Scene #3415: The Collapse

Owner	Pose
Mizuki	As per the norm, the doors to the library have been left wide open. A bit more contrary to expectation, perhaps, is the fact that there is no motion in the Silent City: all residents seem to have confined themselves to their homes, leaving the environment to feel utterly stagnant and painted. Little flair has been established to accompany Arthur's appearance out of inattention or outright negligence -- a tangible hint, or perhaps explicit evidence of Mizuki's preoccupation. It's almost fitting that a few red-tinted fall leaves have managed to sneak their way into the foyer of the library in this case: just more showing of how disheveled the world becomes when its warden is not in her right frame of mind.
Mizuki	So Mizuki isn't at all content to wait at the fountain as she normally might. She is immediately beside the door when Arthur enters, arms folded neatly behind her back, visage held captive by an unusually hard seriousness. Still, she does her utmost to spare her guest a smile. This is a thing that always grows easier over time. "Thank you for always being available on such short notice," She says. "I really should try to arrange these things a bit less spontaneously some time, incorporate even the faintest little bit of planning. It would make these meetings much less haphazard, perhaps even more fruitful. At least in this case, though, there should be no issue. I don't mean to accomplish anything so much as I mean to demonstrate what I may mean to do in the near future."
Mizuki	"But walk with me," She goes on. "It's a fair ways to the particular nook of the library I mean to show you, so we had best start on our way now." She hesitates only a moment before turning away from him, starting for the left of the two grand staircases. On her way, she continues, "Ah, and I'm sorry to have said what I did over the radio so abruptly. I should've handled the subject with more care, I know, but I couldn't fathom another way to broach it. The band-aid analogy was the operative one in this case: say it quickly, spare both of us more shock and embarrassment at the prospect. In hindsight I can hardly believe what I was about to do, how destructive it might've been. Even less can I believe that Mister Fairfax might have been willing to let me go through with it... but I'm getting ahead of myself. Would you rather discuss this first, or the issue of the thing I wish to show you?"
Arthur Lowell	Arthur Lowell is heading on in. The lack of a show is noted, in a sense, but it's also an atmosphere of its own sort. Arthur knows what's natural here, so the juxtaposition does hit him where it matters. A different sort of silence, and a space to think. Arthur assumes there'll be some thinking for them both to do. Also as per the norm, he's not flying or using his gates. He is, after all, an RPG character, meant to stay at the very least low to the ground, where he can appreciate the construction and examine its components even when it's not the stage of a display. And so a few leaves will be crunching under his feet as he wanders into the foyer.
Arthur Lowell	"Hey, take it easy, Mimi. I love the show you put on usually, but... Well, you know." He shrugs in a good-natured way, palms out in a friendly gesture. "I'm not the kind of guy who plans a lot out myself. Haphazard works, sometimes. You don't need to stress out." And of course, he walks, still in that friendly stride. One could think of it as setting his blustery swagger to make a four out of ten setting. "Don't worry about the tact stuff, Mimi. I know what you mean when you say it, and, trust me," He puts two thumbs in his own direction. "I've had way worse shouted at me before. The... Altering reality thing, uh. Well, you know my opinion on that. Think I said it before. Needed to see it before I have an opinion on it. So..." He gives a bit of a half-chuckle. It's there for rhetorical reasons more than anything else. "Maybe you caught a look at it in the nightmare."
Arthur Lowell	The laugh fades as quickly as it was there, like a period fades from the cadence of the flow of words. "Well, I think maybe I should take this in order. We can talk a little about this, if you want to, though we covered most'a that stuff in the meeting. What's new on that? Aside from, uh, ambiguous nightmares." He keeps his pace, but lengthens his stride a little, to get closer next to Mizuki, meant to go to more of a comforting distance than a social one. He can tell she's got a lot on her mind, and that always means a little proximity can help.
