The Runaway Library - Sorrel's library card is overused
Sept 22, 2021 9:31:06 GMT
Queen Merla, the Sun-Blessed, Jaezred Vandree, and 4 more like this
Post by stephena on Sept 22, 2021 9:31:06 GMT
The Runaway Library
The library lay waiting for them.
Out in the world, not much happened. But here in the special night, a land bricked with paper and leather, anything might happen and always did.
Ten thousand people screaming so high only dogs feathered their ears. A million screaming angels toting mile long spears, sharpening guillotines faced creatures, four abreast marching on forever. Invisible, silent, hiding in the walls, there were factories of spices from far countries, alien deserts in eternal slumber, ice flows and mountain tops and Basilisks with deadly venomous fangs and a murderous stare, and all who are fixed with the beam of its eye shall suffer instant death. Or, in the darkest corners, terrible, indescribable things that slither along, a shapeless mass of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and un-forming as pustules of greenish light and everywhere it goes it seeks living flesh to lay its ghastly eggs.
This endless emporium of all and nothing seemed to be infinite and yet contained, with countless interconnected rooms that folded in on each other again and again into the dimensions of insanity, all identical and filled with bookshelves rammed with texts that from the gibberish of the mad to the gospels of nameless secrets and forgotten gods, the commentary on those gospels, the commentary on the commentary on those gospels, and the true story of your death to come and your death that has already been.
The library waited. The books rustled softly. They had all the time in the world.
The Ladybird Book of Adventurers
Kavel is waiting by the swampside gate. He wants to exercise.
See how he bends his legs and straightens them.
“Look,” says Kavel. “I can balance on one arm.”
Here comes Celina. She is tired. She has to look after her shop all day.
Celina does not like to get up early.
“It is too early for me to exercise,” Celina says. Kavel smiles.
Look! Kelne is coming to meet them. Kelne thinks that exercise is fun. She bends her legs and straightens them too.
“This is called a squat,” Kavel says to Kelne.
Kavel and Kelne are having fun.
Who is this worried tiefling? Why, it is Faust. Look at his dinner jacket. Look at his frown. What is the matter Faust?
Faust’s friend has been arrested for illegal gambling. Poor Faust.
Faust was not arrested for illegal gambling, Faust won a lot of money. Lucky Faust.
There is someone in the shadows. Her name is Sorrel. Hello Sorrel. Why don’t you come and join the others?
Sorrel is all dressed in black. Perhaps it is laundry day in Sorrel’s house.
What are they all waiting for?
See! Here comes a cart. They are going on an adventure.
Ride and Prejudice by JenniferAusten Smith
It is a truth universally acknowledged that an academic in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of adventurers.
However little known the feelings or views of such an academic may be on first entering a plotline, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding adventurers, that the quest is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of them.
“My dear group of people,” said Jennifer Smith from her cart, “have you heard that the Library has appeared at last?”
Faust replied that he had not.
“But it is,” returned she; “for our team has just been here, and they told me all about it.”
Faust made no answer.
“Do not you want to know the problem?” cried Jennifer impatiently.
“You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.”
This was invitation enough.
“Why, my dear, you must know, the team says that the library has appeared by a hill to the north of Daring Heights; that it appeared on Monday in a haze and four people could see the place, and were so much delighted with it that they agreed with the academy immediately; that we must take possession of its contents before it disappears, and some of our servants are trying to be in the place by the end of next week.”
“What is its name?”
“Library. A single library with a large fortune; four or five thousand gold piece and books and magic items! What a fine thing for your adventurers!”
“How so? how can it affect them?”
“My dear Mr. Faust,” replied Smith, “how can you be so tiresome! You must know that I am thinking of you breaking in.”
“Is that the library’s design in settling here?”
“Design! nonsense, how can you talk so! But it is very likely that it may be broken into, and therefore you must visit it as soon as we get there.”
“I see no occasion for that. You and your team may go, or you may send them by themselves.”
“But, my dear, you must indeed go and break in to the library now it has come into the neighbourhood.”
“It is more than I engage for, I assure you.”
“But consider the 70 gold pieces I will pay each of you. Only think what an establishment it would be for your adventurers. Indeed you must go, for it will be impossible for us get in, if you do not. Mr. Faust, you take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion on my poor nerves.”
