unfinishedooc | TEST DRIVE MEME #1

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!tdm

TEST DRIVE MEME #1

Welcome To The Library

You awake in the stacks.

You’re not sure when you fell asleep, and the memories of the last things you were doing are hazy at best. But now you’re here, and all you can see is books in every direction, the bookshelves teetering high enough above you to reach to the sky.

A helpful sign points you in the direction of the main circulation desk, and even if you try to ignore it and go in any other direction, the desk is where you will find yourself. A figure sits behind the desk, not even looking up as they sort through books and other media; they look, to your character, to be the exact picture of what they expect a Librarian to be.

Trying to the Librarian a question will get them shushed, but they’ll point down a hallway to the side, leading to a kitchenette and what appears to be a dorm room, where they’ll find they’re not alone in this strange place. But once they’ve looked away, when they look back, the Librarian is gone.

Welcome to the Unfinished Library

Coffee Corner

Sometime after your arrival, you enter the lobby to find yourself greeted by what appears to be a little tea cart containing a carafe of very weak coffee, a pot of very strong tea, mismatched creamers and sugar packets, and assorted cheap boxed shortbread cookies alongside small paper plates and cups. (For some reason, there also seems to be a pile of coupons for a free yacht ride.) There is a sign next to them, stating:

Welcome Editors!
Please enjoy these complimentary refreshments.
Do NOT take food or drink into the stacks and please wash your hands BEFORE touching anything.

Looking around, you see that you and everyone else present have also been supplied with sticker name tags with “Hello, my name is _____.” Take it off, and it will magically be replaced by a new one. It seems it’s time to mingle, or perhaps try to get anywhere but here.

There is also a phone set up on the desk, with a small sign labeling it as the “Assistants’ Line.” Give it a try, and you might get someone to talk to.

Between the Stacks

While exploring the labyrinthine sprawl of the Stacks, you find a door tucked between the towering bookshelves. Opening it, you see the impossible: a community garden, fresh produce glistening with morning dew and ripe for the picking. The open sky stretches welcomingly overhead, the warmth of an unseen sun warming the soft grass underfoot.

A large fence spans the generous perimeter of the garden. No matter how high you go, the fence follows with you. Those trying to get a peek on the other side should make a plan.

When the room is no longer in use and the door is closed, the garden will disappear; rotating out of cycle. The next time the door opens, maybe it’s a computer lab - decked out with technology from… some planet and century. Or maybe it’s a meeting room, complete with someone else’s handouts scattered across the table. Closing and reopening the door will reveal a different room each time. What's your pick?

Maker’s Meetup

There’s a cheerful, if not generic, poster on the bulletin board by the help desk, declaring:

The Maker Space in question is, for the moment, easy to find, a few nice and similarly formatted signs with arrows helping leading the way through the stacks. As promised, there are a number of machines and tools related to crafting and making things, including a table that, for some reason, just has construction paper and safety scissors.

It seems the materials for the room have been recently stocked, too; there’s a little pile of fabric (mostly scraps, but a lot of larger pieces that can be made into something without needing to piecemeal it together), some sheet metal of various sheens, and bits of wood that could be shaped into something maybe as large as a small bowl. There are also some more generic arts-and-crafts materials (on a separate table from the scissors); puff balls, popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners and other sorts of things.

There doesn’t appear to be anyone actually around to teach the use of the machines, but it can’t be that hard… right?

Transition In - Prepare for Dheekis

In the Lobby, things begin to… change.

The tiled floors have started to fuzz along the grout, the colour and texture slowly bleeding out into cool grey metal. The change continues to flow up the walls, coloured strips of lighting dividing sturdy steel segments. What few doors there are shimmer, an overlay of automated mechanisms clinging closely to them. Hydraulic pistons pump as if pushing the doors open when you approach, but alas - these doors remain sadly hand-operated.

Within a few moments, gravity in the Lobby seems to decrease. Steps are lighter; a jump turns neatly into a bounce, leaving you hanging weightless in the air for a few long moments. The furniture remaining in the lobby begins to float, as do any items that have been left loose. If it’s not nailed down, consider it airborne.

The effect spans only the space (ha) of the Lobby. Exiting to another room will bring an unceremonious return to the Library’s usual gravity, and please note: the success of your landing is not guaranteed. Please proceed cautiously.

After some time - maybe it's days, who's to say? - you begin to feel it. A pull that tugs you to the Stacks, drawing you step by step closer to the next Story to unfold.

The Difficulty with Dheekis

On the SS Covenant, things usually run pretty smoothly. Usually. Unfortunately, there was an… incident at the last stopover at the Eternis Station. One of the crew members became utterly besotted with one of the little creatures the Eturian ambassador carried them with, called dheekis, and the ambassador was more than happy to gift them one. Unfortunately, the reason they were so willing to do that is that the fluffy little creatures, somewhere between a bunny and a rodent, are very prolific breeders, and additionally can procreate asexually when there’s only one of them around. Which means that after a week in space, it was no longer possible to keep them hidden.

