thechanged | Papercuts Are Inevitable | The Library

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Papercuts Are Inevitable | The Library | Days 8-10 [OPEN]

[ooc: this search is going to take place over three in-game days (days 8, 9, and 10), so please state in the post subject which day you want to go for!]

Answers have come, but not enough. She's remembered two more things since she awoke: the poisonous forest surrounding the pure land, and herself preaching peace to a crowd of people. Neither memory gives answers regarding the other, which leads her to the library's fourth wing. If in her memories she cannot find answers to her questions – Who is she? Who were those people? Why is the forest purifying the world? Why that urgent plea for peace? – then perhaps she'll find them in books.

That is, if she can find any that she can read. She's been here before, more than once, but she has never found a book in a language that she could understand. The languages in the many books she's looked over have all been beautiful-looking, but that doesn't help much when she doesn't know what they say.

She picks a bookshelf at random, and slides a book out of its place. Its cover is colorful and ornate, but a look inside reminds her that she's likely not going to have much luck on this search, at least not anytime soon. She puts it back with a sigh and takes another one out. This is going to take a while.

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She nods at the question. It might take a bit of wandering, but she's certain she can find it again eventually.

"With help?" she asks, before dismissing the thought. "It sounds wonderful. You must want to get back to it, huh? I don't understand how the forest fits in, though." She frowns. "I guess you wouldn't remember either."

Angel puts any books she's taken out back onto their shelves, signaling that she's ready to move whenever the other girl is. She can always come back to this shelf later to continue, but for now there's the possibility of a lead.

"I very much want to return to it...I feel like all of the answers are there, wherever 'there' may be." She smiles as if she knows a secret. "As it so happens, I do remember some. I suspect it's because the pure land is a part of the forest. While the forest is purifying the earth, the pure land is the result of the purification. As soon as I remembered the forest exists, the ties between it and the pure land became clear."

The book waits for Angel to finish, pleased with the care she takes with the books despite her own haphazardness. Once she's ready, the book girl starts down an aisle, trailing her fingers over the spines. She's certain it was in this direction to start, at least.

"Oh! That seems like a clever system. But what happens to the impurities?" It seems wrong, somehow, that they would just disappear. She stops for a moment to investigate a shelf, then shakes her head and continues on when it proves unfamiliar. "Hopefully we can find you a hint, even if you have to go elsewhere to get all the answers." Honestly, she thinks there's a good chance Angel won't find anything without getting out, or at least remembering something more. But at least they've got a way to search for this.

"I very much appreciate your help," she says, following the girl down the aisle. Wherever she goes, Angel will follow. "All I know of the toxins is that they are purified and turned to harmless sand by the forest. The sand sits beneath the active layer of the forest in a 'petrified layer' that is free of miasma, and it eventually becomes the pure land. The process takes a great number of years, but I'm afraid I can't say more than that. I've remembered much about the forest, but many questions remain."

Another question enters her mind, unrelated to the purification. Why does she remember so much about the forest, while remembering only a single moment of what might have happened in front of that crowd? Why has she regained memories with different amounts of information? How does all of this work?

She ducks down another row and stays this time, running her fingers across the spines. "That's more than I've remembered," the book responds, distracted. "Nicer, too."

Reaching the end of the row, she shakes her head. This had felt like the right place. "Let's try the next row, but I think it's gone."

She's about to ask about the book girl's memories, but then the girl speaks again. She stores the question away for later; she's always curious about memories.

"Gone?" Confusion etches itself on her face. Did the shelf disappear? She's not sure how something like that could happen, but it's not completely out of the question in this house. Even more confused about why her first thought was that the shelf disappeared, she settles on a more reasonable alternative in the end. "Do you think someone took the book?"

"It's possible. I don't see an open space, but it was very small." She frowns and starts going over the books, more carefully this time. "Maybe if you looked around here you might find something? It's still the best guess I have for the plant section, even if that book's missing."

Angel nods, moving to search through the books as well. She's got her eyes out for any very small books with illustrations, even though she doesn't know what this one in particular looks like. "Hopefully there is something here, even if it is not what you found."

She flips through book after book in silence. There are no results; no illustrations, no notably small size, nothing. A cursory glance at the rest of the shelf tells her that she won't be finding any small books further along, either. She's about to say something, when she puts her hand on an unusual book. It's unlike the books she's seen before, as it appears to be bound in tree bark. Sliding it off the shelf, she inspects it without opening it. "Huh," she says. She turns to the other girl. "Did you see this book before? This might mean that we are in the plant section."

She turns away from her own search quickly and approaches Angel. "That's a book? Thought it was a decoration." Tree bark bookends were more rustic than the library's usual décor, but she doesn't claim to understand the Keeper or their design sense.

"It's worth looking, isn't it?" she continues, eying the unusual book. It certainly looks plant-like. If Angel doesn't open it soon, the girl's eager to take matters into her own hands.

With a nod, Angel opens the book. The first page is devoid of text, though it has a ring pattern on it, as if it were a thin slice of tree. After thinking about it a bit, she realizes that that the pages probably are, indeed, slices of tree. Careful not to tear the thin tree-page, she flips to the next one.

