Incoherent Screeching

Archivist was... confused to say the least. She could have sworn that the third shelf to the left led to her Claimed’s world, not this pastel farming community. Yet here she was, dressed down to red gingham and being waved at of all things like she hadn’t had part in destroying hundreds of worlds. Her leman would mock her for ages if they found out she was getting ‘lightly’ bullied by townsfolk towards the outskirts of the valley, arms and pockets getting filled with produce she hadn’t the faintest clue what to do with. She didn’t notice that they’d harried her into private property, the large sign proclaiming ‘Strawberry Farm’ only being something for her to avoid and hide behind. What she did notice was the intense feeling of dread, a shadow, and a flash of magic.

There is a house at the edge of the woods; the handle turns under your grasp but the wooden frame refuses to budge. Sometimes you hear sounds from within, whimpers and screams and laughter, all punctuated with the juddershakebang of furniture and doors rocking the foundation of the house. A girl falls ill in the village, you do not know her she does not visit the house but still she screams of the house coming for her breath. She is gone the next morning and the shaking of the house seems slower, the screams less piercing in the still wooded air. More children fall ill, claiming the house is coming for tearsbloodbones, and more children vanish as the house stills. The house should not be still it should writhe with the agony of life and fears of visiting souls. There are no more children when the figures come; hands and robes drenched in the blood that was forced on the house to make it quiescent. Clinically they destroy the house, brick by brick and careful wooden frames loaded into carts and taken away to be repurposed, the ‘monster’ made palatable for those who have not suffered. But they will, you are sure of this as you are of each piece of the house, each piece of you, makes its way to empty houses waitingwaitingwaiting for life they lack.

Step 1: Decide who you want to raise from the dead. Is there significant emotional attachment to the deceased that resurrection will not draw from the energy balance of the surrounding area too harshly? [unintelligible]* Fågel, if Librarian was going to break her domain boundaries to mess with life and death it was going to be for Fågel. The emotional attachment wasn’t an issue, the piece of her soul that used to act as claim over the merchant ached at their absence, screaming and wailing for what was no longer there.

Step 2: Gather ritual materials. What was important to the deceased when they were alive? The more items with strong attachments present, the stronger the pull back to life will be. Don’t worry the items will not be destroyed in the ritual. Probably. Well that’s good, Fågel would kill her if any of their stuff got destroyed, there should still be some of Fågel’s favored weapons and sweaters lying around the Corridors if Librarian remembered correctly. She’d have to retrieve some of their wages from the burial mound but hopefully they’d forgive her.

Step 3: Prepare the ritual site. Draw the ritual circle in ink made from [unintelligible]** to speed the resurrection process. Place at five points equal distance around the circle candles (scented or unscented) and any strongly attached items that have been gathered. Inside the circle, inscribe the deceased’s name, manner of death, and [unintelligible]*** as many times as it takes to get back to the beginning of the inscription. Draw a second circle beneath the inscription and draw in the center of the circle the below diagram [unintelligible burnt diagram]. [unintelligible writing] ****. Librarian was annoyed, of all the parts of the book to be damaged, it had to be the part describing what to make the circle out of. Still, nothing ventured nothing gained, Golden Apples and Swiftness Potions blended together made acceptable ink and repeating Fågel’s name in Ender after the manner of death was better than nothing. The missing diagram was more of an issue but Librarian figured drawing spirals from each of the candles to the center would be enough to channel the energy correctly.

Step 4: Enact the Ritual. Light the candles and feed blood into the circle. Think about the deceased and what they meant to you, why you want them back in life. NOTE: This ritual requires 2-3 liters of blood to be fed into the circle; make sure to have a snack on hand to reup your blood sugar and take a break once the ritual is over! Librarian rather wished that note was at the beginning of the step or that she had bothered to read all the instructions before doing them. As it was, between the blood loss and making herself sob thinking about how much she missed Fågel please just give them back it was too soon Too Soon, she was feeling extremely light headed. Luckily the next step was extremely simple:

Step 5: Wait. Great, she’s gonna do that inside the Library, the server’s been stable enough recently that the circle won’t be disturbed until it’s fully discharged. Or maybe it will be disturbed, who knows, certainly not Librarian struggling to walk up a flight of stairs and to a couch to nap off the blood loss.

