Council of Rhakotis (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
specialcollections) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
librarycardedooc2022-04-01 10:00 pm
specialcollections) wrote in librarycardedooc2022-04-01 10:00 pm
Entry tags:
TEST DRIVE
TDM
SCOUTING - WHO'S THAT VILLAIN
It says something for the time that the walls of the pyramids are still gleaming, new and bright and shining, sanded impossibly sleek. They're a glimmering temptation for tomb robbers, but for the moment they're safe and well guarded. The Nile is more blessed and lush than it would be in later years, though not quite as fertile as it would have been a century earlier.
Something is supposed to happen tonight, though, and the Library has no idea what. Just that it's supposed to happen on this night. That in the morning, the massive tombs will be reduced to rubble, that the Sphinx will be little more than assorted boulders, that bodies will fill the desert. Something will continue hunting the world and shattering all of the holy relics and religious iconography that connects mankind to their gods and the next life. For someone technologically minded? Not a big deal. But a huge one when someone with a particularly blessed soul needs to be born in another 4,500 years and won't have the power to fight the threat that they need to.
If someone can catch the moment when things might turn, either return for help or stop it themselves, they can save not just the lives of those in the Pharoh's domain. They just need to know exactly what and when. It could be another time traveler stopping a threat at its source. It could be some sort of hellish force lashing back against the gods. It just needs to be stopped.
Something is supposed to happen tonight, though, and the Library has no idea what. Just that it's supposed to happen on this night. That in the morning, the massive tombs will be reduced to rubble, that the Sphinx will be little more than assorted boulders, that bodies will fill the desert. Something will continue hunting the world and shattering all of the holy relics and religious iconography that connects mankind to their gods and the next life. For someone technologically minded? Not a big deal. But a huge one when someone with a particularly blessed soul needs to be born in another 4,500 years and won't have the power to fight the threat that they need to.
If someone can catch the moment when things might turn, either return for help or stop it themselves, they can save not just the lives of those in the Pharoh's domain. They just need to know exactly what and when. It could be another time traveler stopping a threat at its source. It could be some sort of hellish force lashing back against the gods. It just needs to be stopped.
SALVAGE - A GOOD BOY
What was once a mighty secretive organization on an alien world has failed in its protective duties. Facilities with rows and rows of protective cells now lay derelict. In this one building in particular, some doors are torn off their hinges. Bodies can be found in various positions of anguish. Something, or a variety of somethings, scoured this world clean of the dominant sapient life and as a last-ditch effort to save what they could the people of this complex loosed every captive creature and being that they were keeping, and they still didn't manage to reach them all.
But in this building there's a very special computer, one with a predictive nature. There are any number of exceptional relics here that could be brought back to Alexandria, and they'd love them all, but the researchers would especially like to add this computer to enhance their powers of prediction to get the most accurate results with the most certainty possible.
Problem is that there are a lot of special access cards, many locked doors, and a few nigh-on-indestructible monsters between here and there. Such a small little thing might not be such a simple task to retrieve, especially in a building that seems specifically made of materials to inhibit teleportation (can't let certain subjects get loose, after all).
But in this building there's a very special computer, one with a predictive nature. There are any number of exceptional relics here that could be brought back to Alexandria, and they'd love them all, but the researchers would especially like to add this computer to enhance their powers of prediction to get the most accurate results with the most certainty possible.
Problem is that there are a lot of special access cards, many locked doors, and a few nigh-on-indestructible monsters between here and there. Such a small little thing might not be such a simple task to retrieve, especially in a building that seems specifically made of materials to inhibit teleportation (can't let certain subjects get loose, after all).
COURSE CORRECTION - BROKEN ENGLISH
There is an outcome that can't be avoided in this particular path. London is burning, people are dying, the streets are filled with carnage in one man's ceaseless search for war. Blimps travel overhead, spouting tinny German down upon panicked civilians as literally monstrous nazi soldiers attack the streets.
The sky is filled with zeppelins, and planes drop bombs in a throwback to the old war from decades before. In another universe with similar souls, this would be playing out differently. An exceptional team of monster hunters would be stopping this disaster, teaming up and with noble sacrifices eventually stopping the onslaught. But in this universe there is no noble sacrifices, no loyal soldiers to secret organizations built into the world to run out and prove themselves, no religious warriors ready to exact holy deeds.
There are just monsters. Vampires, werewolves, and clumsily made cyborgs are ready to use their various skills to go find what the planes and zeppelins overhead cannot. This needs to be stopped by a team of sufficient skill and strength to do so.
The sky is filled with zeppelins, and planes drop bombs in a throwback to the old war from decades before. In another universe with similar souls, this would be playing out differently. An exceptional team of monster hunters would be stopping this disaster, teaming up and with noble sacrifices eventually stopping the onslaught. But in this universe there is no noble sacrifices, no loyal soldiers to secret organizations built into the world to run out and prove themselves, no religious warriors ready to exact holy deeds.
There are just monsters. Vampires, werewolves, and clumsily made cyborgs are ready to use their various skills to go find what the planes and zeppelins overhead cannot. This needs to be stopped by a team of sufficient skill and strength to do so.
DOMESTIC - HOME SWEET HOME
Because Alexandria was pretty much built off refugees from different worlds, there's a wonderful mix of species and races and foods and types of construction in the civilian portions of the city, the areas that aren't part of the massive library. Unfortunately, some people do still carry old hate with them and fights do still break out. People do still have their very natural flaws.
