Session 67 - Card Catalog

Previously, Across the Horizon…
The Edge of the World holds many secrets, and whatever process runs the Edge of the World has every intention of preventing our brave adventurers from finding them.
During their exploration of the greater depths, our adventurers were beset by a pair of automata, one declared Faust and the other the Oppressor, both aiming to secure the safety of the core by obliterating Linnet, Isa, Bast, and Yves. Despite Bast’s being briefly turned into a toad, our adventurers succeeded in scrapping both machines, Isa felling one and Yves dropping the other, though the battle was not without its costs.
Linnet’s winds have fully left her.
We join our adventurers ten minutes later, walking down a long hallway in silence, five sets of eyes going to Linnet when they think she won’t notice, Linnet’s firmly on the ground…
**
Yves, keenly aware of his lack of social skills at the best of times, has been staring intently at the orb, his feet, and Linnet, in about equal measure.
Orrey pops his head out of a side corridor and breathes out "Finally! It took forever to find a way around that field. Everyone ok?" Orrey asks, eyeing each in turn for signs of damage.
Isa has returned to the rear guard, and twitches an eyebrow Orrey-ward. "Field?"
"Welcome back." Bast's reply is flat enough to build on.
"...no one's dead," Yves says, with a brittle brightness.
"Relatively unstomped. Thank you for not tripping any more automata, Orrey." Linnet glances up and gives him the faintest ghost of a smile, then reorients her gaze to pathfinding rather than path-not-tripping-over. "...look, you all can stop pacing along like you're part of my funeral procession. We have quite a bit of time to trip over before we're done here." She's still not looking at everyone, but there's a trace of her usual humor amid the worn-out frustration in that statement.
The pathways, now merged, lead further and further down. The group is now well underground, with the echo of pouring water audible from further back the way they came. There is a split in the hallway approaching, a set of crumbling stairs leading further down straight ahead, and a turn to the right just before that.
"I don't know what to do when people are upset," Yves confesses. "I mean, except offer them drugs, and that seems ill-advised at the moment. Just let me know when we're back home if you want any."
The ground beneath everyone's feet is a copper tile that makes pleasant little tinginging sounds alongside their footsteps, though just within the aura created by Yves's new mysterious orb.
Linnet just side-hugs Yves as they keep walking, trying not to poke the orb.
"Mom always used food instead of drugs, but similar idea, I think." Orrey says, walking near them.
"Chemicals to make your brain happy, either way," Yves agrees.
Isa seems to have thought better of offering her mother's form of comfort.
"Plenty for everyone, I would imagine." Bast replies to Linnet, then pauses for a moment to consider Yves' offer for context before barreling on. "...any idea why whatever that was happened?"
Orrey observes the complete lack of air effects around Linnet and asks softly, "Is it getting worse?"
"It did, yes. And Bast, if I had even the faintest clue, I'd be that much closer to fixing it."
"All of a sudden? Or has it been slowly happening?" Orrey asks.
"All of a sudden. Okay, which way are we going? Straight down, or check out that turn?"
Bast nods in response, hands briefly curling around nonexistent tools for fixing it. "Let's check the side path before we take our chances on those stairs."
"When you were fighting?" Orrey asks.
"After. We'll catch you up later, Orrey." As the party approaches the stairs, Linnet pulls a pouch from a side pocket of her backpack and hands it back. Cinnamon rolls for everyone are the order of the moment.
Yves is relieved to be able to deal with cinnamon rolls instead of feelings.
Orrey is too, and thoughtfully munches on his while failing to be unobtrusive in observing Linnet.
The turn is just the entrance to a room, and though the room is largely destroyed by the inexorable passage of time, it holds immense promise. Shelves positioned equidistant from each other in between columns (those that still remain from the largely-collapsed ceiling), pedestals covered in dust and debris, water-rotted ladders on the left wall leading up to a second level that is no longer safely accessible, mashed pulp as far as the eye can see.
This is a library.
Isa looks around the room, and offers the most comforting thing she can in these troubled times. "I'll check around. You all see if there's anything useful here."
The sight of a ruined library does not exactly lift Linnet's spirits; she leans against a column near the door and just stares for a bit. "Yves, can you...wave the time orb and make some of this functional again? I don't know how that thing works."
Orrey searches around for a card catalogue or map of the layout or something to indicate how to find whatever books are here.
