the use denying it anymore?

the return
There's a moment where she doesn't know where or who she is, but she feels air against her bare skin and acts as Jadis, covering her chest in instant, instinctual mortification. Except, her arm doesn't move quite right and - she's been cut! She gasps as she feels the hot wet trickle of blood, and again she acts on instinct to press hard against the wound, but that's worse and something just fell with a ceramic CRACK- At last she looks down and registers that she's slicing, rather deeply, into her chest with a steel-feathered wing. Quite a lot of silver blood is flowing. She's cut the cord of several of her necklaces, including the one with her ocarina, dropping it to the floor.

- "Oh, God's sack," she says, swearing as Jadis would. Then Hisako vanishes, leaving an assortment of beads, a damaged clay flute, and a splash of shining blood on the floor. Anyone who's remained a werewolf should be careful, there's enough silver content in her blood to be potentially dangerous.

(Roboute's picking up the flute.)

med room
She appears in the Med Room several seconds after anyone who started out there does, far enough from any werewolves that her silver blood, claws, and bone does no harm. She's lying on her back on one of the cots with her wings hanging off the sides and trailing on the floor, the fresh cuts scabbed over, her skin ashen. When she tries to sit up, she can't. Birds don't have that kind of waist articulation, and... she is a Stormwing. A great, invisible weight settles over her as she fully and truly becomes Hisako again.

several paragraphs of ANGST

The wounds hurt. That's so embarrassing, that she cut herself like a fledgling! Like she doesn't know how her body works and still expects to be human-shaped. Hag take it, she doesn't want to go through that again.

Her whole body hurts and she realizes: it's because she's hungry. She's... always hungry. The solid part of a Stormwing's diet is not as important as emotions. Fasting for years, for a decade or two, that's no great hardship. Three hundred and seventy years, though. Somehow she'd managed to tune it out and now she's noticing again and it's. Awful.

Her mother's flute is gone. Had it broken when it fell? There had been a bad sound... Hisako's kept it for so long, protecting it from all the things that could damage ceramic, and now she's failed in a fit of idiocy. The last thing she has of her Amma!

Her heart hurts. For a while there, Hisako hadn't existed. Strange, damaged, too-compassionate Jadis had instead, living in what looked, at a glance, like the arrangement Hisako had had with Waehild Sixsmith. Except nothing like that. Jadis cared about the people in her household, especially Roberte, and was cared about in return. Often she felt safe. Sometimes, she had been happy. Dimly she had known about Hisako and felt revulsion, and then pity. She's so unhappy, Jadis had thought.

Now she's vulnerable on her back and not sure how she's going to get up. That does it. Hisako stares at the ceiling, trying to scold herself out of the tears welling up, spilling over into her ears, slowly remembering how the art of the grasp works because she's going to have to use magic to wipe her face.

Later, when she's calmer and has managed to 'sit' (squat) on the cot, her claws puncturing it deeply, Hisako hides her face under her wing and pretends to be asleep when she thinks anyone's coming near. She'll leave as soon as she feels she won't reopen the cuts.

wildcard
Long ago, Hisako had struggled for a long time after her transformation. A bit of that struggle is back, with the memory of how it was to be human so fresh in her mind. She's determined that this time she won't take years. She flies everywhere she can, spending days in the Safe Zone. She licks her feathers with a long tongue. She uses her talons to scratch into the sod in the garden and open up a patch of dirt and roots, then carries buckets of water to it in her teeth and makes a mud wallow. She... okay, taking several hours to laboriously wash her very long hair isn't a typical Stormwing habit, but it makes her feel better.

A few different things;

[guilliman]

The last moments they have as Roberte Guildulf and his cherished mystic are spent shoulder to shoulder, quietly planning her well-earned trip to the seaside, and what he must to do so that he might accompany her. A quiet joke (not a joke, not really) about never coming back. And then that world, those people, dissolve around them like spun sugar in a downpour. His own memories reassert themselves; the centuries of his existence as one of the Emperor's finest tools. Not Roberte Guildulf. Roboute Guilliman. Thirteen.

His reaction is almost entirely internal. Jad -- Hisako's is not. There is shining silver blood. There is cursing. And then she is gone. Gone before he has any opportunity to come to grips with the life lived, the years upon years that their false-selves had spent together. He sees her little ceramic flute on the ground, and snatches it up without a second thought. The little chips of clay and glaze that were scattered, he drags his fingers through the carpet to try and snatch up as many as possible.

