Killer librarians gonna librarian

[theflyingone]

I hope everyone has made permanent as many books as they could from the last space. Those you wish to make available to everyone, please fill out a card for each of them telling us with whom it can be found, and place it in a public catalog, like the one in L—The Workshop. [ Can he still call it Leonardo's Workshop if Leonardo is gone? He wants to, but that is also like putting salt in the wound. ] Alternatively, leave them with me in The Workshop and I will shelve them for you.

What we've just received may serve, but personal accounts such as ours will shed light on more than just general history. I encourage you to write your own. I have again gathered my own notes on last Jaunt. You can find them under the title January Codex. I did not have much this time around. A bit about youth culture, illegal vision technology, courier trade, artisan trade, smuggler trade, what Jason told me about a book describing how the plague began, and how... delinquents are dealt with.

I came back with a pair of long earrings, but I do not wear earrings. Would anyone care for them? They are made of feathers and painted bird skulls.

[ And lastly... ]

If I... did anything embarrassing during the Samhain festival, I apologize. For my other self. I was not myself. And drunk.

Comments

[awitchdidit]

Ahaha, oh dear, this might take a while...I'll have cards for you, and hopefully copies of the texts themselves, fairly...well, within a week, anyway.

And thank you for recording your knowledge of the Jaunt. I'm well behind on my own.

[naturaltwohands]

[Drizzt knows he must sacrifice much to record his time. Including some embarrassment.]

I can write down information about the local flora and fauna as promised. I can also provide information on the local food, information on how a teenager under suspicion is handled, information about the fiction and history books I read, and marriage customs.

[It was an interesting Jaunt.]

[morethanashadow]

What color are the feathers? [yes he is the one asking about the earrings.]

[prolificarse]

...Of course I'd make my return after the books are gone.

[There's a pause as he reminds himself how to ward a conversation from prying minds - it may have been one of the earliest tricks he'd picked up after becoming a Traveler, but it's still been some (fuzzy, nebulous) time since he'd last practiced.

Still, after a few moments, he adds, privately and under one-sided protection:]

What happened to Leonardo?

[No, he didn't miss that slip.]

[theflyingone]

[ Hey, Altaïr's pawning them off in the first place, this is good. ]

Black feathers with gold crow skulls and gears.

[amadine]

I can contribute rather more about the legal system, and the operations of government, including the Tithe - though how useful the information will be on any return trip is...questionable. My other self may not have been good for much, but she knew some interesting things.

[vorenado]

I had been able to gather a decent amount of information on the music popular to the culture as well as the means in which to read and translate it into the form of notation that I have become familiar with. I can make a copy for the information for your codex.

[morethanashadow]

I can take them, if you want. [They sound pretty cool.]

[theflyingone]

[ If nothing else, Beatrice was dedicated to spreading information with the tenacity of a disease. ]

As I said, I did not have much. [ Thanks, Atos. ] Ah, but there were vandals in the city as well. Perhaps I can reproduce some of the posters. That will likely make a good-sized appendix. [ Considering he remembered them very well, as he had made half of them. How about those pesky vandals... ]

[theflyingone]

[ He is not going to go into quite that much detail. For one, nothing of import came of his time amongst the celebrations other than a few cultural anecdotes. And for another, things were a bit fuzzy... ]

Seems several Travelers were arrested. Were you not yourself as well?

[awitchdidit]

[It's even more fun than spreading misinformation when reality is this fucking weird.]

Yes. Those terrible vandals with their subversive propaganda and deep-pocketed black market...

[theflyingone]

We saved as many as we could. It is a fair amount. If everyone does as I have asked, you will find out where they are soon. I am handling some in the library as we... speak? think?

[ Being a new(ish) Traveler, he can only follow along with the privacy protection while concurrently maintaining the semblance of a public conversation for everyone else's benefit. Some feat for someone not used to speaking on the network.

Leonardo's disappearance is not a secret anyway. His Workshop had become a fixture in Liminal, and by extension himself. His absence had been more noticeable. Altaïr's psychic "voice" becomes a little fainter, as if speaking too loudly about something he cares about is something to avoid in daily life. ]

He disappeared, in the manner of Travelers in the past. He was gone when we returned from the last Jaunt. His rooms remained.

[theflyingone]

On the contrary, I think she was formidable. [ Atos did, too, though Altaïr would not have been as intimidated as him. ] She surely possessed rare inside knowledge, and that is always worth having.

[theflyingone]

Excellent. One drawback of living here is the lack of music. [ And nature, and seasons, and freedom. ] More than just enjoyment, there will be much cultural value in it as well. I—my overlay—was a mere audience member during the festivities. His art lay in draughtsmanship and painting instead.

[truerevelation]

You want any help with that one?
...heh. Wish I'd kept Kastor's singing voice.

[naturaltwohands]

[Drizzt is a baby nerd. He doesn't know how to chill with this. The young drow just wants to be useful!

A bit of an embarrassed laugh.]

... As an adolescent. I had to be released to my father and Elphaba, who was posing as my unmarried mother. [A pause.] Well, formerly unmarried.

[vorenado]

Music had not existed at all in the world I am from. -=using 'world' loosely, as there is no other term he can think of as appropriate, though he considers it just as real as any other=- One of my first overlays had been a musician and I retained his abilities upon return to Liminal Space. As I personally have a limited knowledge outside what he had known, wish to attempt to collect music from the worlds we visit.

[vorenado]

I would not turn away assistance.

Have you attempted to sing since?

[truerevelation]

Tried, yeah. As well as I can without any more music to sing to. And ... eh, it's kinda hard to tell when it's just me but I don't think I'm gonna be sellin' any records. Or wouldn't be if we were selling anything.

Maybe I oughta just practice some more.

[prolificarse]

There's actually a proper library now? Maker be praised.

Ah - simpler to call it speaking, I'd say. Or communicating, if you'd rather not get tangled up in specifics.

[Private]

That's unfortunate. Less so than I might have feared, but still. We're sorely diminished without him.

[vorenado]

Perhaps we can practice together, if music interests you.

[truerevelation]

It ... kinda does. Since we were in space, I think... Been wonderin' if it's worth a go. And then Kastor showed up, 'n ... yeah.

[theflyingone]

That could have gone very poorly for you if it had not been for them.

She was married? While on a Jaunt? ...Congratulations?

[ He supposed life had to keep on living, even while in the Trumps' captivity. ]

[theflyingone]

Leonardo and others remembered and collected enough books before I arrived. I suppose it was only a matter of time. He had remembered and created books that I knew, despite being centuries after my time. It was a comfort.

[ Private ]

As far as I know, he did not suffer. The Jaunt was fairly peaceful, compared to others, and so was his other self. He was simply... gone. Did you know him well?

[ He isn't even sure if he should talk about it like death, but that was what the loss felt like. ]

[naturaltwohands]

Yes, truthfully, and I am grateful.

[A pause.]

Both of them, to each other. By Lovers, meaning the marriage holds true across Liminal Space. Which... had not been our intention.

[Yeah. They got real married.]

So I suppose congratulations are in order.