The Dubois Athenaeum [Location]

[Kaija21]

The Dubois Athenaeum
...It's much larger on the inside...

The Dubois Athenaeum is a physical projection of a location that doesn’t truly exist on Earth. Every door scattered about the world, when opened, leads to the very same institution. The library hears the calls of those who desire knowledge and appears to them in the place of old, dilapidated buildings that would otherwise be useless; only to vanish once more after serving its purpose.

Violence and magic neutralizing equipment are nothing new to the Athenaeum, and the very nature of its existence makes commandeering arcane texts through force rather difficult if not impossible. As nothing more than a physical projection maintained by magic; hostility has shown to always lead to the same result. Before an offender’s eyes, the Athenaeum fades into little more than the same old ruins over which it had originally materialized.

Library Cards

Despite the supernatural nature of the Athenaeum, it is still a business. Although anyone is free to browse the contents of these shelves and read as much as they please, library cards are required to remove texts from the Athenaeum. Given the fact that violence and disrupting magic aren’t permitted within the library, and that magic, by its nature, requires time and practice, anyone wishing to invest their time and truly benefit from the texts offered by the Athenaeum are practically required to obtain a library card.

Dubois Athenaeum Library Cards (DALCs) vary in price depending on the “level” of the texts that a customer wishes to study. Customers wishing to practice specific spells are more than welcome to speak with the librarian at the front desk to discover what “level” of text would contain their desired magic. Much like the facility’s security response, thievery is dealt with through magical means as well. A book that is removed from the Athenaeum without a library card that has had said book registered to it fades away and return to the shelves from which it came.

DALCs are no more durable than what one might obtain from an ordinary library. It is the owner’s responsibility to see that their card isn’t destroyed, but new cards can be made and replaced to their owners assuming that payment has already been received for that current month. If a DALC is destroyed, all books in the owner’s possession with vanish and return to the Athenaeum.

Books

The Arcane Compendium of the Athenaeum is inordinately vast. If a customer has trouble finding the exact spell that they’re looking for, the library is sure to have something else to suit their needs. The paper that fills the books of the library is designed to nullify all digital recording equipment in the vicinity such as, but not limited to: cell-phones, cameras, spy glasses, etc. Customers are encouraged to purchase DALCs if they wish to take resources home and practice their arcana freely.

Despite many of the texts offered in the library originating from ancient sources, customers will find that every book on the shelves is vibrantly colored with words sown into pages in the sharpest, darkest in and in pristine condition. The reason behind this phenomenon is the fact that every book on the library’s shelves is merely a copy of an original or an older copy.

The Athenaeum’s books are no more durable than an average book that a person might find. Readers are encouraged to mark and fold pages, underline important passages in text and otherwise do what they must to enrich their learning experience. Do note that all texts found within the Athenaeum are replaceable and that books will naturally be repaired after returning to their bookshelves.

We regret to inform our customers that our texts are only available in English or Latin. Our company would eagerly hire translators to assist in translating our texts and expanding our franchise!

Librarian Aides

Within the library, customers will find creatures of pure stone roaming about. These aides are harmless and only exist to serve our company and enhance your experience at The Dubois Athenaeum. Although the Librarian Aides cannot speak, they possess a moderate level of intelligence and can understand both the English and Latin languages.

The stone guardians of the library are often seen returning books that have been left at desks, sweeping floors, rearranging shelves when necessary, leading customers to requested texts and generally spending their time working for the betterment of the facility.

Legality

-The Dubois Athenaeum is currently owned by a Ms. Beatrice Jenny Dubois.

-Given that the owner of the business pays no taxes, has no permits, distributes arguably dangerous information and can be found on any abandoned property on Earth by people seeking knowledge… it wouldn’t be unwise to assume that the library isn’t exactly legal.

-Any injuries, casualties, curses, monsters, plagues and/or other disastrous phenomena caused by improper use of magical knowledge obtained from The Dubois Athenaeum is not the responsibility of this institution or its owner(s).

OOC:

Standard Rules Apply

Regardless of the point of entry, all front doors leading into the Athenaeum lead to the same location. Beatrice can be found at the front desk during opening hours and the library ceases to exist after it closes.

Have fun and embrace the magic!

[Kaija21]

Also, I'd like to give special thanks to Reyn for all the help with the formatting and imagery. She's amazing!