She stares in shock at the book. For the first time, the words on the page make sense. She flips to the next page quickly, and then to the next one, just to make sure that the language hasn't changed. It hasn't, and it seems to be on the topic of plants. She's hit the jackpot.

Turning to the girl beside her with a smile on her face, she moves the open book so that she can see as well. "Look!"

She watches Angel eagerly, a small smile creeping over her face at the girl's surprise and excitement.

When she's shown the contents, it's a bit of a disappointment. It's nice to have confirmation it's the right section, but this hardly gives them anything more to work off of then the missing book. Just pictures surrounded by nonsense. She can't fathom what's made Angel so enthusiastic, though she tries to remain positive for her sake. "We do have the plant section after all. I knew I'd got it right."

"Yes," she says, flipping through more pages. Not only does the book have information on all sorts of trees, berries, and poisons, it also has illustrations that appear to be carved into the pages. "I don't know what I can do to return the favor, but say the word and I will do it."

Angel picks a passage at random and begins to read aloud. "Chico nuts...'They have a bitter taste, but are very nutritious. A couple chico nuts can serve as an entire meal for an adult. They grow on the rare chico tree.' Fascinating! This book seems to be full of such things." She continues flipping through the book. Perhaps there's information on miasma-causing plants in here.

She's contemplating what to ask for - just because she feels the girl's generosity is overblown doesn't mean she won't take advantage - when Angel starts to read. Immediately the book's hand latches onto her feathery arm and she cranes past Angel's shoulder only to find yet more nonsensical text. She glances quickly between Angel and the open pages, then asks, "You can read it?"

Angel turns to the book girl when she grabs her arm, then stops entirely when she speaks. The words don't register for a few moments, and after they do there's staring and even more silence.

Finally, she asks, "You can't?"

"Not a word," she replies, glaring at the book as though she can shame it into making sense. "I thought you were all excited over the pictures. Guess you do owe me a favor then, huh?"

She laughs a bit at the comment. "Try not to make it too outlandish, alright?" she says. Then she adds, her voice more somber, "I'm sorry for getting your hopes up. It's strange that you can't read it while I can...we are speaking the same language, aren't we?"

"I think so," she says. "And...the note in the hearth room, you were able to read that too, weren't you? It wasn't clear, but I could at least make it out. This is different." Her brow furrows in thought.

"Don't suppose there was anything you had to do as a bird where you'd have learned different languages?"

"Not that I remember," she says, shaking her head. "All I did was patrol the grounds. There were no books or languages involved. If anyone were to know any different languages, I would expect it to be you or the librarian."

Angel flips another page and looks it over. More information on trees and berries, more things she can read. "Perhaps it is a quality of the book. What sort of quality, I don't know, but perhaps it's not a normal book."

She pulls a face at the mention of the Librarian. "No one else can read me," - she hopes - "but that's obviously not the case here."

"As for qualities," she continues, thoughtful, "maybe it only makes sense to the first one who opens it? Or...you were looking for something from your memories, weren't you? Maybe the book's from wherever you were before and that's why you can read it. I don't think what I've seen fits into a land like that at all, so of course I can't understand it. " She sounds increasingly certain of this theory as she continues talking.

Angel considers the theory. It makes sense, if one assumes certain things, but the scientist in her takes over. "I don't think we have enough information yet to say that concretely...we would need to gather more data. Who can't read this? Am I the only one who can? What if others try closing and reopening the book? Are there other books that only specific people can read? This deserves a thorough investigation."

The comment about not recognizing a land like what Angel remembers doesn't slip past her either. It reminds her of Brimstone's theory regarding multiple worlds. She's still not sure if it's true, though; she'll need more data to decide that as well.

The book would like to know the answers as much as Angel, though it seems an awful lot of work to get them. She'd rather accept a theory and reconsider it should it get proven wrong.

But there's at least one thing she can try now, if it'll help but Angel's mind to rest. She takes the book - slowly, carefully - from the other girl's hands, closing and reopening it to find some familiar-looking nonsense. "Looks like it's staying the same for now." She frowns, "Maybe you should read it before trying that again. In case it does work."

Angel watches the girl close and reopen the book, and the results make her frown. It's not really a bad thing, and it mostly eliminates one of the possibilities, but by doing so it tells her that the more complicated possibility is the one more likely to be true.

"I will," she says, eager to learn more about the plants the book describes. She carefully slides the book back into her hands. "Perhaps I should do that now, so I don't close it by accident. I can read its contents to you if you like, but I won't try to keep you if you've tired of all these books, or if you have your own search to continue."

She shakes her head, not finding the idea of sitting and listening for the length of a book appealing, no matter how pleasant Angel's voice may be. "I'll leave you to it. But you've got to let me know if you find anything interesting."

"You'll be the first person I talk to," she says. She smiles, grateful that she met the girl today. If she hadn't, she likely wouldn't have found this book. "Again, thank you for helping me with my search. You've been very kind. I wish you the best of luck with your own endeavors, and I hope to see you again soon!"

"I'll be around!" She leaves with a smile and a wave, off to find her meal or another distraction, whichever comes first.

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Papercuts Are Inevitable | The Library | Days 8-10 [OPEN]

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