unfinishedooc | TEST DRIVE MEME #1

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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!]

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He took no pleasure in destroying planets, it didn't have the visceral appeal of torment (though he wouldn't admit even that appealed), it was an unpleasant necessity in the face of the gravest threats. And, faced against an army of the dead slowly consuming the world.. maybe it would be kinder.

A mercy, for all that it was ruthless and cold. Instead of drawn out misery, the flash of annihilation. "How large is your population? An army of a million can surely be stopped with the right weapons." Now this, isn't entirely a fish for information. He wasn't lying about being morbidly curious. If an alien race had psyker skill enough to reanimate the dead, surely it had access to all those other terrible little tools of magic, such as ... firestorms, for example.

"A ruler who will not fight for their throne does not often keep it long." That part's pragmatic. "I understand it is the way of mortals, sending others to die in their stead. History is etched in kings and emperors hiding behind walls while others are slaughtered in their name." He draws a slow breath through clenched sharp teeth, picking up the tiny teacup and its bitter drink again in hands that aren't as steady as he'd like. "We do not."

Not yet. Not yet.

If it came to it -- if the worst ending the shrikes had seen came true, if Nephele were engulfed in the All-War and overrun by the ravening dead -- Illarion would adjudge her destruction a mercy. Better that -- better that.

Did it come to it, he'd call the fires down himself. But it hasn't reached that point, not yet.

"A thousand times that. Not all combatants." Though more and more would be, as the war drew on. Those who couldn't protect themselves would die. "If they had the weapons to stop us -- if we ... " He trails off.

Which side is he on, now?

Never mind. He shakes his head, corrects himself: "If the living had weapons to stop the dead, you would be right. But they don't. Yet."

There is also the matter of the Throne -- and Illarion sits up a little straighter at the primarch's words. We do not, is a sentiment the shrike surely appreciates, for all the contempt he had always held for those willing to bleed others but not risk being bloodied themselves. But the Monarch is not ... quite ... that case.

"The King -- the Monarch -- doesn't need to fight to maintain the Throne. No one can wrest it from them by force of arms. They are a living god, while they sit astride it -- for two decades, maybe three -- and then they are gathered up to Generation's arms as an ascended god, and another might take the Throne."

For a King -- who had all the power that mattered in the world -- to march against the creation he was already lord over was insane. Unthinkable.

Pause.

"It doesn't work that way with yours. Does it."

A healthy population of aliens. A pity they'd all be erased. The Emperor tolerated very few xenos species, and one capable of creating things like this certainly wouldn't be one of the few.

But it's all filed away, useful information for later. If they couldn't fight off a single army of the dead, then they would be of little risk to a fleet in orbit. "It seems your kind are unprepared for what they unleashed." Perhaps there was wisdom in the ban of psykers after all.

Or at least, unregulated use.

As Illarion describes how things work there, with gods running amok ascending and controlling worlds and so on, it sounded very much like no monarchy he's ever heard of, and also absolutely ridiculous. And though Curze does not laugh, there's a little ribbon of condescension; he can't help it. Gods aren't real. "No. It doesn't work that way with ours. The Emperor of Mankind, who sits on the Golden Throne, may be called a god by the ignorant, but he is not, nor are we, his sons. None may take the throne from him, though ... though some .. some will try." The amusement fades, a strange tremor passing through the lean, too-tall figure before it's suppressed and shaken off. It's not fear, almost like some nerve-deep pain. "They will fail."

The teacup, now empty, is set down with a hand less steady than he'd like. "Seven hundred or so years has passed since he claimed the throne. And he will maintain it for much longer."

"We didn't unleash him!"

The retort's abrupt, the tempo of fury behind it, and there's a flash of fangs to go with it. Once more the air around the shrike splinters with unnatural colors -- scintillates -- fades as quickly as the abrupt display of emotion does.

Illarion finds himself somehow on his feet at the end of it, and does not bother resuming his perch. Instead he sets a hand on the back of his chair, eyes turned down toward the floor.

Though they lift in the primarch's change of demeanor. The momentary vulnerability. "Will try," he echoes, thoughtfully. But does not say more -- not yet -- as he considers that implication of future knowledge.

"Then who did?" Give him more targets. It's an open field, and he's more than willing to expand the opening salvo in the most deserving directions first.

He doesn't rise, doesn't move, but he's definitely watching that strange kaleidoscope that briefly boils up like mad artistry. It reminded him again of the warp. There were creatures inside of it, apparently, and ... they interfered with mortal lives.

Could hide. Was Illarion one of them, or merely some poor alien mortal that fell under their sway?

