Deep and somewhat insane chuckles echoed from one corner of the library, causing several of the patrons to turn and stare, if only for mere moments. Chuckles of insanity were not something one should pursuit for long, for the culprit behind these strange and somewhat chilling noises would almost always be one of danger. So, most of the patrons who were staring would simply look in the other direction, going back to their meager pursuits of knowledge. Only one would be brave enough to try and venture another gander back at the giggling patron, and then would further solidify his bravery by actually walking back into the corner. The man could be called the librarian, if that word holds any importance to you, and was dressed quite sharply in a black overcoat, silver buttons spiraling down the front. Matching black pants with silver lace trailing down the side would accompany, along with shiny, polished black boots that completed the look. A single eyeglass would be held suspended over one eye, a gloved hand holding it in place to give a better view of the whole situation. Indeed, the person looked quite fit to be a librarian, rather dandy and uptight looking, if you would ask some of the patrons.

His shoes would echo sharp clicking noises as he headed to the back, a rather perturbed look on his face. This was a library, and quietness was the thing that needed to be pursued. Loud giggling such as this would not be tolerated, the man thought, as he headed quickly to the section that held the laughter, and the man behind it. Rounding several dusty bookcases, he would eventually happen upon the man, and pause, a little taken aback.

The man would be standing in one corner, his back turned to the librarian, the giggles still echoing. He would be wearing a bright red tuxedo top, the tails trailing out the back, down past his waist and almost to his knees. A hand was lazily hung by the thumb on one pocket, while the other was being used to hold a book up high, the man whispering the words to himself between giggles. Matching red pants accompanied the look, a single silver chain falling and rising again to one hip, there for mere decoration. The librarian would catch his breath, and then quickly regain his valor, letting out a proud and whispered kind of command.

"Sir, would you please quiet down!"

This would cause an immediate and almost unnaturally quick pause from the red coat, which would slowly swivel around to face this bothersome librarian. Noris, as he would be known by the peon masses, let out a rough chuckle, words leaking from his lips with the taste of sulfur behind each and every bit.

"Peon. I, who will one day command the stars to live or to die, you dare to speak to me in such a tongue? Shall such an insignificant speck be reduced to carrion, or shall I simply use this rather thick tome to bludgeon you to death?”

The librarian was taken aback, but only for a moment. He was an older man, silver graying his hair, and would not be talked down to by an insolent pup such as this. He was already poised to give a retort, but would suddenly be brought to silence by Noris fully facing him. Wild locks of black hair fled out from under a red top hat that was ludicrously bright, while spectacles that were perfectly clear were held propped upon a sharp nose. A wide smile was looped across the face, two of the teeth looking much like the molars of a vampire. That however, was not the striking thing. The eyes, the stark red eyes with pinprick pupils, overflowing with pure malice, those were the thing. Those were what held so much Fear. With a shudder, the man would slowly take a step back, a sudden urge to run taking hold of his heart. He would slowly open his mouth, as if to speak, and then suddenly let out a gasp, his hand darting to his chest. With several strangled noises echoing from his mouth, he slowly sunk to his knees, his face white with shock.

In mere moments, he would let out a gurgle, and drop to the floor, out like a light. Too much Fear could destroy a man, and could easily trigger a heart attack in someone as old as this. With a lidded gaze, Noris stared down at the old man, emotionless eyes hiding his glee. His pupils suddenly widening, returning to normal human looks, he took in a deep breath, and let out a short shout.

"We need a medic!"

Yang had been sitting in the library for quite some time now. Cross legged on a table in some dark corner of the vast library he sat and meditated. His thoughts swirled like autumn leaves blown by a wind. Only his lips moved, forming the words of an unknown mantra over and over. All was quiet.

"The negative karma I have accumulated from beginning less time is as extensive as the ocean. Although I know that each negative action leads to countless eons of suffering, it seems that I am constantly striving to create nothing but negative actions. Even though I try to avoid non-virtue and practice positive acts, day and night without respite, negativities and moral downfalls come to me like rainfall. I lack the ability to purify these faults so that no trace of them remains. With these negative imprints still in my mind, I could suddenly die and find myself falling to an unfortunate rebirth. What can I do? Please Vajrasattva, with your great compassion, guide me from such misery!"