If he can do nothing else, then maybe, at least...

It takes time. Work. With the books. With the craft room. Even for a primarch, it takes longer than Hisako takes to heal. And so he has to work to find her, days later.

He's trying to give every signal possible that he is not a threat, as he steps into the garden. Moving slow, obvious, telegraphed. His hands in front of him, one clasped around something small.

"Mamzel," he says. Careful, gentle. A great and terrible things that has been reminded how great and terrible it is and does not want to be. "May I have a moment of your time?"

[codeswitchcraft]

The Garden (Locked to Close CR)

The moment that Siobhan exits from the story she makes a low moan and falls to her knees, but only for a moment before she pushes herself to her feet and tears off blindly into the stacks, opening whichever doors she can find until at last she reaches the garden.

She can be found there, later, by those who are close to her, curled up into a tiny green, gold, and blue ball next to the rose bushes, her monarch-patterned wings doing her best to shield the rest of her from the world.

Tamales and Legos

Later on, after she's finished yelling and crying, Siobhan can be coaxed back into the main library building. She orders her chicken tamales from the truck in perfect Mexican Spanish (rather than Yberian) and takes them with her to the lego room where she is concentrating very hard on making a very particular castle from Mundus--one Hikaru and Laina will recognize, but not the one she was born in.

"Pass me those flower-shaped pieces," she says under her breath, her normal barest hint of a German accent a little bit stronger at the moment. "I need them for the Jardine."

Wildcard

[Have anything else you want to tag about? Hit me up!]

The gardens

[ohaiyo_isekai]

He knew she would be here.

At the beginning of it, he sits next to her, silently offering a hand.

[birdchasingecho]

Morning Sun
All her careful plans, ruined in a single day and night. And yet, she stood equal, here, now, coin and men spent dearly to preserve this, her city.

Her city. Hers. Let those who dare come to this den of wolves, this crypt of vampires! This city of craftsmen and beggars, actors and lords! This is proof! Not just hers, but hers, still, with the rays of dawn and the fires dying. She would help rebuild, both the relationships and the city, and everyone's Montica would stand stronger than ever.

It's when the ragged cheers erupt that she realizes she's expounding, a final speech before the real work of explaining herself to the Guidulfs and likely the Umbra began.

... And then, the world fades into static. She's fainting? Here? Now? She supposed she had... transformed five times that night...

Return
Mei arrives, still more than half Amalia, her body having changed to suit the Rival, and she's having a rough time of it, tripping over her own feet, speaking funny, barely keeping herself together.

She's 170 cm. She'll probably shrink over the next few days.

Her hair is shorter now, and she clicks her tongue in irritation. She kept her lockpicks in that hair ribbon! Where's she supposed to put it now!? she liked her long hair. She worked hard for that hair...

She doesn't even get to keep her fancy dress, though she does get a new shirt out of it: a Hunter green tee, with BULLET PROOFS on it, with a blazon of a crow clutching two muskets in its feet.

... But... As she reviews...

Well. If, in eight years, she was that well-connected, that ruthless, that kind, that able to chew the scenery--

Maybe that wouldn't be so bad.

She pours herself some awful tea, and sits, and waits.

She knows the accusations are coming.

Tamalias?

Mei's order is, after a brief glance, "Birria", and she watches with the amused air of someone watching kids do the same.

Still... It's an acceptable steamed bun, after everything Montica chose to be. "Go ahead and try some. They're good."

Tamalias!

[angel_of_baal]

Please teach this man how to eat a tamale.

"Are they a food from your home?"

[shakenit]

Step one: Pull a change of clothes and some toiletries out of a convenient book, attempt to wash the smell of smoke out of her hair, and feel sorry for herself in the shower. It'd be one thing if Sumire felt like she made much of any direct contribution to things, but she really doesn't. Still, so many others had a much harder time, so she doesn't want to make a big deal out of it, either.

Step two: sleep it off for a while.

After that, she's feeling up to wandering the stacks and perhaps being social for a while. The tamale truck is intriguing, partly because she hasn't had tamales before (the chicken ones, it turns out, are quite good) and partly because she can't figure out how 'man suffering to death' is a definable flavor. (She's not curious enough to actually try one of those, though.)

Eventually, she makes her way to the kitchen. She's still feeling a bit at loose ends, and the best thing she can do about it is cook - but cook what?

[terraboo]

After the first two steps, Sumire may run into a slightly haggard-looking but still smiling Laina.