Anything about the future is put aside for now.

"His Court, if anyone. Who made him a Prince in the first place." The expression he makes is like a smile but ghastly, fang-filled, bitter.

"Already dead, most of them." Some of age, if nothing else. Eyes had ascended nearly a half-century ago -- not that anyone realized he hadn't been replaced in his turn until it was far too late. "Convinced they were elevating him to stop something worse."

The smile fades; he turns to look out through the stacks, as if he could find an escape from recalling all the weight of history that put Eyes on the Throne. Of his own failure to prevent it, though no one might have rationally anticipated what Eyes might do.

(But there had always been something wrong with him. With his Court.)

At length he adds, quiet and without inflection: "Though I did not stop him when I could have. Didn't know enough to stop him."

Edited (timeline correction) 2025-11-14 10:17 (UTC)

"And yet death is meaningless. How many are truly gone?" Death shouldn't be meaningless.

Illarion's shift in mood is hard to read, which might just be that these xenos elves emote differently than humans do. But there's a few similarities, enough where there seems to be agitation, self-depreciation, anger perhaps. And under it, something Curze can't quite get his teeth around.

He'll learn. "And if this monarch has the strength to raise the dead, what might you have been able to do to stop it?"

"The ones who were of no more use to him." The King of Eyes had enough mindless soldiers, enough bodies.

As to what more he might have done... Illarion is realizing, slowly, that he's telling this story all out of order -- leaving out pieces of the frame, of a world which is clearly far different from what this primarch understands. (Whatever the apparent similarities -- a Monarch loose of his Throne among them.)

"If you want that story, lord primarch, I'll need more time to frame it. And some of my own questions answered."

Curze sits back, looking thoughtful. "I have all the time in the world."

Not so much, really. He's not sure how much time but he was certain it wouldn't be measured in centuries. "Ask what you need to."

Anything he didn't feel like answering, he wouldn't. Anything that didn't serve his interests might well simply be turned into a lie.. but Illarion could certainly ask. He was feeling as magnanimous as he ever got, with aliens.

"What sort of empire does your father rule over, that he made you and your brothers to help him?"

It would be easy to assume it a fearsome one, if this primarch before Illarion with his predator's eyes and scavenger reek is a typical specimen of the breed. But making that assumption would put him at risk of bias. Perhaps this God Emperor had needed only one monster among his children, and the others were designed for gentler tasks.

(Not likely. But it was possible.)

"You'll have to clarify further what you mean by that, I'm afraid." That knife thin smile returns, and widens slightly. "I want to be sure of what you're asking, and I'm often not very clever."

There's a click of sharp teeth at that, in lieu of a huffed laugh. So they would be playing that game -- and at least it will be interesting.

It's been a long while since Illarion's tried for contract-precision in his questions. Time to see how much rust was on his skills.

"You are built to kill," he says plainly. "To subdue worlds, you implied. Are all your brothers like that? What is your father fighting, that he needs a weapon like you?"

And -- because he can't help it -- "Is he a wise and just Emperor?"

"We can all kill when needed," the Night Haunter says with suspicious brightness. "Some are better at it than others. My brothers are not like me, though. They are builders, designers, they are craftsmen and statesmen. To each a glorious purpose and wondrous skill at it."

His skill set is nothing so benign. It too had it's purpose. "All that endangers humanity is our enemy, and the stars are rife with threats."

Including daemons, come to find out, but Curze can't make much of a decision on those as yet, he hasn't encountered them. It stood to reason if they existed there'd be a primarch to contend with the threat by design.

That follow up question draws a smile, only a touch gentler than the others had been. Right now his belief in the Emperor's cause, in the Great dream, remains intact. For now, his loyalty is both genuine and absolute. "He is. Even to your kind, should they prove not a threat to the Imperium." In another ten thousand years that changes but occasionally, some xenos species didn't need to be erased for the sin of existence.

Edited 2025-11-20 10:39 (UTC)

"Then you're the black brother -- the monstrous brother." If Illarion's thinking in stories, anyway, and what better place to encourage him in that particular bad old habit of his.

Were his heart working right, that added point of similarity between them might make him a little fond of his fellow-monster. As it is -- nothing. Nothing, beyond the rueful thought that there might be no world in all of Generation's dreaming that didn't have monsters. That didn't need them, in some way.

Though... "Even to my kind," the shrike muses aloud. "Should we not prove a threat. It has been my long experience that empires looking for threats are very good at finding even the smallest ones.

"Yours is a human empire?"