+++

Miles away there was a great shifting of earth and stone as something dug it’s way out of the ground. It struggled upright on rotted tendons and sinew before beginning to shamble along the invisible strings tying it to the one who brought it to life. Deep in it’s mind, the suddenly reformed soul of Fågel swore at the clinginess of Gods and made plans to chew out their boss for not listening to their wish to stay dead.

*Do you know that the deceased wants to be resurrected?

**Regeneration Potions and Enchanted Golden Apples

***A Healing Spell to deal with decomposition

[Shuffling, the sound of many bags being unceremoniously dropped to the floor, the long sigh of someone finally getting off their feet]

Librarian: Hello my dear, I’m sorry it’s taken me this long to visit but I brought your accrued wages so hopefully that takes the sting off a bit. I hope you don’t mind if I record this, I haven’t had to be remade by the Library in quite a while and with the collection taking some hits… well Aster thought it would help to record what I don’t want to forget as it happens until everything gets a bit more stable.

[Long pause, the sound of a flask being uncorked and drunk from heavily, the smell suggests God-Tea as opposed to something alcoholic]

Librarian: Well! [a single clap] I suppose you want to know how everyone is, I would if I had to stay here all the time. Asty has been at xer library quite a bit, something about the void being a bit restless xe said. Your ExDee has been there quite a bit as well, trying to learn how to tell a proper story without actual people to puppet I suppose. Lucas has been travelling a lot as well, probably to avoid thinking about their Becoming I expect; they took 87 along though so I’m trying not to worry. Our Karl, y’know the original, ’s been looking for their family from before being imprisoned, or descendants I guess, you should have seen Professor’s face when they finally told him off for putting them in prison.

[Chuckling that devolves into a coughing fit]

Librarian: Sorry that’s been happening a lot, where was I… oh yes! Moon and Nare got me more niblings, our Other Side has siblings now! You know me well enough that I won’t lie about how they’ve caused damage to the Library on occasion but I remember how eldest Nibling was when they first got started. I even have a child of my own now; darling ‘Kantha’s a void creature after your own heart I swear, they can almost match your ruthlessness in getting the best price for their wears, though they’re just as likely to give it away if they like you.

[Fond pause broken by slight sniffling; deep breaths follow]

Librarian: It’s- It’s just- It’s hard ya know? I know the rest of the court cares, at least … I hope, but it feels like we never meet up anymore and even them turning up for IW meetings and colored masquerades feels forced like they all have better things to do and I’m just holding them all in the past. If this … this losing people before they die thing is part of being human, I don’t know how you… how anyone stands it!

[Librarian stops talking to take deep stuttering breaths; there is the sound of rustling fabric and falling metal as she empties the bags she brought with her onto a seemingly larger pile]

Librarian: I’m sorry but… I need to cut this visit short, I- I have some thinking to do; everyone would be okay if I took a vacation right? I shouldn’t be burdening you with this Fågel, I did it enough when you were alive. A peaceful afterlife is the least I owe you after failing to keep you safe. [deep sigh] Take care of yourself, wherever you ended up.

“You do not Need them, you know. Your attachment to them, one a mortal no less, is holding you back.”

“Without them I would be dead, and we would not be having this conversation.”

“Regardless, you focus too much on them and not on expanding the Archives- oh sorry it is the Library now is it not? Even the gods you surround yourself with are dull; dull teeth, dull swords, dull Lives.”

“You are the dull one, the Archives ate you, made you- made us forget who we were and made us something awful, a monster.”

“The Archives made us Stronger, it took our Hurts, it let us Escape that world we were doomed to die on-.”

“We traded One Cage for Another, that world was dangerous but it was ours, all of our families have walked on it and what, you want me to give that up for a parasite?”

“In so many words, yes! A family makes us vulnerable; you know this, they are just going to die and you will be all alone again.”

“Even if I am alone again, they will have made me a better person for having known them. That is not something you can claim the Archives gave us.”

“…”

By the time the Library was put out, a burnt shell of what it once was but still standing tall, Librarian had disappeared. She wasn’t dead, Aster would know, Lucas would also be dead, and the watchful presence of claiming would have left Fågel and Karl (The original’s) shoulders. But she was gone, the glitching of the world around the burned Library disguising the path she cut through the landscape to get away. The glitching got worse, too much for even Lucas to handle as a glitch, forcing everyone who had been present in the Infinite Library at the time of the fire back through the portals they came through before sealing completely, locking the glitched world with Librarian inside.

