Bookkeeper Logs

"Bookkeeper Logs" is a [SEASON NUMBER] thread written on [IRL DATE].
==Summary==
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==Full Text==
"Hmm. Hmhmmhmmm. Humm..." Juro quietly sang to himself as he pulled journals and parchments around from shelves, placing them on the cart beside him. He was surrounded by piles and piles and unending piles of books, stacked high against the wall, bookcases overflowing, and littered across every possible surface in the library. Above him was the whir of cogs and wheels. It looked like a system of slides, pulleys, and ropes that transported more books and journals, as well as these odd, thin, black box-like items. They zipped through the lines as they were sorted to different parts of the library.
Juro pressed some small panels on the wall as he passed by, and a few of the black items popped out and dropped down to his cart. He took one of them and attached them to some weird ropes with metal ends, then a big square light appeared before him. The glow reflected off his glasses, text scribbled across as he read them quickly, tapping more clicking small panels with his fingers.
He grinned to himself as he recalled the time Liam took a peek at his journal, written in his own language. The light flashed multiple times, and a new set of text appeared after a while, "Hmm... multiple earthquakes across a few hundred timelines. Interesting. I wonder..." he mused while thumbing through another book with his free hand.
He touched the panels again, and new markings appeared as he did. ウォーデン. "Just have to filter it to 'recent', and..." The words changed again, and Juro adjusted his glasses, "Alright. Time to take a look at everyone's updates."
foresight-botgd
"Are you insane?" A sharp voice with a heavy Wildersouth accent broke the clatter of the library behind him.
akkeyagentofhelheim
Juro jumped visibly and whirled around in a panic, dropping everything he held on the ground, "What the fuck. How on Earth did you get here?!"
"Wait, no, I know. Of course you can, but how'd you know--the fuck? What the fuck?" he ran to the door, opening it in a frenzy to peek out and check the outside. Milae could see some figures milling beyond, black hair done in intricate buns, curious plain swords hung on their hips, adorned in robes that were somewhat similar to Juro's but detailed and layered and tied and at the waist with wide sashes and fabric. He caught sight of wooden slippers on everyone's feet before Juro slammed the door shut again, passing his hand along the side and securing it with some type of magic.
The Bookkeeper punched more panels along the walls and clicks and buzzes sounded out in the Library as things adjusted in place. He turned again and marched up to his visitor, exhaling slowly to calm himself. It was a very, very long time since he was last frazzled like that, but he forced the grin back on his face, "What are you doing here?"
foresight-botgd
"Shut the door behind you faster next time," he said dryly. He was extremely curious about his surroundings, but he was more pressed by what he had overheard him and Stonegit talking about. "You think you can just go looking for the name of an archdemon? You're not stupid in your other timelines. Why are you, here?"
akkeyagentofhelheim
He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed, "I'm here doing my job. You know... Bookkeeper? Scribe? Recorder of history? And for the story to move forward, the next plot device is needed."
foresight-botgd
"Is your job to make history, or record it?" Milae stared steadily at Juro, fiddling with the handle of his staff. "Why are you doing this?" Despite his accusation, and the way he had intruded on Juro's space, the question sounded genuine, as though he truly wanted to understand what he was doing.
akkeyagentofhelheim
"This? Cus I'm curious," he replied simply, "See, watching is nice and all, but sometimes story arcs flatline and need a little poke, yeah? I tried staying 100% in the sidelines once, it was next to impossible. Couldn't even kick a rock. Had to stop existing at one point. Nothing happened. Super boring."
He shrugged, his heart rate finally slowing down after the initial surprise, "So, sometimes, if people ask me, I do some little errands for them. It's their choice, their next steps, their story, another road appears."
"Besides, all this," he swept a hand across the library, "Very much the preliminary stage. Still searching, still reading, haven't even begun to make a dent in anything, if it's even successful, if it even leaves this place at all."
foresight-botgd
Milae watched him oddly for a second. Story arcs? The concept of what Juro was suggesting was utterly unfamiliar and alien to him, and he discarded it instead of trying to wrap his mind around it. But the gist of it appealed to him. “What have you discovered so far?” he instead asked.
akkeyagentofhelheim
"Not much yet," the Bookkeeper admitted with a lazy shrug, and starting picking up all the materials he had dropped, "I'm filtering by universe type and looking for anything that pops up with the word 'Warden', starting with the timelines closest to this."
foresight-botgd
“Hm.” Milae pushed a hoof up into his mouth pensively, eyeing the books and other objects that the man was collecting off the floor. “You are still doing something very stupid. But if I can’t stop you, I will mitigate the damage.” He lowered the hoof, spinning his staff smoothly around once and catching it on the ground, and used the momentum to hop himself up a little higher, perching his rear on the cart and nestling the staff in his shoulder. His hooves dangled over a foot off the ground. “You are playing a big game. The Warden, however destructive she may be, is a small, ignorant piece in this world. I feel you must aim higher, though where that may be, I wouldn’t know myself.” His face quirked in annoyance. “I...avoid demons.”