"Erm. Hi. I don't think we ran into each other while I was. Uh."

A pause. "... How'd you handle amidst all that?"

Illumination | OTA

[noonlight]

dorms.

The one benefit of having been thrown into a story where Lu could do whatever they wished to their own (slightly stolen? claimed by right of eminent domain?) home, was that they could charm their own sleeping space into something more to their liking. Looking at their bunk in the Library, Illumination stands back and debates if they could or should make a few changes.

...well, if anyone doesn't like it, they can leave a catty memo. For now, they'll do their charms in chalk.

tamales & planning.

Dinner is good and all the better for not having to cook it themselves, but what would really improve the meal would be a beer. (And some smokes.) Lacking this most basic beverage, they take their tamales and find a spot to eat and start to sketch out a list of 'mutual aid: useful things to get and share'.

Currently it reads:
- beer (or beer making supplies)
- tobacco (general preference for format?)
- fresh fruit
- honey
- fresh herbs or live herbs to grow in the garden
- fun herbs or other substances (can provide detailed descriptions)

brick.

Let's just ignore Illumination's comment upon seeing the Lego and model kits, shall we? ("What the actual fuck is the point of this?")

[guilliman]

In his post-Story wanderings, still grappling with his fresh new existential crisis in a way that makes it clear for the millionth time exactly why giving weapons a consciousness is a bad idea, Roboute keeps finding his way back into the lobby. And eventually, he does give in to temptation and orders a grox tamale. And then another. And then a few more, of various kinds.

After stocking up on food to eat his feelings through, he approaches the not-daemon that he met some time ago, and sits near to them.

"If you can develop any substance that affects myself and my brothers, you will make some very powerful friends."

Hello to you too!

[thickasacastlewall]

Dunk is crouched outside the tiny food truck, running the small glass 'reading stone' that the Librarian gave him over the list of items and listening patiently as it reads him out the list of various tamales on offer, his face going on a journey as he listens.

"Beef," he tells the little fabric people, firmly. Beef sounds safe enough. "As many as you can give me."

When he gets them back, however, he ends up making another face when he tries biting into a tamale. Somebody probably needs to tell him he needs to unwrap the corn husk first.

Wildcard

[Want a seven foot tall himbo? Hit me up!]

[ohaiyo_isekai]

“Ah, the wrapping is inedible.”

Hikaru demonstrates unwrapping his birria style one.

“Like so,” he says, biting into his.

Rakia | OTA

[flantastic]

[Tea Time]
The rock-hard scones do not go unappreciated. Rakia's contentedly crunching away on one. "Hey, these aren't bad." More crunching. "Different texture than other human food I've tried."

Look, when you are a species that literally eats rocks, sometimes, a snack this close to being an actual rock is an interesting novelty.

[Tamales]
Rakia approaches the truck, sees the puppets popping out to take his order. He stares at the puppets for a few moments before deciding, "No," and walking away.

tea

[ordainedbarkeep]

"Yes, they are rather rock-like, aren't they?"

Iren stopped gnawing on her scone with a grimace, then dunked one end of it into her coffee to try and soften it up.

Roboute Guilliman | OTA

[guilliman]

Mortality.

To understand, on a fundamental level, the accident of one's birth. The unremarkability of one's life. The brief decades available to make their mark on the world... or to just choose not to, to decide instead to just fade into memory, and then out of memory.

There has always been a quiet part of Roboute that has envied that. The part that dreamed, so many thousand years ago, of abandoning the war for the soul of the galaxy, and instead living out the rest of his days as a humble farmer on a forgotten planet. Even then, he'd known that it wasn't possible for someone.. something like him to fade away quietly.

...but Lord Roberte Guildulf of Montica had that chance. He had risen to power, to influence. He had found it to be too much for him. And he had, at the end, given it up and walked away.

He reappears in the library still cuddled close to Jadis -- to Hisako, and as their memories return to them, until she flees they remain with in each others' personal space. Almost assuredly long enough for one or all of his brothers to see them so close to each other.

Then she is gone. (He sees her little ceramic flute on the ground, and snatches it up without a second thought.) And he is. He has a mortal lifetime in his head. The necklace clutched in his fist, he staggers away from the group still in the lobby. He doesn't know where. Anywhere. Anywhere else, while he tries to make sense of the way his hearts ache.

Wives. Children. The quiet certainty of death to come, one day...

