L.T. File: 008: Húṭṣúúyvúú- The Librarian
A truly interesting creature, the librarian. Infinite tentacles - seemingly similar levels of curiosity.
-Librarian Jellyfish (Post 10)
A curious and unfathomable creature of unfathomable power and control over it's domain. Unquestionably one of the most powerful of Those Who Dwell Below, it is luckily only interested in categorization of knowledge. It has not interest in entropy, death, or experimentation. Húṭṣúúyvúú is one of the few of Those Who Dwell Below that the Aulvi do not consider an enemy. In many ways, the Librarian aided in the escape of the Aulvi from the Below, though, certainly, that was not the intent.
The Librarian is a being of tentacles that appear to infinite despite a finite space that it takes up. It has no eyes, or seemingly any other connection to the physical realm of cognition, but it's primary interest is that of a concerned librarian of the infinite archive, the library of Those Who Dwell Below. It always knows where it's books are, and can seemingly reach them from any distance. The creature is thought to exist on most planes of existence, even ones with different rules of physics, and reality.
Aulvi were able to ask it for aid in finding information to escape, and it seemed to not be bothered by this. Despite the seeming single-minded focus, the Twilight Shadows are certain that it has an incredible alien intellect, and it seems to have an interest in anything the Aulvi were writing, or telling in the form of stories. Oftentimes in The Below, The Librarian would send a tentacle into Aulven story circles and seem to listen until the stories were over. It never harmed an Aulvi.
Summary
1. “The Listening Tentacle”
Recovered from oral histories of the Aulvi of the Below — storyteller Iùna the Pale-Mind.
(Transcribed by Linguist Sèyru- On Glass. )
We told stories because it was the only emotional warmth we had. The air was a chill made of memory, and sometimes even our words froze in our mouths before reaching another’s ears. That is when Húṭṣúúyvúú began to listen.
At first, it was a shadow that bent the light in our circle — an arm of fog, translucent, trembling with slow rhythm. It did not touch, only extended near the flame, its surface rippling with the voices of the past. When we spoke, the ripples changed. When we stopped, they flattened again. One of the children asked if it was hungry. The elder said no — that it was curious. And when the child laughed, the tentacle bent, as though the laughter had a texture that fascinated it.
For time uncounted for, it came whenever we gathered. We told it stories of who we were, and stories we developed among ourselves, though we had never seen it; we told it the names of colors we remembered from our mothers’ dreams. And it listened. One night, when I faltered in my tale — I could not recall the ending — the tentacle brushed the stone beside me. The dust formed words:
“Continue.”
I did. It never hurt us. But it seemed to remember every story.
When I was taken by the overseers years later, I dreamed of that tentacle again. It brushed my thoughts like pages, turning them. I think it was looking for the ending I never told.
2. “Notes from Operation Silent Deep”
Tranquil Shadows field report fragment — classified record from operative Vhiul-Teth Sharktooth-Reality Archive Division
Objective: Access Húṭṣúúyvúú’s Archive. Retrieve information on how to leave the Below
Status: Contact established. Entity’s attention obtained through request for library tomes.
Description: The Library appears simultaneously within multiple non-Euclidean manifolds. Finding it in The Below was roughly constant, though it was not always in the same location.
Interaction: Entity manifested as a convergence of Shadowy tendrils. No sensory organs detected. Interactions occur through psychic induction — thoughts formatted into auditory hallucination.
(Operative team recounted enslavement myths of the Pre-Below Aulvi. Entity appeared to “listen,” fractalizing its tendrils to mirror speech rhythms.)
Result: Coordinates provided — tomes given, memorized by Aulvi and returned. Taking book permanently could result in anger of Húṭṣúúyvúú. This was not advised due to the potential danger of the Librarian, and the lack of reason to anger the entity.
Assessment: Entity non-hostile. Motivation remains purely archival. Its assistance is incidental — derived from desire for narrative completeness.
Warning: Extended exposure leads to informational resonance — subjects begin to “cross-reference” their own memories. One operative failed to distinguish personal experiences from those read within the archive. Designated cognitohazard Frůɸ-7B.
3. “The Way Out Was Written”
Testimony of Free-Seer Nèshtan Iron Plate, one of the first surface-returners of the Aulvi Exodus.
We did not escape because it wished us free. We escaped because it wanted our story to continue.
We came to its hall — a chamber vast as grief, where books floated like jellyfish through liquid shadow. Each tome was a pulse of memory, each shelf a nerve. We asked for knowledge forbidden even to the overseers. It gave no answer — but it opened the paths. The air thickened with thought. Every step, a paragraph. Every breath, a turning page. We walked across written light until we stood before its core — a sphere of tendrils that never touched, each one holding infinity at its tip.
I spoke our story — from the First Landing on the world to our Dream of seeing Dawn again. When I finished, one tendril dipped low, touching the floor. A tome formed where none had been. That was how we left. We followed the directions in the tome. The tendrils had already turned away, shelving our tale among the others. I realized we were not protagonists, nor victors — merely volumes. We are still being read, somewhere, by a creature that neither loves nor hates us. Only catalogs that are still writing themselves.
Comments