Obscured Ouph: Dilapilated Library

     Normally, meeting up for a mission is in some dungeon entrance. Off in some dangerous area of the world where they had to fight their way here. Today? Today was just a casual portal up to Fort Ouph, and then a walk along the various walkways and paths until they get to the administrative district, where Pela is standing, unassumingly waiting for the arrival of anyone interested in exploring the damaged library with her. It was pretty obvious why she wanted to explore and secure anything of worth from that library, half of it was hanging over the edge, very little ... anything ... supporting it from below. Likely now-priceless knowledge having fallen down to strike the land below. Hopefully without anyone below it, because that would be uncomfortable.

     Pela had a small setup next to her, specifically, several ropes, anchored to a sturdy pole and some carefully sewn harnesses of some sort that she had sitting next to her folded up neatly atop a convenient barrel. Because, really, who wants to fall to their death?

Mysterious book-palaces, half falling off the side of a Root Town? And they don't even have to brave the attentions of hostile, brainwash-happy jerks?? What a wonderful opportunity for an excursion!

And of course, since there's likely some kind of lore to be found, Prophylaxis has made himself available for the excursion.

...

...Even though technically speaking he does not actually possess the 'can books good' skill. So his help will be of questionable significance.

"Mmm. I wonder why we never had a look inside this old thing before...?" Prophylaxis scratches at his cheek. "Oh well. No time like the present, I suppose."

Yeowang is a frequenter of the administrative district in Ouph, both in arranging the missions to clear out monsters on the way to Shibuya, and in her capacity as a citizen of Eastal. But she'd never known about the library. Perhaps -because- it was dilapidated, she avoided that area entirely. But now, with the intent of exploring it, she will make the effort. As a Loremaster, it probably behooves her to investigate a heretofore unknown place of knowledge. She eyes Pela's level of preparedness with ropes and climbing gear, and says to Proph, "Well, we probably went after knowledge that was easier to access?" She, herself, is in her adventuring clothes, snug pants, low boots, her long hair tied up in a thick bun atop her head and crucified with a hairpin.

You have Daiyu at 'library'.

Though upon her arrival not far behind Prophylaxis her expression is turned into a disappointed grimace quite quickly as she looks up at the building Pela stands before. "It is sad to see it in such an ashamed state. Why no one has bothered to clear it out before it's reached this point..." She sighs, tails giving twitch that belays the annoyance she feels. "We shall have to be both careful and quick."

    Fukaziroh is an odd combination of a nerd who likes stories, and a jock who would probably use a book as toilet paper. She's more likely to play a game than read a book, but that's not to say she has no respect for the medium! Besides, delving into an ancient library that's high above a plunging precipice sounds like fun!

    Fuka's only consideration to the threat of danger in this mission is she's not wearing her typical armour. That is to say, she looks more like she does when preparing for a social outing than she does when facing adventure, with not a hint of steel in sight as she arrives with the gathering group. "Did somebody say careful and quick?!" she asks cheerfully and loudly, hailing the adventurers. "That's like, my middle name! Names. Well okay, at least one of those is like my middle name. Close enough!" she grins. "Pela! Are those parachutes? Prooooobably a good idea for those lacking wings." she notes. Though she supposes they look more like belaying harnesses than parachutes. Probably an even better idea, considering how hard it'll be to return to the city if she falls out, wings or no wings.

     "Most of fort ouph is unexplored, actually. ...I thought it was pretty weird, too. ...It's why I'm putting in an effort to look into the city in as much depth as possible. I encourage you to do the same for whatever root city you associate yourself with. ...There's far too many secrets in these places where danger could be lurking around where we are at our most vulnerable. ...People taking off their armor for social situations, people reviving after being defeated at the church. ...I do not like it. ...I know right now there are more pressing matters, but... I do not think it is smart to leave these root towns as unknown as they are." Pela responds to Prophylaxis.
     "...I think everyone just got so caught up in exploring the world that we forgot what's closest to home: Where we revive. Especially when the Palace Lands opened. Myself included." Pela murmurs quietly. "That and I did a quick scouting of the safer areas of the library: It's already pretty picked over. This is mostly a double check before the library is dismantled for safety reasons. We might not find anything major here. I'm expecting maybe some books or scrolls from when fort ouph was less worn down by time and the cursed waves." Pela gets chatty when she's passionate.

