The Fall Holiday Test Drive

[central_librarymods]

The Fall Holiday Test Drive Meme

You are in The Central Library… anything can happen here. In fact, the possible can become actuality while you stay here. Things are always changing. Some for the better, some for the worst… it really all depends on one thing. You. For this Test Drive the patrons will be seeing some new faces while preparing for the Fall Holiday. This means that friends and family from home and new friends from new worlds will be arriving to help celebrate the beginning of the Holiday season.  (Holiday options are marked with festive holiday colored text).

Take a look around, visit the worlds through the book portals, and slowly bring it back to life. The more you do, the better life will get. But be wary, not everything is a fun story and not everything is harmless. Sometimes you will have your life at stake and others you will simply have to enjoy your stay.

1. Arrival – You wake up in the main hall. The reception desk is behind you and you know you heard someone whispering “Save us” in your ear… but where are you? The hall gleams and there are many doors amongst the shelves of books. It is rather huge and a walkway circles a second floor… where are you? Well… you might want to ask.

2. Market Place – The Central Library has turned the large conference room into an open gateway to a market place. It shifts and changes along with the Library, but food is always available to those living there as long as the portal is open. Step into a Parisian market of modern day, an open market of the Dark Ages, or even a trading post in the Old West. Go shopping, take a stroll… your imagination is your only limit.

3. Attack of the TurDuckEns - Normally this unique holiday tradition is something that is eaten for the Thanksgiving Holidays. In the Library the potential main dish is more lively than what is found in the average supermarket. Here the TurDuckEn is a hybrid of the three birds and the creatures are trying to turn the Library into their new home. Wrangle the creatures back in their book before they become permanent residents.

4. Winter Weather Warning (Non-Fiction Immersion) - One of the things many holiday travelers dread it unpredictable weather that can sideline their plans. This time the weather has settled in the workshop. Rain, snow, hail... all the unpredictable winter weather that can make traveling hazardous can make an appearance over the coming week. Find the right book to ensure that the Library has a more welcoming forecast for the holiday meal.

5. Potluck - It's time for the patrons of the Library to come together to visit and to celebrate their successes. Any great meal needs some prep work. With this option, the patrons and those who have wandered into the Library can visit while whipping up their favorite recipes for the upcoming feast.

6. Eat me! Drink Me! - A few surprises from Wonderland still linger in the Library. Patrons may find trays of fancy cakes decorated in fall colors or punch bowls filled with tasty looking drink. Be careful when if you decide to try these tasty treats. Patrons may find themselves growing taller or smaller. Or sprouting feathers. Let your imagination run wild with the possibilities mixed into these Wonderland delicacies.

7.  A posse ad esse – Anything is possible. This is your Wild Card. Have fun with it!

Comments

Jace Herondale Lightwood | Mortal Instruments | 1 & 3

[wayfaring_stranger]

Jace doesn't know or really care all that much what unusual might mean for others, but for himself unusual is waking up in a Library that isn't a place he considers home and seeing wild...birds?

"Am I meant to save these...things?"

Demons. Warlocks. Vampires. Werewolves. Fairies. He's known most of the world Mundanes believe are stories told to scare little children. He's fought them. Killed them. Protected them. His parabatai is secretly dating a Warlock and Simon...he's not really sure about Simon.

Personally, Jace isn't fond of these types of birds. Whatever they may be. Demon-Duck-Hybrid-Monster?

"You can't be serious!" He glares at few from on top of the reception desk as they runs past. "I just helped save Idris and all Shadowhunters!"

[alec_lightwood]

Alec hadn't known about the bird invasion since he'd been busy in one of the rooms overrun by gardens, helping move the books to places where the plants wouldn't hurt them. Occasionally one would catch his interest and he'd end up leaning against a shelf, reading a chapter of the book before putting it aside. He'd just set one volume aside when he felt something different. Like something inside him had suddenly settled into place. He'd felt it a few times before even if had lied to the others and said he never felt a twinge from his parabatai rune and in his chest when Jace had went through his worst struggles.

This wasn't death. This was...

Jace. Alec grinned and picked up his bow and quiver, slinging them onto his back as he ran toward the front desk. That was where all the new arrivals seemed to find themselves when they entered the Library. That's where Jace had to be.

He almost skidded to a halt when he saw his parabatai. Standing on the desk glaring at some weird duck like creature. For a moment, he can only watch Jace and grin, remembering something from Magnus' journal. "Never trust a duck."

[wayfaring_stranger]

"I've defeated demons bigger and smellier than all of you." Jace commented, moving from one end of the desk to the other. The desk gave him a better view and vantage point for attacking and defending. He had no idea what things were capable of at the moment and if he had any of his swords he'd be happy to find out. But it was better to observe first in this situation.