The low rumble of laughter would be pleasant in any other situation, probably. It's an amusing thought. "The one most honest about what I am and what I am meant to do. Any empire requires laws and order. Those who disobey must be dealt with, be they planet or individual." The rest of his brothers hide it behind claims of honor and nobility, but he knows otherwise.

Well. Perhaps all but the Lion. Or Angron.

Angron didn't hide either. "There are precious few who meet the requirement, it's true," Curze allows easily. "But it's not impossible." Not for some species anyway. Would Illarion's qualify? Almost certainly not, with necromancy a part of the problem. An undead army, under control by a single ruler, who could spread that disease throughout the stars if unchecked.

"Indeed it is." Human. Thoroughly. "As our Emperor is ... more or less, so too are his children, metaphorical and otherwise. Do you need further framework?"

At the mention of laws and order, Illarion cocks his head in an undeniably avian gesture. "The law," he says, thoughtfully, "and its purpose will be an interesting conversation."

It is a reflex to say so. So far as he can tell he is not interested in anything any longer, simply doing his due diligence in gathering information on his new situation. (To what end? If he considers that too hard, the urge to simply stop moving will be too great -- so he doesn't.)

"So will what counts as 'human' or 'harmless'. My own biases leave me in doubt that your father is as just as he claims." But, left unsaid: They ARE biases, not informed understanding. He is obligated not to act on them in ignorance.

Or would have been. If he were still a warlord, not a dead weapon.

"One more question, then -- for enough framework. Why do you sneer at the idea of gods?"

Edited 2025-11-22 06:25 (UTC)

A still moving weapon isn't all that dead. "I do imagine it's hard to see justice and order in a thing when looking down the barrel of its bolter," Curze allows easily enough, with a brief magnanimous gesture with one hand, the teacup wielding one. "To say nothing of the one who wields it. But I would not serve if the cause were not right." Which will, in a year or two, be a serious problem.

But not right now.

"My kind grew out of such tales long ago. What is a god? Merely a more powerful being than yourself? In which case, I am a god. One older and stronger than myself? Then, the Emperor must be. And what of powers that might be greater than his? Divinity all around." That is pure, utter derision in his quiet words. "But I am no god. Nor is my sire. All the things we accomplish, over tens of thousands of years, are only the machinations of men. The very physics of reality can be shaped to our whims, things a primitive culture would surely believe to be proof of godhood. But I know better."

He's rather disappointed how fast such a tiny cup empties. "There is no power that stalks the galaxy that we cannot kill. And if it can be tamed and killed, it is not a god. Religion exists only to bind and control the masses."

"It is," Illarion agrees, just as easily, with that sentiment. "But most anything sentenced to die will claim it was misjudged, not so?

"Many deserve it, even so." Which is to say he's been the one holding the sword before, and been the one slain, as well.

He considers the primarch's explanation in silence, in corpselike stillness. That...is. That should be an alarming thing to hear, that this creature -- this man, this monster -- esteem themselves godslayers. But with such a diminished understanding of what a god is... The shrike gives a single sharp click of his teeth, and shakes his head. "Say instead the gods are the physics of reality," he replies, "the principles that make it up. They might take undivine forms to walk with us and test us as it pleases them, and you might kill those, but you cannot slay Death Herself or imprison Fire forever."

Then a edged smile flashes across his face, baring his fangs: "You might tell me next you've done exactly that." But oh, he'll doubt it!

"Leaving validity aside, let us say 'a Monarch is a god' for your definition also works. Her seat is not any one country or people but the Throne Above Thrones, the Spindle of the World -- the axis holding reality together. While she sits it, her angels walk the world as her eyes and hands, doing her will, and her gift can be used by any thinking creature.

"She cannot be dislodged from it by any force we know of -- but her reign will end in two decades or three, in the natural course of things. Then the Throne stands open for another to take it. But not just anyone can -- only someone who has gathered enough devotion from others, who has become a Prince through the law of Loyalty, can take the Throne. It devours any unworthy claimant."

As he speaks, his tone -- his affect -- grows no more lively, but his words settle into a certain steady cadence that says he's accustomed to telling stories. "You know men well enough to know how they will fight over unclaimed power, and that is what Princes do -- every time the current Monarch weakens, they scour our world with war to determine who next takes the Throne.

"And my people have long been mediators of war, the midwives of its horror."

He'll pause here and wait -- questions are to be expected.

"Even the undeniably guilty often rage against their due punishment. They may show no mercy to their victims, but when retribution comes, now they throw themselves on the compassion of others." There's a reason he doesn't bother with forgiving or mercy. All it does is encourage further mayhem.