Faintly, as if through water, noises started to creep in through the meditative shell he had formed, breaking the peace, the calmness and the tranquility. Slowly it pulled Yang back, out of the nothingness, back into the world of pain and suffering. He looked around for the source of the noise.

"We need a medic" came the shout.

Yang raced toward the origin of the noise, stopping as he arrived on the scene to find an old man lying on the floor, and another man dressed all in red standing over him. He knelt beside the old man, feeling for a pulse.

"What happened?" he asked, "quickly, or we may lose him!"

OOC: Not sure if I'm allowed in... but whatever. Kick me out if you must.

IC:

Vex was, for once, not involved in something that hearkened to either alcohol or dead people or soon-to-be-dead people. Instead she was in a library- a rather pitiful library she had judged- but it was a library all the same- and luckily enough, without a single anti-demon charm, pentagram or hex. Most of the larger libraries, with tomes of magic and all that rap, had various protections and it created the most unforgiving headache whenever she entered the premises. Not precisely pain but something close enough- though demons would never tell the mortals the truth, the various protections that they had created were only halfway decent and many were incredibly useless.

Still, lay enough magic on anything and it'd give you *such* a crick in the neck...

Lying on top of a wooden chair that she had propped backwards so as to give her feet some legroom to maneuver on the table she was busy reading (or rather, trying to read) a rather obscure tome on plane hopping. Much as she hated to admit it, all her knowledge from her prior life seemed to have gone extinct: she couldn't understand more than three words of the first sentence and they had been- in order of decreasing complexity- Die, And, If.

Not a good start to the day at all. She was pretty sure it was a warning and wasn't about to randomly draw signs in the dirt just to see what happened. With a sigh she snapped the tome shut and grabbed a different volume- this one was smaller and thinner and hopefully easier to understand. It was vastly annoying to realize that her new existence, cursed as it was, was making her antsy. She remembered mildewy days where she could spend eons in one spot reading a single paragraph and trying to understand its intricacies but now she was unable to even sit in the same position for over five minutes.

She was about to give it up as a lost cause for the day when a voice rang out: "We need a medic!"

Vex shrugged. She couldn't care less- mortals died that's all there was to it. Wishing that she had brought a flask of whiskey or at least something halfway potent she growled and tried to focus her mind on the spidery script her decision reversed. If someone could study enough that their body gave out she could sure as well sit still for ten minutes. Or so she hoped.

When no answer came from the man in the red clothes Yang decided to find out what was wrong himself. He felt for a pulse again, finding it fluttering and weak. He placed his hand on the old mans chest, this time feeling for a heartbeat. Nothing, only stillness. Heart attack he concluded.

Yang placed two hands over the mans heart, and began to press hard, rhythmically. He had not a clue how to revive someone magically; his skill at healing was not much advanced past healing small cuts and bruises. He pumped and pumped, every six pumps pausing, breathing into him, and pumping again. C'mon...c'mon he thought, this has to work. But it was too late. After going at it for a full five minutes, Yang stopped, defeated and exhausted.

He collapsed back, leaning up against the shelves behind him. He was furious with himself. If only he was better, he might have been able to save the old man.

“I’m sorry” he said dejectedly, “There’s nothing more I can do, I’m just not good enough.”

((OOC: Sorry if I was too slow. But please try and be patient, and keep a order to the posting. ;) ))

A slow smile would slide back over the features of our dear Noris, a single gloved hand coming up to grip at the front of his top hat. Slowly pulling it a bit, so it was crooked forward over his head, the rim of the red hat covered his shimmering eyes. The smile was full of teeth, full of amusement at something known only to him. What had happened had obviously been unseen by every one else, and he was perfectly in the clear. He wasn't able to help it that the old man hadn't been able to take the spell of his very well. It wasn't his fault at all, actually. He certianly didn't feel any guilt, and that was what came along with untold fault, correct?

The grin widened.