[syntheticdeity]

CENTRALIA, PENNSYLVANIA

---

She walked through the ghost town of Centralia, her vision drinking in every detail that was around. THEY’VE MADE ME CALL THEM, “SHE”, NOW. Walking through the deserted town, she made her way to a small house. Old, abandoned, run-down. THIS IS WHERE YOU’LL FIND WHAT YOU SEEK. KNOWLEDGE. ENDLESS KNOWLEDGE. She knocked on the door, before it creaked open. Beyond the door was a building far larger then the small house she had just entered. Books lined the walls, creatures moved inside. Her attention was brought to a woman behind a desk, and so she’d approach. ”Erhm, excuse me. Ma’am?”

[Kaija21]

As the stranger passed through the doorframe and into Athenaeum, she would find that she left not only the street as she advanced but the world itself. Here, in this haven for those who seek knowledge beyond physical law, she would find golems trekking through the facility and managing the shelves, nightmarish beings of esoteric and defunct physiologies coexisting as they read through various texts, lights flittering about just under the ceiling without a single wire or a trace of fire to fuel them and, most impressively, people from all around the world (and perhaps far beyond) gathered together in one place who had never even taken a single step outside of their home country.

Amidst this boiling pot of impossibilities and fairytales, the woman shrouded in light was seen as nothing more than another curious eccentric who was welcomed into the library.

"Good Afternoon! You... must be new here. There's no need to knock, this is an open establishment. Come on in," the woman behind the counter wore the kind of smile that made it hard for most people to stay coy for more than a few seconds, "Welcome to the Dubois Athenaeum! I'm Beatrice Dubois, the owner of this fine establishment. So... to who do I owe the pleasure?"

[syntheticdeity]

The thin gaps between clothing show a yellow glow, from sleeve between glove, helmet and shirt, pants and boots. Her vision covered almost a 360 view, so she took in the details without having to turn. "I'm Evo, Evo Voxel." She replied, she shifted the sheathe of her sword to her back so it was out of the way. Besides, you can't really draw a sword from your back. Her voice sounded odd, though it probably wasn't out of place here, like a woman talking through an old radio with a bad signal, crackly and distorted slightly. THIS PLACE IS NOT BOUND BY SPACIAL LAW, IT CAN BE ANYWHERE. YOU ARE LUCKY TO FIND IT. "What- what subjects can be found in these books?" The first word repeated, like a broken record.

[Kaija21]

"My library is a rather niche business. There's only one subject that can be studied here but you'd hard pressed to find a more thorough and diverse collection of knowledge on the subject in a few hundred lifetimes. It's art of controlling that beyond scientific understanding,"

She got up from her seat like a proper showman and walked around her desk to meet her guest properly.

"It's the path that allows a man to see that which cannot be seen and feel that which he cannot touch. It's the sorcery, the enchantment, the force that sustains this place. There's only one word to describe it but the fact that you're already here makes me think that you already know what that one subject is,"

The librarian snapped her fingers and released a few trails of purple light that bent and stretched through the air like smoke in the wind. And for a moment, before the lights faded away, they spelled the word "MAGIC" in the air; vibrant and clear so that Evo would have no doubts in her mind about the nature of this place.

"I could go on and on for a while about all of the things that you could learn here, but I don't think that that would do either of us any good. So, answer me this," the witched leaned against her desk with a faint smile, "What do you want to learn about here?"

[syntheticdeity]

She gazed at the showmanship, absolutely amazed at what had the librarian had done. "Wow." She whispered, before thinking of the question. Why had she come here? POWER, ENDLESS AND UNLIMITED POWER. "I guess for the bas- basics." She replied, "I've seen what sorcerers can do, and I guess that's really why I came he- here." She added. The being then added one last thing as they pulled down on the ends of their sleeves, to cover up the glow beneath, "If- If there are books for that." THE BEGINNINGS TO A BEING UNTETHERED TO THE LAWS OF THIS UNIVERSE. NO NEED TO STAY ON THIS BALL OF ROCK, WITH THESE INSUFFERABLE BEINGS.

[Magian]

Within the long halls of the Athenaeum, a small and almost imperceptible change began to take place. At first, the air near the front desk began to swell as if it was becoming denser. The air became heavier as pressure began to slowly rise, causing it to feel as if a change in altitude was occurring. Along with this strange shift of atmospheric pressure the smell of ozone began to waft through the building. It was faint in the beginning, however soon the sharp smell had cut through the air. Causing the feeling that came before a storm to permeate through the room.

However what appeared moments later was not a thunderous raincloud. Instead, it was a small ball of checkered fabric that sat suspended in the air. The ends of the cloth whipped around violently as the ball began to shink and expand, pulling and retracting as it unfurled. All this while the air pressure continued to rise, reaching an almost uncomfortable level. Then all at once the scent of thunder, the dense air, and the piece of fabric disappeared. In one loud...

