{ ENTER THE LIBRARY } ORP BEGINS HERE

[chirigami]

[ Maple ]

The past months had made her a bit of a recluse, which wasn't too difficult with her small circle of friends. The exam with AJ, and spar that had happened around the same time, had been a wake up call to the witch; one that only indicated further that while she was on her last year school she had yet to actually figure out and utilize her abilities. Or even get one step closer to finally summoning her familiar, if that was still at all possible.

Maple had shut herself in her room, partly to mope and partly to just read and figure things out. Only leaving for classes, food and basic needs.

It probably would have been an ideal solution to go home and sort things out, but she couldn't fathom getting the courage to do so. Not to face everyone, especially her sister and that smug face, and not all the other disappointed faces. So she stayed around school and avoided everyone.

Well, apparently until now at least. For the most part, as she peeled the leaflet that had struck her in the face on her way back to the school. Maple winced from the small paper cut that she had managed to get upon her cheek and made ready to toss the paper in a nearby bin until her eyes caught a few select words. It wasn't the part about the part time job but really the word 'Library' that had done it. Money wasn't the issue here, more often than not it really wasn't to Maple with her frugal means but getting to work in a library might be something that could prove worthwhile. She was shutting herself in one already anyways, why not a new one. A change of scenery and perhaps a selection of different books that could possibly help. Maybe.

And if they didn't like her enough to hire her, well... that wouldn't be any new.

The state of the library was completely unexpected, but Maple didn't have time to dwell on the condition it was in. All she could do was gape in horror (who would damage a library?!) as she was ushered along by the gremlin, hired on the spot apparently without even an interview. "Grab a quill and open a book!" he had told her.

"B-but-" There wasn't even time to object either, to question what was going on and to dwell that perhaps this was a bad sign of things to come as she always did (hired on the spot? Red flags, Maple!)

The witch did as she was requested, fingers grabbing a nearby book from the many piles that had collected on the tables. Maple opened it carefully and only managed to notice the blank pages for a split second before she was pulled in.  

[Toshihiko Two]

[Hunter - Rodney]

The week felt like it had gone by in a flurry of change. But it was December, and the island was still warm, and overall Rodney was in a rarely good mood. He paled a little at the title A-level mission, but the people need help message tugged at his heartstrings.

He didn't even know how much help he could be, but he got together his mission gear, only to find a line of leftover golems being hastily snatched up by other people who wanted to help.

A-level, but from the safety of a golem. Maybe it would be okay.

And they could pick, this time.

Rodney picked out a monstrous cat, with inky black fur and a bright pumpkin ribbon around its neck. His tail puffed as he appeared quite suddenly in a library. He made polite sounds as an elf gave him a lot of very squeaky directions, whiskers and ears pointed forward as he tried to listen.

The books? The library actually didn't seem very full. He wasn't sure where the others had ended up or as what, exactly, but he plucked a book off the shelf to carefully examine its contents...and vanished.

[Graduate - Barth]

Barth had responded to Zar's enthusiasm about him volunteering for a job about as enthusiastically as one might expect, with a lot of ums and errs and quite suddenly disappearing behind a wall of thorns into his laboratory. He was insistent he wasn't sure how they got there at all, and the fact of the matter was that he would love to spend time with the frightfully venomous and handsome father (one of them) of his scarelings, it was only that he had so much that wasn't an entire afternoon of paperwork to not do...

After a lot of failed coaxing, cajoling, tempting, and threatening, Barth finally buckled under the threatening (and an application of physical force).

Arriving he looked completely miserable, as if it was his own funeral rather than a job opportunity.

He had every intention of hiding in the stacks of blank books and doing no work whatsoever at all. That is, until Zar disappeared in an ominous flurry of pages.  

[chirigami]

[ Olivia ]

Despite how few words were actually on the flier that she found caught in the curls of her hair, Olivia found herself reading it over a few more times than most other creeple would have found necessary. Each run through, sounded out until it made absolute sense of what she was looking at and by the end of it the undead ghoul came to the conclusion that yes, she could in fact do some of these things.