     Yeowang gets an affirmative nod, "Exactly, that, yeah. Plus talking with my contact in this city -- Pazuzu -- he made it sound like even if we did dozens of excursions like this, it's likely we wouldn't find everything. It's honestly mad that friends revive here with such a huge unknown. I know Mac Anu -- and even Shibuya, which isn't even a root town -- have depths like this too, though they've had more concentrated efforts to look into them."

     Pela walks up to Prophylaxis, pulling out a small measuring stick -- very crude, but enough to get some basic measurements to procure a proper sized harness for him, then Yeowang, and slowly going through this for every member of the party, carefully helping them get into the harnesses, getting them as secured as possible with the somewhat jury rigged harnesses -- since they were lacking some of the technology that would make them even safer -- and explaining as she goes,

     "From tests, these should hold up to falls relatively well, but you *will* lose some HP when you hit the bottom simply from the sure force of the sudden stop. They're not perfect, but I'd rather none of us fall to our deaths today. I recruited a couple of my employees to stand by in case one of us falls to help pull us up in case of a fall." She motions towards a nearby, much less damaged building, which has a table and a couple of maids sitting, sipping on some tea while they watch the adventurers prepare to go do crazy adventurer things. In spite of being landers, they both look relatively fit, possibly like they were retired adventurers or something.

     To Daiyu, Pela responds, "I'm guessing that there was some form of major event that caused them to be unable to, otherwise why would people let their home get this bad in general? I think maybe that fort ouph was even *abandoned* for at least some amount of time as well, though I don't have any confirmation on that, that's just a hunch."

     To Fukaziroh, Pela waves and offers a very small smile. "No, they're not parachutes, I don't trust that we wouldn't become targets of flying monsters if we fell down and had to use those. And we'd be relatively unsafe. If I were to do anything like that, I'd rather have something akin to..." She glances towards Prophylaxis. "Doesn't the Scale have gliders, and a flight academy? I feel like that would give us more control to avoid it, but harder to have ready in an emergency."

     Pela looks towards the library, stepping towards its doorway to carefully start pulling it open. Old, recently-oiled joints groaning and creaking, showing its age as it threatens to fall off of its hinges. "Be careful not to get your ropes tangled if you can. But otherwise... shall we?"

     The immediate entrance shows signs of -- once -- being a place of art, of knowledge, where likely people gathered. The center of the room even showing signs of there once being a fountain, rings of damaged enchantment scrawling around the base of it that likely once provided the water to circulate through the fountain now half-fallen into the abyss below after some pillar or piece of debris fell on it, taking it and some of the floor with it.
     There are still some semi-intact stairways -- for now -- leading to the second and probably third floors, and the room is surprisingly well lit! ... Probably because there's holes in the roof. Or, rather, half of the roof is a hole. "Try not to all gather in any one spot, any time we go up or down any sort of ladder, stairs, or other forms of anything rickety, make sure you're going single file and one at a time with the people on the other end staying back reasonably far, just in case. We'll work as a team, but if any of us fall, this ceases being an exploration mission, and a rescue mission instead, so let's avoid that as much as possible."

Daiyu ahs, nodding as Pela starts to explain. "Wise. Problems that may seem small in light of other matters can become big issues eventually." She pauses. "The difficulty of even reaching it is why it was mostly left alone by the invasion. It would of been an intensive and possibly pointless expenditure of time and resources, Shibuya and Mac Anu were much more viable targets to... I'm sorry, I got off on my own tangent." She pauses, standing perfectly still for the application of the harness. Now, inside!

The inside only depresses the vulpine librarian more. "To think this was once likely a social centerpoint..." She doesn't mind taking one of the lead points, being the experienced scout she is, but even then is being wary of her steps, and keeping her agility boosting abilities at hand should they be needed.

The harness is a great safety, but she intends to only rely on it as a last resort.