“You mistake me, Miss Smith. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty miles as we have travelled.”
“Ah, you do not know what I suffer.”
Mr. Faust was among the earliest of those who walked up to the library when they arrived. He had always intended to do so, though to the last always assuring Miss Smith that he should not go;
The astonishment of the academics was just what he wished; that of Miss Smith perhaps surpassing the rest; though when the first tumult of joy was over, she began to declare that it was what she had expected all the while.
The Fellowship of Ker-ching by JJR Sorrel
Book II, chapter 4 – A Cleric in the Dark
Kelne walked forward to the wall. Right between the shadow of the Tarraesque statues there was a smooth space, and over this she passed her hands to and fro, muttering words under her breath. Then she stepped back.
'Look!' she said. 'Can you see anything now?'
The sun now shone upon the sandy face of the walls; but they could see nothing else for a while. Then slowly on the surface, where the cleric's hands had passed, faint lines appeared, like slender veins of silver running in the stone. At first they were no more than pale gossamer-threads, so fine that they only twinkled fitfully where the sun caught them, but steadily they grew broader and clearer, until their design could be guessed.
At the top, as high as Kelne could reach, was an arch of interlacing letters in an Elvish character.
'What does the writing say?' asked Kavel, who was trying to decipher the inscription on the arch. 'I thought I knew letters but I cannot read these.'
'The words are in the tongue of the West of Faerun in the Elder Days,' answered Kelne. 'But they do not say anything of importance to us. They say only:
Write and you shall be heard
Read and you shall hear
Speak and you shall be read'
'What does it mean by write and you shall be heard. Read and you shall hear. Speak and you shall be read?' asked Celina.
'That is plain enough,' said Faust. “If you write, you shall be heard. If you read, you shall hear. If you speak, you shall be read.”
'Yes,' said Kelne, 'these doors are probably governed by words. This is a library after all. It’s basically a place where they keep lots of books filled with words. This door has no key. At least so it is clearly obvious, is it not, Sorrel?'
'It is,' said the ranger. 'But what the words are is not obvious.'
'But do not you know the words, Kelne?' asked Kavel in surprise.
'No!' said the cleric.
The others looked dismayed; only Faust, who knew Kelne well, remained silent and unmoved.
'Then what was the use of bringing us to this accursed spot?' cried Kavel, glancing back with a shudder at the archaeologists and academics. 'You told us that you had once been to a library. How could that be, if you did not know how to enter?'
'The answer to your first question, Kavel,' said the cleric, 'is that most libraries just have normal doors. And,' she added, with a glint in her eyes under their bristling brows, 'you may ask what is the use of my deeds when they are proved useless. As for your other question: do you doubt my tale? Or have you no wits left? I used the handle. Doors have handles.”
'What are you going to do then?' asked Celina, undaunted by the cleric's bristling brows.
'Knock on the doors with your head, Celina,' said Kelne. 'But if that does not shatter them, and I am allowed a little peace from foolish questions, I will seek for the opening words.
Behind her, Faust was writing giant letters in the sky.
Annon edhellen, edro hi ammen!
Fennas nogothrim, lasto beth lammen!
The sandy stone did not stir.
“I may have to run a spellchecker over that,” Faust said thoughtfully.
Again Kelne approached the wall, and lifting up her arms she wrote words in water based ink on the wall. Part of the stone fell away.
At that moment from far off the wind bore to their listening ears the complaining of graduate students.
“How I hate these PhD researchers!' Kavel stooped and picking up a large stone he cast it far into the crowd.
There was a loud ‘ouch!’ where the stone had fallen, and the nerds moved slowly towards the foot of the building.
'Why did you do that, Kavel?' said Sorrel. 'I hate this place, too, and I am afraid. I don't know of what: not of the adventure, or the dark behind the doors, but of people who pay money to write a very long and incomprehensible thesis. I am afraid of them. Don't disturb them!'
Kelne took no notice of them. She sat with her head bowed, either in despair or in anxious thought. The mournful howling of the students was heard again. The crowd grew and came closer; some were already whining near the door.