Since then, it has been a game of trying to capture and contain the little pests, shoving them into boxes so they’re packed tight- dheekis only stop reproducing when there is literally no more space for them. And they are trying very hard to fill up the void space on the ship; they’re under beds, in rafters, engineering nooks, forgotten corners, you name it. How long will it take to get rid of them all? Can you get rid of them all? Because if you have one dheeki, it won’t stay one for long.

[This is a free-form ‘Story’ prompt and cannot be considered canon to the game; since there’s no information post, feel free to make up whatever details you like!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"If you focus on the body, you can always carve off a little more and define the wings that way. Or you can do it however you like. This needn't be a perfect piece, nor your only piece. Sometimes crafting is a matter of being patient with yourself as much as the materials."

He pulls some fabric over towards himself, toying with the material - some sort of cotton, he can tell. "And making mistakes is part of the process. How else will you learn?"

Kai huffs out a little laugh at that- he's not thinking of carving when he thinks about his mistakes, what they inspired or forced him to learn. "That's definitely true," he says, voice dry as he carefully resumes chipping away at the bird.

He's quiet for a few moments, trying to adjust to the new grip before he speaks again. "Are you an artisan, then?"

"Between jobs, yes. It keeps the money coming in." He's got a comfortable amount, but some of those market prices get pretty high. And teleporting isn't always cheap. "Usually I'm an adventurer, though these days most of my adventures tend to be..."

What's even the right word? "More grand than I'd have imagined a scant decade or so ago."

Kai frowns, but it's one of confusion, not distaste. "Adventurer?" he repeats, because he's not sure at all what to makes of that, "That's a job?" Honestly it sounds like the sort of job child would make up, when they talk about what they want to do when they're grown.

"It is where I'm from. ... There was a calamity, less than a decade and a half ago. Many people died, including those who would keep the peace outside of the cities. So Adventurer's Guilds stepped in to help - anyone who needed a carriage protected would post a bill, for example, and someone would take it down and answer the call. If you needed someone to deliver something across a dangerous distance you could post that, or if there were a dangerous monster that needed slaying. All sorts of odd jobs like that."

He pulls a small sewing kit over and starts to thread a needle. "I've left the smaller tasks behind, though... many in my world see me as a force to be reckoned with. Whether I am or not... that's up for them to decide."

A calamity. And so recent, too- probably within this man's life (though, how do... whatever he is age? Kai doesn't know). Kai doesn't speak for a long moment, taking in the information and mulling over it as he whittles the sides of the bird down, bit by bit, slowly making it into something that's not just a block.

"What sort of calamity?" he asks eventually, glancing over- those the veil hides most of his features, "You don't make it sound like a war." But there are things that are parts of wars that could wipe out people like that. He knows that all too well.

(He's not commenting on Nara'a being a forced to be reckoned with, but he does note it. He'll have to keep that in mind.)

"... A dragon. Or..." Gods, how does he explain this? He was just a teenager, but they could see enough from even their location at the edge of Thanalan. "... There was an empire trying to take over our lands. A mad person tried to draw one of the moons down onto us. But the being sealed inside of it took control of their mind - and broke out of the moon when it grew close. The aether released was tremendous, enough to alter landscapes and destroy... many people, many things."

He remembers being afraid - fascinated, but afraid. "Only a miracle made by people who cared about us saved the continent from being completely ravaged. Lands burned, twisted by the shattered pieces of the false moon's aether. Crystals sprung up from the ground. Lush landscapes turned to snow-covered wastelands. It was the seventh sort of calamity that has ravaged our star."

And what world was sacrificed in the process? Whose aether did they absorb? He doesn't know. He's not sure he will ever know.

So it was a war. Or part of one. A terrible weapon, just one that turned itself around on its masters as well as those. Kai can't decide if that's better or worse.

The aether- from context, he can guess what that means. The energies of it, having been manipulated in some way, leaking out to change the land around it. That's all too familiar too, and he suppresses a shudder, remembering the feeling the first time he'd tried to grope for the underearth and found nothing--

He has a lot of questions, so many he doesn't know where to start. Most of them probably aren't important. So instead he says. "You had something like this happen seven times?"

"Not in the same way. Not the same incident. But yes." His gaze looks distant for a moment, as if he's reading from a book only he can see.

"The first was of wind, of howl and of sound.
The second was of lightning, banishing men underground.
The third was of fire, nature's wrath it did send.
The fourth was of earth, and the Empire did rend.
The fifth was of ice, where great paths people crossed.
The sixth was of water, magickal empires lost."

His gaze returns to the other and he nods. "People thought we couldn't have another one, because all of the elements have been used. But the seventh was astral - of activity and growth, so the aether went wild."

He's not even going to talk about the eighth right now.

Kai can see why people might have thought they'd been through all the options- though, to be fair, he knows of a few more variations as well. (He doesn't want to know what a calamity of sand would entail. It would be bad. Sand witches can already be bad enough.) Astral, though, that he's not heard of.

