The Dark Library

[Mirbiggs]

The sound of a quill scratching the pages of a dark leather bound grimoire reverberates inside the walls and ceiling of an almost unfathomable cavernous interior of the library. At it's heart is a pinprick of candle light flickering feebly on a desk, barely illuminating the mountain of books and scrolls littering it's surface. Was the small flame causing the shadows to dance, or was it some unimaginable unnamed horrors just outside of mortal perception? Are they lying in wait to feast on sanity  and soul? Or was the menacing presence radiating from the man behind the desk? He wrote feverishly inside of a black tome, crouched over it, his eyes racing back and forth over the words. His greasy strands of white unwashed hair fell over his face obscuring his gaunt skeletal features, the man was lost in his work. Though to mistake the man as a mere human would be a terrible folly, he was a man yet something much more. Something dark. The sound of footsteps approaching snaps the man's eyes up from his work like a whip, a glimpse of a madness brought on by eons lived is clear for just a moment before being replaced by a cold indifference reserved for something regarded as worth less than the raw human waste flowing through sewers. With three sharp arcane words the candle flares to a blinding brilliance causing those shadows to flee back to the abyss, and the man raises gracefully to his feet. As he rounds the table he leaves a ghostly apparition still seated at the table, still writing furiously in the dark tome. He raises a hand to forestall the intruders speech as he replies. "I know what it is you seek, the question weighs on your soul like a cancer. Eating away your sanity as a parasite and the only cure is within this library." His voice is a harsh whisper, like a snake crawling over dead grass. "The question you will have to ask yourself is are you willing to pay the price for your knowledge. Are you willing to lose more than your soul in the persuit of this knowledge? Will you abandon your humanity, your very essence?" The librarians dry laughter holds a tinge of sinister insanity at it's very depths. The intruders skin attempts to crawl from their bones to get away. "Abandon hope. If you stand in this hall you are already lost."

Edited March 25, 2022 by Mirbiggs

[Mirbiggs]

Welcome to the dark library. We specialize in dark, forbidden knowledge... You know, all the naughty stuff mortals shouldn't know. Please take your time to browse our ancient books, but beware.... All knowledge has a price.

[Kethlia]

My body feels the cold of death and smells its decaying breath as I use my left foot to step from my street into my doorway.  This place isn't my living room.  I gaze around and see rows of bookcases and tomes that disappear into the shadows.  I look down and there are also scrolls and sheafs of paper strewn about in some fashion of order that escapes my intellect.  I place my right foot down on the hardwood floor without a mote of dust being disturbed.  The glow of a light source behind something ahead ebbs and wanes ahead of me.  I walk forward with caution.  I don't want to piss off the library, aides and owner, by damage the items around me.  I step around a particularly large stack of volumes that tilts at an odd angle, holding my breath.  I gasp and suck in my breath so involuntarily that I end up coughing behind a fist.  I don't know what is going on before me, but the tale and the storyteller have me enraptured by their intonation.  My mind has gone on leave and left me in a Library guarded by Death himself! Oh, come on!  

 

"Welcome to the dark library. We specialize in dark, forbidden knowledge... You know, all the naughty stuff mortals shouldn't know. Please take your time to browse our ancient books, but beware.... All knowledge has a price."  My body begins to shiver at the warning and invite.  I didn't have plans to visit such a place tonight.  Just me, my bed and some random videos online before sleeping like a log.  I take a step back, bumping into books, remembering the tower that I had stepped around and turning to keep it steady.  I breath in the dust and paper smell of an old library using my breath to calm down my accelerated heartbeat.  I look back the way I had come and see that the door to my place no longer exists.  Damn it!  What entity of heaven or hell did I piss off to get here?!  I think about anything that I could've touched or encountered that would lead to a realm jump like this.  Though I guess if I'm thinking straight, it's more accurate to say that this is a crossing of thresholds that.... Shit!  I had picked up a book that was someone's idea of self-help for the perpetually susceptible person.  I had laughed at the book wondering how it even got through the editorial staff much less the publishing company.  Note to self, no more picking up stray books like stray pets and taking them home!  My body goes rigid as the darkness becomes more than shadows and starts to suck from my vitality. Permission to drain me was not granted! Back off! My mind screams as one liquified horror of the senses runs through my minds after each other. I shift my attention back to the Deathly Librarian and wonder what price my ignorance is about to make me pay.   

Edited December 7, 2022 by Kethlia