With a suddenness that startled them all the cleric sprang to her feet. She was laughing! 'I have it!' she cried. 'Of course, of course! Absurdly simple, like most riddles when you see the answer.'
She wrote something else on the stone, then silently a great doorway was outlined, though not a crack or joint had been visible before. Slowly it divided in the middle and swung outwards inch by inch, until both doors lay back against the wall. Through the opening shadowy shelves could be seen climbing steeply up; but beyond the lower steps the darkness was deeper than the night. The Company stared in wonder.
Kelne grabbed Kavel, strode forward and set her foot on the lowest step. But at that moment several things happened. A host of students were complaining from the southern end. The party found an entrance hall and placed Sorrel’s book on it. They found a much better thesis than anything the spotty academics were writing called The influence of a health welcoming environment on participation of adolescents and adults in book clubs: a longitudinal study - A PhD thesis by MM Casey
The door to the library opened at last. Kelne did not speak aloud her thought that whatever it was that annoyed the students, they had seized on Frodo first among all the Company. But Frodo had contributed very little to the adventure, seemed to have wandered in from a different Discord channel and what harm could come of a simple ring in the hands of 400 horny twentysomethings?
The Sun Also Rises by Earnest Hemingyouki
It was a warm day and Faust stood in the doorway after Kelne had gone in, watching the glowing flumps come on, and the red and green stop-and-go flashing patterns, and the flumps moving around, and the giant mimic clippety-clopping along at the edge of the corridor, and the party walking around, singly and in pairs, looking for the good stuff. He watched a good-looking flump float past and watched it float up the corridor and lost sight of it, and watched another, and then saw the first one coming back again. The mimic came up.
"Chonk?" it asked.
"Chonk."
That's not good for bards to say.
"Chonk yourself." Sorrel said. “I’m Sorrel. Who are you?" she asked.
The mimic was a brownish imitation chest. It was the librarian and it had a good heart, but it looked odd. Half chest, half pseudopods. Nothing like a good fish or a damn fine woman.
What was it Faust feared? It was a nothing, that he knew too well. It was all nothing and man was nothing and the Bard’s thoughts were nothing. When you have love, you have nothing, Faust thought.
It invited them for tea and they sat and drank, watching the mimic. The mimic was leaning over the table and saw them looking at it and smiled. Borrachera means the deep tea drinking in the bullfighting country. It is a ritual. It lasts many days. People come to drink tea and to see the new bullfighters. There is music and noise and much tea drinking. It is a ritual and it lasts for many days...
“Gerty Stein would have called it a long long quiet quiet room room. But I’m not Gerty. I’m Faust,” he thought.
“Read any good books lately, amigo?” It was Chonk. His skin was the colour of meatloaf.
Faust remembered the old man in Harry’s. Suddenly he stopped remembering. The mimic was warning them. Don’t steal. Leave the library when the bell tolls. If you hear a bell tolling. Ask not for whom it tolls. It tolls for thee.
"Well," Faust said, "are you going to show us around?"
The mimic grinned and he saw why it made a point of not laughing. With its mouth closed it was a rather pretty mimic.
On the table was a map with diagrams of rooms.
"What are all the rooms for?" Faust asked.
"Games room, archive, greenhouse, armoury, glassblower, game room, the weaver, laboratory, archive, reading hall."
"Don't kid me."
"Can we go to the armoury?” Kavel asked.
"What armoury?"
"Why, the armoury on the map." Sorrel put in.
"You must come, Faust. We're all going," Celina said from the end of the table. She was tall and had a smile.
"Of course, he's coming," Kelne said.
"Thanks, I’ll come," Faust said. He followed them to the small room.
The Rime of the Anxious Gloomstalker
PART I
It is an anxious gloomstalker,
And she stoppeth one of three.
'By thy long weird cloak and masked face,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?
The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin;
The guests are met, the feast is set:
May'st hear the merry din.'
She holds him with her skinny hand,
'There was a library,' quoth she.
'Hold off! unhand me, badly dressed loon!'
Eftsoons her hand dropt she.
She holds him with her glittering eye—
The Wedding-Guest stood still,
And listens like a three years' child:
The gloomstalker hath her will.