It will be a long time before he stops wandering through the endless aisles. He's more focused on the memories of that false-life than on his surroundings. It's easy for anyone to happen upon him. Or for him to happen upon anyone else.

[curzed]

The mystery of where Roboute is, is one of the ones that can be solved immediately. Getting snuggly with a Stormwing tends to be very visible, as is her spectacular fleeing.

And as the Lord of the Ultramarines lurches away, thoroughly discombobulated by his first brush with living someone else's life, trapped inside someone else's life, Curze is watching. Trailing, at a bit of a distance. He's not saying anything yet, he's waiting for the right moment. For most of the fog of another existence to fade back into the bitter realities of their actual lives.

He's patient. There's time.

Jun Ushiro | OTA

[icanhearscreams]

Medic (cw: injuries)

Jun is suddenly exhausted, having been going all night. He wakes up in what seems like a school nurse's office, weakly lifting his head. He wasn't in mortal danger, but he had taken a not insignificant amount of damage in his wolf form. It seems like that transfers over somewhat...

Eventually he'll get up, but anyone else in the clinic might spot the young man just staring into the ceiling. That... had been a lot.


Games

He's familiar enough with plastic building bricks. He snaps them together, making fish, sea creatures, other animals. He's reasonably good at it, and he's also got a notebook where he's referencing drawings that he's made of the same animals.

Sometimes he'll just watch people play. He's still feeling weirdly muted, and he's not sure what to do about it. He's also still very tired, so he's not sure what to do about that, either.


Wildcard

Jun doesn't know what to do with himself. He still doesn't feel quite right. He wanders the library...

... And sometimes instead of Jun, there's a great black wolf who's prowling around in his place.

Wildcard - shit, let's be pupy

[keytarheroine]

There is, as it turns out, another wolf stalking the gardens - and given the purple ruff, it's not hard to imagine who it might be.

On seeing Jun, she hangs her head in shame and makes a sad little warble.

Murderbot | OTA

[ugh_emotions]

i. Welcome back [CW for construct burn injuries, and also generally wondering around while ignoring said injuries]
SecUnit ignores the tea cart, and the food truck. It can't consume human food and beverages, and it certainly doesn't want to watch other people consuming it. Ugh.

Disgusting.

There is, however, something else that it's ignoring, as it walks through the Stacks.

Namely, the fact that it's a bit...damaged.

There's burn marks on the side of its face. More along its left and, and all along its left arm and shoulder. Its fingers are black.

But if anyone was in disbelief that SecUnit was actually a construct before, now it's incredibly obvious. Because the beneath that burned-away skin, the inorganic structures underneath are all too visible. Wires, tubing, and inorganic bone structures sit alongside and underneath organic tissue.

It's fine, though. Its veins are self-sealing. See, SecUnit isn't even bleeding anymore. And it's turned its pain sensors down. Sure, it's taken a little damage. But its Performance Reliability is still at 87%. For a SecUnit, this is superficial damage.

Might be a bit alarming for the other residents of the Library to see it wondering around with chunks of its skin burned off, though.

ii. Sanctuary Moon watch party
Later, when it's spent some time in the medbay and is no longer looking like a horror show, SecUnit has retreated to one of the meeting rooms.

It's not pretending to be human anymore. Which means now it can watch media the good way.

It's rolled up one of its sleeves, exposing the gunport built into its forearm. The port is open, with the energy weapon deployed, but not charged. It doesn't need the weapon - just access to the port inside the space. A hardline runs from there to the projector.

And on the projector a show is playing. A serial; with the opening titles revealing it to be a show called The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon.

For anyone who comes in, SecUnit won't make any attempt to acknowledge them; it will just keep watching the show, feet propped up on one of the meeting room desks. But if they say long enough and watch, they'll learn that it's a show about a solicitor for a colony planet. The storylines are dramatic, emotive, and utterly unrealistic.

(There is also, as it turns out, a character called 'Rin'. Hey, isn't that name familiar?)

[noonlight]

Illumination is comfortable around SecUnit. It doesn't smell like a human, nor does it expect chatter like one. On the one hand, it's something of a relief, that Lu can just act a little less 'human' friendly; but on the other, so much of what they've done and are meant to do as a good member of their hive is to blend in.

They're not near their hive right now, and no one here seems to actually know what having one of the Get means, so ....

So, they slip into the room, and quietly get comfortable. It's a great show, not a good one.