"Walk it around and see what it shows first, maybe?" Bast suggests.
The ground at Yves's feet is still that chiming copper, though there is also the edge of a lush black-and-gold rug. The orb has all of its power here.
While the scholars of the party decide how to investigate, Bast looks for way to shore up a path to the second level.
"I can do that," Yves says, waving the orb to demonstrate. "Which section do you want to look at first?" Because the nicest thing he can think of to do for Linnet at the moment is to give her first pick on book selection.
"Depends what kind of library this is, really. Just whatever's closest to the door, for the moment; might as well not have it fall in on our heads while we're thinking."
The ladders are most definitely shot, and the lack of rope is vexing. There are spots where a brave adventurer could climb up the wall, using weathered edges as handholds, but as for building a secure path for everyone, that may take stronger equipment than you've seen thus far. Some of the stones from the destroyed ceiling could be pushed/rolled over for a slightly less precarious climb.
Yves orb-waves at the mashed pulp nearest the door, in hopes of some amazing find, or at least a good read.
Bast sighs and starts picking over stones to see what might be best arranged into at least a few steps up, muttering about ropes and preparations.
The shelves shimmers into actual existence by Yves's outstretched hand, titles ranging from Divine Intervention to The Mountains of Madness to On The Properties Of Alexandrite to The Dream Of The Blue Turtles visible in the glimpse.
"...that is not an encouraging glimpse of their cataloging system, but fascinating nonetheless." Linnet pries herself off the column and begins shelf-reading, pulling down titles at random to see just how old they are and whether there's anything relevant about them.
"It's so odd to think that we could just read these," Yves says. "Even compared to everything else. As if it makes less sense to be able to open a book and have the words there, when we know it's pulp now, compared to floors coming back. Like... trying to read books in dreams, you know?"
"I get some of my best reading done in dreams. It doesn't make any sense, but it's usually quite entertaining." Linnet pokes into Divine Intervention to determine whether it's a summoner's guide or a romance novel.
There is a tremendous clatter as soon as Linnet's hand goes to Divine Intervention.
"...shit. Bast, I'm sorry, it's all on me this time." She hasn't looked around.
The books visible in the shimmering field around the Timesight Orb slam into each other, rattling their spines, the shelves rumbling, and an ancient groan emanates from the rest of the room.
"...okay, so the 'could just read these' might yet be in question," Yves says.
"Who Dares Disturb The Great Library?!" a voice, a resonant alto, booms from somewhere in the room.
Isa immediately begins looking for something to stab. Not so she can immediately stab it, just so she can be prepared.
Bast, not quite dropping the rock he's been lugging, looks around for the source of the voice.
"A humble adventuring librarian and historically minded companions. We apologize for trespassing; we didn't know there was anyone to trespass on." Now Linnet looks up, figuring it's always more polite to address someone to their face, if you can find it.
Yves automatically raises a hand, the orb still in it. Then lowers his hand, in case that's not actually the sort of question one should answer "me" to immediately.
In a room full of books, the two people with the least interest in books are the ones to find it.
It is, curiously, a book itself.
Shaking itself out of the crumbled shelves on its side, bristling its pages, flaring the covers to reveal some very sharp and inexplicable teeth in the margins.
Isa does not stab the book. She doesn't even brandish her spear at the book. But she is definitely watching the book. Just in case.
Bast slowly sets his rock down, trying not to attract the book's attention.
The book tosses itself onto the ground, landing with that echo from a four foot fall flat on its side.
And then:
"An adventuring librarian? My expansive word, I had no idea. Welcome, welcome!"
"Um, hello. Pleasure to meet you! I take it that it's been a bit since you had visitors?" Linnet asks.
Yves decides it's now safe to actually wave. At the book.
The book thumps itself along the ground up to see Linnet. "Oh, yes!" it says conversationally. "Very few visitors down here in the Great Library. Charmed and delighted. Principia is my name, and I manage this motley assortment. And you are?"
It really has a lot of teeth.
"Linnet. I don't manage this crew, but they're my friends. Would you like a lift? Or that might be an insensitive question, I'm sorry. Figuring this out as I go, here."
"Oh, no, I'm quite content down here. Are you looking for a particular book? Oh, you have one of His blessings, so I can search for you if you have the time! It would be an honor to assist."