Mizuki	"There isn't a terrible much to say, considering how much was covered in the meeting, but," She cups a hand around her mouth a moment in thought, still walking. Her right hand meanders to the railing as she begins her climb. "How to say... a physical sample. What you had wanted. I had intended to use Eryl's world as that sample for all of you and a test run for me, but the more I thought about it the more I began to realize the disastrous implications of giving such power - and freedom - to a people who had been so impoverished for so long. It would have been even more of a shock to them than it would be to, say, contemporaries of the world you lived in before Sburb, or Psyber's Boston. It would have been doomed to failure, I'm afraid. Any humanitarian intent behind it would have been completely overshadowed by the chaos it would have caused. It would have only hurt the infrastructure of Eryl's world before it would have forced me to withdraw my influence."
Mizuki	Moving further up the stairs, she continues, "So I've put that on hold for now, elected to find a more benign setting in which to test that idea. I don't know that there -are- very many good worlds to choose from in the Multiverse for a test of that nature, and any test conducted would be of no more worth than a painfully specific case study. Many of the variables would be incidental, and it would only shed so much light on what an ideal general model for assimilation would look like. That's all there really is to say on the matter, I suppose. My apprehension overcame my ambition in this instance, and I feel we're all much better off for it. It likely spared us no small measure of grief."
Mizuki	She reaches the top of the stairs now and hangs a left, heading into a hall with black-white, checkered flooring and finely wrought, wooden walls overlain in sections by a patterned cream wallpaper. Raising a finger, she adds, "So this is where I segue into the other subject of discussion. Not a week after I woke from that nightmare, and only a few days after I made this conclusion because of it, I happened to stumble upon another book. Yes, yes -- what a find! A book in a library! ... but, no, your thinking is doubtlessly correct: this is a special book. Like the Books of The Past, The Future, and Heaven. Not only -like- them, I suspect, but a fourth in their series. Their lost quintuplet, if you will. And I feel that perhaps the name may strike you as a bit... eerily apropos, considering how long ago it must have been written." Canting her head to look slightly back, she smiles. "The Book of Unification, it's called."
Mizuki	"I happened to step inside of it, and to my tremendous surprise, it was inhabited. Not by characters, but by actual, sentient creatures that were aware of the nature of their existences. There were two of them: a truly bizarrely familiar girl with golden hair, and a masked woman who spoke far too casually for my liking. The latter of them took more of an immediate interest in me, but when I asked her whether I could advance further into the novel, she told me that I could not do so without other people. Do you see why I've asked you here now? Why I'm going to ask as many of you as possible to return here now? This is a book like those we've already explored that was -designed- as a test for a group of people. Perhaps it could provide insight into my past lives. Perhaps it could teach us more about Shiori. And moreover, the thoughts of my past selves may yet illuminate what path I should take going forward."
Arthur Lowell	Arthur actually puts a finger up and opens his mouth, very ready to do a dry bit of humor before Mimi cuts that off amusingly. But he does nod intently, integrating that into a stylish swing around the corner. "I'm seein' what you're getting at here. This is, uh... Hm. Well, I guess, in a way, since it was Shiori's, it's probably another experiment in pulling off what you're after, here." Arthur says, in a contemplative sort of tone. "So, in a way, I guess you're using it for what it was supposed to be used for... Kind of."
Arthur Lowell	"But, look," Arthur puts his palms down flat in a spreading gesture there. "You know my, uh. Well, my beef with Shiori's way of doing things. So, this is a surer bet, I think, but I'm still gonna be kinda careful. You know how I roll, Mimi. I'm not gonna jump to any conclusions, but I wanna be along for the ride, I wanna keep an eye on it. And, hey, sounds like that's gonna help! Just, you know, promise you'll keep an open mind about the solutions we start working out. 'Cause I figure that's what we'll start hitting, and when we do, gotta think about it like sensible people."
