by HL TRUSLOVE
You cast your eyes over the lines of tomes. Each shelf’s inventory varies in size and length, and they don’t seem to be ordered in any way you can understand. Some of them seem to be read more than the others, though, and some bookcases are far more matted with dust than others. Towards the outside of the room, cold has begun to seep through the cracked walls and a few of the books have begun to fall victim to damp. The smell of must is definitely more palpable here.
Try to translate the library card system – Turn to 17.13, Needs Knowledge.
* * *
Look for medical texts – Turn to 17.11, Needs Medicine.
* * *
Look for maps – Turn to 17.12.
* * *
Talk to the people here – Turn to 17.10.
17.5
You find yourself staring at this place in awe. Not only must there still be some sort of power leading down here, electricity even, just like in the vault, the fact that this machine still works after so many years is nothing short of a miracle.
You can’t resist taking a closer look.
The machine is shaped like a box and has a circle mounted on it. There’s a glass lens at one end, which looks like it’s the source of light – this is further evidenced when you wave your hand in front of it and see it shadowed on the blue square on the wall. Judging by the set-up and the angle of the machine, you guess it’s some sort of basic projecting mechanism, a far more rudimentary version of what you had back in the vault.
The plastic casing around the machinery has begun to come away, and it only takes one short sharp tug to remove the plate and see the wires and mechanisms inside.
You look more carefully at the machine. Your original assessment might have been wrong; there’s no live power down here, instead the machine is connected to a backup generator. Just as you’re wondering why it was so important that it needed an independent power source, you suddenly hear a fan whirr to life. It makes you jump, and you step away as a cloud of dust is blown into the air from inside the machine.
It beeps and hums and a red light sputters to life on the front of it. The blue square glitches for a second before it’s replaced with black and grey shapes that seem to move and blend together. You furrow your brow and, on a hunch, you gently begin to fiddle with the lens. As you twist it, the anonymous shapes begin to come into focus.
There’s no sound, but you’re definitely seeing a video. It looks like some sort of news report from before the war.
Troops in uniform are stood in file before a pair of elderly men, one in uniform and the other in a suit. The man in the suit points to something off camera and his companion nods. The video cuts to the same men, now flanked by scientists in white coats, inside a lab. They wear protective goggles and are bent over a containment unit where some unknown material seems to have provoked them into a lively conversation. Another shot, and the men are now sitting in the rear of an army vehicle, which flies by the camera at speed. As the camera pans, you see an entire complex of military buildings surrounded by wire fences and guard towers. A woman in a suit steps in front of the camera and speaks into a microphone while a helicopter behind her takes off into the sky.
You stand there in silence and awe, marvelling at the ghosts of the old world you see before you. The size and scale of their military shocks you, and in that moment you begin to understand how your ancestors, in their zealotry, became the architects of their own destruction.
You become aware that above your head a broken old speaker buzzes softly in time with the mouth of the woman on screen, but it gives no sound you can understand. You never learned to read lips. You seem to recall Gaia mentioning something about it being a skill she had, but it wasn’t ever something you went into great detail about.
You wish she were here. You wish you weren’t experiencing this alone.
Your mind wanders to thoughts of loss and despair as you consider how so many people, blinded by their beliefs, were unable to see the danger that you see so plainly in hindsight. How they even seemed excited about getting to try new modes of war. A solemn feeling overcomes you as you turn from the images. Your eyes adjust once more to the darkness as you consider your next move.
Preserve the film – Turn to 17.8.
* * *
Destroy the film – Turn to 17.9.
17.6
Each of the classrooms seem quite uniform. The desk layout for each is a bit different – some have desks facing the front, some are in a circle as if set up for a discussion. Chairs have not stood the test of time, and many lie scattered on the floor and separate from their legs. In each room, you see old scraps of paper have been blown into the corners by the harsh wind.
It’s fascinating in its own way to see how the children of a century ago learned. There are a couple of carvings in the desks, probably done by a bored pupil with a sharp pencil, mostly love hearts with initials written in them. You run your fingers over the grooves sentimentally. But apart from a few old displays showing photos of the old world, there’s little of interest here.
Visit the doored-off room – Turn to 17.7.
* * *
Hunker down for the night – Turn to 17.18.
17.7
It takes a shove with your shoulder to make the wood move enough from the frame for you to enter, and when it does it’s with a loud crack. You hope that nobody comes to investigate.