"Whose blessings?" Orrey asks.
"Alexander, of course," Principia states. Orrey gets the sensation of being assessed, and perhaps filed.
Yves eyes his orb sidelong.
"Of course. Got any books on Alexander here?" Orrey asks.
"Principia, I confess we didn't come down here with a specific book in mind; please think of us as brand-new visitors to your domain of knowledge. What would you consider the highlights of your collection?" (Linnet's met more than a few senior librarians in her day.)
"We have books on Alexander's will, teachings, declarations, life, death, second life, construction, architecture, history, culture, music, engineering, thoughts, poetry, beliefs..." To Linnet, Principia adds, "We have the largest collection of pre-Crystal books left in existence, plus extensive tomes on the individual Guardian Forces."
"...oh those might be interesting," Yves says, attempting to convey if we happen to have the time but ending up somewhere more like OH GOODNESS YES PLEASE.
"Do you have one that has quick blurbs about each of the Guardian Forces? More of a survey, encyclopedia type book?" Orrey asks.
"Name, position?" Principia asks Orrey, the book hopping over to analyze the young human.
Bast looks curious at the mention of engineering, but refrains from jumping into the discussion.
"Orrey, uh...Oracle." Orrey says in his wisest sounding voice.
"Orrey, my assistant specializing in art and religious history," Linnet says.
"An Oracle!" Principia crows. "I haven't had an Oracle within His halls in I cannot begin to guess. Please, bring His blessing here to the search console and place it in the slot." The book effortlessly hops five feet into the air right in front of Yves and lands on a pedestal.
"Search...console...? Bast, do you know what Principia means?" Orrey asks.
"Well done, Orrey." Linnet squeezes his shoulder affectionately as he passes. "Wow, you have a search console? Even the university library in Saine still used a card catalog."
Bast gestures at the pedestal Principia is now resting on. "Bring it closer and see?"
Yves heads over to put the orb in the slot as requested, because it would make no sense not to trust a helpful librarian with very sharp teeth. That's always worked out for him before.
Within the orb's reach, the pedestal is a black-and-gold metal platform, with a perfectly-sized slot waiting for the orb, right in the center. Principia looks exactly the same within the orb's field; well, perhaps a little less dusty.
Yves pops the orb right into the slot. It's so nice when things fit together properly.
The orb slots right in perfectly.
A pulse runs through the entire library, and for the moment, the Great Library is exactly as it was.
The columns connect up to the ceiling, painted with a summer's night sky, glimmering stars shining down on any and all visitors.
The shelves are whole, books rustling and muttering all through the grand chamber.
Yves makes a tiny sound of delight.
And, as they watch, the upper levels begin to rearrange themselves, hundreds of doors shifting and rearranging, restructuring the entire library around this search request.
Bast, tearing his eyes away from the transformed room, looks over at Aurin to see how he's taking all this.
"Please remain here during the inquiry," Principia says with no room for argument.
Aurin is transfixed, his mouth moving silently.
Principia sidles closer to Orrey. "Now, the books themselves, they are very careful about who reads them. Is there a particular bit of information you are looking for? I may need to copy that down for you, but it is no trouble at all for a librarian's assistant."
Satisfied for now, Bast looks up. "...I have to ask. How does that work?" His voice is unusually hushed. "The mechanism must be...incredible."
A library is Isa's place as much as a battlefield is Linnet's, so she has kept quiet, observing the changes to the room and trying to keep track of the architecture that lies beneath the temporal face lift.
"All is as Alexander wills," Principia says to Bast, book bending in a smile.
“A particular bit of information...less so a particular bit than to explore and find what we’ve never seen.” Orrey says, eyes widening at the sheer amount of books. “To find what we didn’t even know we were looking for, even.” Orrey adds.
Yves sidles over toward Linnet and whispers, "Is it legal to marry a book? Just. Theoretically."
"What drew you to the Machine City?" Chid asks Bast, almost out of the blue.
"Probably somewhere, but you should at least take it out to dinner first," Linnet whispers back.
"A search for the unknown," Principia says. "Very well. Let us just see if-- ah!" The orb pulses again, and dims back down to its previous state, returning the library to its modern-day form, though the ruins are, Isa notes, arranged differently now.
Yves nods to Linnet, and settles back on his heels, gaze distant, as he considers exactly how one would woo a book. Bookmarks? Would that be too cliche?