Arthur Lowell	Arthur actually chuckles a bit here. "Hey, you know, one of these days you're gonna hit the right answer, and it's gonna blow my next-best-thing outta the water. But, when that happens, I just wanna make sure it's all vetted. So, yeah, Mimi. Whatever this Book of Unification's got, long as we're being rational people about this, I'm into seeing where it goes. We'll take a look at the story and see what we can learn about getting your idea to work in a way that isn't, uh..." He scratches his head a moment, awkwardly. "Well, nightmarish, I guess. Literally nightmarish. Yikes, Mizuki, usually I just lapse into thinking you don't get nightmares at all, what with your... Dream thing." He makes a very ambiguous gesture, which is to say it's a gesture that's hard to describe and that also doesn't describe much.
Mizuki	"Were it so easy. Unfortunately, while I have control over others' perception and the dreams -they- have, I have vanishingly little control over what dreams I may be subjected to. I have no idea why I dream or sleep at all, really - and if you recall I did not do either before I joined the Multiverse, curiously enough - but yes. Unfortunately, for all my sway over time and emotion, I have embarrassingly little inwardly-focused controls. It can be somewhat maddening at times, really, but it's one of the many iniquities that bring me closer to the humanity I would otherwise be even further removed from."
Mizuki	Though the statement of Arthur's reservations garners a nod from her. "Yes, I know the broad strokes of your stance on all of this. And I knew that you would be one of the most interested in the intrinsic value of this endeavor. Psyber and several others I could enumerate will likely accompany us in the interest of helping -me-, specifically, and I've no doubt that's one of your chief interests as well, but I know that you harbor many of my same concerns. I know you will have something of your own to glean from this, and I will need someone with whom I can compare notes, so to speak. This is why I wanted to show all this to you first in large part -- that, and impatience. There is a time and a place for these things, but I was simply not willing to wait to reveal the Book of Unification at all until that day."
Mizuki	It isn't long after she finishes that statement, though, that she finally falls quiet for a while. She hangs another left toward the end of the chess patterned hall, gingerly creaking open a mahogany door to reveal another, seemingly limitless labyrinth of bookcases. "Now stay close to me," She cautions. "It is extremely easy to get lost in this particular section of the library. The first floor is intentionally made to be accessible to visitors, but these higher floors were... not built with any sort of organization in mind. I know my way, of course, but you might find this place to be as impregnable as a maze or mirrors." That said, Mizuki slows her pace somewhat to be sure that Arthur is following along. She doubts very much that the Mage of Space himself will get lost, but one can never be too careful. Not in here.
Mizuki	Assuming all goes well, Mizuki eventually arrives in a seemingly uneventful alleyway of novelettes. The gloomy, dim atmosphere is interrupted here but an oxygonal window with an intricate web of metal bars both framing and designing the pane. The light that filters through its decidedly Gothic architecture seems to concentrate on one book lain against a stone column. Though certainly not the only tome to be set out on its own like this, it nevertheless emits a certain energy. As do all the books that somehow accrue dust in an immaculate world where there exists no biological blemishes that might give rise to it.
Mizuki	Without a moment's hesitation, Mizuki hoists the thing up, blowing on its cover before dusting the remains off with her hand. She holds it against her chest almost lovingly, arms crossed over it in much the same way as a student would hold their textbook, eventually bringing her eyes to Arthur's with a much more calm, even smile than the one she gave earlier. "I suppose this doesn't need any more introduction, does it? Let me know when you are ready to enter, and I will set it down for us." Kinda eager to get on with the show, it seems.
Arthur Lowell	Arthur progresses all the gloomy atmosphere. Mizuki goes silent for the most part, and Arthur shares in the silence. The gloomy, gothic atmosphere of an aged library, something Arthur can recognize as something Mizuki appreciates, is something he allows to saturate the atmosphere. He even reels back his usual bluster, reducing his walks from strides to shuffling. The increasingly gothic atmosphere offered by the singular light from that window is something he lets frame him in a dark sort of way as he nears the book whe Mizuki picks it up.