He tapped his staff on the ground thoughtfully. “Perhaps I raid some normal libraries. Central’s, or the Wild North kingdoms,” he said, eyeing their surroundings again, which were full of things he didn’t even want to start thinking about, lest he give himself a migraine. Milae was familiar with the sensation, from the beginnings of the first uses of his abilities. He had come across timelines that he understood now, but back then, it spooked him how badly twisted and different everything was. Nothing felt wrong here, per se. But he had a distinct feeling he was seeing things he shouldn’t lay eyes on. And it excited him. It had been a long time since that old feeling.
akkeyagentofhelheim
"I usually don't actively seek them out, TBH..." he laughed under his breath, eyes holding no humour in them, pausing in his task of reorganizing, "But this one could prove to be fun."
Juro placed a miscellaneous journal on the timeline jumper's lap, as a book holder, "That would be an idea. My first thought was that 'Warden' would yield the most results, then narrow it down from there. You saying go deeper?"
foresight-botgd
Sniffing, he shook his head, flicking the top cover of the book open and idly flipping through one or two pages. “It is a good place to start. But you will have much to look through. Discovering a second set of variables may narrow it down.” 
He paused, his hooves stilling. Then he looked up at Juro. “If I help do this...may I ask a favor of you?”
akkeyagentofhelheim
"I'm a fast reader, don't worry," the pages were marked with words in a language Milae couldn't read, but he spotted some pictures of what looked like dragons, but they were oddly shapen, with long, long bodies like snakes and swirling designs on their skin.
"Maybe!" Juro replied, pushing another long chord into a hole in a box, "Won't guarantee you'll get it if it's too much meddling, but let me hear it."
foresight-botgd
Milae fiddled his feet against each other, the ridges of his cloven hooves catching against the cart, trailing a finger over the body of one of the inked dragons. “I only need information on a timeline without visiting it. It is...potentially too dangerous for me to go there, as it could end in the destruction of everything we know.” He took a deep breath. “But I want to. Very badly. And it wouldn’t be wise, so...knowing that someone else can see what I see might help. Do you have access to sub-par timelines? Damaged, broken...looped?”
akkeyagentofhelheim
Juro paused his hand, leaning the spine of the book he held onto the cart and said gently, "Yes. There are Bookkeepers in every timeline, no matter how fractured or miniscule..." He glanced at him carefully, quietly.
foresight-botgd
Milae swallowed. He felt the familiar constriction of his throat, the sign of one of his greatest anxieties, and his breathing tightened. “I need...” He shut his eyes. Why was asking for help so difficult?
He mutely reached into his bag for a pencil and flipped to the very back of Juro’s journal, scribbling in one of the margins. February 8, 1059 - looped. “I need this,” he said quietly. “Anything. Everything.”
akkeyagentofhelheim
He gazed at the faint pencil lines mutely for a while, before giving a simple nod, "I'll see what I can find."
foresight-botgd
“I’ll find you that name.” The words came out in a rush. His eyes were serious, but emotional. “If you tell me what’s in that timeline. I’ll do what I can.”
akkeyagentofhelheim
Juro let those words hang in the air, the hum of work above them filling the silence, before he took the journal and hit the goat half breed gently on his head, "Get off," waving him off the cart.
He bent down to Milae's eye level as the goat stared at him, face split with the same grin but still unreadable, waving the journal in the air, "We both got work to do now, don't we? I've got some loops to read. Time to hustle," he said with no personal friendliness or warmth, just true fact and understanding.
foresight-botgd
“Of course. You and Stonegit’s stupid quest for an archdemon name, and me and Akkey’s stupid quest to slay a goddess.” He prodded Juro in the chest, making him stand upright again. His tone mimicked the same seriousness of Juro’s, while at the same time mocking the audacity of their goals. “I am not able to travel back here by myself, am I?” he added, nodding at the shelves around them.
akkeyagentofhelheim
"You could," he admitted as Virion appeared out of nowhere and landed behind Milae with a soft thud, slow and rumbling. A different hum buzzed in the Library as the Rumblehorn warped into itself again, the hole in space gaping behind the half breed, "At least, you could outside. If you know where to look. Make sure to knock if you manage," He took an intentional step towards Milae, and the goat stumbled backwards.
foresight-botgd
“Very w–!!”
Milae let out an alarmed bleat as he tripped back a few steps and suddenly the world was sucked away from him and he was deposited roughly back out in front of his house.
Category:BOTGD 2
Category:Events
Category:Act I
Category:Yun Milae
Category:Jin Juro