Knowledge = Power; Power= Energy x Mass; Books contain knowledge….

One night, Dr. Clarence Swinehold, Bibliomancer and Classics scholar (and Scholar Avatar), had a revelation. A revelation so profound it shaped his plans for years to come. It went like this:

As a Bibliomancer and scholar, he already knew that

Knowledge = Power

His revelation was that since

Power = Energy X Mass

Where was the mass? He’d already known about the energy…been using it for decades now. But the mass had to be somewhere. Books had always seemed like a conduit to him, not the actual source. He set out to find it.

Fifteen years of research, backstabbing, forgery, and at least one notable theft later and Clarence had acquired the Kensington Runestone, a mooring stone inscribed with Norse characters purporting to detail a Viking presence in the American Midwest. It is widely regarded as a fake–and the one people have access to now certainly is.

The Runestone serves as an anchor for an entrance to an Otherspace Clarence called the Museon (or Temple of the Muses), after what the Greeks called the Great Library of Alexandria. It’s exactly what Clarence expected: the place where all the books truly were. What you see on Earth is a pale reflection. Books that no longer exist, or that never existed, are here in the Museon. Every scrap of information ever written down is here, too: from laundry lists to love letters. Good luck finding something specific, though.

Entering the Museon

A person seeking to enter the Museon simply has to hold the Runestone in his lap (careful, it’s heavy!) in his lap at the center of a circle composed of works written in at least 12 languages. They can be anything: poetry, plays, mash notes, etc. The important thing is the languages. Then recite the wordes written on the Runestone in their original Norse, making sure to get everything pronounced correctly, followed by the first line written in every one of the books surrounding you as you do this. Luckily, it doesn’t cost any magic charges to get into the Museon.

The Courtyard

Visitors to the Museon arrive in a courtyard surrounded by a white marble colonade and floored in slate tile. Light appears to be the equivelant of the noonday sun, though nothing is visible in the sky. Passing through the columns lets a traveller into the Museon proper, a place of towering bookshelves that Clarence called the Stacks. There is no other exit from the Courtyard.

The Stacks

The Stacks contain everything ever written, but not in a discernable order–Clarence had a theory that the order of the Stacks was based upon a given written work’s importance. Emotional, spiritual, or historical importance he is what he wasn’t sure of. He couldn’t believe that the Stacks were truly disordered–the idea was abhorrant to him.
Books, scrolls, and tablets are on shelves that reach easily ten feet into the air. The shelves form narrow, twisting pathways that fork and turn at apparantly random points but almost never dead-end. The floor is covered in graffiti and monument inscriptions. Notes, letters, and legal documents are sandwiched within the pages of apparantly random books. Luckily, nothing moves around, so a successful Navigation skill check or roll under one’s Mind stat should be able to get you back where you started. Or you could just bring a ball of string.

Finding what you need is an intuitive affair. Clarence only had a few short years before he died to work on a system. Rituals such as the apochryphal Seek the Hidden Tome would be of great assistance. Being an Avatar of the Scholar or Chronicler would help as well. Seek the Lost Tome will lead to the nearest copy of a book owned by the caster–and considering how many books there are here, even the trick of locating a copy of something you own to navigate by is quite the feat. Someone who spent a great deal of time in the Museon and took the effort to truly learn the ropes could create a Soul skill for locating needed works. After all, time and intuition are two of the researcher’s best tools.

So what’s the point in coming here? Well, a researcher interested in doing some literal data mining could potentially find anything given the time. Finding (or creating?) the Museon lead Clarence to another discovery, however: all libraries are really just part of one, universal whole. The Museon, then, potentially leads to all other libraries (perhaps ignoring time as well as space!). Clarence was only able to use this locally, however: the county public library, the local state university library, and the county records department are all he was ever able to reach. Evidently it only worked on collections considered to be publically owned. Access to these places are found at the few dead ends found in the Stacks. Doors are located at such places. Spending two minor charges enables one to open the door and exit into one of those locations through an identical door found in reality. Breaking into the county records office just became a snap.

More later…