"Search complete! I will be but a moment, Assistant Librarian Orrey." Principia hops off.
(Yes. It would. Start reading it, then engage it in conversation about its contents.)
Bast looks back at Chid. "Aurin mentioned it once. Told me to look for it. I didn't know why, at the time."
(Throughout all of this, Linnet is still standing by the shelf, staring in otherwise silent awe.)
"Wasn't just him, though; I'm hoping we might find some other answers while we're here."
Principia trundles back a moment later, a sheaf of very, very damaged papers in between its own pages -- pages that become clear and readable as soon as they pass into Yves's Timesight Orb's range. "Some passages on the nature of Guardian Forces, and their role in Alexander's society for you, Assistant Librarian Orrey."
"We are fortunate you had a ship with which to travel," Chid says to Bast. "What else have you come seeking?"
"Will there be any other searches for you today?" Principia asks.
"You know this entire place so well," Yves says to the book. "I suppose you'd never want to go elsewhere. Though isn't it a bit lonely to be here without any else?"
“Are we limited in the number of searches we can make in any other way but time?” Orrey asks.
"Oh, a bit," Principia agrees. "But a librarian's job is among the books. We Guardian Forces have our duties, after all!" To Orrey, the book says, "The searches require Alexander's blessing, and there is the matter of ensuring His presence is strong enough in these trying times."
"...I'll go last," Linnet responds to Principia's query, very, very quietly.
Orrey scans the work Principia brought out for him.
Bast walks over to stand near Chid and Aurin, so as not to intrude on the librarian inquiries. "Answers. About the Guardian Forces, and Alexander. We've had rather a lot to do with both, lately."
The text mentions plenty of Guardian Forces, with names Orrey recognizes like Midgardsormr and Diabolos, Fenrir and Kujata. It also mentions the elemental forces and how they worked in tandem to safeguard the Great Crystal from harm, with those being Ifrit, Shiva, Ramuh, Garuda, Titan, and Leviathan.
"Sorry about that," Aurin mumbles.
There is one name on this list, though, that jumps out at Orrey, since it matches another one he's heard in a very different context.
The Forgotten.
Yves puts a hand on the orb, to help it with the strength of presence required. "Can you find me anything about Guardian Forces being... confined, or used as a sort of power source?"
"Alexander and the Guardian Forces?" Chid asks Bast. "Quite the remarkable combination... and an ill-fated one. How did you get caught up in both?"
Another pulse goes out from the pedestal, and the rooms begin to rearrange themselves.
"We have a talent for running headfirst into fascinating trouble," Linnet replies dryly.
"They came to visit. Separately." Bast exchanges a wry look with Linnet.
"May you live in interesting times," Chid says with a bitter smile.
"I'm not sure how much more interesting we have room for, at this point," Bast says.
Linnet tries to laugh. "We wouldn't know what to do with ourselves otherwise, though."
"I am sure the answers you seek will be in here, and then you will no longer have to worry about any of that," Chid says reassuringly.
"It's one thing to find answers, and another to implement them," Yves says wryly. "That's why Theoretical and Applied Magitech are separate degree plans."
Ten minutes later, Principia returns with passages on the imprisonment of the Traitor Queen Asura, who betrayed the Guardian Forces and was sentenced to a thousand years of imprisonment inside of a crystal, a crystal that threatened to burst with her endless rage. There is another passage from a different text regarding thereotical applications of crystalline prisons and how they manifest a GF's power, but the author is certain no one would ever do anything so horrid.
"...thank you," Yves says, brow rising as he skims even the opening of each. He digs out a notebook from his satchel, and starts taking rapid notes on the relevant information from the pages that have been retrieved so far. With proper citations, of course; just because he dropped out of college doesn't make him a monster.
As the scholars of the party huddle to examine the latest find, Bast puts his hand on Aurin's shoulder and lightly pulls him forward, toward Principia. "Come on."
Aurin blinks and stumbles forward. "Okay..."
Side by side with Aurin, Bast addresses the book: "My friend is...afflicted by a condition that traps him in a time loop. Do you have anything that might help him?"
Principia clucks in concern, and then another pulse sends the book skittering out to the edges, a great deal of room rearrangement accompanying the movements.