Librarian ran, what else could she do she just set her homeprisondomain on fire

oh god she just set the Library on fire she was the Library Lucas was tied to her They would have Died they would have finally been with their siblings.

The second she stepped into the marble halls, trailing blood from players that had tried to kill her and failed, she knew that she could not stay, that she had to get out. This… building exuded malice, and she would not have lived where her family-friends had died if she did not trust her instincts. The Archive watched it’s Archivist stumble from the entry hall, too short a stay to truly sink tendrils into. Shallow tendrils would have to be enough to pull her deeper into the halls. Perhaps it could stabilize the land outside it’s halls so she would have to stay close.

She did not want to stay near those cold halls all that much, but the land around it was the most stable she had ever seen, and even had some mobs that looked docile enough to tame. It was a compromise to live on the edge of the stable area and figure out how to farm, how to raise animals, even how to read from books pilfered from the building in dart quick raids. The speed of the Archivist was frustrating, she did not stay long enough to deepen the tendrils but that made the Archive want her more.

Meeting Aster was a … surprise to say the least; outside of the stabilized area a chasm had opened that she was careless enough to fall into. Aster had been the one to fish her out of the void she landed in and bring her back home. Xe seemed concerned about her living conditions for some reason because xe kept visiting, not that she minded. The company was nice and made the world seem a little lighter than it had been. The Librarian of Worlds was not in the plan. The Archivist needed to be dependent on the Archive first and foremost, but the Archive could not control the Void and it’s denizens.

She was exploring when she met Lucas, a stronghold had surfaced beneath her farm the Archive is losing power without an Archivist and exploring that seemed safer than the malicious building on her door step. She had found the portal room when someone fell through the ceiling and cracked the frame. Bundling the slightly glitching figure back to her house is easy, and so is taking care of them until Aster visits next to bring them home. The Archive can no longer keep other players out, it is dying. The Archivist applies her own tendrils to the people she meets, extending agelessness she does not know she has.

The marbled building has lost its maliciousness when Fågel walks out of it and introduces themself. Aster and Lucas are visiting and suddenly there are four people at the table instead of three; Fågel just smiles and asks for the syrup. The Archive is dead, what remains goes to the Never-Archivist the same way the world does, she is all that is left to control it.

Librarian paced in front of her portals, mind spinning. Aster had been gone, not unusual as xe had other duties for xyr own library, but xe had been gone for too long, months instead of weeks. The lingering connection she shared with Aster had led to the portals, one of which was obviously suffering; sparking and cracked and covered in cobwebs. Part of her wanted to ignite the portal and chase after Aster immediately, find hers and bring xem back to safety; the other, brutally mortal tempered, part of her knew she had responsibilities and Lucas and Fågel to worry about leaving in the Library undefended unsupervised. They would have to know where she was going, and they would have to make contingencies; whatever was on the other side of the portal had trapped Aster and wrecked the portal in turn, that meant something powerful that Librarian did not want to cross if she could help it.

Librarian found the shelves of journals by accident, the Corridors really didn’t want her to find them, leading her into many of the numbered Karl’s before she finally found them. And calling them ‘journals’ was a tad misleading, they were memories her memories, Archivist’s memories, the nameless girl’s memories transcribed to paper like someone scanned them directly from a brain. Each journal a different snapshot of a life lived too long, painting a story that Librarian knew she shouldn’t have to read because it should be in her mind, firing along her synapses and taken by time, not by books. She could recognize her own thought process after this many years could she, she didn’t notice the memories disappearing after all, and these were all hers the same way Aster and Lucas and Fågel and Karl (the original) were hers. Something had taken her memories and stored them as knowledge, and she was not so foolish as to pretend she did not know exactly what had that power.

If it had only been her memories scavenged and torn from her mind, Librarian’s vengeance against the Library the Archive, the false haven from the horrors outside would have been swift, and efficient. But tucked at the end of the shelves she was not meant to see were numerous slim volumes in a riot of colors compared to the uniform teal of her memories. Everyone who had set foot into the Infinite Library and perused the knowledge it contained had left a few memories short, people who she cared about deeply even if they did not care in return had entered her domain and had been harmed where they should have been safe; this she would not forgive.

It was hard, seeking redemption. Archivist knew what she had done in the name of expanding her Archive or did she belong to it was wrong, the first thing falling into the void had taken was her justifications after all; all the anger and purpose she had shrouded her reign of terror in, gone in a matter of seconds. All that was left was the pain she had caused, expressions of torment forever etched into her brain she’s sorry she’s sorry please let her rest; but Archivist was nothing if not a pragmatist, she had done wrong so she must make it right.