X

[defyingreality]

Return
The first thing he did was flick into his Hero form, the air around him shedding static and smoke and words. The second thing he did was calmly walk to the dorms, find a corner and collapse with his back against the wall, drew his legs up to his chest, and slowly knock the back of his head against the wall. The static, the words, crawl across his skin in English, in Chinese, in Russian, in Arabic, and he counted under his breath the number of times he smack his head. Reaching a hundred, he then switches from smacking his head to just looking up, changing his counting into pi's numbers.

"Three dot one four one five nine two six five three five eight nine seven nine three...."

There's a possibility he's going to keep this up for a while.

Legos
Once he had everything locked back down, he emerges from his corner to explore, first to the tamale truck then to the Children's Area. The legos were given a look of absolute annoyance before he takes a seat and starts to sort through the blocks. He knew that there were a lot of practical engineering behind each lego design and he knew that the shapes were meant to lock no matter what variables were used. But he was a living variable, and his core reality had been shaken too much for him to not feel like breaking the core of them.

So in his corner, he was making a lego castle that would make M.C. Escher proud. Walls extended into curves, curves built at angles that should not be possible with the blocks usual configurations, pieces merge from odd angles, and colors that would rival the neon riots of the 80s took form. Even a few blocks pressed through the table itself as he pressed an oddly mauve color piece harder than necessary against the surface.

"Oops," he says, and presses the next block deeper into the table like it's water.

Wildcard
X isn't hard to find. He stays in his Hero form as he moves from one room to another, finding the garden to spend quiet time among the plants rain or shine, avoiding the dorms when he can and sleeping in the resource room's rather uncomfortable chairs, or among a pile of books on coffees and teas. Sometimes he dumps resources pulled from those books in the kitchenette - real coffee, real teas, some platters of tea snacks.

[ ooc; i've been mia due to stuff IRL so X not being around is for the lovely reason of how his powers manifest and sometimes goes a bit wonky. X is gonna be hung over, and still suffering from the after-effects of having an 'aura styled headache' that influences his reality. ]

Return

[awreck]

What Wreck really wants to do is suffocate himself in a pillow, but somehow he manages to refrain from doing so. For now. He figures that the dorms will at least be quiet, and so not too long after X arrives, Wreck heads inside with a notebook tucked under his arm. Maybe if he can sit in as close as solitude as he can get for a bit, he might be able to get his thoughts in order.

It's not that he doesn't necessarily want to engage in conversation with X, but he's quite frankly become tired of being someone else in these stories and then reconciling his memories afterward.

Hearing X recite and endless string of numbers is not, unfortunately, a very soothing experience for Wreck. Eventually, he tears a piece of paper out of the notebook he has, then crumbles it up in his hand. The paper ball morphs into something a bit more abstract and spiky, although still made of paper of course, and he pitches it as hard as he can at X.

"Stop it," he hisses. "You cannot tell me you're coping with numbers."

Armin the Fool > Laina Guthart - Slightly Unconscious

[terraboo]

[The Closing Odes?]

Armin the Fool barely stops through the night of the battle. Save people. Stop those she can fight. Help those who can stop those she can't.

She must keep moving. She must keep moving. She must this is not the sewers-

[Yup]

The first time anyone spots Laina Guthart, she is flat on the floor in between a couple stacks.

She was moving a lot. And now, without Armin's vampire power-up, that means she is pain.

"My everything hurts," she attempts to meme at the first person she sees.

[Tamales?]

Eventually, Laina, possibly with help, is at the, uh, tamale trick. She orders a few different varieties, skipping the uh slightly contextually concering one. Birria, Chicken, Beef. Oh, there's cheese. Cheese is good, she thinks. She can haz cheezetamale?

She can haz cheesetamale. This helps.

Ayup

[ohaiyo_isekai]

A familiar face presses a familiar substance into her hands, a vial no larger than a shotglass in volume of something the bright red of cherry cordial.

Cherry cordial is probably one of the ingredients, added to mask the taste of bitter medicinal herbs.

“This should help with the pain, Laina. It is, once again, Laina and not Armin?” asks Hikaru Aozora.

Iren Suto | Original

[ordainedbarkeep]

-1: Tamales-

Iren was not one to question the privacy of mysterious purveyors of delicious food, being somewhat in the business herself. She would NEVER try to peek inside the muppet food truck. Rather, she was sitting at a nearby table with a fire scorpion tamale that she was happily munching on while conversing with the two...creatures.

She couldn't understand a word they were saying, of course, but that didn't stop her from playing along.