Arthur Lowell	"There's not much I can do to get more ready, Mizuki." Arthur says, taking a deep breath. "Familiar with golden hair, masked woman... Alright, I'll keep my eyes out and be ready, just in case. Nothing more I can do. Let's hit it, Mimi." He crosses his arms and assumes one of those few dramatically cool postures his practice has let him execute with regular perfection, ready to deal with entering the book...
Mizuki	Mizuki flashes a smile before opening the book and setting it gingerly, soundlessly against the floorboards. "Still," She wisps, "it would have been in poor taste to open it without giving you some form of warning. But without further adieu..." She opens the book about midway, to a pair of pages emblazoned with one half of a massive, runic symbol: something like a plus sign with curled edges. In one way, it's reminiscent of the Swastika; in another, of clockwise motion. This emblem is visible for only the fraction of an instant, though, before the opened pages erupt in light, pouring forth a vortex of stars that quickly collapse upon themselves to make a portal. Visible within it is a dimly lit room littered with loose pages and caved in rafters, all of which are illuminated by a hearth in the corner of the room.
Mizuki	Though no sooner have Arthur and Mizuki looked glimpsed inside than have they been transported to the area properly. It's a troubling sensation, really: one moment you are staring at the image on a page, and in the next you are looking from the same perspective, at the same visual, but suddenly the peripheries of that locale are visible as well. A dilapidated elevator dominates one fraction of the realm and a mighty set of double doors another. Nothing, however, escapes a persist feeling of familiarity. Arthur has been here before, and he would -know- that he has been here before, even if the identity of this place is not immediately evident. Based on the deep breath she takes and the sympathetic look she briefly shares with Arthur upon their arrival, she is experiencing much the same.
Mizuki	Before they have too much time to stew on all that, though, the promised 'Masked Woman' walks out from behind a massive wall of books. She's cradling what looks to be a plain, ceramic coffee mug in her hand, and she's about to take a sip from it before she notices Arthur and Mizuki. "Oh," Her voice is deceptively plain and without any sort of cumbersome emotional quality. "It's you again. And you brought a friend this time, huh?" The facade turns in appraisal of Arthur, head tilting up then down in brief observation. "Yo," She says. "But you know you need more than one other person to go further in, right? Like, four or so. You need at least four." At that, Mizuki waves her left hand dismissively. "No, no," She asserts, "that isn't why we've come. I only wanted to introduce you to this one. This is... ah, no, I'd best let him speak for himself."
Mizuki	Though likely before he could have the opportunity to provide introduction, the other promised occupant of this realm comes rushing in. She has one of the many scattered pages from the floor clasped tightly in her hand, and since the light of the fire makes the paper translucent, one can easily see through to a sketch of one stick figure holding hands with a fathomlessly more intricate figure. The former has yellow hair and a bow mounted on a body of solid black lines whilst the other is a ludicrously detailed apparition in a nigh-perfect facsimile of the masked woman's vestments. A sketch of the two of them, clearly, but why is the quality so dissonant between the two of them?
Mizuki	"Miss M, Miss M!" The girl proudly brandishes the paper for the masked woman. "I finished the drawing~!" For now, the masked woman nods her head approvingly, rewarding her with a soft few pats on the head. "I'll give it a closer look in a second, but hey, we've got some people here. Don't make 'em feel like shadows." The girl jumps at the realization as though she earnestly hadn't seen the two of them before that instant. The arm holding the picture snaps back, holding it close to her face, obscuring her mouth. She shuffles and fidgets in place a moment, clearly bashful, though she eventually manages to mumble a 'Hi' behind the paper. "I-It's, uh... nice to see you again, red-eye lady. And, uhm... P-Pajamas? Yeah, I'll call you Pajamas. Or would you like Mr. Pajamas more?" She cants her head in earnest curiosity.