Ten minutes later, Principia returns. "The blessing of Alexander can manifest in second chances," the book states, "such as the opportunity to change the course of a momentous event in one's life to avoid a dire future. However, an event like the one of which you speak can only be the work of one thing.
"A parasite."
"Well, that sounds bad," Yves says, clearly already contemplating how one makes a parasite purge for, like, time worms.
Bast looks back and forth between Aurin and Principia. "...how does that work?"
"There is a burned book within the library," Principia says, no small amount of alarm shaking its pages, "but I have been able to confirm that the book was titled The Parasite of Time. What little I could restore indicated that there is a creature that has taken up residence inside of Alexander -- inside of these halls! -- that is twisting Alexander's own blessing."
"...gonna need more than a powder for that," Yves mutters to himself.
"I fear that, to save your friend, you will need to find this parasite and kill it, so it can hinder his existence no longer," Principia tells Bast.
"So-" Bast pauses, thinking "-was there anything in the parts you were able to restore on how it might be killed? Or at least how to fight it?"
"Unfortunately, no." Principia says this next bit with the same tone of voice Isa used for "actors." "This was purposeful murder."
Orrey shudders, then asks "Is there a way to lure it out?"
"...murder of the book, or murder by introducing the parasite? Just to clarify."
"It could go for another host," Principia says, "though no host is more appealing that His Holy Radiance Alexander. Murder of the book," Principia addresses Linnet. "The book did indicate that the parasite's presence and power would be visually apparent. Have you seen anything unlike Alexander during your time here?"
"...besides the general disrepair upstairs outside of the presence of his blessing?" Yves asks cautiously.
"Those crabs, perhaps?" Bast asks. "...and there was an - odd glow, in the water below."
"An odd glow?" Chid asks.
"It felt...ominous? More than one color, though at that distance I couldn't make out which." Bast thinks. "Some light, mostly dark."
"Alexander's colors are the metals of copper, silver, and gold, plus the richest blue and the darkest black," Principia says reverentially. "If you see another color, that must be a sign."
"Please tell me we're not going diving." Orrey shudders once again. 
Bast walks closer to the pedestal and puts his hands on the fading orb. Nothing happens at first; he closes his eyes with a deepening frown, and looks like he's trying to shift a rock half his size while standing perfectly still. Then the light in the orb flares back up and Bast steps away, looking winded. He looks over at Orrey. "All yours."
"Principia, do you have a book on The Forgotten, as a Guardian Force?" Orrey asks.
Principia waits for the orb to be placed and charged, and then the book is off through the ever-shifting rooms.
Bast walks closer to the pedestal and puts his hands on the fading orb. Nothing happens at first; he closes his eyes with a deepening frown, and looks like he's trying to shift a rock half his size while standing perfectly still. Then the light in the orb flares back up and Bast steps away, looking winded. He looks over at Orrey. "All yours."
Ten minutes later, Principia returns, with a book that reads Fate of the Forgotten across the cover. This book it bumps into Orrey's hands, as opposed to just bringing notes.
Orrey gently takes the book, examining the cover front and back before finding a stand to set it upon and dive further in.
The book is entirely empty.
The first page, empty. The second page, empty. The third page, empty. The first page again to be certain - words.
Orrey Alyon sought to remember what had been forgotten, there at the Edge of the World. The answers he sought eluded him there so far below the surface, but he knew the mountains to the north would reveal the truth. "Uh...everybody...the BOOK MENTIONS ME." Orrey says freaked out and intrigued.
"Neat! Keep reading and see if it tells you anything useful. Or any secrets," Linnet says.
“It’s talking about me in the PAST TENSE!” Orrey says.
"Well, of course, that's literary convention."
"Find out if it's a romance," Yves suggests. "Pretty sure they write ones you can get your name set into, so this might be the more ineffable version of that."
"Principia, I hope you don't mind a continued barrage of questions; we've never seen a source this comprehensive, and we have encountered many questions in our travels. Your stewardship of the Great Library is nothing short of extraordinary. Scholars of the present and future will owe you a great collective debt."
Principia preens, the jagged teeth shining proudly. "Oh, the real joy is helping everyone find the perfect book!"
"Every reader their book, every book its reader, after all."
Bast looks at Linnet from his spot back by Aurin, as if waiting for something.
Linnet makes a tiny hand motion of postponement. Later.