Especially being that he had no idea if he was meant to save the birds or something or someone else. And then he heard Alec's voice and the glare turned to a slight smirk. "I heard what you did with Magnus."

[wanna_bash_heads]

"So?" A voice calls, leaning over a railing from a walkway. "You gonna help or not?" Definitely a challenge in the voice, and looking up would reveal Casey in vigilante gear, skull-painted hockey-mask down. He's trying to think of the best way to do this, other than chasing down birds and knocking 'em out directly.

He needs a net, but really chasing 'em down the hard way isn't so bad. The new arrival is all but ignored for a moment as the baseball bat is pulled out. Backing up a few steps, a yelled cry of "Goongala!" and Casey's vaulting the walkway to try and knock out one of the turducken from above.

[wayfaring_stranger]

Jace glares up at the stranger. Not like any Shadowhunter or Downworlder he's ever known. Must be a Mundane. Are those weapons?

"What is a Goongala?" He asked, watching with mild interest. He's staying on the desk, thank you very much. Jace and anything remotely like a duck do not get along well. He'd rather be hunting demons.

The Doctor l Doctor Who l #4

[sonicseverything]

The man appears in the middle of a blinding snow storm. He's tall, thin and wearing patchwork pants and a red velvet coat. He looks around with dull blue grey eyes and he moves forward scanning the shelves. He is moving like a robot and when he works out what book the snow storm is coming from he slams the book shut like it's the most satisfying things he's ever done.

"Is that it," he snaps his accent thicker in his anger, "you take her from me a toss me into a snow storm. That's nothing. I've eaten bad weather for breakfast. If you want me stop hiding and come get me."

For Old Men who lost their best friends

[you_exist_here]

He would have been slogging through the snow as well, trying to figure out the source for this partcular bad storm in the Library. However before the man could find it he heard the Scottish accent snap angrily at the offending tome. There was something about that voice, something Ben had heard in his own several times in the past.

"Bad Weather usually goes best with some stew and a rustic bread." He says as he observes the oddly dressed man, for some reason almost thinking the man looked like a clean shaven Santa Clause.

[wanna_bash_heads]

The weather was a lot worse than he'd seen in a while, but Casey could handle it. Vigilante-gear on, trying to find the right book himself, when the snow stopped and he heard a slam. Then the voice, and an...accent? Huh. Turning, trying to find the source and making his way over through the drifts.

"Dude, no one's hiding. Not in this weather anyway. Just Non-Fiction going crazy."

[braveheart_clara]

Clara is out on a mission today. That mission is to find and close the book that is making it snow. She's pulled on a coat over her black skirt, leggings and red sweater shirt, and is trying to push her way through the snow storm. It has to be here somewhere.

When it suddenly stops, she jumped a bit, surprised, eyes wide and looking around. "Hello?" She called, because someone else must be around here to have done it. She heard the comment, about taking her from him, and the anger in his thick accented voice. Stop hiding? Come get him?

That could only be one person. Her Doctor. "Doctor?" At a sudden run, she cornered a row of books and saw him, in that damn perfect coat and the angriest eyebrows around.

"Doctor!"

Thea Queen l Arrow l #1 and #3

[redarrowqueen]

Thea Queen had come to after the sword went through her to only find herself among what looked to be a combo of turkeys and ducks. "Ok, either I really am dead or stumbled into a Central City butcher run amuck??" as she grabbed an arrow and fired one into a turkey/duck combo. But once the arrow fired she promptly passed out, crashing into a shelf of books and having several cookbooks hit her head in the process. But the arrows would be a clue to who she was.

(canon point: last 10 minutes of "Broken Arrow" so has just been stabbed by Ra's Al Ghul but pre lazarus pit. So cue the mental/emotional fallout but minus the bloodlust.)

[enlightenedfeline]

The Cat hissed as he bounded toward the new patron. Focusing on the arrow and the TurDuckEn, the feline ensured that the projectile would not injure the bird before leaping onto one of the books beside her. It was tempting to use his claws to wake her but instead, he sat down, curling his tail around his paws while glaring down at her.

Sighing, he noted the injury and sent enough of a mental nudge to wake her. "Perhaps you should learn to ask questions before you try using living things for target practice."

[wanna_bash_heads]

"Woah there no no no no!" Casey has been chasing Turducken and knocking them out, and came just in time to see the arrow fly, and then the lady pass out into the shelves. Hnnnngggg, bird or potential new arrival? No time no time...

Person first, then bird. Hopefully that arrow missed, as the vigilante moved over and sat the new person up. "Hey, wake up? Don't pass out on me k?"

Re: Thea Queen l Arrow l #1 and #3

[wayfaring_stranger]

Jace only knows one archer, but he's fast enough to stop the arrow. His fear of anything duck-like doesn't change his compassion. No matter how much Valentine tried to beat it out of him. He doesn't see why the bird should die even if he is still standing on top of the bookshelves to avoid being near them.

