Something a little different

Chapter 113

While occupied by the issue with the hounds 42 hadn’t exactly neglected the dungeon, but she had gotten behind on certain chores. Something she found herself unconcerned by, largely because she’d set the schedule for them herself. They were more for her comfort than anything else, after all, routine helped her function.

Still, after making sure the new puppies seemed healthy, 42 made a point of doing rounds. She checked her layouts, popped into the various staff areas, and generally made her presence felt. Politely though, she didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable. It was more of a social call than an inspection.

Normally that kind of thing had mixed results. Most of the bone brigade were either disinterested in anything but the raid league or standoffish when it came to 42 herself. They didn’t like to ask for things unless they had to and being necromantic constructs, they rarely needed anything. True to form though, the bards were an exception.

Heading for the library, 42 found herself slowing down to take it in. Originally it had been a simple room with cut-in bookshelves. Now it was an entirely different beast, despite not having much of an inventory.

Massive double stone doors led into a high-ceilinged sitting area. The furniture was a collaborative effort between 42 and Zalry Thistleblossom Clavicle. The halfling fighter was one of the few who’d elected to have her increase his ranks in the craft. Ranks he'd gotten from a half-finished apprenticeship. A thankful turn of events, as she only knew the general shape furniture could take, rather than how they were constructed.

Now the space was full of low, comfortable chairs to sag into or high-back ones if someone were feeling fancy, as well as study desks and simpler chairs. Likewise, they’d worked together to create standing shelving for the floor as well. 42 had fussed over that in particular.

Given the range of heights its potential users encompassed, she’d chosen to start hip high to a halfling and stop at about four feet height. It was a comfortable range of browsing for most. Rather than have rolling step stools like those found back on her prior world, 42 had made the bottom section pull-out blocks for the halflings, in case they had trouble reaching something.

Above, the arched ceiling had a complex series of vaults. 42 had been tempted to paint it and everything else like the Stiftsbibliothek Admont of Austria at first. It was well within her ability, even if it would take time. All of the designs had felt too heavy-handed in the end though.

Instead, 42 had opted for something closer in aesthetic to the Brazilian Real Gabinete Português de Leitura. She’d elected to emphasize the wood and natural pink stone with carving and an occasional alteration to make a bit of it lighter or darker as suited the design.

The books, when they had enough. would provide the actual color pop to make the design come alive. Said books being the issue which she was going to discuss as she found the pair who’d texted her to talk. 42 hoped the atmosphere would feel lively, but relaxed once it had more patrons.

Thinking about the libraries in question 42 could easily conjure up a number of others in her mind. The thoughts weren’t terribly complete, maybe a few facts and images. As if she’d learned about them from a top ten list rather than visited. Like a lot of glimpses into who she might have been, 42 had the distinct impression she’d been more of an informational magpie than any kind of scholar.

“Mistress, the library is in shambles! We have more books you’ve made than any other kind,” Mirabella Fairburn Humerus chided. She was one of the newer additions, a halfling bard.

The fact that Tiberius Finley Radius, wizard and possibly the closest person to a friend Aaron had, was backing Mirabella up was interesting. Not so much because 42 thought they didn’t get along, but rather because she hadn’t been aware he was interested in the library to such an extent. Aaron had almost nothing to do with it.

Mirabella was three feet of determination and springs. Clad in bright yellow leather pants and tunic, she was also hard to miss. Like a half goat sunbeam flitting about the library. She used the ladder rail on the outer wall shelving as a hand or foothold when she jumped to get something. The ladder itself was apparently too much of a bother. Her tail subbed in as a makeshift hand when needed for balance or grip.

“It's true Mistress, even if you added Aaron and my collections, we’d have less than two hundred volumes of any merit,” Tiberius added. It was an exaggeration, but not much of one. 42 had been making short books for Chris and the only real issue with those was inspiration. Local texts, though, were harder to come by.

Unlike Mirabella, Tiberius wasn’t squaring up like he expected an argument. He had a more sedate personality that reminded 42 of a particularly patient university professor. His appearance also wasn’t exactly incongruent with that feeling.

Tiberius had been in his eighties when he died. When given the choice with his illusion of life, he’d opted to appear somewhere in his mid-forties; hair already salt and pepper. His clothes were a muted contrast to Mirabella’s. He favored creams and navy with a wide-sleeved robe over his trouser and tunic. A little velvet hat finished off the ensemble and made him look a bit like a Venetian merchant as depicted in some art.

Though Tiberius wasn’t exactly what 42 thought of when she thought ‘wizard’ she kept that to herself. She had no idea what the aesthetics of his original world were like. He might have been on point for a wizard by those standards. Or the outfit was just comfortable. She made a mental note to work on her video game informed expectations of class coding by appearance. It was silly and she knew it.

“Look, I swear I’m not being stingy, books are on the list of things for Elim to get. But he’s only one guy and he hasn’t been in places that had a lot,” 42 offered, hands up placatingly. Elim had been adding entire shelves of books to the inventory when he got the chance. The trouble was that quite a lot of them were the same ones in different bindings or slightly different titles, but the same story.

“Be that as it may, something needs to be done,” Mirabella said, every inch of her three feet ramrod straight.

“Yes, and I’ll do it as soon as I think of what exactly that is,” 42 said and sighed. Her tail was coiling and uncoiling to lash for a moment before going back to coiling. Something she only realized when she heard a rustling of papers. While she’d been preoccupied it had knocked into some on the table behind her.

“Hopefully, soon I will have some new mortal employees,” 42 added. How useful the girls would be for shopping was questionable, though she’d supplied similar terms on the point as Elim’s. They wouldn’t need to pay out of pocket, but whether they’d come across anything useful was uncertain.

“The women in the valley agreed?” Tiberius asked, his surprise clear.

“Yeah, I could hardly believe it too,” 42 replied.

“You have a private collection?” Mirabella asked with a faint growl in her voice. Tiberius squirmed a little, clearly uncomfortable at the possibility of being made to share.

“I can make copies,” 42 reminded the pair. It took more than simple literacy to make use of magic texts, so there wasn’t any particular danger in having them in the general collection. If it were otherwise, she’d have had to seriously put some thought into how to keep Chris out of them.

“Thank you, Mistress,” Tiberius said with open relief.

Thinking about Aaron and Tiberius’s respective book collections, something occurred to 42. She pulled up an encyclopedia entry on Isold, the Mage Kingdom. It seemed a relevant choice since that was where they were technically located. She converted the entry into a book and handed it to Mirabella.

“That's a pull from the system, so it's accurate, but not exactly a riveting read. Rather than just waiting on books, why don’t we make some of our own?” 42 offered. She had sixteen bards to keep occupied, eight humans, and eight halflings. This seemed like something that would work when they weren't transcribing music and stories from their home worlds.

“Pardon?” Mirabella said, clearly caught on the back foot.

“Think about you, you guys could take the factual stuff and make it less dry. I mean, it wouldn’t be hard to set up a printing press if you wanted to start from scratch. Then you could illuminate the texts and add illustrations and I can just make system copies,” 42 continued, warming up to the idea. All aspects of making a book were arts unto themselves from binding, to cover making, and so on.

“What's a printing press?” Mirabell and Tiberius asked together.