You’re a little disappointed when you open the door. The layout isn’t dissimilar to that of the other rooms. It’s comparable in shape and size, though the furniture is a little bit better with sofas and coffee tables rather than desks. On one side of the room there are a few counters and a fridge, making up a kitchenette. Discarded mugs, now shattered to porcelain shards, make their home there. You think you see a spider skittering between them.
You wonder why this place was sectioned off from the other areas – it doesn’t seem particularly secretive. Then again, they must have needed a place for teachers to take a break – maybe that’s the function of this room? Your mind wanders to the past, and you imagine the ghosts wandering in and out of the door, folders clutched to their chests and coffee in their hands.
This might be a good place to make camp for the night, you think. Despite the spiders.
Go to the main library – Turn to 17.4.
* * *
Hunker down for the night – Turn to 17.18.
17.8
After rummaging in your pack for a penknife, you carefully slide the blade into the plastic casing on the box. The circle on the top pops open with another little puff of dust. Underneath it, a small silver disk spins to a halt. You carefully extract it. You don’t know if the vault has the technology to read this format, but it’s worth bringing it with you anyway. Anything you can get from it might give a good insight into the old world.
Carefully, you find a protected pocket to keep the disk. You hope it won’t snap as you travel. All you can do is try to make sure you don’t land on your pack any time soon.
Add Film (O.7) to your inventory.
* * *
Explore – Turn to 17.19.
* * *
Hunker down for the night – Turn to 17.18.
17.9
You don’t know how long this film has been down here, or how many people have seen it. How many people have looked at it like you have and thought about the mistakes of the past.
All something like this can do is cause pain. Try to drag people back to a life they can never have again.
With a sigh, you take your penknife from your pack and slide the blade into the plastic casing. The circle on the top pops out and reveals a disk which slowly spins to a stop. You reach in and fish it out with cautious fingers before snapping it in half, and then quarters.
It’s better this way, you decide, dropping the shards to the floor. Save people the pain. Like a tumour, that part of the past needs to be cut out.
Add Resolve to your character sheet.
* * *
Explo
re Upstairs – Turn to 17.19.
* * *
Hunker down for the night – Turn to 17.18.
17.10
An old man scans a shelf with dull grey eyes. You sidle up to him and look over his shoulder. The books he’s scanning are thick and complex. One is open in his hands, full of very small print that takes up the whole page. There’s also some sort of scientific diagram which you can make neither heads nor tails of.
It’s clear he’s seen you watching him, and you feel a little embarrassed, but he smiles at you with a hint of sadness.
“Not many folks visit this section any more. Usually it’s just me nowadays.”
He really is quite old. The wrinkles along his face are chasms in his skin, and his hair is a bright white. You wonder if he’s old enough to remember when the war first broke out.
“What are you reading?” You don’t want to seem impolite, and this man seems so sombre that the least you can do is have a conversation with him. He closes the book, using a finger to bookmark his page, and shows you the front. There’s a picture of a nuclear symbol on the front which you recognise – it was the sort of thing you were warned to watch out for before you left on your voyage – ‘There is danger here’.
“My mother used to work in the plants back before this whole thing happened. I try to keep myself educated, pass on the information to the young ’uns. Make sure the knowledge doesn’t leave us. It wasn’t always a bad thing, you know, the radiation. Only became that when we started turning on each other.”
He goes back to browsing his book and you’re left to mull over his words.
Explore further – Turn to 17.15.
* * *
Hunker down for the night – Turn to 17.18.
* * *
Speak to man about sketch – Turn to 17.16a, Needs Sketch of Statue.
* * *
Speak to man about powerplant – Turn to 17.16, Needs Powerplant Files.
17.11
You search through the books as much as you can. The language is strange and alien to you, despite the knowledge of medicine you came here with. A few words are similar, mostly when it comes to names of medication, but a lot of this information has been lost through the war. Obviously, when the bombs dropped there was a high demand for medical treatment, and a lot of stock got used up fast. That led to years of medicinal shortage. Many people who didn’t get blown up or irradiated ended up succumbing to otherwise avoidable sickness.
The vault manufactured its own medicine. Your home was lucky to have trained doctors and pharmacists within its walls who were able to treat your community effectively. You can’t imagine the hell that was any vaults that didn’t.