Pop

Where the cloth has once floated, there now was a young man hovering with his feet inches off the ground. He wore a simple light silken shirt and a pair of black slacks, along with black dress shoes that shone reflectively under the lights. Draped across his shoulders was a red and black coat, one woven of fabric identical to the ball that appeared before. The sleeves to the coat hanged gently at his sides, as it was worn more as a cloak than a jacket. Under his soft blond hair that floated as if underwater, two bright gems could be made out dangling from his ears, swaying slowly as he began to descend.

Landing with the tips of his feet first the blond man gentle sat himself down on the ground before his brilliant blue eyes flickered open. Sweeping the room, he observed everything around him, his gaze brimming with curiosity and a small smile dancing across his lips.

[Annasiel]

Doors were fickle things.

In her many centuries stuck in the crossroads, this point had been driven home time and time again, and she had even known it so before she'd left her mortal husk behind. It was a door that had transfixed her to obsession, a door that had trapped her within nothingness, and door from which she forced a finger back into reality's touch. Doors into minds, doors behind which shadows lurked. She stood inside a door right now, looking through the eyes of another, another who, like she, had fallen through... a door.

The door she stood before, at this moment, was more of the solid sort. Not particularly outstanding, but the most interesting doors never were. No, they tended to hide behind magics and glamours or mundane make, their secrets well guarded from prying eyes -- not by spell -- but by disinterest. To find secrets, one often had to look in places that didn't stand out. The lines between the lines, so to speak, so often skirted over by the eyes of those who knew not how to seek.

Gatekeeper turned the handle, and the door opened.

Inside, she was hit by a scent she'd missed for a long time, the musty cool of old books waiting to be read. The shelves seemed to span for an eternity. For all she knew, they did. There was the scent of magic in the air as well, the subtle crack of space contorted far beyond its natural boundaries. It left her feeling dizzy, almost nauseous, but she forced down the innate sense of disgust and proceeded to the front desk, where a helmet-clad being spoke with the receptionist. Before she could approach, a faint sense of wrongness unattached to the library itself struck her, and a wave of nausea returned. She watched as a nearby area of space shifted, contorted into a checkered cloth, then erupted forth as a young man appeared where nothing had been moments before. Gatekeeper narrowed her eyes at the boy, but said nothing.

Turning back to the receptionist, she moved to twirl her hair, then immediately lowered her hand. It was no longer long. No, this body's hair was thick, dark, and curled, cut back close to the scalp, with only the thinnest of bangs to frame her sharp, ebony face. She had grown so used to the last woman - she'd lasted so much longer than usual, but they all had their limits. An inevitable shame.

[Kaija21]

"Basics? Well, I suppose, in this regard, magic is a bit like science. There is no 'Big Book of Magic' that you can read and suddenly have mastery of the arcane. It comes in branches; various studies exploring the plethora of applications for the ubiquitous force. Hexes, summoning, divining, sorcery, alchemy, miracles," Beatrice looked past Evo for a moment to meet eyes with one of her aides. As she spoke, she gestured for the drone to take a short trip into deeper parts of the library to pick up the relevant texts that her new guest was likely searching for. After the aide got to work, she turned her full attention back to Evo, "But, even then, understanding what one can do with magic and how to apply it doesn't mean that you can suddenly do magic. Real magic. It's a bit like electricity in the dark ages, honestly. A resource that's all around you and within you that was always and will always be there; but something that you'll never be able to make use of if you don't understand it, experiment with it, and grow familiar with it. But, once you do, it could change your entire world."

The aide arrived with a few books discussing the introductory concepts behind the few branches of magic that she had described earlier and plopped them down on the desk near Beatrice. She simply smiled and pushed them closer towards her guest.

"As a part of my safety policy, I don't condone the use of magic in my library to anyone who hasn't first proven themselves capable to me. Feel free to read any text that you like while in the Athenaeum but, in the interest of safety, I'm afraid that you won't be able to practice in here. If you're looking to apply what you read in those books, well, you may need one of these," She waved her hand and a DALC appeared between her fingers, "It is my mission to spread knowledge of the arcane throughout the world, though the Dubois Athenaeum is still a business. For a small fee, I'll let you take all of these home and learn to your heart's content. However..." her eyes flickered towards the young woman's sword for a moment, "If you don't have any cash, that's okay too. I'd be more than happy to give you a library card in exchange for a few services. How does that sound to you?"