A particularly rough fight, in true dramatic movie fashion, led to a bunch of sales carts in an open market being crashed in.
If you want your fair share of groceries, some of the vendors are letting people take some, or are making them simple dishes of food, if they help them clean up in the aftermath of the brawl.
A particularly rough fight, in true dramatic movie fashion, led to a bunch of sales carts in an open market being crashed in.
If you want your fair share of groceries, some of the vendors are letting people take some, or are making them simple dishes of food, if they help them clean up in the aftermath of the brawl.
R&D - MAGICAL DESIGN
Everyone's heard of the stereotypical crystal ball, and there is a healthy collection of them in the library. Unfortunately most of them operate via magic, and in magical aversive worlds this doesn't give course correctors and scouts much time for caution if they need to check their pathing. So the Library is putting the R&D department to the unique task of creating a completely digital version.
This may involve converting it to magitek first, or careful trial and error in a testing room, or just losing sleep over design attempts while a magical orb stares you in the face.
Whatever is the case, it's now your assignment to help in the creation of a device that can provide glimpses a few days into the future using this relic as a base. Try not to break it. Getting them is expensive and troublesome.
This may involve converting it to magitek first, or careful trial and error in a testing room, or just losing sleep over design attempts while a magical orb stares you in the face.
Whatever is the case, it's now your assignment to help in the creation of a device that can provide glimpses a few days into the future using this relic as a base. Try not to break it. Getting them is expensive and troublesome.
no subject
"AHA found it!" She's finally snatches up the device she needs it. But then extends one of those long, undulating pigtails over to Sucrose.
"Can I see that book for a moment?" She has an idea.
no subject
Sucrose slips her bookmark (it's fairly plain, but the top of it is cut as such to look like cat ears) into place before closing it, and then she holds it out for Entrapta...'s hair... to take. (Those moving pigtails are still fascinating. B-But it's rude to ask to experiment on someone's hair.)
no subject
Mostly measurements.
"Old Ones tech is great for crystal conversation because it's made to work with computerized technology. I've seen many worlds though where the crystal isn't a component of operation, it's a way to implement visuals. I wonder what causes the crystals in those worlds to be so ineffectual- I mean, that has to be the cause, right?"
no subject
Which she's now talking about, so Sucrose sets the book aside for now -- she's got her place saved already, after all -- and comes over to watch what Entrapta is doing. Even if she still doesn't really understand much about computers... It's clear that Entrapta is wanting her engagement, so she'll try her best.
"M-Maybe it's the type of crystal? If the Old Ones had access to a kind of crystal unique to where they're from... That isn't available in other worlds."
no subject
And amidst this rambling she scratches her scalp with her own hair. Probably a wierd kind of thing to see for most people. Though Entrapta has casually noted that with her ears, Sucrose could easily pass for someone from her world, possibly one of the Beastfolk.
"Much of the technology here is on a level beyond my comprehension as well," which is disappointing for her. But! "I can still lend my expertise in crystal analysis and hope that it unlocks some potential use."
no subject
As Sucrose gets used to the way Entrapta talks, though, the more she finds that there's a lot familiarity in those fast words. She reminds her a little of Mr. Albedo, but she can also almost see... herself in there, somehow. It's hard to quantify, so she doesn't want to say that for certain. But that's the feeling she gets.
"My own focus is in bio-alchemy. So m-most of my experience with crystals is in using ores as transformative ingredients. But where I'm from, everything operates on the principle of elemental energy. The only people who utilize and see it are those who have been acknowledged by the gods and given a Vision." Sucrose extends one pointer finger and touches it to her own Anemo Vision, which she's using as a pin for her fluffy black scarf. The Vision glows in soft pulses in time with her breathing. "They aren't truly crystals, but when you talk about the sooth-sayer orb containing mystical energy in its geometry, that's what it makes me think of."
no subject
"I would love to see the particular specs on that if you have any. I know that people claim that magic isn't quantifiable but there's no reason that instruments can't be developed to make it. After all if some life forms possess or develop sensory capabilities to detect it then it should be able to be measured through artificial means."
Though that has her thinking- are there particular receptors in soothsayers that make the orb more accessible? The sudden derailment of the conversation by her own thoughts becomes evident on her face as she scratches her chin with a lock of her hair.
no subject
no subject
"They have devices specifically for measuring thaumaturgy here! I'm so excited. Do you know anything that can blow up? Not here, of course. There's a lot of technical equipment and itty bitty pieces and the sprinklers already went off early this work..."
But what girl doesn't like measuring an incredible power output.
no subject
It's an important distinction. There are many, many, many things that blow up, but what kind of blowing up matters. Given the context, Sucrose thinks Entrapta probably means specifically in relation to Visions, but... W-With this kind of thing, it's good to get clarification.
"There are quite a few things on Teyvat that explode, and all of them have to do with elemental energy... Which would give us a baseline to compare other forms of energy to." As she speaks, she's conceptualizing the plan for herself. "A-Although, if you want to observe my Vision in action, we don't necessarily need something that blows up. Just a safe space for me to use it."
no subject
"...What flavor of cupcake do you like?" She needs to check that before she procedes with this very important topic.
"We can have tiny food and smoothies and do experiments!"