But, I've finally gotten the time to sit down to share (most of) the details of the micro-adventure I went on with the translation team. Speaking of which...
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Dramatis Personae - The Translation Team
Myself - The most recent volunteer member of the team.
Jonas - Formerly the rookie of the team, more due to how long he'd been working with them rather than skill. A peppy guy with a big heart. Really into the Weather Channel, and meteorology in general.
Megido - A graduate student at AMU studying archeology. She's doing work with the lab while pursuing her doctorate.
Jonathan - A gentle giant of an AMU alumni, who had done (one of) his thesis papers on the involvement of Fossils in ancient South American cultures.
Hershel - Another archeology professor, one who's as much of a gentleman as Jonathan. Though he has considerably less muscle mass, he likes to joke that his hat makes up the difference. Fond of puzzles and tea.
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August 2nd, 2019
"So this is the new member of the translation team."
An older man had entered our lab around lunch time, looking like the kind of man who had a full tank of gas and half a pack of cigarettes. I was the only one in the room when he arrived. Since we'd discovered the missing time (and the existence of the missing volume) we'd agreed not to leave the lab unsupervised, and it had been my turn to stand watch. I had been working on recovering more of the progress still left as gaps in Jonas' notes.
"You must be Cimbrius Tviblindi," I said, getting up from my chair.
He looked pleasantly surprised. "I see that my reputation precedes me."
"That, or some well-dressed scoundrel took his lanyard."
He chuckled at that. "These are about the only things they seem to give out like candy around here."
Tviblindi looked down at my lanyard which, like his, was currently little more than a headshot glued haphazardly to a 'hello my name is' sticker. "'Doctor Jackson.'" He gave me a knowing smile. "Pleasure to meet you."
"Likewise," I said. "Though something tells me this isn't a social call."
He nodded. "I'd heard the news about the missing third volume, and the lack of memories regarding it. Apart from that, however, I wasn't briefed on that subject."
"Well, Jonas can tell you more about the contents of his notes than I can," I admitted. "Thanks to his eidetic memory. Though they're all out getting lunch right now..."
"I can wait for them to return."
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Tviblindi paused, his BLT hanging in front of his face."Oh? And when would that have been?"
"My notes ended at May the 8th. Our best guess is that the thief took our memories sometime within 24 hours after I finished storing the copy for my lockbox."
"And the rest of you make copies of your notes?"
Jonathan looked down at his ham on rye sandwich. "I do, but unfortunately I just kept them in a separate drawer of my desk."
Hershel adjusted the brim of his hat. "Suffice to say, not all of us thought of hiding them. Or rather, in places the thief wasn't able to discover for themselves." He took a small sip of his tea. "At this point, since we still have the source materials to work with, our work on the translations wasn't irreparably damaged. But somehow, I doubt that was the only thing that they had taken. I only wish that we could know for certain."
"Actually, I think there is a way to figure out what the memory thief stole," Megido said. "We find and read the team's Books."
You couldn't see what was behind Tviblindi's sunglasses, but you could almost sense that they were sparkling. "...you're not talking about the translations, are you."
Megido nodded, then looked around at the others. "AMU is part of the Archive, after all. If anyone has the opportunity to check our Books of Memories out from that library, it's those closest to the librarian."
"But if the thief took our memories, then how could we find what we're looking for in there?" Jonathan asked. "Wouldn't they still have them?"
Hershel looked thoughtful. "According to research regarding the Fears, souls of the dead are inexorably drawn to the Archangel unless another Fear was the direct cause, and it has been hypothesized that a similar exception exists for the Blind Man and memories."
"The way I see it, either way it still helps us narrow down our suspect." Megido held out one hand, palm up. "If there are blank sections in the books, then according to that logic the memory thief was a Fear." She extended the other hand, holding it palm up as well. "If the Books don't work that way, or if the culprit wasn't a Fear, then we'll learn more about that missing time or the culprit. Preferably both."
Jonathan put his sandwich down on his plate. "Hold on. What if it also omits memories erased by those who aren't Fears? What happens then?"
"...we'll call that our worst case scenario, since we don't really have a way of testing that," she admitted.
Jonas put a hand to his chin. "But the library contains the books of everyone who has ever lived, right? Say that we find 'our' books, but they're not from this world. How would we know we've found the correct ones?"
Tviblindi was quiet for a moment. "...I might be able to help."
All eyes turned to him.
"I can't take you there. But," he said. "I do know someone who can help you do so." He handed me a business card, the front of which was blank... save for a single email address and the Greek letter Δ. "Tell her the phrase on the back of this card. She'll grant you safe passage, and help you find the right Books."
We all thanked him as he got up to leave.
"Best of luck to you all," he said.
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For the sake of brevity, I won't go into detail about the maze of largely identical-looking tunnels of the Catacombs that we went through to reach our destination, nor about all of the bone spiders that eyed us curiously as we passed them. Just as well, really, since we didn't really talk during that trek.
She asked me not to talk about her appearance in depth - she has to maintain some level of secrecy for her own sake, given her calling - but I can say that Collector Delta was... surprisingly young.
"We're here," she said. She was standing before what looked to be a solid wall that covered the path ahead, a wall that only looked smooth at first glance. If you viewed it from the right angle, you could see that it was marked by the faint outline of seven separate circles.
Collector Delta asked me not to discuss the design of the door any further, nor what she had done to open it. But I can talk about what happened when she was finished.
The wall slid away, and light poured into the tunnel.
The six of us walked forwards into the Blind Man's Library, and I couldn't help feeling the strangest sense of nostalgia as I took it all in. Row after row of shelving that stretched inexorably higher, all neatly filled with books bound in a dizzying vast spectrum of color. Even the floor beneath us housed books, though we quickly discovered it was impossible to actually tread on them - it was a very faint margin, but we were standing on something flat that was protecting those spines from foot traffic.
We took a moment to simply take in this sight.
Then Megido looked at Collector Delta. "How are we going to find our Books in all of this?"
A bone spider popped out from her lowered hood, looking carefully at the five of us. It then dove into my pocket, and stole the card that Tviblindi had given me. The bone spider studied it carefully, then jabbed each of us with the end of one of its ivory legs, before weaving the blood in with its colorful silk. When it was done, it had left us with five honest to God library cards with each of our real names on them, before diving back into Collector Delta's hoodie.
"Just follow the cards," she said. "When you're done, hold them up with both hands, and I'll come to collect you."
Then she sat down to wait.
So we began to walk.
[To Be Continued...]
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