'The library was packed, the armoury near,
Merrily did we walk
Beside the archive, beside the games room,
And near the room of chalk.
And through the door, the open door
Did see a dismal sheen:
Shapes of men but armour only —
No flesh was in between.
The swords were here, the arrows there,
The books were all around:
We checked and nosed, and looked and grabbed,
Like lads out on the town!
At length did cross a copper armour,
Through the armoury it came;
As if it had a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God's name.
'God save thee, anxious gloomstalker!
From the fiends, that plague thee thus!—
Why look'st thou so?'—With my long-bow
I shot the copper armour. Yus.
The Art of War by Sun Kavel
Chapter XI: The Nine Situations
1. The art of war recognises nine varieties of attack: (1) Dispersive attack; (2) facile attack; (3) contentious attack; (4) open attack; (5) attack of intersecting bits of stuff; (6) serious attack; (7) difficult attack; (8) hemmed-in attack; (9) desperate attack.
2. When a cleric is controlling in his own territory, it is spirit guardians.
3. When Kelne has cast spirit guardians, but to no great distance, it is dangerous ground.
4. Steel armour the possession of which is magical, is contentious when it attacks Faust.
5. Faust, on which one side has library, is open to wound.
6. Kavel, which attacks the iron of three normal armours, so that he who hits it first has most of the damage at his command, is an attack of an angry barbarian.
7. When an armour has penetrated into the head of a hostile barbarian, leaving a number of bruises in its rear, it is serious attack.
8. Faust, poetry, magic, rhymes, and spells - all makes for an attack that heats copper: this is difficult attack.
9. Celina, who is attacked through narrow gorges, and from which she can only retire by tortuous dodging, this is hemmed in attack. But she dodges it anyway.
10. Spirits from which armour can only be saved from destruction by wisdom, is desperate ground for stupid armour.
11. On difficult ground, therefore, cast toll the dead. Celina, halt not. Armour, save not.
12. On open ground, Sorrel does not try to block the enemy's way. Misty step to ground some distance hence. Shoot arrows to mixed effect.
13. On serious ground, copper armour keeps steadily on the march. In desperate ground, attacks on Kavel must be preceded by wisdom saves. Surrounded by spirits, copper is torn to pieces.
14. On hemmed-in ground, Kavel resorts to stratagem. He fights.
15. Those who were called skilful leaders of old knew how to drive a wedge between the enemy's front and rear; to prevent co-operation between his large and small divisions; to hinder the good troops from rescuing the bad, the officers from rallying their men. Faust turned Kelne into a giant killer whale.
16. When the enemy's men were united, they managed to keep them in disorder.
17. When it was to their advantage, they made a forward move; when otherwise, they stopped still.
18. If asked how to cope with a great host of the enemy in orderly array and on the point of marching to the attack, Faust said: "I will turn the steel armour into a worm."
19. Rapidly is the steel armour a worm: Celina takes advantage of the enemy's unreadiness, she picks it up by unexpected mage hand, and puts it on the shelf.
20. The following are the principles to be observed by an invaded force: The further you are smashed to pieces, the greater will be the solidarity of your thanks to the enemy when they have defeated you, and thus the defenders will reassemble into their original form, bow and hand over a magical weapon to Kavel.
21. Make an exit from the library when the door magically opens.
22. Carefully study the well-being of the party, and do not overtax them. Concentrate your energy and hoard your strength. Keep your party continually on the move, and devise unfathomable plans. When you hear the bell ring, leave the library.
Kantasian Psycho by Brat Eating Trellis
Smith has already called for a cart, and then, when the party are not really listening, watching instead someone who looks remarkably like Chonk handing out Eyes of the Eagle glasses, someone asks, simply, not in relation to anything, "Why?" and though they are very proud that they have cold blood and that they can keep their nerve and do what they’re supposed to do, they catch something, then realise it: Why? and automatically answering, out of the blue, for no reason, just opening their mouths, words coming out, summarising for the students: "Welll, though we know we should have done that instead of not doing it, we’re adventurers and this is, uh, how life presents itself in Kantas, maybe anywhere, and how people, you know, us, behave, and this is what being adventurers means, we guess, so well, yup, uh..." and this is followed by a sigh, then a slight shrug and another sigh, and above the library doors is a sign and on the sign in letters that match the sky are the words THIS IS NOT AN EXIT.