"Oh no yes, I completely understand." she said, in response to a particularly incoherent sequence of sounds. "You have to be firm in situations like that. Anyway I absolutely must get your recipe here. Is that...a hint of lime, I detect? It sets off the spiciness beautifully."

-2: Soulfusing-

Somewhere out in the stacks, Iren flipped idly through a book. Like all the books, it was incomplete in some way. In this case, all the pages in the second half of the book were blank.

She didn't actually care, in this case. Her purposes were not casual reading.

Iren snapped the book shut and focused on it, pushing a little sliver of her soul into it. She needed to start building up a power base here, if she was going to be stuck here long term. If she got enough, maybe she could actually do something about their whole situation here.

That was the plan, at least. Instead, what happened was that the moment Iren tried to soulfuse the book, her power bounced off it, snapping back into place within herself with the spiritual equivalent of snapping yourself with a rubber band. The book remained inviolate, free of her influence. It was almost like someone else had beaten her to it!

"What in Xenopha's name..." she muttered, shaking her hand out.

2

[defyingreality]

"Oh, hi."

X had been aimlessly walking around the stacks, rolling a coin between his fingers while letting his mind rest from the imprint of the book. It had been hard - the first book was easy with the Actor role but the Reader role, better not think about it. Still, it was relaxing to just vibe with the smell of books, of paper and ink and the pressing weight of realities not yet seen. He just didn't expect to run into someone else here, especially given the last mess they were thrown into.

"I didn't mean to intrude... good book?"

Claire Ryland, Riot Purple, CW a panic attack

[keytarheroine]

1 - Montica Stands - Momma said, 'Morning will always come!'
And through the thunder of Amalia's guns,
Through the flames that threatened her fairest town,
Claire pressed advantage till the day was won,
And swore the silence after a sweet sound.
Both rose and violet returned to full bloom,
The family long-lost that Sigrid sought,
And in the Hunter's heart, for Claire, was room
Thus did they live more happily than not.

2 - Return - Packed my bags, and then I had to go, away from a life that I used to know
Exit, stage right, Claire Ryefield.

Enter center stage into the Unfinished Library Claire Ryland, who comes to herself, still in war-form, looks down and around in abject horror - then shifts into human and makes her way anywhere but where she can be seen.

She practically lives in the gardens and the makers space for as long as she can stand it, before coming out, haggard, looking a mess, for a tamale. She's been crying, she needs a shower and to use the laundry but first she. Needs some food.

Then she can put herself back together again.

3 - Busking and Theatrics - So I picked up the pieces, careful steps through shattered mirrors past

Freshly showered, in clean clothes, with a proper meal, and with her keytar back, Claire looks over a stack of papers with a frown.

It appears to be a reconstruction of the folio for Like Thee. She, of course, lost the original returning. Though it's worth noting the characters have been renamed. Magica Riot - NOT the Pentacle - have been renamed Sara, Cassidy, Hana, Nova, and Claire, for starters.

And so...

"So," she says, counting the beats on one hand. "We face a warlock’s menagerie?
A Burst, a Blaze, a Bloom with a face
That by the name I-ris we all can see
Did smell sweeter? Be with her, I pray!”

She sighs, grim satisfaction in wresting the meter to the ground, and continues to write.

2

[thickasacastlewall]

"Don't eat the wrapper," Dunk warns her very seriously. "It's not actually part of the 'tamale.'"

Nabiki Tendo | Ranma 1/2 (1989 Anime) | Post 160 | OTA

[okanetendo]

Tamales
Not a food Nabiki has tried before, and the more ideosyncratic flavors make her tilt her head and blink, rapidly, damn near audibly, but hey, the price is right, so she’ll chance the beef.

The teenage girl with a brown bobcut in vintage 80’s fashions has the good sense to unwrap her tamale - it seems similar to lo mai gai from the Nekohanten, in the lotus leaf wrapper - and takes a bite.

“Hey, not bad,” she says, less to the… puppety things, this goddamn Library, more to anyone else on the fence. “Never ran across it before; anyone here know the deal?”

Lego
Nabiki has a skeptical look as she assembles Tokyo Tower. Or perhaps the Eiffel Tower. It’s hard to tell.

“So is this just an icebreaker or should I be concerned about the running theme of kid stuff?” she asks anyone willing to hear her kvetch.

Bunks
Great. Co-ed dorms. Something Nabiki was prepared for, with her ambitions of going to college, but still.

