Shhh! Quiet, please.
What’s this? The locked door near the Temple’s audience hall is now open! It seems someone quite forgot to open up the library. How terribly stupid.
The library is a huge room, lined to the ceiling with books. It’s a two-story affair, with curving staircases leading to the second story and ladders leaning against the shelves here and there for anyone trying to reach the higher-up books. In the center of the room is a massive card catalog surrounded by an assortment of desks. More desks are scattered around the area, as are comfortable looking chairs. Why, there are even a few window seats.
The books themselves are dusty and for the most part, clearly neglected. Perhaps the locals just don’t read very much. There is, however, a very well-used copy of the 1913 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. The B volume (B for beans) is especially worn and one of the few books that appears to have been read relatively recently. Scattered about on the desks (and even the floor, for shame) are books on philosophy, law, mathematics and languages. On the upper floor, there is an entire bookcase dedicated to an author named “Temben” who appears to have had quite the fascination with animal husbandry and behavioral sciences.
Oddly, some of the books are hollow, little more than book-shaped boxes. One of these hollow-books contains a half-empty package of Lucky Strike cigarettes. Another, a small flask of...whew! We’re not sure what that is, but it’ll probably make you go blind if you drink it. Most of the hollow-books are empty, but what a clever way to stash objects they are. It’s just too bad that apparently the previous owners of many of these items neglected to return for their belongings. Those that have objects inside them--such as the flask or the cigarettes--are filled with small, practical items. A lighter. A handkerchief. A...dish?
Every now and then, one might catch a small flash of movement in the shadows. Pay attention and you’ll see tiny creatures scuttling about the library, shuffling paper around, putting cards back where they belong in the index and so on. They’re spiders. Small, mechanical spiders, in fact, made of bronze and wire, moving here and there as quickly as their delicate, mechanical feet will take them. They’re harmless, of course, used only to clean up the library.
Now wait a moment.
Did that one just glow a bit green?
The library is a huge room, lined to the ceiling with books. It’s a two-story affair, with curving staircases leading to the second story and ladders leaning against the shelves here and there for anyone trying to reach the higher-up books. In the center of the room is a massive card catalog surrounded by an assortment of desks. More desks are scattered around the area, as are comfortable looking chairs. Why, there are even a few window seats.
The books themselves are dusty and for the most part, clearly neglected. Perhaps the locals just don’t read very much. There is, however, a very well-used copy of the 1913 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. The B volume (B for beans) is especially worn and one of the few books that appears to have been read relatively recently. Scattered about on the desks (and even the floor, for shame) are books on philosophy, law, mathematics and languages. On the upper floor, there is an entire bookcase dedicated to an author named “Temben” who appears to have had quite the fascination with animal husbandry and behavioral sciences.
Oddly, some of the books are hollow, little more than book-shaped boxes. One of these hollow-books contains a half-empty package of Lucky Strike cigarettes. Another, a small flask of...whew! We’re not sure what that is, but it’ll probably make you go blind if you drink it. Most of the hollow-books are empty, but what a clever way to stash objects they are. It’s just too bad that apparently the previous owners of many of these items neglected to return for their belongings. Those that have objects inside them--such as the flask or the cigarettes--are filled with small, practical items. A lighter. A handkerchief. A...dish?
Every now and then, one might catch a small flash of movement in the shadows. Pay attention and you’ll see tiny creatures scuttling about the library, shuffling paper around, putting cards back where they belong in the index and so on. They’re spiders. Small, mechanical spiders, in fact, made of bronze and wire, moving here and there as quickly as their delicate, mechanical feet will take them. They’re harmless, of course, used only to clean up the library.
Now wait a moment.
Did that one just glow a bit green?