The idea of getting paid for some work did sound terribly exciting as well, she rarely got to do such things and as of late she had hardly done much of anything besides her usual fare of staring around the campus. (For Jack's sake, she still hadn't taken her Year 2 exam!) Friends hadn't been seen in a while either, even in classes (when she remembered to attend them) so maybe, as many of these things seemed to go, she could run across them. In a library. Though how often did that happen?

The wight pondered this as she made her way over to the location listed on the flier, grabbing a few more along the way - partly to maybe show how excited she was for the idea, and also because it was paper and maybe she could color on it later.

Olivia stared widely when she stepped into the building, unsure about the condition it was in. She had never been to such a place, so how was she supposed to know that wasn't how it was supposed to look? Though, look around she did even when she was addressed by the frantic goblin giving her instructions. Grab a d book, he told her. And a quill. Write? Well, this was going to be exciting, she determined once she got her head wrapped around those instructions. (It had been tempting to ask him to repeat them but he seemed so terribly busy).

Plopping herself gingerly at a table, Olivia took her time to look at what was offered right in front of her while things were going crazy just around everywhere else. She hummed to herself, picking up a few books and turning them over until she finally settled on one to start with. Her darkened fingers flipped to no where in particular. Oh, it was blank, she noticed only to realize something else was grabbing for her attention more so than the strange empty pages. Literally really.

Olivia was sucked into the book without a word.  

[Nuxaz]

He had been minding his own business, milling through the hallways aimlessly as he shuffled from place to place when the flyer had landed on his face. Almost immediately the parchment began to burn and Efreet had to hurriedly pull it from his face and concentrate on making sure that his fingers were solid, harden magma, to keep it from lighting aflame and burning to ash.

It only half worked, because by the time he'd concentrated enough, the edges were singed and the part that had landed on his face...well it was thoughroughly blackened. "Aw man," he huffed in exasperation, feet stomping beneath him like a child about to throw a tantrum. It took longer than it should have for him to realize that more flyers were spread out around him, all containing the exact information.

Stooping carefully, Efreet snatched up a new one and held it above him while he squinted to read it. The amount of time it took for him to read the page was painfully long and the magma monster was grateful that no one was around to witness him, or at least he couldn't see anyone, because he felt ridiculous. Especially when he had to read it over for a second, no third time to make sure he understood the basics of it.

A paying job? That sounded interesting and he didn't have anything else going on. So without too thought he discarded the paper behind him, the edge of it lighting aflame once he stopped trying to control the heat of his hands, and bounded off to find the portal.

That also took young Efreet an embarrassing amount of time to locate because he kept turning himself around and going the wrong direction. At some point, he'd ended up right back where he started, which he could only tell by the ashes he'd left behind. Flustered by his mess, he had paused to take time to clean up the flyers and ash, scooping them up with careful consideration to what his body might do to them, before depositing them in the nearest trash bin that he could fin.

Energy and determination, renewed, he found the portal with pride.

Grinning broadly, because he was so damned proud of himself, he stepped through it purposely.

Almost immediately after, his jaw dropped open, eyes taking in the beings that were running back and forth in a frenzy. Suddenly, Efreet wasn't so sure that this was a good idea and he'd been about to step back and high tail it out of the library when a book gremlin caught him. "Oh, no - " he stuttered, swallowing hard while he shook his head. "I don't think this is a -"

Poor Efreet did not get to finish, because he was being ushered to wherever the quills were kept and, well, he felt bad if he bailed now that he'd been noticed. The library staff needed help and he wasn't doing anything else...

Heaving a heavy sigh, the magma monster resigned himself to his fate. It will be fine, he tried to convince himself to no avail as he wandered through the library looking for the supplies he'd been told to get. At least you'll get paid, he thought, stepping over shelving that'd been knocked over.

He had to be extra conscious as he moved, making sure that more of him was solid that free flowing magma lest he make the whole situation worse.

"Ah-ha!" He exclaimed joyously, having discovered a quill ripe for the taking. Hurrying over he snatched up and held it in the air proudly, thankful that no one had appeared and tried to steal it from him. He didn't know what he would've done then.