The library lay waiting for them.
Out in the world, not much happened. But here in the special night, a land bricked with paper and leather, anything might happen and always did.
Ten thousand people screaming so high only dogs feathered their ears. A million screaming angels toting mile long spears, sharpening guillotines faced creatures, four abreast marching on forever. Invisible, silent, hiding in the walls, there were factories of spices from far countries, alien deserts in eternal slumber, ice flows and mountain tops and Basilisks with deadly venomous fangs and a murderous stare, and all who are fixed with the beam of its eye shall suffer instant death. Or, in the darkest corners, terrible, indescribable things that slither along, a shapeless mass of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and un-forming as pustules of greenish light and everywhere it goes it seeks living flesh to lay its ghastly eggs.
This endless emporium of all and nothing seemed to be infinite and yet contained, with countless interconnected rooms that folded in on each other again and again into the dimensions of insanity, all identical and filled with bookshelves rammed with texts that from the gibberish of the mad to the gospels of nameless secrets and forgotten gods, the commentary on those gospels, the commentary on the commentary on those gospels, and the true story of your death to come and your death that has already been.
The library waited. The books rustled softly. They had all the time in the world.
The Ladybird Book of Adventurers
Kavel is waiting by the swampside gate. He wants to exercise.
See how he bends his legs and straightens them.
“Look,” says Kavel. “I can balance on one arm.”
Here comes Celina. She is tired. She has to look after her shop all day.
Celina does not like to get up early.
“It is too early for me to exercise,” Celina says. Kavel smiles.
Look! Kelne is coming to meet them. Kelne thinks that exercise is fun. She bends her legs and straightens them too.
“This is called a squat,” Kavel says to Kelne.
Kavel and Kelne are having fun.
Who is this worried tiefling? Why, it is Faust. Look at his dinner jacket. Look at his frown. What is the matter Faust?
Faust’s friend has been arrested for illegal gambling. Poor Faust.
Faust was not arrested for illegal gambling, Faust won a lot of money. Lucky Faust.
There is someone in the shadows. Her name is Sorrel. Hello Sorrel. Why don’t you come and join the others?
Sorrel is all dressed in black. Perhaps it is laundry day in Sorrel’s house.
What are they all waiting for?
See! Here comes a cart. They are going on an adventure.
Ride and Prejudice by Jennifer
It is a truth universally acknowledged that an academic in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of adventurers.
However little known the feelings or views of such an academic may be on first entering a plotline, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding adventurers, that the quest is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of them.
“My dear group of people,” said Jennifer Smith from her cart, “have you heard that the Library has appeared at last?”
Faust replied that he had not.
“But it is,” returned she; “for our team has just been here, and they told me all about it.”
Faust made no answer.
“Do not you want to know the problem?” cried Jennifer impatiently.
“You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.”
This was invitation enough.
“Why, my dear, you must know, the team says that the library has appeared by a hill to the north of Daring Heights; that it appeared on Monday in a haze and four people could see the place, and were so much delighted with it that they agreed with the academy immediately; that we must take possession of its contents before it disappears, and some of our servants are trying to be in the place by the end of next week.”
“What is its name?”
“Library. A single library with a large fortune; four or five thousand gold piece and books and magic items! What a fine thing for your adventurers!”
“How so? how can it affect them?”
“My dear Mr. Faust,” replied Smith, “how can you be so tiresome! You must know that I am thinking of you breaking in.”
“Is that the library’s design in settling here?”
“Design! nonsense, how can you talk so! But it is very likely that it may be broken into, and therefore you must visit it as soon as we get there.”
“I see no occasion for that. You and your team may go, or you may send them by themselves.”
“But, my dear, you must indeed go and break in to the library now it has come into the neighbourhood.”
“It is more than I engage for, I assure you.”
“But consider the 70 gold pieces I will pay each of you. Only think what an establishment it would be for your adventurers. Indeed you must go, for it will be impossible for us get in, if you do not. Mr. Faust, you take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion on my poor nerves.”
“You mistake me, Miss Smith. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty miles as we have travelled.”