Yeowang will accept the parachute-like harness, and climb into it, allowing it to be cinched and fitted correctly despite her claim of not needing it. Either she has absolute faith in the floor, or absolutre faith in herself. "It's unfortunate Uta can't be with us," she says. "She would be quite pleased to be exploring here." She looks around thoughtfully, eying the overall structure, not that she has any sort of knowledge relating to that. But it's interesting.

"Indeed. The last time we tried to fly with /anything/ outside of the tower, we were beset upon by gargoyles. It was only by taking the appropriate safety precautions that we were able to prevent the loss of life. But even parachutes were apparently 'too much' for those winged bastards," Prophylaxis resists the urge to spit, but only because of his abundant respect for public health and hygiene.

"This seems like it'd be the easiest possible place to look for lore," Prophylaxis points out. "At least, you wouldn't have to go very far if you /did/ end up falling, and if it's still part of Fort Ouph, the magic of the Root Town would keep monsters from settling inside." But if it's part of Fort Ouph, how is it even crumbling...? Did the gnomes and sylphs just, never bother to repair it?

Prophylaxis makes a curious sound as he enters the abandoned library, safety gear firmly strapped to his shoulders. He thinks for a moment before tapping at an amulet dangling from his neck. "I'll try to help with navigation," he says, as the amulet begins to project a 3-dimensional minimap of the surrounding environs. "If there is anything hidden away-- a collapsed passage, or even a hidden one, we shall know shortly."

    Fuka's somewhat bemused at being fitted for a harness, in part because she has at least somewhat adequate wings, in part because she's kind of small. Not as small as Pela of course, and that's odd enough that she's quite amused. Not having to be the smallest person getting fitted for something for a group for once.

    She gives Daiyu a funny look at the mention of the war plans. It's not that she forgot the fox-woman's origins, it's just... well, it's a reminder. It's also the sort of in-depth ramble on an academic subject that another might have done in her place. "Huh, yeah, a shame Uta's not here. She probably got lost somewhere, I'm sure not intentionally." Fuka claims. "She'd be pretty happy to join in on something like this! It's up her city. Which is like up her alley, but ... larger I guess." the little Sylph rambles.

     "Yes. Exactly that. ...This is also in one of the less populated areas of the administrative district too. ...While not unsafe, people don't tend to wander this far out for any reason other than guards patrolling in case of danger or crime." And even that was only semi-necessary, with the Root Town's protections in place. Pela looks around quietly. "It looks like they already did a pretty good job of clearing out the worst of it -- either looters or whoever lived here at the time though." The shelves -- what was left of them -- were notably bare on this first floor, no sign of even stray papers, though signs of occasional inhabitation by vagrants or those down on their luck was visible in some places. Small scorch marks of where a firepit once was, for instance.

     "I know she wanted to, but I think she was engaged with something else of import, a LOON's job is never done, after all." Pela says with a small nod towards Yeowang, following relatively far back in the party now that they were inside, among other things to keep an eye on the ropes to help ensure they don't tangle too much and hinder their exploration, as well as occasionally securing them to locations that seem relatively stable and safe to do so.

     "It's honestly a shame we can't fly anymore, some of the flying dungeons were some of the most interesting ones to be honest." Pela comments towards Prophylaxis in response to the monsters near the tower. "The difficulty of reaching them meant that a lot of players didn't even explore them with the limitations on flight that existed even before the apocalypse -- the same with underwater dungeons." It made for great places to solo or hide out when she didn't feel like dealing with people.

     "There /are/ plenty of alleys in this city, too. ...I don't recommend going down them though. A lot of them end in a very sudden and extremely steep step down." To the ground. Prophylaxis' skill meanwhile...
     Shows a few pathways that are particularly treacherous or might be of interest. Harder to reach areas where there is more likely to be things either determined to be too dangerous, or not worth the potential risk of exploring the area of. At least, in the present day. The second and third floors looked the most promising, of course, though the third floor was probably the most dangerous -- what was left of it -- was mostly thin pathways and areas that were likely questionable how they were even still standing.