Efreet hurried over to find himself a book, body trembling with a mix of anticipation and worry that he was going to mess it up. Sucking in a deep breath, he opened the book quill posed and ready to write -

Well, it looked like the book had other plans because it swallowed him up.

word count: 680  

[Toshihiko Two]

[Hunter] Malkam

This was it, his and Jorm's first mission. Mik was older than him (by a few months) but it had never felt that way. Now, however, MIkael was the only one with any idea of what to expect.

"Golem, is that what they call the fake bodies?" He asked, inspecting the selection. "And...you go into one of these," he gestured to the pod, "and come out in a different body? Do you have to die to get back?"

Would it be like last time?

He looked over the options grimly, before selecting ghost. That couldn't be so bad, right?

He found himself standing in the giantest, weirdest library, completely populated by nightmarish monsters, wearing nothing but a white burka. WIthout sleeves. He looked down at himself, running it between his finger and thumb. Was it a...bedsheet? They had enough magic, or technology, or both to make him jump into a fake body, and this was the best they could do for a ghost disguise?  

[Baneful]

Mikael didn't go on missions much and though he was hesitant this time too (and tempted to just go build sandcastles) he felt like he really needed to be strong for his brother, to show him how this weird place worked. He was maybe pretending to know a little more than he actually did. "Er. I think you do need to die to get back but they charge you money? I don't really know. They are...kind of...weird. Yeah though, Golems."

He uncertainly got in, not sure what to expect every time. He looked at the screen and was going to push the word Witch when the voice in his head overwhelmingly snarled the shape they were going to choose. He chose a werewolf.

When he opened his eyes he was next to Malk, tall but hunched, with a shock of wild hair which blended into a mantle of fur that covered the whole golem. However, they had to have been running low on outfits as he was for whatever reason wearing a japanese schoolgirl's outfit. He was also female.

"Maybe it's a fox?" he growled, looking baffled at his paws. "What are you, a big napkin?"
 

[Toshihiko Two]

"NO!" Malkam said, and realizing who it was, his brother, who was suddenly...a really buff furry...

"I mean, maybe," he said, looking hopelessly at the sheet.

I think you're still h-handsome, Malkam! Jorm volunteered.

Thanks, he thought back. But, "Man, I don't think I'm going to be getting any action in this. It's like...hey, ladies-"

Ghouls! Jorm corrected helpfully.

"Ghouls, I'm the sheet, now all we need is a bed..." He gave Mikael as skeptical a look as he could muster through the two cut out holes.  

[Baneful]

Mik looked at Malk with concern.

"I don't think I want any action here. You get ice ...bits." he said. "Sleeping with things isn't worth it for that."

Fen wasn't fussed that they were in a female golem but he was very indignant at the clothing. It was uncomfortable, restrictive and impractical. "So maybe you should be a nice sheet and not a fiesty one."

He scratched his fur. "I'm hairy again." he said grimly.

 

[danse-hexe]

'This place,' Kite thought, 'was way too troublesome.' So much for all that call of coming home to the tower business - if she'd known beforehand that being a horseman involved so much work and effort and talking and willpower to resist shredding dry, dusty old books, she probably wouldn't have bothered. Why did history even matter? Who actually cared what some old guy did this one time? And really, good for the ones who were interested in paintings and sculptures and all that other nonsense, but what use to her was a book called 'The Art of War'? You couldn't paint someone to literal death.

'Or.. I could just not go to class.' Was anyone going to bother tracking her down? Probably not. Kite turned around abruptly, heading for the training quarters She could just, you know, be occupied with actually interesting, useful, real-world applicable skills, like sparring class, and so on, and.. had that portal been there when she'd walked past before?

More importantly, how convincing would it be if she'd simply "gotten lost" trying to get to the classroom? Only one way to tell.

--

On a scale from one to I don't know where the f... this definitely was not the War Floor of the tower (they didn't even have this many books), maybe this was somewhere on the Death Floor (she'd heard they were nerds).

The entire place was books, and yet you would've thought the death clan took better care of their property than this - although maybe not, because these books were certifiably dead. Giant books, tiny books, leather-bound books, books with questionable covers -- the only thing they had in common was that they were all ripped apart and shredded into book salad. Someone with even more resentment for books than her had clearly been through here.. and all things considered, it was kind of awesome.