"The aether is energy, right?" Might as well confirm that, since it keeps coming up with this. "Seven... I'm surprised there's anyone left on your world after all that."

He briefly imagines the Voice being used seven times. The idea makes him want to be sick. Though, he supposes, he doesn't know that it hasn't.

"Aether is energy, yes." Gods, okay. He's going to have to explain aether to people. The fact that they don't know a fundamental part of the universe is so strange. "It's also matter. Our bodies are made of corporeal aether, which we replenish by taking in the aether in the air and water and food we consume." A basic enough explanation for now.

As for people left on the world... "Sometimes I'm surprised, too. But we are a resilient group of people... and there will always be those who stand up to help be the light in the darkness."

That, at least, is not so different from what Kai's used to- he can't see it, not in the way witches can, but from what he understands that's more or less consistent with how things work. There's energy in everything, just somethings can't be tapped into the same way.

He nods, though his hands have stopped moving on his project and even with the veil it's probably clear his eyes aren't on it anymore. When Nara'a puts it like that... "It can be surprising, what a group of people like that can do," he says. It's surprising, how far hope can carry people.

"It is. ... Sometimes you have to be that light yourself, if no one else can or will stand up to do it. And it's not easy." His voice is quiet, and he looks down at Kai's hands.

Sometimes he wishes someone else could do it. "But it's important, isn't it? No matter what world you're in."

Ouch.

Kai doesn't say anything for a moment, and he's not even pretending to work on the bird anymore. He suspects that Nara'a is talking about himself; from what he's said, it's not hard to put together that he takes on those kinds of problems. But it's hardly something that just applies to him.

Unfortunately, someone has already burned the world. We need to unburn it. Will you help me do that, Kai?

He nods. "It is important," he says quietly, "and it's not easy." Not at all.

"... I can - I can listen, if you want to talk." There's no one else near them at the moment. "You don't have to be anything but yourself right now."

As much as he likes just being himself... he can't walk away from someone who seems like they're in distress. "You're - you're safe here." For the moment, and sometimes that's all they can ask for.

Whatever state Kai was in that, that snaps him out of it, turning his attention back to the bird. He's already running on fumes emotionally and he hates it- he hasn't been separated from everyone he trusts in a long while, but that doesn't mean he can just trust the first person with a familiar story. So he shakes his head.

"No, I'm fine." It's a lie, but the kind of familiar lie Nara'a has said himself, one he should be well familiar with. ...It feels wrong to leave it like that, though. "...Thanks."

... No, I'm fine is something he's heard a lot from himself, so it's not so convincing from someone else. Not in that tone. "... Okay. But I'll be around if you do want to talk. Or if you just need woodworking advice."

His hands curl against his leggings for the moment, but he lets it go. Forcing someone to talk is just going to end badly. "... Do you want some alone time?"

Kai is tempted to ask him to leave, just because he's already shown way, way more vulnerability to a total stranger than he's comfortable with. But he's been in politics enough (grudgingly) to be aware of the optics, and if he does send Nara'a away there is no chance of acting like he's actually fine. So he's going to have to stay. Ugh.

He shakes his head, gesturing to the cloth the other man has pulled out. "What are you making?"

"Ah." He smiles a little bit and flips the fabric over. "I was thinking of making a small pouch. You never know what sort of things you might want to pick up and keep in a place like this. ... Not the books, obviously. Annoying a normal librarian is scary enough..."

He does not want to get in trouble for swiping books here, of all places.

"I don't think you'd want to anyway. Have you looked at any of them?" Kai did, a few, hoping for any sort of clue- and he found one, just not the way he expected. "A lot of them seem to be incomplete. Just outlines, or scenes written out, or extensive notes but no writing." Sometimes those are in libraries, things of historical note- but it was the case for most of what he saw.

"I did." He nods and glances back towards the stacks. "Any with magickal knowledge are interesting to me, but I suppose I'm a bit of a strange one like that. ... My sisters would tease me for it, but they're not around."

And besides... even if he'd blown off his eyebrows the first time he summoned fire, that doesn't mean casting magicks hasn't saved his life time and again.

That... wasn't at all what Kai was talking about. Sigh. "But they're not finished," he repeats, wondering if Nara'a actually checked them out as thoroughly as he claims, "None of the ones I checked were. That's not generally what libraries are for, not where I'm from."

"Well, yeah." He saw that much, he's not dumb. "But if someone's finished half of a magickal equation, why would I want to start from scratch?"

Work smarter, not harder.

Kai barely resists throwing his hands in the air in exasperation. That is still not the point!! "You're going to try and complete a magical formula that you found in a book that may or may not have anything to do with your type of magic, in a space that's probably created by magic?"

This is a terrible idea.

"Not without examining it and testing it first, but yes. How are you supposed to learn something if you don't experiment?"

He grins, showing his fangs a little bit. "I wouldn't do it around other people, for certain."

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