She grabs an empty bunk, stows what stuff she has, and lies face-down on the bed, doing leg exercises - gotta keep up her girlish figure - and reading a selection of novels and manga from the stacks.

Every so often she frowns and puts one aside.

“Not a one of these yet has an ending,” she grumbles.

Assuming our test drive thread sort of happened

[codeswitchcraft]

"None of the books here do," the pixie woman who'd recognized the manga that had been labeled Princess Orihime says. "I know we got distracted before but—did anyone explain about the Stories yet?"

Yosuke Otoha | Karas | OTA

[bakegarasu]

Coffee Time

There's a reasonably tall man who's around sipping coffee at the tea cart. It's definitely not decaf, but he's absolutely been there for a bit. It's not like he has to pay for it.

Other people are getting a careful examination. He's not trying to be subtle about looking. Maybe someone will comment on it. Maybe they won't.


Food (cw: injury, blood)

Otoha is out by the tamale cart, munching away on his food. Is he eating the wrapper? No. He's not eating the more... suspect flavors, but he's at least enjoying the flavors he's got.

He's also managed to get into the kitchen, which is probably ill advised. He's got a paper towel wrapped around his hand, red staining it. He at least washed off the knife, but he doesn't seem to be bothered. He's cutting up a few things for a fruit salad. ... Fruit can get expensive in Japan, he's taking advantage of what he can.


Toys

He doesn't seem to know what to do with these. He puts a few of them together but gets a little frustrated by the end of it. He looks over at whoever's nearest.

"What's the point of this?" Why are they even supposed to make models or whatever? It makes no sense.


Wildcard

[[ooc; Any other ideas? Grab me on Discord or Plurk.]]

Teacart

[okanetendo]

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” cracks the girl in the mousy hair and the 80’s vintage.

She’s sipping tea with honey and dipping her scone in it.

Kinjiro Takehara | No. 1 Sentai Gozyuger | OTA

[grandparty]

[A - Arrival]
Kinjiro is confused as hell as to what's going on here, but he has at least figured a few things out--namely, that this doesn't appear to be a Number One Battle wherein Librarian No-One is going to pop out and challenge him to some library themed challenge, and that his friends are nowhere to be found. He doesn't seem too outwardly bothered by this, but he's going to be sticking his nose into everything while he gets the lay of the land, popping up in weird places until he's gotten his bearings. This riot of plaid is absolutely the picture of a bit of an overeager seventeen-year-old off on an adventure. Nothing but to do but to start asking random people questions. "Excuse me! Excuse me! Have you been here long?"

[B - Tamales]
Kinjiro has read the menu options, yes, but he's still got specialized dietary concerns that are not being met by the offerings. "Do you have anything with eggs? You know, eggs?" And he is quickly getting into something that is borderline an argument with the puppets, wherein he is growing increasingly more frustrated attempting to explain the concept of an egg to a strange little furry thing that appears to be living inside of a small food truck offering potentially fatal tamales.

Which is actually more normal than a lot of stuff he's seen lately, so there's that. "Nothing with eggs? Really? But they're so nutritionally balanced!"

[C - Legos]
Kinjiro's prior experience with Legos begins and ends with stepping on one many years ago and then scolding his grandson a bit more than the situation warranted, but now, he is more willing to engage witih the toys as they're meant to be used. It is with this in mind that he starts in with one of the premade how-to guides and is carefully and studiously putting together a spaceship. But he is, at least, trying to apply his own flair to it. "Do you see any green pieces that look like this one?" He's pointing at an unusually-shaped Lego in the instructions. "All I'm finding of this sort are black or white."

[D - Life Alert Ad in the Making]
Oh. Oh. Now he's gone and done it. He's spent too long exploring his new surroundings, gotten too distracted. It's been too long since he's eaten any eggs. And the library is much bigger when you don't have the endurance you used to and you don't yet know where you should be going.

There's an old man looking close to passing out in the stacks, gasping for..."Eggs! Eggs...!"

D

[thickasacastlewall]

Seven hells. That's an old man down there having a fit. Dunk bends down and scoops him up.

"I've got you, old man," he says under his breath, carrying the old man bridal style. "Do you want me to take you to the beds?"

Dionysus | OTA

[deinoswitch]

Out and About

There is a new figure drifting among the stacks and he... definitely stands out. He's tall, around six feet or so, and dressed entirely in black, but his clothes are decidedly old fashioned. As in, 2000 BCE old fashioned: a black himation, reed sandals, and a black veil concealing his entire face. There's swirls up reddish black tattoos from his neck down to his knuckles, where the patterns switch to thin rings around his fingers, easily over one hundred in number.