He remembers the last girl he rescued as he looks down at this one and then curses out loud before dropping down beside her. He's quick to pick her up in his arms and move to higher ground. Anywhere away from those cursed duck-monsters.

On top of a bookshelf is good enough for now, especially considering she's bleeding and he doesn't have his stele. Not that he could use it on her. An iratze would most likely kill her. So he uses the only thing he has to try and slow down the bleeding. His shirt.

It reminded him of what he had said to Clary when she'd been injured after they had first met.

Mikleo | Tales of Zestiria | 1 and 6

[seraph_reborn]

Mikleo arrived here several hours ago. He spent the first hour investigating and trying to figure out how he got here. After he reached no answer, he decided to go with the flow and another couple hours after that wandering through the stacks, collecting books and ending up with a huge pile on a table. You might wonder how someone can spend so long doing that, but the answer is this: he is himself and himself is a huge nerd.

But before he can read, he catches sight of the treats table. For a new patron that's come into the library, something like a table full of treats should be fairly innocuous. After all, there's no way to know the history behind it. For a place Mikleo's never been to, especially when he's alone for the moment, it looks a little more dangerous. So he doesn't eat right away. It's not as if he needs to eat? Eating is purely a recreational habit for one of his kind.

But the treats just look so tempting that he decides in the end to try one despite all his misgivings. Nobody seems to be poisoned by them - there isn't a pile of dead people around, after all. It's just too bad he didn't wait longer than a few minutes, because then he would have observed it doing different things to other patrons. From all outer appearances, all it does is change his hair colour, from bluish to something far more brown. But inside, something fundamental feels changed. Even the blood running through him feels like it beats differently. What exactly has happened?

Re: Mikleo | Tales of Zestiria | 1 and 6

[tendershepherd]

He's not sure how long he's been wandering around the giant library, looking for any sign of any of his companions. He and Edna had thought it best to split up to try and cover more ground, but now he was kind of regretting it. Being alone only made the knot of worry in his stomach more pronounced.

"Where do you go...?" He's talking to himself, but more specifically he's asking the door he just started opening.

It's probably the fifth door he's wandered through, trying to find someone, anyone, but especially the one person he really wants to find. He blinks in surprise when the door opens to reveal another well-lit area, much different from the dark hallways he didn't feel right going down. Cautiously, he steps through the doorway and closes the door behind him, looking around.

He's definitely still in the library, but what section he couldn't even begin to guess. The first thing he notices is that this area has some tables interspersed throughout a smaller collection of shelves. A few of these tables have books on them, but one of them seems to have a whole mountain on them.

A few steps from the door is all it takes for him to spot another, longer table hidden behind a few shelves. More than that, he spots a familiarly-dressed figure and his heart leaps all at once into his throat. He can't help how quickly he runs over and it's not until he's right behind the figure that he notices something is just a tad bit off.

"Mikleo?" He asks, voice low and cautious.

Sorey | Tales of Zestiria | #1

[tendershepherd]

He blinks his eyes open slowly with a groggy moan. The first thing that comes into focus is the immaculately decorated ceiling high above him. The stark difference between this and the simple wooden ceiling of their house doesn't hit him until a moment later. He sits up quickly, on edge due to the unfamiliarity.

"Mikleo?" He looks to the side for his friend, expecting the seraph to be there but finding himself alone.

A knot of worry twists in his stomach. The other boy usually slept beside him and the last thing he remembered was both of them going to bed. In their bed. Which was definitely not this hard wooden floor he was now sitting on.

"Where is this?"

He says it more to himself out of habit, looking around to try and get a feel for the surroundings. The first thing his eyes fixate on are the massive amounts of books surrounding him, his eyes widening and sparkling a bit. He's always been an avid reader and...and he's never seen THIS many books before! Not even the Hyland Palace's library could come close to this. He quickly scrambles to stand up, stepping closer to the nearest shelf and reaching out to run his fingers along the spines of the books. He didn't recognize any of them, many of them had titles he couldn't even read. Was this place some kind of special library?

His fingers twitch with an urge to grab as many books as he can and read them--or attempt to--but that needs to wait. Right now, he needs to find Mikleo. Before that, he needs to figure out where exactly he is. He tears himself reluctantly away from the shelf, turning away and finally noticing the desk that had been behind him when he woke up.

Someone was sitting at the desk, though they didn't seem to be paying any attention to him. Had they been there the whole time? Only one way to find out, he supposes.

"Excuse me?" He says softly, both because this place feels like a library and in an attempt to seem nonthreatening "Do you know where we are?"

[early_bloomer]

Edna had been along for the ride inside of Sorey. She's a sub lord, after all, and that means she can be carried along inside his mind. It also means she can transport herself outside of it and that's what she does now, standing right behind him.