Yeowang, finding nothing of interest on this level, prepares to ascend to the next level, but then notes an area on the minimap she hadn't noticed before. "I wonder what's there?" she asks, pointing it out, and then searching for a route. She has a hunter's eye for tracks and things, but searching for clues in this game confuses her. There's too much caught up in game tropes that she finds conmfusing and can't guess at.

     Off to the side on the first floor there /was/ one thing of relative note. There seemed to be *something* behind some book case that was leaned against the wall on the minimap. It was hard to tell if it was something that had been in the original design or had happened after the damage already caused. It did involve going into one of the corners that was mostly lacking a floor though, so would require feats of acrobatics or at least probably for only one person to go over there at a time. Due to the relative safety of the situation, splitting up would be a reasonable option as well, and could make things actually potentially safer by spreading out -- assuming nothing major collapses.

    "Or there's that." Fuka agrees with Pela. "Songbird busily LOONing about, yep!" she says cheerfully. That or being lost and showing up somewhere else because she was paying more attention to what she was thinking than where she was going. Yep, that's Uta all right. Head so stuffed full of brains there's no room for things like awareness. Endearing, for sure, not something Fuka would ever actually think detracts from her friend's charm.

    The sylph notes the remains of previous fires with distaste. "Wasn't this a library? That's rude." Fuka points out distastefully. She's quickly distracted by Proph's mini map however, peering at it. "Just like a VR game!" she observes. "Man I really gotta find something like that! That'd be amazing!"

"Indeed," Daiyu replies to Fuka with a snort. "Hopefully they did not burn anything valuable out of desperation." She pauses to look at the map generated by the good doctors relic, commiting as much of it to memory as she could. "We should make our way to the next floor, it less likely those were picked clean already. It looks like whoever cleared out before did so in the safer areas first and foremost." Considering Landers only get to die once, can't really blame them.

Yeowang will explore in the direction of the hidden room, and looks on at the sketchy footing, but she is quite surefooted, with fine balance, executing quite precise feats of movement, stepping exactly where she means to, without an inch of error, choosing the safe spots to put her weight as she moves deeper into the less-safe area that we've discovered, and she will have a look around to see what may be seen.

     Yeowang's careful, sure footed balance yields a relatively safe-ish path, one that lets her get over to that little corner of relative safety. Each step yielding uncomfortable sounds and ages-old dust falling down below. Getting to said corner lets her pull away the book-case, carefully enough it could avoid being knocked to the ground far below. This lets her enter into that small little room behind -- probably some sort of storage closet in the past, since there are some shelves inside of the little nook there. Searching around finds ... very little of worth, to be honest, most items that had been in there likely having long decayed into red pixels. There was a scroll carrier in the corner, a small tube with an end that can open.

     "People who are desperate don't care what an old building used to be, really... probably there weren't any books by the time they showed up." Pela comments towards Fuka and Daiyu, starting to follow after them up towards said second floor. "...Since I'm the lightest in the group, I'll probably explore the top floor." ... "Later." ... "Once I work up my courage." Look, she was prepared, but that was /definitely/ the least safe area in the building, since there was less a 'floor' on the third floor so much as 'what probably amounts to a jumping puzzle at this point.'.

     The second floor had a hollow center -- though it looked mostly intentional, since there was a space that went up the center of the building, leading up to a domed center that had remnants of what looked like some sort of artwork or something on the ceiling, though it was damaged to the point that very little was able to be made out, at least of what was visible from the first or second floor.

     Pillars are spread relatively evenly throughout the second floor, though some of which have been broken by either falling debris or possibly even vandalism sometime in the past, most of said damaged or broken pillars, of course, being underneath the broken area of the third floor. Luckily, the stairway to the second floor is relatively easy to navigate, being mostly together. Much like the first floor, the second floor has been stripped mostly bare, though there are a couple of doorways off to the sides which are those promising looking areas. One of the doorways is collapsed, and the other has a firmly shut door with a broken-off key in the lock, meaning they may have been left largely untouched.

