Writing: Setting Sheet: the Library

Hello everyone and happy holidays!

Today was a good day! I’m happy. I woke up cheerful, got writing done, had my haircut, went to a walk with a friend, hugged a toy mouse who asked me “what is the meaning of life.” (No, I’m not crazy. The toy was a hand puppet. I have a weird, new hobby. I will write about it some fine day.)

Anyway, it has been too long since I posted a sheet from my second book. Here is a setting sheet:

 

The Library

Role in Story: Major. The rest censored!

Related Characters: Censored!

Season: Dawn. Late summer.

Unique Features: A high Gothic church-like building. Gray walls, glass windows with paint symbols, arches, lots of dark wooden bookshelves, pillars going up (Herbert), red velvet carpet on the stairs (hold down with brass bars) and on the isles. Ornamental fences next to the stairs. Librarian’s desk. Index card file cabinet. Chandeliers. And lots of books, ranging from your garden variety necromantic literature to mythology to gardening to how to cut open a human (or any creature for the matter) and what you find inside. Anything, the head librarians of the past and now have gotten their hands onto.

Description: The library is at the Bell Court. It is on the main road going through the city. They built the library a more magnificent than any church or another building in the city. It is as old or older than the University. The library is built on a high platform with steps leading all sides to it. It has five towers, one in every corner and one huge tower in the middle pivoting towards the sky. Above the front door, there is a huge round window with painted glass. The front door is made of heavy wood and enforced with iron bars. There are gargoyles on the roof.

Inside the building, there is a feeling of hollowness even when the library is filled from top to bottom with thousands and thousands of books. The first thing you see when stepping in is the fleeting ceiling. Everything follows the highest point of the library: the arches, pillars, and stairs. After noticing the ceiling you see all the chandeliers and gas wall-lamps, giving the place an eerie yellowish feeling as if behind every corner there might be something willing to snatch you. Only after you are sure the place is haunted, you notice the royal, red velvet carpet which leads through the library’s corridors. Lastly, you notice the dark wooden bookshelves full of books. Or if you are Petula Upwood, those are the first things you notice and barely pay attention to anything else.

The Library is composed of the main hall with all the relevant and most loaned literature, small public study and research rooms, general meeting rooms on the lowest floor and at the back of the building, on the upper floors there are more books and studies for the scholars. Underneath the library is Necropolis’ archives.

The meeting room (Minta and her fellows) is a long, narrow room with an arched ceiling and five huge windows. There is a long table which takes most of the space. The table is there to divide and intimidate the negotiators, to make any issue rational, distant, and have polarised sides. Often enough the barrier the table creates is the reason any reasonable conclusion is seldom met.

At the main hall… censored (Battle happens at the main floor where librarian’s desk, chandeliers, carpets, bookshelves are.)

Sights: Arched and painted glass windows, high ceiling, higher levels where you can see from the main floor, red velvet carpet, chandeliers, index card cabinet, bookshelves, strong door, books, librarian’s desk, the carved pillars, gas lamps, yellowish light, the librarian himself.

Sounds: There is a low hum that comes from the building’s consciousness. Only those who can see the other side and the magical plane can hear it. Otherwise, there is this swallowed silence of unsaid words, half-whispers, and noises coming from the streets. (The head librarian doesn’t approve Nosh Feratu’s (the librarian’s) habit of barging out and shushing everyone. He has been warned once. There won’t be a second time.)

Smells: The dusty smell of books, burn candles, and books, ink, clue, and the smell of death and the undead.

Notes: Lilith Nutterbird who was the greatest architect in the city designed the building. She left behind an everlasting impression on Necropolis. All the major buildings in the city were her handiwork. The university, library, the city’s theatre, clock tower, a museum to name the few. But not the Town Hall, it had come after her time, and she would never design anything so horrendous. She loved everything heavy, intricate, ornamental, and gloomy. She was the complete opposite to the light and airy what Herbert appreciated and to the white colonial Town Hall (which didn’t look romantic nor ancient. It looked haunted and abandoned despite the constant flow of people.)

Lilith Nutterbird loved from all the buildings she designed the library the most as books were her passion. She herself wrote several books about architecture. They are all safely on display inside the building next to the constant exhibition of her life, showcasing her life’s work along with the pictures and paintings she drew from various Necropolis’ buildings. In addition, there are two watercolor lilies she painted to fresh her palette. Lilith Nutterbird canonized what the city should look like. She is Necropolis in every sense. Her visions what the city should look like is fulfilled again and again even with the modern designs.

She died years ago and was buried under the library. No one knows about this. Only those who she trusted to fulfill her last dying wish. Despite her bones lying in the library, she doesn’t haunt the place. Her soul and mind are at rest. She has become the city. But a small part of her fuels the library to be alive which is conscious due to the combination of all the bits of knowledge stored inside and Lilith Nutterbird’s passion and love for the building. Her heart gives the place strength and life.

 

Thank you for reading!