Slowly stooping down, he came to a position that resembled a bow on one knee. Pushing his hat back to the former position, so that his eyes would be revealed, he would slowly bring the red color and pupils up to meet Yang's own face. The monk would feel no fear unless Noris was intimidating him enough to spook him a bit, although he would definitely feel a bit uncomfortable around the presence of such evil. The smell of sulfur and brimstone would continue to waft from Noris, the scent light enough to not be quite gagging. Still staring at Yang, Noris would push his glasses up the brim of his nose, the spectacles slipping every so often.

"Thank you for trying, my dear man. I suppose I was being a little too loud, and the poor old croak just happened to get to riled up when he was babbling at me. Poor old boy, really."

A loose chuckle would echo from the man, and he would sit down backwards, landing on his rump and crossing his legs. Apparently unconcerned with the current events, and the crowd of people that had managed to gather because of the shout, he reopened the tome he had apparently been reading and plopped it on his lap. The book was a huge, old dusty kind of tome, the cover bound with blackened leather, and the words inside written on yellowed paper. The tome was filled with script that was in some other foreign language, as well as script that could easily be read. Something about dead things, and a tomb.

"Interesting indeed."

Noris would look up, his eyes catching Yang again, and his voice leaking out somewhat humored.

"So, the old man is gone?"

Vex was fidgety. Perhaps it was her demon blood. Perhaps it was the book with words that really shouldn't have required five syllables but did. Perhaps it was the smell of old people fear. Perhaps it was just the death. Perhaps it was all of those things. Perhaps it wasn't. But whatever the result was, Vex slammed the book closed and rubbed her eyes. She had to admit it to herself: she was going nowhere with this. Not that she thought she would but there had always been that sliver of hope... stretching a bit she negligently tossed the book aside. If someone needed it, they could find it on their own like she had. Bloody library didn't even seem to have proper maintenance.

Which was good because it also didn't have anti-demonic pentagrams and charms lying about, but it didn't make looking for obscure tomes and relics any easier when there wasn't even a hint of a logical filing system. Who placed non-fiction in alphabetical order of the author's name anyways?

Glancing at the sun Vex judged she had lost about... four hours. Maybe a bit less. She considered her options. She was already late in her daily occupation of getting drunk off her butt and looking for a contract today just didn't seem worth it. She could always murder someone for the hell of it, but she didn't do that too often anymore. It attracted the wrong sort of people and, to be honest, wasn't as fun as it used to be. There was something thrilling about doing something you liked and getting paid for it. It was like cheating the system... by the books. An oxymoron perhaps, but one that she personally enjoyed.

Aww, what the hell. She was going to do it anyways. Sometimes, you did what you had to do. Wandering around at random, she went looking for the librarian. For the crime of creating such a stupid library she was going to murder him. Slowly.

...unless someone got to it before she did. Huh, small world, really.

"That's not the librarian, is it?" She asked the two mortals (one had a snazzy sense of style- the other seemed a bit on the goody-two-shoes side)- dreading but already knowing the answer.

Yang lay there exhausted. He had given it his best effort and still managed to fail. He stared at his hands, the very instruments of his failure. He seemed almost disgusted with them. I have sworn to help everyone and yet I seem unable to perform the simplest of tasks. Even my best intentions come to naught and hope itself is but an obstacle.

But then the strange man in red knelled down next to him and began to speak. As he did so Yang looked into his eyes, deep as the lowest circle of hell. He looked into them transfixed, unable to break the mans gaze. He felt withered, old as the earth itself. He felt afraid. The gaze showed Yang his failure and regret, all his doubts and fears. It was like looking into death itself. But then the moment was over as the man looked away, studying his book.

Yang looked back down, afraid that the emotions flowing through him might converge upon his face and betray his thoughts. The man spoke again. His voice conveyed no remorse, only a faint amusement. That unnerved Yang even more than the stare.

"I'm afraid he is gone" he replied, "I... I was not good enough to save him. I still need more study."

His gaze rose until it was level with that of the man in red's and as the fear flowed though him once more, he could stand no more and looked away.

Someone was approaching from the end of the isle and Yang looked up. A demon stood before him and though it was not so tall, seemed an imposing sight from Yang's low perspective. He quailed once more, shrinking back. The demon spoke, asking him if the dead man was the librarian. Yang replied with a whimper that he hoped sounded affirmative. He shuffled a little further down the isle, his eyes not leaving the monstrosity before him.