Dramatis Personae

• Cosmos aka The Management (Adelphin’s Ally): Cat and hotel manager. No, really. He’s got keys to everywhere, but is still a cat. Tagline: *Forgets to cat*.
• Rui Qui (Adelphin’s Ally): Theogenic Demigod. Hacker, magician, and entrepreneur. The team’s backup fighter and sneaker. Tagline: “Reality is just another simulation to be hacked.”

Previously . . .

Last time August Brodie got involved with the team, revealing himself to be an apotheosized mortal. They acclimate themselves to the new member as Auggie gets used to the hotel. The next day, everyone in the team wakes up to a wax sealed white letter next to them. Liam asks his stone if it’s a trap, but gets no answer. And when they open it, fancy lettering burns itself across the letter, words are probably in English. The Library cordially invites the group to meet the head Librarian. Angelica, Frau Holle’s child, tells Auggie that it’s an amazing thing to be invited to such a place. It’s an organization that collects rare things in general, artefacts, relics, other things and there are patrons that enjoy those things, especially if one can get a Library Card which can grant access to things that organizations like The Kindly Ones wouldn’t want to be seen. Rui is extremely excited while the voices in Auggie are arguing about things which causes Auggie to flick the mental shut up switch a few times and has an argument with them about getting along better. Suveer, on the other hand, is very sad that he’s not actually going to Hogwarts.

Mysterious Letters

Adelphin Jean-Baptiste, Liam O’Shea, Mitzidu Ito, Suveer Patel, & Yannis Papadopoulos
Karnival Resort Hotel and Casino
Wednesday July 25th, 2012, 0900 hours
3500 Paradise Rd, Las Vegas, NV 89169

Auggie, having broken into the minibar’s macadamia nuts, says that he’s got nothing better to do and says they might as well go and meets up with most of the rest of the group. . . and Cosmo. Auggie cannot comprehend Cosmo’s existence, insisting that it’s not a cat as he watches one of its eyes expand, explode, and reform. It doesn’t make Auggie seem any saner, especially as he sees it play with a switchblade as everyone else seems to see it flexing its claws. Mitzidu, meanwhile, assumes that it’s a private invitation and heads there by himself after his daily business. While on the way, Liam texts Mitzidu about what they’ve got and where they’re headed which elicits a disappointed response from Mitzidu, having thought himself special.

To the Library!

Adelphin Jean-Baptiste, Liam O’Shea, Mitzidu Ito, Suveer Patel, & Yannis Papadopoulos
Karnival Resort Hotel and Casino
Wednesday July 25th, 2012, 1100 hours
1700 Hassett Avenue, Las Vegas, NV 89104

They reach their location, a boarded-up house in a neighborhood, but once everyone arrives and disembarks their vehicles, everyone gets a weird feeling about it. It’s obviously magical and Auggie sees evidence of people coming and going while Rui is excited to open the door, but it opens itself and a woman appears. Dark chestnut hair with above average appearance and is wearing a flannel skirt and a sweater dress, without any kind of divine tingle but lots of magic surrounding her, and inviting them inside and introducing herself as Lindsey Merril. She seems to frown at Auggie quite a bit when he presents his invitation by pulling it from his shoe before filing away the invitations and pulling out chalk. Liam asks her who normally sends out the invitation and she responds that it’s normally from the Head Librarian, Auggie asks if they have a name or if he should just refer to them as Mr. Head. Lindsey frowns a lot more and tells Auggie not to introduce himself as she opens a door beneath the staircase leading into another dimension.

In the Library!

Adelphin Jean-Baptiste, Liam O’Shea, Mitzidu Ito, Suveer Patel, & Yannis Papadopoulos
Karnival Resort Hotel and Casino
Wednesday July 25th, 2012, 1230 hours
1700 Hassett Avenue, Las Vegas, NV 89104

The room that they step into is large and vaulted with the doorway in the middle of the large room surrounding by shelves of books. Auggie investigates the doorway, walking around it a few times and sticking his head through. From the back, the portal doesn’t exist and the door is just standing there with an open doorway and he keeps investigating it, determining that there’s something strange going on there. Mitzidu and the rest approach the help desk along with Lindsey who says that the assistant librarian will help them with their needs, which causes more questions from Auggie that pains Lindsey. Adelphin takes over conversing with Lindsey, causing her to be less angry.

Mitzidu investigates the stacks when a page appears at his elbow, asking if they could help them as he’s probably supposed to be waiting at the desk. Asking about certain books reveals that there are restricted materials and the available items are about as dangerous as any other book at the newsstands. When Mitzidu asks for a recommendations, he’s given an original scroll from 15^th century Japan about Onmyojis which he reads while he waits. Liam asks if they’ve got any books that weren’t never written by mortals and Lindsey responds that they have any book written every, though quite a few tomes are restricted. While some worlds may not have druidic texts, some might did end up writing them down. After about an hour, the group gets a mullato woman coming for them wearing her hair in an elaborate beaded style and is fairly tall at slightly over six feet tall without any high heels or platforms, she smiles warmly and introduces herself as Shiela Tovar-Holmes, the Head Librarian of the branch.