“Ah, you do not know what I suffer.”
Mr. Faust was among the earliest of those who walked up to the library when they arrived. He had always intended to do so, though to the last always assuring Miss Smith that he should not go;
The astonishment of the academics was just what he wished; that of Miss Smith perhaps surpassing the rest; though when the first tumult of joy was over, she began to declare that it was what she had expected all the while.
The Fellowship of Ker-ching by JJR Sorrel
Book II, chapter 4 – A Cleric in the Dark
Kelne walked forward to the wall. Right between the shadow of the Tarraesque statues there was a smooth space, and over this she passed her hands to and fro, muttering words under her breath. Then she stepped back.
'Look!' she said. 'Can you see anything now?'
The sun now shone upon the sandy face of the walls; but they could see nothing else for a while. Then slowly on the surface, where the cleric's hands had passed, faint lines appeared, like slender veins of silver running in the stone. At first they were no more than pale gossamer-threads, so fine that they only twinkled fitfully where the sun caught them, but steadily they grew broader and clearer, until their design could be guessed.
At the top, as high as Kelne could reach, was an arch of interlacing letters in an Elvish character.
'What does the writing say?' asked Kavel, who was trying to decipher the inscription on the arch. 'I thought I knew letters but I cannot read these.'
'The words are in the tongue of the West of Faerun in the Elder Days,' answered Kelne. 'But they do not say anything of importance to us. They say only:
Write and you shall be heard
Read and you shall hear
Speak and you shall be read'
'What does it mean by write and you shall be heard. Read and you shall hear. Speak and you shall be read?' asked Celina.
'That is plain enough,' said Faust. “If you write, you shall be heard. If you read, you shall hear. If you speak, you shall be read.”
'Yes,' said Kelne, 'these doors are probably governed by words. This is a library after all. It’s basically a place where they keep lots of books filled with words. This door has no key. At least so it is clearly obvious, is it not, Sorrel?'
'It is,' said the ranger. 'But what the words are is not obvious.'
'But do not you know the words, Kelne?' asked Kavel in surprise.
'No!' said the cleric.
The others looked dismayed; only Faust, who knew Kelne well, remained silent and unmoved.
'Then what was the use of bringing us to this accursed spot?' cried Kavel, glancing back with a shudder at the archaeologists and academics. 'You told us that you had once been to a library. How could that be, if you did not know how to enter?'
'The answer to your first question, Kavel,' said the cleric, 'is that most libraries just have normal doors. And,' she added, with a glint in her eyes under their bristling brows, 'you may ask what is the use of my deeds when they are proved useless. As for your other question: do you doubt my tale? Or have you no wits left? I used the handle. Doors have handles.”
'What are you going to do then?' asked Celina, undaunted by the cleric's bristling brows.
'Knock on the doors with your head, Celina,' said Kelne. 'But if that does not shatter them, and I am allowed a little peace from foolish questions, I will seek for the opening words.
Behind her, Faust was writing giant letters in the sky.
Annon edhellen, edro hi ammen!
Fennas nogothrim, lasto beth lammen!
The sandy stone did not stir.
“I may have to run a spellchecker over that,” Faust said thoughtfully.
Again Kelne approached the wall, and lifting up her arms she wrote words in water based ink on the wall. Part of the stone fell away.
At that moment from far off the wind bore to their listening ears the complaining of graduate students.
“How I hate these PhD researchers!' Kavel stooped and picking up a large stone he cast it far into the crowd.
There was a loud ‘ouch!’ where the stone had fallen, and the nerds moved slowly towards the foot of the building.
'Why did you do that, Kavel?' said Sorrel. 'I hate this place, too, and I am afraid. I don't know of what: not of the adventure, or the dark behind the doors, but of people who pay money to write a very long and incomprehensible thesis. I am afraid of them. Don't disturb them!'
Kelne took no notice of them. She sat with her head bowed, either in despair or in anxious thought. The mournful howling of the students was heard again. The crowd grew and came closer; some were already whining near the door.
With a suddenness that startled them all the cleric sprang to her feet. She was laughing! 'I have it!' she cried. 'Of course, of course! Absurdly simple, like most riddles when you see the answer.'