Yeowang will pick up the scroll carrier she's found, since there seems to be nothing else of interest here. Just broken stuff, and things that are falling apart. Maybe some junk, also, for variety. But she will clamber back to the relative safety of the more central area before she takes a closer look at her prize. "I've found /something/," she says, "A scroll case, and still closed." But if she can open it, she will do so.

Prophylaxis gives Pela a long look, then slowly nods. He seems to have finished with making rough notes of what he could see of the library's layout, and is now ready to properly rejoin the exploration team! "I have a plan for the third floor," he says, cryptically. Then less cryptically: "I can produce a large quantity of natural dirt fairly rapidly. As long as we can shape and solidify it, we might be able to shore up some of the crumbling structure up there. At least for long enough to set up some ropes or something to navigate more easily."

But that's for later. Pela is the best choice to do something like that, and if she's not feeling up for doing it juuuust yet, then it's best to wait.

For now, Prophylaxis seems to be focused on that broken door. He taps his chin thoughtfully. "I bet we could cannonball this thing down," the doctor asides to Fuka. "It's /probably/ not an immortal object."

...He appraises it anyway, just to be sure.

    Fuka listens to Proph's plan. "Well I'm pretty good at earth magic..." she offers noncommitally. Then reconsiders. "And I've done a lot of training recently on how to shore up constructions and excavations so... OH!" she abruptly bursts out. "I found something in a toolbox not long ago! It lets me move around dirt and sand and stuff, to enable a construction!" Fuka grins abruptly, bringing out her own little trinket.

    "It's a little like yours, Prof." Fuka chatters amiably. "Only instead of a map, it shows *plans* for constructions, starting with ground and adding in materials I have at hand. But if I push around any of the dirt on the image with my finger, I can totally make rude drawings in it!" she says proudly. "Or, you know, shore up some dirt to make it safer to walk along, that sort of thing..."

"I am also light on my feet, but will worry about that level when we get to it." The foxwoman pauses upon stepping onto the second floor, taking note of what remains of the layout. "There is plenty yet to investigate here."

The floor may be barren in initial appeareances, but her sharp eye for detail quickly catches something about the one door, which turns out to have a key broken off in it's lock. "Oh, wonderful... I do like a bit of a puzzle challenge." She crouches down a bit, leaning a little to get a close look at it.

As it turns out this is one of the reasons her foxgloves are fingerless, so she can use her claw-like nails to deal with very small and delicate items. As is she can barely get the tips of her claws in enough to pinch the remains of the key. Then a little jiggle one way, a jaggle the other way, and she manages to loosen the key a bit and pull it out. "Fortunately the important part of the key remains." Rather than risk reinserting the broken key Daiyu examines in closely. Followed by a flick of the wrist one would expect a stage magician to gesture with and pull her own lockpicking tool out. After having being able to see the shape of the key's head, it's not hard to use her tool to properly click the right mechanisms to unlock it with a satisfying *KLIK*. "And, open." She tucks the tool away, and gives the door a nudge to open it so she can look inside before risking actually entering.

     The scroll case isn't locked or anything, so capable of being opened. And opening it /does/ show that there is something inside, an old scroll, though a quick examination of the object shows that it is likely close to decaying, having a low durability remaining from how long it's been abandoned in this building, and it was showing signs of its age, smelling old, musty, and likely the only reason it's still survived this long being that scroll holder. "A scroll case? Oh wow! Hopefully there's something in it!" There was an issue, if Yeowang opens the scroll: It's going to need to be desciphered before it can be understood, most likely, by someone with the appropriate skills.

     "...That would be good, too, yes. If we can make it as safe as possible, that would be the best case scenerio." Pela responds to Prophylaxis, carefully navigating across the second floor towards the broken doorway, taking each step carefully while making sure her rope doesn't catch on anything -- or anyone -- that could cause problems. "Hmmm..." Much like Prophylaxis, she examines the broken doorway. "I... don't... think..." She looks up and down the area around it. "That it's system protected... or that this wall will collapse if we remove the debris in the doorway." .... "Probably." Though removing the debris is a different matter. Two super-useful people for moving and adjusting the earth and rocks. And someone who had at least access to construction skills. "Fuka, think you could help dismantle this doorway? Prophylaxis and Daiyu can work on the room through the locked door."