She speaks with them about current events and that they’ve moved the main branch of The Library to Las Vegas for the duration of the Harrowing so patrons will have access to the materials they paid for. They don’t offer asylum, but still a bit of sanctuary as the main rule is that there’s no fighting inside the Library without penalties. She invites them to follow her to her office and she’d explain why she invited them there. They get to walk through what feels like miles of shelves and get onto an old 40s-style elevator with a cage door that seems to go faster than it should. Auggie is pretty sure that the elevator doesn’t move, it just puts them into a quantum state and then the elevator appears where the operator wants it to appear, in this case a fairly large room of a 1000 sq feet with bookselves full of books and objects and other items, a conversation pit from the 60s, a desk, one wall is a large pane of glass with scenes constantly changing across it.

Shiela moves to the desk and sits down, there’s an appropriate amount of chairs for everyone there, including a larger one for Liam. Once everyone is seated, she asks them what they know about The Library. It’s the Akashic Library, the sum total of all the knowledge in the universe and they can access the knowledge if they could know how. The Library was build to allow access to knowledge that may be helpful and trying to keep away dangerous knowledge. The Library gives access to stores of knowledge depending on who they feel is worth it. There’s also open memberships where one could buy either a basic or prime membership. It’s a collection of people that believe that knowledge should be preserved, no matter what. They try not to interfere if possible, but when they do then they go all in. Things that would cause them to get involved include dangerous knowledge or supernatural nukes or outside gods or even just massive loss of life is something that could occur, or if a divination tells them to. Though some of it is very subjective, and may depend on what the Head Librarian decides, which brings it to their current state.

Shiela says they want them to find something, and that their divination says that they’re the best chance they’ve got at finding it. When asked what they want them to find, she says they’re looking for a key of sorts but to know more they’d have to make an oath. Giving them a contract, which seems to basically be a standard magic NDA preventing them from sharing information from anyone else except those within the room at that time. Mitzidu is fine with signing it while Liam is more hesitant. Adelphin and Suveer sign without an issue. Auggie looks over the contract and asks Shiela where the consideration is, and she says that monetary compensation may be available but they may also be interested in getting a favour from the Library instead, they eventually settle on Auggie getting temporary access to the seventh circle of books while Adelphin tries to hold out on a favour of equal or lesser value, which this just being an NDA to keep from sharing the information with anyone else, it would be a very small favor. They get the contracts amended, initialed, and photographed with Adelphin’s camera phone that disappears into Auggie’s pocket.

She pulls out a folder with a photograph, something that the Nazis got ahold of back in 1942 and were using it to try to open something, possibly to the realm of the outer gods. Beings outside reality that are dangerously indifferent to the lives within it, they either don’t care or they feed upon the life within. The vast majority just eat and eat and eat but the top ones can be bargained with. They think that one person, Matthias Teufelshausen got into contact. They tried to confront them, but the key got thrown through the portal and lost or broken into many pieces. Apparently, as a part of the Thule Society, otherwise known as the Order of Leviathan, an organization within an organization and in Las Vegas to find pieces of the key. She shows them a symbol known as the mark of leviathan, or Satan’s cross, or the alchemical symbol for sulfur.

They’ve got quite a bit of information on them, but the majority of them were killed during the incident though Matthias got away and he seems to be functionally immortal. They’ve killed him before but seems to have come back, at least on six different occasions. As far as they can tell, the key was broken into six or seven different pieces. They’ve also come into possession of a Forever Box they believe to contain an eye, conjuring a picture of a box with glowing sides on it, that appears similar to the one that Auggie brought with him, as though it were part of a set. The Eye was set into three different containers, they have one, Adelphin has one, and they know the last can be gotten if they can get to the Forever Box that holds a piece of the eye and unlock it.

The hope is that the Thule won’t get there first and that they don’t care what happens with the eye as long as they get the key. The eye will let them find the key while the key must be protected from some of those within the Compact. Shiela won’t tell them what pantheon it is, claiming that the best way forward is to not know anything. They know the location, but it’s not in their world, it’s in other dimensions. Lost places for lost items.

Aftermath

She scoffs at the question if they’re a pantheon in and of themselves, there may be some that come from other pantheons that come to the Library and swear an oath of loyalty. She also says that according to their diviners, they’ve got the best mix of competent and crazy to get it done and if they do then they may have the best chance at surviving the first night of the Harrowing. Shiela is offering a favour and the chance of sponsorship. They group sees the contract, it’s straightforward and lists the dangers inherent as well as the start date. There’s no consequences if they try and fail, just that they won’t get what has been promised to them. Everyone signs the contracts, temporarily empowering them as the Library’s retrieval experts. They’re ushered back to the Hotel and sent dossiers and a lot of various information like dimension maps.

After Action Report (GM)

A really good session. Took forever for us to get back to gaming thanks to a number of events that happened at the end of September and kept happening. Got to introduce the Library today and that was awesome. Some of the players bargained for things and in the end everyone agreed to work temporarily for the Library for the good of all. Also allows me to bring back a bad guy from the beginning of the season and another team as well as let the PCs know there is more out there than they might have otherwise thought.

Other Notes

Bonus report here.

Soundtrack

“Warm Shadow” by Fink (Opening Song)
“No Sanctuary” by Unsecret
“Ride like the Wind” by Christopher Cross (Closing Song)