Arthur Lowell	That symbol... Arthur stares as it comes up, something flashing in his mind. But it'll fade quite quickly. Arthur's here is noe somewhere else! He's disoriented now that there's such a quick change, but as a veteran of teleportation, he's quick to adjust. He regards the environment with a quiet appreciation. Cozy! But that feeling... It disables Arthur's usual blustery reaction while his mind tries to pull some link from billions of years of memory. He knows he's been here. Something to do with Shiori...? But here comes the masked woman. Arthur was still wrapped up in his contemplation at the moment she spoke up, and was cut off in his response by her partner!
Arthur Lowell	Instead of speaking up as soon as he's ready, he lets the other two natives(...?) finish up their talk, sitting there and just sort of chilling while they do. When they're done, he snaps back into a response. "PJ, huh? Well you're HALF RIGHT, though it's S'PPOSED t'be PB!" Arthur says, enthusiastically to the girl who is not Miss M. "You call me WHATEVER YOU WANT, though. So, an ARTIST, huh? Heh, NICE. Hear that's a GOOD GIG around THESE PLACES." He seems to be fine with Pajamas, but then again, he does his best to pretend to be fine with anything! He's also back to doing his usual friendly bluster, of course.
Arthur Lowell	"SO, that means you're M, I'mma guess I heard this in JAPANESE NAME ORDER, huh? 'Masked, Woman" HUH? Yo, WHAT UP, M? NAH, NAH, not here to JUMP ALL UP THROUGH HERE yet, I gotta bring in a BUNCH OF FRIENDS, right? HELL YEAH, the challenge of HAVING A TON OF FRIENDS is one I got COMPLETELY down. Let's DO THIS THING, kids! Well, SOMETIME that's not THIS TIME, anyway. Hey, I MET you two BEFORE? This place is REALLY FAMILIAR..."
Mizuki	The blond-haired girl tilts her head ever further when he says that the proper title is 'PB'. She tilts her head so far to the side that she actually needs to left her left foot clean off of the ground to complete the gesture, but after some time her toes clap back down and her eyes widen in epiphany. "Ohhh, okay! So not Mister Pajamas, but Peanut Butter!" She nods to herself several times to affirm her own correctness. "Okay! Mister Peanut Butter it is, then! It's next to meet you, PB!" As for being called an 'artist'? That makes her jolt upwards slightly again, and her cheeks immediately flare up. Remarkably, her lips even seem to quiver as though by some quirk of her 'animation' -- her unique physics, we'll say. "A-Artist?? I-I don't know about that... but thank you, Peanut Butter!"
Mizuki	"Dunno about name order," Shrugs the masked woman. "I'm pretty sure she just started calling me Miss M for 'Mask'. She thought it sounded more catchy than my other name or something. Gonna have to ask her why, not me." As for exploring the book...? Well, at least he's enthusiastic. Yep, he has that in spades. "Glad to hear it," She eventually replies. "You're probably gonna need a lot of people around. Like all experiments, larger sample sizes are better, right? Right. So if this is, like, a glimpse into the human psyche, what you all get will probably be more detailed and accurate if you bring more people along. A bigger -variety- of people would help, too, so if you can add in some people you don't already know that'd be even better."
Mizuki	And as for whether they've met before? The little one folds her arms at the query, puffing up her cheeks in thought, rolling her head back and forth as if to help the thoughts flow. "I don't thiiink so? But I'm not sure. There's a whole lot I don't know, and that's why Miss M has to take care of me. I feel sorta bad about it sometimes - she has to do so much work around here and I really wish I could do more to help, you know? - but..." She scratches her head. "If I try to do anything helpful, like cooking, I always forget how to do it halfway through. Like with the drawing!" She holds it up again. "See how the one drawing is good but the other one is, uh... really not good? I totally forgot how to draw in the middle, and..." She brushes one of her feet across the ground, briefly averting her eyes.