"This seems like your heaven," she says, twisting her umbrella slowly as the tip rests on the ground. "Maybe we died."

His heaven is her hell, especially if Mikleo ends up here as well. Watching the two nerds dork it out... well. She really did not find it endearing when it happened, and a library of this magnitude was just going to make it even worse.

Rose | Tales of Zestiria | #3

[another_name]

Rose is somewhat alarmed by these birds. They look like some sort of hellion and as a result, she's already pulled one of her daggers from behind her back before she realizes that she senses no malevolence from them. With a sheepish sigh, she sheathes the dagger again before approaching one. "What are you?" she asks it, and it responds with a very strange noise.

...

She quickly moves to about three feet away, deciding that putting distance between her and something that sounds like that is very wise indeed. The bird is alarmed by her quick movement and starts beating its feathers, making an even louder noise.

Uh. Maybe putting her weapon away had been a bad idea.

Re: Rose | Tales of Zestiria | #3

[tendershepherd]

He's walking through yet another door when he hears a strange sound from within the room, a distance away. The sound makes him pause in the doorway. It sounded animistic, bird-like maybe? But it didn't sound like any kind of bird he was familiar with.

For a moment he considers whether or not he should investigate the noise. But then again, this was a library, so there shouldn't be any animals in here anyway, right? It could damage the books or cause trouble...

Decision made, he quietly closes the door behind him before heading in the direction of the noise. His steps are careful, cautious, because the first step to catching something is to sneak up and attack it. That's what he learned hunting pickleboars, anyway.

He peaks around a standalone bookshelf, his eyes widening at who he finds.

"Rose?!"

He instantly regrets raising his voice because the bird--hellion?--squawks loudly before running off, disappearing behind another shelf. Damnit. Now they'll have to hunt it down. But first things first...

"You're here too?" He smiles widely, happy that he found another one of his companions.

[early_bloomer]

Edna has been wandering around the library for awhile without a partner, as she and Sorey had decided that they would cover more ground if they split up. To be honest, she's a little lonely by herself. But that's not something she would ever admit. But not admitting it doesn't keep her from being happy to see Rose when she spots her.

Edna's not so happy to see that bird, but it doesn't detract too much. It's not a hellion, so they're not required to deal with it. She walks by quickly, grabbing Rose by the arm and dragging her along. "Get away from that thing," she scolds. "If you catch a disease, it's on my head."

[alec_lightwood]

He'd been tracking the strange footprints through a few rooms of the Library, trying to figure out how exactly to heard something with feathers. Alec still hadn't found the right book but the Cat said that he'd deal with that while Alec kept anyone from attacking the hybrid ducks.

"They're not dangerous. They're just like normal ducks except strange looking." Unless someone had a phobia regarding birds like Alec's parabatai. Then they probably looked demonic. "The Cat said that we shouldn't hurt them."

Maedhros Nelyafinwë Maitimo Fëanorian | The Silmarillion | 1 & 7

[castintoflames]

The smell of food drew him forward as keenly as the voice in his ears. Save who? Maedhros wasn't sure where his feet had taken him or why. His body was once again whole - it had been so in the Halls of Mandos - yet there he had been nothing more than fëa flickering dimly in the darkness. Here, he was...

A large hand was placed over his chest and he made a sound of shock. There was a beating heart under his fingers and air in his lungs. Some great power had brought him back - ?

But for what purpose? His eyes narrowed suspiciously and he tied back his long hair in a simple ponytail so that his vision was not compromised.

"Hail?" his voice was as mighty as it had always been, though he could hear the uncertainty underneath.

[alec_lightwood]

"Hello?" Alec frowned when he saw someone new in the Library without any of the Librarians near. Usually one of them welcomed the newest patrons and explained things to them. Alec could greet someone and give them the basics but most people found him too abrupt to really be welcoming. "You're somewhere safe. This is the Library. Normally the Librarians are here to help new arrivals but they've been busy lately."

Isabelle Lightwood |Mortal Instruments | I & 3

[electrumwhip]

Isabelle Lightwood was not the type of person to sit on the sidelines and take things lying down. In fact she is the exact opposite. Give the girl a weapon and a war, and she is completely at home. This however, was not home. She looked around, and suddenly was bombarded by a creature.

Not just any creature either.

"Just what is that?" She asked, disdain evident in her voice. "Is this some Mundie sorcery?"

[alec_lightwood]

The sound of a familiar voice caused Alec to set aside the books he'd been sorting to job over to the main desk. Realizing who had just arrived, he gave his sister a brilliant grin. His expression turned to confusion as he studied the strange duck hybrid. "You know Mundane sorcery doesn't work." Well, it did but usually 'works' was relative considering success usually meant the spell caster ended up torn apart by a demon. "I'm not sure what it is other than something that would have Jace needing a Fearless rune."