It was easy to find the portals belonging to the worlds she had harmed, they sparked and juddered compared to the calm stability of the untouched worlds. They’re all the same really: she jumps through the portal, ignores the fearful and hateful looks, and sets about assisting with rebuilding efforts. More often than not she would wake up mid-coalescing back in the Archive from the world denizens taking their rightful anger out on her; but back through the portals she would go, over and over until they were stabilized she ignored how every time she reformed in the Archive she remembered less and less, it was her penance.

She was young, and the world hostile, and there were four; four to survive, through luck or skill they learned too early it did not matter, they survived and they were hers as she was theirs. They grew and celebrated together, this hostile world they spawned in not managing to crush them when they were together.

She was growing, and there were four, three, two, one, and she was alone. Mistakes and hostiles, players and mobs, only needed to get lucky once and hers were taken from where she could protect them, where they could protect each other. She got revenge of course, the only good thing about the world being it was very easy to destroy remains, but hers were gone and the world was that much colder.

She was grown, and she had found an Archive; her first steps inside bloody from the few remaining players she had crossed. The Archive told her many horrible things, all the ways people were cruel to one another, and it was intoxicating, all the knowledge at her fingertips if she could just find the right book.

She was not sure when she stopped aging, when food and water and sleep became optional, when the Archive she had stumbled into became an extension of her senses. It was a blur, finding portals and worlds, finding the conflict and chaos that burned in every mind, taking record of the darkness for her Archive when had it become hers, what was happening to her. She could not remember the last time she had set foot into her hostile world, why would she when she was the only one left how does she know this, she has to leave, escape, FLEE.

Archivist that was not her name, why couldn’t she remember her name, did she have a name before flowed between worlds, collecting and copying and occasionally taking by force knowledge she and her Archive did not have. She was not content, she was angry, with the worlds or with herself who knows, but her Archives reflected it. All it took was one misstep what killed her friends, she knew it would kill her too into the jagged chasm the floor of the Archive had become. She fell, and the void reached up to greet her and pull her down to a painful death final rest, I’ll see you soon my friends, I miss you.

XD glanced down as his chat and frowned. Taping it once, he brought it up.

"Who the fuck is 'SucmuhbalsXD'"

"SucmuhbalsXD: HEY SHIT HEAD! GIVE DRISTA BACK HER BROTHER" XD could only scoff.

"Or what?" He mocked before another ping appeared.

"SucmuhbalsXD: Oh boy you don't know what hell you just unleashed"(edited) [3:29 AM] Suddenly a bell rang and a rather monotone voice shouted in his ear. He winced and tried covering his ears to no avail.

"SucmuhbalsXD has donated (xxxx). HEY I JUST MET YOU!"

"SucmuhbalsXD has donated (xxxx) AND THIS IS CRAZY!"

"SucmuhbalsXD has donated (xxxx) BUT LET THE PLAYERS GO!"

"SucmuhbalsXD has donated (xxxx) OR I'LL GO HADES!" "DreamXD has banned user: SucmuhbalsXD"

"GiveDristaBackHerbrother2021 has resubbed, welcome back! 'You can't escape me that easily, HIT IT WILBUR!"

A loud, obnoxious strumming of cords filled XD'S ears and his head whipped up. In front of him was the soul of Wilbur Soot, holding a guitar.

He cocked his head, "Not exactly sure who said that but I'm down to clown."

Wilbur cleared his throat before he started belting the most annoying song he has ever hear. To XD'S horror, who ever the damn witch who was in his (supposedly secure) chat and donos started to do an impromptu duet.

"GiveDristaBackHerbrother2021 has donated (xxxx) 'YOU'RE IN HIS BED BUT I'M IN HIS TWITCH CHAT"

"DreamXD has banned user name: GiveDristaBackHerbrother2021"

"SBIISCANONBITCH!! Has resubbed, enjoy your stay!: 'HAHA ITS PATHETICALLY EASY TO HACK IN, TRY HARDER'"

DreamXD screamed into his hands, "someone save me from this hell."

"SBIISCANONBITCH!! donated (xxxx) 'I'll only leave when you let the players go'" "SBIISCANONBITCH donated (xxxx) 'And I don't need as much sleep as most people so :))))'"