     And Daiyu begins to do her work on the doorway. Working on the lockpicking puzzle -- much harder now that it was real instead of the original minigame which let people who didn't know lockpicking do just that. Nudging on the door is... not quite enough to open the door. While not stuck, it does require a bit more effort to get it to move, old rusted metal resisting any immediate movement to push open the door. It didn't require any special effort, mind you, just some actual pushing instead of a gentle nudge to get it to open.

     Peeking inside finds what looks like was once a personal study of one of the librarians in the past, with bookshelves and a desk in the center of the room, which was probably one of the more intact rooms thus far -- beyond that what was likely once a window had likely fallen out, making it look almost like a doorway now.

    Fuka grins in reply to Pela's request. "Rogah!" she says with a snappy salute now accompanying the grin, as if she were some special forces engineer. "Dismantling doorways is my speciality!" she adds ominously.

    Of course she's not entirely unaware of the actual problems. The possibility of the wall collapsing, as Pela said. So when she does move in to dismantle the door, it's with all due consideration of load-bearing structures and the state of general abandonment and decay of the room. It takes the diminutive sprite some effort but, in the end, she can put her back into it and take the door out with a minimum of strain on other damaged structures. Possibly by smashing something very hard.

Daiyu grunts softly as her nudge ends up just flattening her shoulder uncomfortably against the door. A second, more forceful push is enough to force the rusting hinges open to allow her inside.

"This most likely was one of the librarian offices." Takes one to know one, as the saying goes. First and foremost she walks over to investigate the desk. There might not be much left on the surface, but if it has drawers or other storage that would be protected from the elements allowed in by the busted window it's worth inspecting more closely.

Yeowang looks over the fragile scroll, and thinks about her deciphering skills. She has some limited capability, but there are people in LOONS who are better than her. "I do not know a great deal about restoring old documents, either, myself. But there are certainly some with more skill than I have." She has a bit of skill, but there are many in the game with so much more nerd cred than she has. She will leave the scroll in the tube for now, lest exposing it to air cause it to crumble. If there is magic that can prevent this, it's beyond her.

"Hmn, it's a wonder that this place hasn't become infested by crows or something." What with the window-turned-hole-in-the-wall sitting right there. Prophylaxis makes his way in and begins leafing through the bookshelf's contents. Meanwhile:

"Hmm, that sounds like Camelot's Interface. We had someone a long while back who had access to that Relic." He makes a contemplative sound, then: "...There's a phrase associated with it that causes it to do... /something./ I'm not sure exactly what, and I can't remember off the top of my head either. We might need to do some additional work to fortify the soil once it moves into place, but that relic should suffice for doing most of the groundlaying, at least."

     Pela does what she can to help Fukaziroh! It's ... not necessarily much other than clearing out the debris that Fukaziroh had already moved to ensure that things weren't in the way while her friend dismantled the doorway to let them through. Burrowing through the doorway leads to ... open air, luckily one that they'd likely been prepared for with vision of the minimap being given before. It would take a little bit of shimmying to the side along the wall to let them into what remained of the old book nook, with some old, once luxurious and comfortable place to sit while reading. Scraps of old cloth and scraps of paintings hanging on the walls. One of the tables has what looks like a small chest or ... something ... sitting there? A small, golden, chained lock that was attached to the bottom of it.

     Likely the height of fort ouph wasn't very friendly for crow roosting, plus the city activity likely reducing the chance of them roosting. Or ... who knows really. "Camelot's what? ... Relics are strange, they sound so different from how the rest of the world is." Pela comments absently. "Uta might be able to look into it? She seems good with old things like this, and I'm sure other people could too..." Pela tries to think of people good with ancient texts. Hm.
     Meanwhile, Daiyu's examination of the desk finds... more locks! These ones, though, luckily aren't locked. Opening the drawers finds some old documents of some sort, written about something in that timeframe, though what can be made out reads more like maybe the journal or notes of something that the librarian was researching at the time.