A lot of these books have the same theme, you notice after a while. There seems to be a fixation on slimming down, staying as low a weight as possible.
You don’t understand it. If you could be fat, it would be because you had plenty of food, and that sounds wonderful. A day with a full stomach is a day well spent. It seems ridiculous, the stupid things the people of the old world were obsessed with. You shove the book back onto the shelf and decide there’s nothing worth looking at here.
Talk to someone in the library – Turn to 17.10.
* * *
Hunker down for the night – Turn to 17.18.
17.12
Perhaps there are some atlases around here. If you can find something, you might be able to map out the surrounding areas a little better. You hope the actual topography of the land hasn’t changed much in a hundred years.
You take your time exploring and find that the books about geography are all covered in a thick layer of dust. When you open them, you find out why – none of it is about what is here. You see printed pictures of brilliant blue oceans and vast sandy deserts, but nothing local at all. Back in the Old World they were probably so interested in what lay beyond the horizon, the library might not have thought it worth stocking information about the homeland itself.
It’s certainly a frustrating discovery, and you find yourself cursing the library itself. Of course, there’s no way the people who worked here could have had any idea about your predicament, and it’s a fruitless thing to do, but it makes you feel better. It’s probably best to look somewhere else for this type of information.
Explore further – Turn to 17.15.
* * *
Talk to someone in the library – Turn to 17.10.
17.13
If you’re going to get anywhere here, you’re going to need to know how to crack the system. There’s a desk area with ancient machines sitting on it towards the middle of the room, probably where staff used to sit, but nobody appears to be working at this place any more. People are free to come and go as they please, taking books with them with no enforcement to bring them back. In all honesty, you’re surprised it’s survived in such a good state – perhaps people’s respect for old world artefacts increased when it died.
There are tall piles of paper in the main desk’s drawers. They seem to detail the system that the books are filed in. From what you can make out, it uses long, decimal numbers. You’re lucky there are also illustrations to help you understand the guide, or you think you’d be lost.
You pore over the lexicon for hours, running a finger under each word to try to work it out like a child might in their first reading lessons. You make a note of anything that might be interesting and will make an effort to find it later.
By the time you’re done, the knee you’ve rested the book on is numb. You’re also quite cold, but it’s all worth it as you think you’ve found something that might be helpful.
Find “Alba for Tourists” – Turn to 17.17.
* * *
Find “Engelsk-Norsk Ordbok” – Turn to 17.14.
17.14
You go and seek out the strange book and find it towards the outside wall on a dusty shelf. You pull it free and stare at it, taking in what fascinated you in the first place – it has a picture of your vault’s flag on the front.
Opening the page, you find a bank of words from your own language gathered alongside phrases and words from the Old World. In the centre of the book, strange diagrams seem to explain the grammar of the two languages, making comparisons that highlight the ancient, shared roots which have become lost to time. As you flick through the book, you find new and strange words which may become useful for your journey. “Laundrette”, “vestibule”, “motorway”. The lyrical quality of the Old World’s language delights you with each esoteric new discovery you make. Tucking the book in your inside pocket, you move on, sure that this valuable resource will be hugely useful to you.
You may add Old World Language (S.2) as a skill to your character sheet.
* * *
Hunker down for the night – Turn to 17.18.
* * *
Explore the rest of the building – Turn to 17.15.
17.15
You go back to where the signposts split the building, and as you go you take note of the architecture of the place. It appears this huge building is in three parts: the ground floor (including the library itself), a basement, and small rooms that circle the dome of the main building up a set of winding stairs.
Go up – Turn to 17.3.
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Go down – Turn to 17.2.
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Explore the mosaic – Turn to 17.20.
17.16a
“Excuse me…” you continue. The man jumps as if he didn’t expect you to speak again. He watches you warily as you go through your pack to find your sketchbook. “Can you tell me about this?”
The man gingerly takes the book and smiles.
“This was old even when I was a child. It’s a monument to the first great war the world had. It was a tragedy. Of course,” he sighs, “a lot less people died than when we worked out how to use radiation.”
He hands you the book back.
“Some people think we should forget these things in the past. Some people think if we ignore them, we’re
doomed to repeat our mistakes. What do you think?”
You don’t know how to answer, honestly.
Add either Resolve or Instability to your character sheet.
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