She wrote something else on the stone, then silently a great doorway was outlined, though not a crack or joint had been visible before. Slowly it divided in the middle and swung outwards inch by inch, until both doors lay back against the wall. Through the opening shadowy shelves could be seen climbing steeply up; but beyond the lower steps the darkness was deeper than the night. The Company stared in wonder.
Kelne grabbed Kavel, strode forward and set her foot on the lowest step. But at that moment several things happened. A host of students were complaining from the southern end. The party found an entrance hall and placed Sorrel’s book on it. They found a much better thesis than anything the spotty academics were writing called The influence of a health welcoming environment on participation of adolescents and adults in book clubs: a longitudinal study - A PhD thesis by MM Casey
The door to the library opened at last. Kelne did not speak aloud her thought that whatever it was that annoyed the students, they had seized on Frodo first among all the Company. But Frodo had contributed very little to the adventure, seemed to have wandered in from a different Discord channel and what harm could come of a simple ring in the hands of 400 horny twentysomethings?
The Sun Also Rises by Earnest Hemingyouki
It was a warm day and Faust stood in the doorway after Kelne had gone in, watching the glowing flumps come on, and the red and green stop-and-go flashing patterns, and the flumps moving around, and the giant mimic clippety-clopping along at the edge of the corridor, and the party walking around, singly and in pairs, looking for the good stuff. He watched a good-looking flump float past and watched it float up the corridor and lost sight of it, and watched another, and then saw the first one coming back again. The mimic came up.
"Chonk?" it asked.
"Chonk."
That's not good for bards to say.
"Chonk yourself." Sorrel said. “I’m Sorrel. Who are you?" she asked.
The mimic was a brownish imitation chest. It was the librarian and it had a good heart, but it looked odd. Half chest, half pseudopods. Nothing like a good fish or a damn fine woman.
What was it Faust feared? It was a nothing, that he knew too well. It was all nothing and man was nothing and the Bard’s thoughts were nothing. When you have love, you have nothing, Faust thought.
It invited them for tea and they sat and drank, watching the mimic. The mimic was leaning over the table and saw them looking at it and smiled. Borrachera means the deep tea drinking in the bullfighting country. It is a ritual. It lasts many days. People come to drink tea and to see the new bullfighters. There is music and noise and much tea drinking. It is a ritual and it lasts for many days...
“Gerty Stein would have called it a long long quiet quiet room room. But I’m not Gerty. I’m Faust,” he thought.
“Read any good books lately, amigo?” It was Chonk. His skin was the colour of meatloaf.
Faust remembered the old man in Harry’s. Suddenly he stopped remembering. The mimic was warning them. Don’t steal. Leave the library when the bell tolls. If you hear a bell tolling. Ask not for whom it tolls. It tolls for thee.
"Well," Faust said, "are you going to show us around?"
The mimic grinned and he saw why it made a point of not laughing. With its mouth closed it was a rather pretty mimic.
On the table was a map with diagrams of rooms.
"What are all the rooms for?" Faust asked.
"Games room, archive, greenhouse, armoury, glassblower, game room, the weaver, laboratory, archive, reading hall."
"Don't kid me."
"Can we go to the armoury?” Kavel asked.
"What armoury?"
"Why, the armoury on the map." Sorrel put in.
"You must come, Faust. We're all going," Celina said from the end of the table. She was tall and had a smile.
"Of course, he's coming," Kelne said.
"Thanks, I’ll come," Faust said. He followed them to the small room.
The Rime of the Anxious Gloomstalker
PART I
It is an anxious gloomstalker,
And she stoppeth one of three.
'By thy long weird cloak and masked face,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?
The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin;
The guests are met, the feast is set:
May'st hear the merry din.'
She holds him with her skinny hand,
'There was a library,' quoth she.
'Hold off! unhand me, badly dressed loon!'
Eftsoons her hand dropt she.
She holds him with her glittering eye—
The Wedding-Guest stood still,
And listens like a three years' child:
The gloomstalker hath her will.
'The library was packed, the armoury near,
Merrily did we walk
Beside the archive, beside the games room,
And near the room of chalk.