     Meanwhile, Pela starts to work on that locked box, pulling out her own lockpicking tools. Eventually, with a click, the little box opens. And reveals... ... ... some old coin and a handful of small pieces of jewelry. ...Why was this left here?

"Mmm." Nothing too shocking, but Daiyu gently tucks the reports away all the same. They could be important to look over later. Or not. But even then, it could be a look into what the people of earlier times in Yamato found interesting, and that was enough of a curiousity to her personally.

She walks back over to Prophylaxis. "Find anything of interest Doctor?"

     Due to being exposed to the elements, sadly, the bookcases had largely only remnants of whatever books may have remained, scraps of paper, broken pieces of binding, and similar. There /was/ one book that seemed to be at least partially intact, however. Not completely readable, but a quick leafing through it reads as some sort of ... history book maybe? It's hard to look through without constant fear of damaging the book with each turned page, however. It would likely be better to look at in a more controlled environment.

A history book? And an ancient one at that... Possibly even one from before Yamato began...

Prophylaxis' lips draw into a fine line. "Something for Uta to look at," he agrees, carefully scrutinizing the book. "I found a tome of history... maybe. Hard to say. But it's in pretty bad shape. Best hold onto it until we can get a proper Loremaster to take a read. Or just someone better at Appraisal than we are."

"Not much else in the shelves that's salvageable, sadly. Have the rest of you found anything, or should we try our luck upstairs?"

Daiyu nods in agreement. "Save it for a safer location. Farther damage can be prevented in a more controlled setting. Maybe some of the old documents I found in the desk are of a similar vein. Someone was definitely doing a manner of research in this office."

With little else of interest to be found she heads back to the main area of the floor to see how the others are doing.

Yeowang will rejoin the others, making her way up carefully after having secured the scroll case. She will tell the others, "I've found /something/ but I'm not the best person to investigate it. I'm hoping you can pass it to the LOONS and they can come up with something?" She will pass the scroll case to Pela when she rejoins the group.

     Overall, it wasn't the most shocking of discoveries, no, but this was meant to preserve what history could be preserved -- no matter how small or unimportant seeming. And that's exactly what they were succeeding in. Securing what little fragments of history still lay within the depths of this condemned library.
     "Yeah. ...Let's try upstairs." Pela says as she returns to the main room. "The other room was... not necessarily a bust? It had some ancient coins in it and some old jewelry so I guess decent loot? Ancient coins might be useful for collectors or have some interesting text on them I guess?"
     Pela shrugs helplessly. She nods in agreement with Yeowang. "Yeah. We can get it passed along to the LOONs better aimed at understanding it." Pela reaches to take the scroll case, carefully stowing it in her inventory. Luckily inventories had some vague preserving capabilities. She thought, at least, it might last longer since it wasn't a 'real' space? Inventories are weird, honestly.
     Pela starts to carefully scale the last stairway to the third floor, as unstable as they come, even with Pela's relatively light frame, there was shifting and creaking, and stones fell down to the floors below as she climbed it, and in a moment of sudden shifting, Pela even ended up reflexively disappearing in a puff of powder, only to reappear on a (relatively) stable part of the third floor once up there. "Aaaaaaaaaa I miss flight I miss flight I miss flight oh gosh this floor is such a mess."

There are certainly LOONs equipped to handle this kind of thing. Prophylaxis is... not. Not statistically. He has the brain needed to handle all of the lore and history that gets piled on constantly, but not much else! Nothing in-game, anyway. But what he does have is the ability to produce a whole lot of dirt. "Fuka, get ready," he says, moving toward the collapsing stair. "I'll produce at a decent clip, but there's going to be a lot of this stuff."

Soon enough he starts to... Sing. It's a rumbling song, like a landslide, and composed of more of that strange Alvish language. But soon enough, real soil begins materializing out of thin air in the doctor's proximity. With Fuka's help, they might just be able to use it to shore up the collapsing third floor...

And from there, exploration will be... less? Risky?

     "I recommend putting it on the first floor closest to the doorway, that's the most stable area so that we don't collapse things." Pela comments towards Prophylaxis as he starts his singing and making dirt materialize. And between he and Fukaziroh, the third floor is starting to be shored up. There were now... somewhat ... safe ... pathways throughout the third floor. There was enough space to at least walk around it relatively safely, if slowly and carefully, still largely spread out for the worst of it to avoid over-stressing any one part of it.