But the rest goes uninterrupted. There's no doubt Curze is listening, and that he will remember everything he's told. Some of it is blatantly superstition by his estimate, the wild misbeliefs of those unaccustomed to hard science in favor of fairy tales and myth. But all of it is useful.

In another little while, with Nikaea's edicts throwing wide the fact that there are dangers in the warp beyond rogue psykers, this belief granting power thing would not seem so ridiculous.

Can death be slain? Can fire be imprisoned forever? "I and my sons are not tuned to such tasks. Perhaps Angron's World Eaters can." It's dismissive, offhand. He's not putting much weight behind needing to kill fundamental principles of reality. But if anyone could literally kill fire, it'd be the legion that's wrath incarnate.

"..Forgive me.." And that's no ask of forgiveness, not really, "If I am misunderstanding; are you saying your Monarchs, in this context, are concepts such as death or fire? And ... by extension, every mortal generation, the universe gains a new fundamental law of physics? And that anyone with enough devoted followers has a chance of becoming one such law?"

No further doubt in Illarion's mind that any further conversations he has with the primarch -- especially on the subject of justice -- will be productive. And the mere mention of a -- unit? a warband? -- called the World Eaters invites so many other questions he could ask.

But that could be for another time. He does have a story to finish now -- though... A perverse notion flits through the back of his head, an itching little impulse he's got neither inclination nor reason to ignore.

What happens if he doesn't?

"Yes. When she is on the Throne, a Monarch is natural law, a part of the universe's unfolding. Her gift fades and her angels lose their motivation after she ascends from the Throne, but some of her influence remains on the world -- changes it forever.

"And yes -- that is what it means, to be a Prince."

He finds himself interested enough -- faint flicker! -- in what the Primarch's got to say to stick around for a reaction to that one. After that ...

That's not how science works, unfortunately. No amount of believing hard enough would empower someone to change the fundamental laws of physics, that's just not a thing that happens! That Illarion's kind simply hasn't gotten advanced enough in technology and understanding to know that is ... unfortunate, but also not particularly his problem.

It does mean that this Monarch may try to interfere when the astartes came knocking, and all these little warlord princes also might. The people actually believed they were personifications of nature.

All of it sounds worse than democracy, and even more insane. Popularity contests deciding government leaders. "What caused these natural laws before there were elves to become them?"

"Before elves -- or humans, dwarves, or orcs --," since the other three principles deserved their due, and truly he ought to give credit to the Sphinx King and the other rare Monarchs who came from the minor species, but that would only muddle up the story, "existed to sit the Throne, there were the Sea People, and before that the Monarch of Loneliness reigned until their children learned to think and to follow Princes. Though much that happened before the dwarves emerged from their tunnels is the stuff of myth."

Stuff of myth -- that had become much less so, with at least one of the Sea People resurrected and serving the King of Eyes. Hopefully -- if Illarion could be freed by some twist of fate -- the Admiral of the Fleet Undying could as well, and share what she remembered of the world further than thralls it scarcely mattered to.

Another story, for another time. Illarion pauses a moment, looking suddenly off into the stacks as if noticing something. "If you will excuse me," he says, and does not wait to be excused before ambling away.

It'll be a little bit before it's obvious he's not coming back.

"Orks." That's both recognition and immediate disgust. They could be interesting to fight, but there was something deeply unsatisfying in contending with foes that only got more delighted the harder the fighting was. "The living dead and greenskins on your planet."

Well. If there'd been any hope for that world it's gone now. There's no good way to make sure an ork infestation never reoccurrs besides burning the entire thing to ash.

The rest is all fairy tales to him, the way primitive creatures seek to explain and understand the universe around them. And when Illarion's attention shifts, Curze does nothing to stop him from going, merely making a low acknowledging noise deep in his throat.

There's no getting out of the Library. He'll find the undead elf again, sooner or later.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

TEST DRIVE MEME #1

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(DISREGARD PREVIOUS TITLE enjoy depressed bird)

saddest pigeon

he is very sad indeed, even if he doesn't realize it

we should find a way to get his feels working properly again.

requires some high-end necromancy but doable, the feels are still there

Drat, I don't know necromancy. Yet.

Yet..... really a shame...

.... Teach me necromancy coc for great later feels

honestly, would teach it just for the lols. (the player's lols)

it can't possibly go wrong.

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randomly noting elves use "she" as the default pronoun

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absentee space dad did these kids dirty. "that's not how science works"; the warp: laughs in belief

There are. certain. flaws in dad's methodology