And through the door, the open door
Did see a dismal sheen:
Shapes of men but armour only —
No flesh was in between.
The swords were here, the arrows there,
The books were all around:
We checked and nosed, and looked and grabbed,
Like lads out on the town!
At length did cross a copper armour,
Through the armoury it came;
As if it had a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God's name.
'God save thee, anxious gloomstalker!
From the fiends, that plague thee thus!—
Why look'st thou so?'—With my long-bow
I shot the copper armour. Yus.
The Art of War by Sun Kavel
Chapter XI: The Nine Situations
1. The art of war recognises nine varieties of attack: (1) Dispersive attack; (2) facile attack; (3) contentious attack; (4) open attack; (5) attack of intersecting bits of stuff; (6) serious attack; (7) difficult attack; (8) hemmed-in attack; (9) desperate attack.
2. When a cleric is controlling in his own territory, it is spirit guardians.
3. When Kelne has cast spirit guardians, but to no great distance, it is dangerous ground.
4. Steel armour the possession of which is magical, is contentious when it attacks Faust.
5. Faust, on which one side has library, is open to wound.
6. Kavel, which attacks the iron of three normal armours, so that he who hits it first has most of the damage at his command, is an attack of an angry barbarian.
7. When an armour has penetrated into the head of a hostile barbarian, leaving a number of bruises in its rear, it is serious attack.
8. Faust, poetry, magic, rhymes, and spells - all makes for an attack that heats copper: this is difficult attack.
9. Celina, who is attacked through narrow gorges, and from which she can only retire by tortuous dodging, this is hemmed in attack. But she dodges it anyway.
10. Spirits from which armour can only be saved from destruction by wisdom, is desperate ground for stupid armour.
11. On difficult ground, therefore, cast toll the dead. Celina, halt not. Armour, save not.
12. On open ground, Sorrel does not try to block the enemy's way. Misty step to ground some distance hence. Shoot arrows to mixed effect.
13. On serious ground, copper armour keeps steadily on the march. In desperate ground, attacks on Kavel must be preceded by wisdom saves. Surrounded by spirits, copper is torn to pieces.
14. On hemmed-in ground, Kavel resorts to stratagem. He fights.
15. Those who were called skilful leaders of old knew how to drive a wedge between the enemy's front and rear; to prevent co-operation between his large and small divisions; to hinder the good troops from rescuing the bad, the officers from rallying their men. Faust turned Kelne into a giant killer whale.
16. When the enemy's men were united, they managed to keep them in disorder.
17. When it was to their advantage, they made a forward move; when otherwise, they stopped still.
18. If asked how to cope with a great host of the enemy in orderly array and on the point of marching to the attack, Faust said: "I will turn the steel armour into a worm."
19. Rapidly is the steel armour a worm: Celina takes advantage of the enemy's unreadiness, she picks it up by unexpected mage hand, and puts it on the shelf.
20. The following are the principles to be observed by an invaded force: The further you are smashed to pieces, the greater will be the solidarity of your thanks to the enemy when they have defeated you, and thus the defenders will reassemble into their original form, bow and hand over a magical weapon to Kavel.
21. Make an exit from the library when the door magically opens.
22. Carefully study the well-being of the party, and do not overtax them. Concentrate your energy and hoard your strength. Keep your party continually on the move, and devise unfathomable plans. When you hear the bell ring, leave the library.
Kantasian Psycho by Brat Eating Trellis
Smith has already called for a cart, and then, when the party are not really listening, watching instead someone who looks remarkably like Chonk handing out Eyes of the Eagle glasses, someone asks, simply, not in relation to anything, "Why?" and though they are very proud that they have cold blood and that they can keep their nerve and do what they’re supposed to do, they catch something, then realise it: Why? and automatically answering, out of the blue, for no reason, just opening their mouths, words coming out, summarising for the students: "Welll, though we know we should have done that instead of not doing it, we’re adventurers and this is, uh, how life presents itself in Kantas, maybe anywhere, and how people, you know, us, behave, and this is what being adventurers means, we guess, so well, yup, uh..." and this is followed by a sigh, then a slight shrug and another sigh, and above the library doors is a sign and on the sign in letters that match the sky are the words THIS IS NOT AN EXIT.