Mizuki	The Masked Woman's reply to the question of whether he's been here before is a bit more brief: "If I haven't seen you here before, you haven't been here before." After a moment's pause, she adds, "But you could've been somewhere similar. Place is pretty nondescript -- bunch of clutter, books, dim lights. There are a bunch of places in the world you just came from like that. I wouldn't read into it too much."
Arthur Lowell	Calling him Peanut Butter goes ignored, it seems; he can just work with it, for whatever reason! Arthur's familiarity with this location dims a bit. "HUH. Must just be one'a those PLACES. Like one'a those FACES. AH WELL." He makes a big, exaggerated shrug, and then laughs. "SO! Just havin' the CHARM of TEN MEN ain't ENOUGH? HEH! Well, I know a LOTTA PEOPLE, and I can bring in EVEN MORE, so HEY, if you need a HUGE CAST, I can get ALL UP IN THAT." His gesticulations are both enthusiastic and placating, wide broad gestures that seem mostly meant to make a good impression.
Arthur Lowell	"Huh... So you got some memory issue? That's PRETTY WEIRD. I used to get SHIT LIKE THAT. Mostly WRITING ON MY WALLS, that was FUCKED UP. Good luck, kiddo! I'm SURE that M here don't mind a BIT!" He peers back at the paper, though... "...Hmm." He seems to be thinking about it, but what he thinks about it, he doesn't say! He gives another bit of approval though, a thumbs-up and a grin. "You'll get it FIGURED OUT one'a these days. HALF GREAT is better than BAD!"
Arthur Lowell	"So, sounds like at least ONE OF YA been in THESE PAGES since the START. You got any OBLIQUE HINTS or FORESHADOWING or anything like THAT? Or, like, REQUESTS? I could do a SODA RUN for ya." Arthur says, shifting back to his normal posture and winking. "Getcha somethin' NICE from the STORE on my way back with a GIANT POSSE OF WEIRDOS to come do BRAIN MAGIC STORYBOOK SCIENCE." It seems like he's accepting that he won't make much progress all on his lonesome, but he's still open to whatever little bits of progress there might be here to make, if any. Or just making friends! That's always good.
Mizuki	"Nah," Says Miss M, giving another wave of her hand in dismissal. "We're actually just stragglers here. Been hanging around for a while, yeah, but I've been other places too. Not sure if those 'other places' were inside this book or not, but I'm gonna have to assume they were. Book's really good at making it hard to tell, though. I'd be careful of that for starters. I mean, you've gotten pretty caught up in a book before, haven't you?" There's a brief yet eternal moment of silence following that statement before it's interrupted by, "S'kinda like that. Just be careful. Stick close to other people, keep your wits about you, don't get too caught up in things... and you'll be fine. Oh, but there is one other thing if you want something specific." Miss M fingerguns back at Arthur. "Your friends are the only people you can trust in there. Remember that."
Mizuki	"Oh, and by the by? Since you offered, you better bring me a Doctor Pepper the next time you come around. I love those things, but I can't seem to find 'em anymore."
Arthur Lowell	Arthur's grin shocks to a stop as he recalls the Book of Heaven. For a brief moment, he looks... Profoundly pained, in some distant way. But he forces himself out of it quickly, unwilling to show the look if he can help it. "H-hah, YEAH! Know EXACTLY WHAT YA MEAN. WELL, uh, KEEP on STRAGGLING, I guess. YEAH, gonna be ALWAYS stickin' with the FRIENDS. I know THAT for SURE. 'SPECIALLY in the BOOKS, don't worry." And then a little cheeky gesture, almost salute-like! "Some DOCTOR PEPPER? SHIT, that's EASY, I'll BRING ONE BY next time! Gotta get ALL UP IN THAT DOC." Looks like he'll be heading out with Mizuki now, probably! His weird bluster seems to have gone in a completely inverse trend today.