Daiyu waits, both to give Pela time to investigate and to give Prohp and Fuka the time to engage their reinforcement idea. Then she ventures up to the final floor using her own graceful agility and a bit of wind magic. Crossing this manner of hazardous, frail terrain is one of the reasons she developed more her more controlled parkour variant from Lightningstep for in the first place. She makes sure to find a stable footing that isn't too close to Pela, not wanting to risk overbearing loads even with the shoring up done on the floors below them. All it would take up her is one wrong step....

Yeowang will let Proph and Fuka get the way up solidified before moving upwards with great care. She moves quite smoothy, her balace perfect, almost no net force at any point as she moves lightly up to the third floor to have a look aroud, and to see what she might be able to assist with.

     The third floor held... a balcony that overlooked the main area. One that offered a unique view of the remains of the dome that had once held a large amount of artwork on the top of it. What remains is ... mostly ... a single viewpoint of part of a mosiac, an artwork that depicted a familiar view, if... different ... from how it used to be.

     An image of Fort Ouph seen from the side, many familiar features visible there. Buildings, the floating islands, and yet it was... different. It was not connected in a way that was recognizable at all. In fact, there were no bridges, nothing connecting the vast majority of the buildings, and dotted around the grand picture were several humanoid figures with wings. Clearly, once upon a time, all of Fort Ouph was gotten to through flight. "...I wonder if there is a way to preserve this..."

"If this works like it did before..." Daiyu remarks as she makes her way a bit closer to get a good look at the mosaic. Adjusts her glasses. Which are a relic in themselves, allowing her to more thoroughly examine and memorize the image as it gives her a clearer view of what the mosiac looked like when it was pristine and maintained. "This... this would explain why much of the city is less explored. If it was designed with flight travel in mind only, now that everything has to be physically connected, it's more economical to focus on the areas people actually live and work in..."

Yeowang looks over the old Ouph and nods at what Daiyu says. "I agree, that seems to be the case. When Flight stopped working, though, wasn't that just a couple years ago? I seem to remember people that were in the beta test saying flight worked fine? Or did history advance some hundreds of years since the beta test with not much time advancing outside? I get this all confused."

     "I think this is muuuuch older than that, or supposed to be at least. Maybe some of this damage was just caused by the Apocalypse though?" Pela says thoughtfully. "Then again, I don't know how old this is either... could be from owners from before Fort Ouph is the fort ouph it is today?" Pela muses out loud, crossing her arms over her chest thoughtfully. Hmm. Either way, it seems that Daiyu is doing something to memorize it. When it was pristine, it was, of course, a fair bit nicer, likely with more accents, possibly even magic to make things glow, etc. "I wonder though... did time change like that? I wonder." Pela looks at the building. "Maybe when it's demolished we can try to do ... something ... to remove and preserve this though..." She muses out loud. "I'd say 'restore' but I'm not sure how reasonable that is with the sheer level of damage..."

Daiyu takes a step back after several long moments of staring. "I can give a reaccount for a recreation of some manner, but if you could get someone with actual artistic skill to examine it before the wrecking... I don't know how easily it could be removed with so much damage to the material surrounding it.

Yeowang thinks about this. "Isn't Kita, with Scale, an artist? I've heard of her doing a few quite noteworthy things." She will look to Proph to confirm this. As far as the age, she can only guess at it, and as to ehere it falls in history, or what comes after what, she's got little clue.

     "That sounds like a decent plan, so... get with Scale's Kita about the mosiac, and then I'll poke about to see who has the linguistic ability to descipher the various books... I think there was at least one in each of the various areas, though, so it shouldn't be too hard overall." Pela says with a small nod. "I think we've gotten about what we can from the library. All in all a good exploration, and I don't think any of the documents are of a nature that I will need to insist be turned over to Pazuzu for the security of Eastal, as that was one of the conditions of his approval of me exploring more deeply into Fort Ouph."