Revenant Aria

uh hi

 

[OpticPeach]

[Hunter - Diana]

This was sort of like her first big mission. Diana hadn't really gotten to get out much since joining Deus, and now that she had the chance to get out she jumped on it. It was incredibly odd being in the library surrounded by strange creatures of size and make. She honestly hadn't really dealt with anything this odd since her time back in Canada with all the other weirdness. This was a different sort of weird, but still. Any sort of weird was worth taking note of.

Stop your worrying.

Easy for him to say. He didn't have to concern himself with getting caught. Ignoring Akali for the moment, she picked up the first book she spotted and realized it was...well it was blank. They were supposed to fill it in. Writing in library books didn't seem like a good idea, but she supposed -

She didn't get to even finish the thought as she opened the book and was sucked in.  

[poke mattix]

[ Hunter - Jason ]

Considering that several hunters had disappeared and needed to be located, Jason wasn't 'as' put out for doing this mission since there were lives on the line. Plus it wasn't like he could just say no to a class A mission anyway. Not that he wasn't tempted, staring at the passive aggressive message in mild annoyance. He had a good idea of who had written this, and if there was anything good about it at least that idea didn't include a certain Death lead.

There wasn't much preparation for this mission, save heading to the lighthouse and waiting for his chance to get a golem. By the time he was able to choose one it appeared all the 'good' ones were taken. This didn't faze him as he was only looking for the least freaky ones. That were male. Soon enough he was waking up in what could only be described as a library in a average looking vampire golem, complete with the pointy ears, black hair and sharp fangs. He could already hear his weapon making the mental comparisons between himself and Dis, though obviously the actual vampire would come out on top. He wasn't sure if he should care about this or not.

Shaking these thoughts aside, Jason got down to the business of looking for these missing hunters. How he was going to do this surrounded by the chaos that was this library he wasn't sure. All around him there were things running about, paper flying everywhere and the atmosphere being anything but a quiet place. Couldn't he just curled up next to a fire and read a book in peace for once??

His thoughts where interrupted by the approach of a...tiny elf looking thing. Jason stared at the tiny creature, only half listening to its explanation on writing books. Did...did he just walk into a harry potter universe? It's clothing upon clothing certainly reminded him of the elves from the books. Confused, he just nodded to whatever it was the elf thing wanted and walked off. At this point it occurred to him that the hunters that had gone missing were not in golems, which made no sense at all; they were strictly forbidden from walking around halloween as hunters, unless special permission was granted. Half the reason being they would explode if they stayed here too long or they would blow their cover. Also, what the hell was going on?!

Unable to make heads or tails of this, the hunter golem walked, his red eyes scanning the crowd for any signs of hunters. The elf thing had mentioned grabbing a quill and book so he kept a lookout for those things too, doing his best to not get bowled over by the larger inhabitants (or squeal at the more intimidating ones)

It turned out the items were much easier to find; the quill he found on the floor amongst a pile of ripped pages, and there were books everywhere, some in better state than others. By this time Jason had figured something catastrophic must have happened to the library, and he had a guess these missing hunters were involved somehow. So far though, he had seen no signs of them.

Sighing, he made his way through the hustle and bustle and found a vacant chair to sit in, having grabbed a rather sorry looking book on his way. Half of it's pages were missing as well. For now he would just sit there, keeping a eye out for anything strange, while he tried to fix this book.

Just as he opened it, the hunter was pulled into the book's world.  

[lizbot]

Reese : Student

Bottom line: Reese wanted money. She also didn't want to work in a store. In the equation of Stuff and Customers, the addition of Customers generally meant the subtraction of Stuff. It was aggravating. Also people got mad when she didn't talk and even more when she talked, which they felt was too much like yelling, Truly, Reese was meant to be an entrepreneur in her unlife, but, upon seeing the flyer, an assistant at the library would do for now.

Shoving the flyer at the tall, lean figure next to her, the ghoul announced, "THIS."

lurks beneath