He can be found in various places, quietly taking in the setting he know finds himself in. He'll even wave if he catches you staring.

Legos

Dionysus has never seen plastic before. How could he have? So the legos and their bright colors are very interesting, and the way they click together is very satisfying. Should you come into the area, he's building what looks like to be an elaborate forest out of the blocks, complete with various animals.

His face is still hidden, but there's a smile in his voice as he speaks. "Interesting little things, aren't they? And so brightly colored. The dye must have been quite potent."

Gardens

The Library itself was... well, a bit of a nightmare for him, for all that he tried to keep it under wraps. He is a god of the wilds, of the living things, and the Library is not that. Normally it would be. The wood in the shelves, the desks, would still have a faint memory of being trees. The fibers of clothes would remember the reeds or the sheet. But there is nothing. Like they were just... made from thin air. It's unsettling, to say the least.

Which is why when he makes it to the garden, there's an audible sigh of relief. The brick and mortar that surrounds it is still wrong, but there is life out here and he no longer feels like he's had all his limbs cut off. It's still far less than he's used to, but it's something.

He steals a few sheets from the dorms and sets himself up a little tent outside, tending to the garden. Things out here grow faster than normal, but he seems to already have a crop of his own harvested. Not to mention the ivy crawling up the fence- that's new.

Mina Harker |OTA

[starandhope]

This time, it is nothing but a profound relief for Mina to find herself safely back in the Library, and everyone else returned to normal (or what amounts to normal, for them). Being confronted with so many of the exact monster she'd come to fear in recent weeks had been - upsetting, to say the least. And seeing some of the people she's come to consider friends suddenly turn into said monsters was even worse.

Still, she knows she got off easily. And she has a job to do - self-appointed, but a job, nonetheless. Her additions to the tea cart are, she feels, necessary, and hopefully her presence is, as well.

"I've added chamomile to the options," she points out, if someone asks. She offers a small, polite but warm smile to anyone who seems in need of one. "Please let me know if there's anything I can do to help ease the transition back to reality," she adds.

It's only later, in her bunk, that she lets herself react, her body shuddering with pent-up fear and adrenaline.

[angel_of_baal]

You know who the absolute BEST person to console someone afraid of vampires is? Sanguinius, obligate blood drinker. Surely he is the best choice.

The problem with dormitories is there is precious little privacy, and someone with hearing as acute as any of the Primarchs is bound to hear it. And smell it--the tang of fear from neurochemicals.

He stops, a small distance away, acutely aware of his size, and not wanting to get too close and crowd her. "Mina?"

Crowley | ota

[goodtobebad]

Crowley is, naturally, very upset over what was done to him. Having his immortal existence erased in favor of some fake-human version of himself, one who cared too damn much and far too obviously, is incredibly off-putting.

He hopes no one noticed how much he cared. That's what really bothers him about the whole thing. No one is supposed to know that he cares. That he cares so much sometimes it burns through his bones, that that's the reason why he fell in the first place. It was far too close to the surface in this Story, and so he has to make sure everyone here knows that he, Crowley, Serpent of the Garden - definitely does not care.

Which is why he's lounging in the Lego room, surreptitiously flicking Legos onto the floor to see if people will step on them.

"I can't believe they made me human!" he exclaims disdainfully. "Of all the things they could've done - werewolf, vampire, other - human?"

[noonlight]

"You have my deepest sympathies." As far as they're concerned, most human and human-like races are faintly unpleasant.

[lapilliculture]

Lobby/Garden

There's one key thing about this library that didn't stick out to Denny during his first wander through the stacks, but this time he can't avoid the realisation - not after the second time he opens a door only to find a completely different room behind it.

"Oh, for Draxus' sake. Another malleable building." Great. This must be Hell.

At least he's used to navigating buildings that like to move their insides around, even if this isn't quite Corarican drafting. It doesn't take him long at all to bully the door into opening onto the garden, and then he just... sits out there for a while. Just because he missed out on what everyone else seems to be coping with doesn't mean he doesn't have a lot to think about.

Including whether to plant one of the gems in his pocket. Technically there are seeds in it, after all.

Legos

Once Denny figures out what a Lego even is, he's intrigued enough to stick around for a while. It's not too long before he has a finished greenhouse, and then he moves on to building a statue.

Whether he'll bother with all eight of the Angels remains to be seen.