Act 2, Chapter 6: All Quiet in the Library
Warning, this is a Noir Story. It is dark and creepy. I do not recommend this for the faint of heart. It's over 1.4 Million words, and I'm going to read every one and tell you my opinion about each chapter. This is my second read through.
Wednesday, April 28, 2021
Act 2, Chapter 6: All Quiet in the Library
Chapter 28: Published August 17th 2013 was on a Saturday and was in week 33 of 2013
As of this writing it was 2809 days ago
On April 28th 2018 MLP FiM would air Season 8, epi 7 "Horse Play" umm... okay sfw def. good
You know, I don't know I want to add a 3d model of The Don's building to my Art Commission Who's Who It would have to definitely be a digital model though since it's bigger on the inside.
Limi, maybe that wasn't the best way to make a first impression? ... Wait, is he named this chapter? Oh well... still...
I love the fact that not only is Swift self conscious that she is obviously keeping her mouth shut when she thinks someone can see her, but that The Don is perceptive enough to catch the fact.
“A price?” Swift asked, lowering one ear, with a look of disappointment. “Isn’t doing the right thing enough?”
“You would be stunned at how often I ask myself that.” Don Tome propped his head on his chin, giving her a slightly sad smile as he explained, “Consider that were I to extract no price, pony nature would dictate that I give until I have nothing left, and therefrom I have nothing left to give. However, by extracting a price and investing wisely, over time I grow that which I have to give.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, kid, don’t let this old stripey charmer try to feed you his line about altruism. He’s all sweetness and joy, until you miss a payment.”
"It's all so my generosity may continue to build! If I have to dislocate a shoulder or two in the name of that generosity, so be it!
So this was a really interesting chapter and you get to meet Limi and Zefu. Okay, Limi has a real and proper name, Limerence, there are you happy?
The Don doesn't have all the answers, but the ones he has he willing gave to Hardy, for a price, not that we know what that price is just this moment. In fact what I want to say needs to wait until the next chapter.
Oh hey look, the chapter ended. Lets have a peek at the comments, 58
Strictly speaking, I’m not sure these scenes that are just dialogue work. It’s a testament to your ability to write that I can tell WHO is speaking, but there’s still a lack of cues and visualization to go with the dialogue.
+ more
GMBlackjack
Heh, I wrote this maybe four years ago? I've grown immensely as a writer since then. To be clear, this story was written to teach me to write. This is the first thing I'd ever written. It did get rather out of hand.
-Chessie
Chessie, this came out in aug 2013, a bit more than 4 years ago
Act 2, Chapter 6: "All Quiet in the Library" - All quiet on set? All quiet in the court room?
...
All quiet on the western front?
“But, Sir! It can’t be! This... this isn’t illusion magic! There’s no fragmentation at the edges of vision! No spatial distortions! It’s...it’s really bigger on the inside!”
>Places that are bigger on the inside
>secrets that not everybody on the inside knows
>one person that knows a fuck ton
>Building thats bigger on the inside
>Collecting and storing of magical artifacts that sometimes don't play well with eachother
>People trying to get the artifacts
What is this? Warehouse 13? 
(Bitchin' show)
Because of how directly and dramatically knowledge can translate into power, such incidents forced Celestia to put barriers in front of certain kind of knowledge; Academic or government credentials are often necessary to access high-security and/or unsavory spellcraft.
Naturally, such barriers led to a black market in forbidden occult data, but never let it be said that the black market completely lacks the awareness that a tentacular apocalypse would be bad for the underground trade. To prevent said trade from being washed away by a sea of fire, sparkles, or extradimensional horrors, they had developed their own forms of self-regulation.
It is perhaps testament to the adroit skill of the Counter Reality Incursion Corps and business acumen of the black marketeers that Equestria at large remains blissfully unaware of the Great Brony Incursion of '57 after a complete copy of the Telenomicon, the dread Grimoire in Yellow, was accidentally traded away for a vintage Prench-maid Discord lamp at the Trader Exchange. Even the most paranoid conspiracy theorist in his fortified Badlands compound or the most punctilious forensic auditor would be hard-pressed to uncover anything out of the ordinary aside from a sudden, marked decrease of the cost of pony-made manufactured goods. And dog food. 
“Like I said, the architect was a genius, but his favorite childhood drink was probably drain cleaner."
Topped with a generous potion of lead based paint chips! 20000% unrecommended daily allowance of all your toxic heavy metals!
“But, Sir! It can’t be! This... this isn’t illusion magic! There’s no fragmentation at the edges of vision! No spatial distortions! It’s...it’s really bigger on the inside!”
It is merely basic quantumbibilophysics that they teach to aspiring Librarian journyponies. It is quite simple really. Knowledge equals power. Power equals energy. Energy equals matter. Matter equals mass. And mass distorts space. 
This power is centered in their ‘heart’ organ. We handled our problems quite elegantly: by reversing the predator/prey dynamic. They make excellent subjects for organ transplants.
Forget organ transplants. Changelings would go extinct within a month if some unscrupulous salesponies (Flim, Flam) sold Equestrians on the idea that Changeling horns were a potent aphrodisiac, increasing stamina and greatly boosting "performance".
“Like I said, the architect was a genius, but his favorite childhood drink was probably drain cleaner."
I am totally stealing this line. You can't stop me.
Also, lol @ Taxi's reaction to Zefu.
From the title, I must say, this chapter has a distressing lack of duplicate, flesh-eating shadows.
Also, is it just me, or is "Umbra, Animus, and Armature" based in part on Wolfram and Hart? Big, evil law firms, manipulating villains and heroes alike?
Chessie Is Taxi perchance descended from Cloud Kicker?
Chessie You forgot Tard Shine, which is... yeah.
I think "Boiled Sweets" would probably be the best name, but Tardy/Haxi are the first ones that come to mind.
Chessie
What about the good all three letters of each: Taxhar? or Taha? Maybe just TH or would that be TxH? Tardy is funny. 
StormyVenture>>3097112
Their relationship is indeed complicated, but I think the big reason for us not to do straight-out Taxi/Hardy shipping is that one of the most logical shipping name contractions is "Tardy."
Or, worse, "Tard Boiled."
Edit: Also:
"Sweet Boiled" - Sounds like it's missing a noun; Sweet Boiled What?
"Hard Shine" - Caustic cleaning product
"Hard Taxi" - Bad 80's action movie
"Boiled Taxi" - Japanese movie monster national dish
"Haxi" - Expression of MMO player rage at suspected cheating
--CEO Kasen
Subtlety, thy name is Taxi.
Anywho, another great chapter. If the plot gets any thicker, I'll need a laser cutter to get through it, and it's a glorious thing.
Honey Mead Thanks Honey Mead! Next chapter, things really ramp up again, so stay tuned!
“O-o-okay...” she breathed. “...p-please sleep with me...”
Straight forward isn't she?
So it seems. Now and then she might pass for a respectable "monogamous" sort, but apparently when someone good looking enough passes by.... well... all bets are off.
Taxi's a fairly self-destructive non-monogamous person. I'm, myself, a non-monogamous person, but I like to think a bit healthier than she is. Her libido and lack of impulse control get in the way of nearly every other aspect of her life, hence why she strives for serenity. Note, I say 'strives'. Whether or not she ever achieves it will be something to see.
-Chessie
Well she seems to get along okay most of the time... I was trying to emphasize the seemingly out of proportion reaction. Her reaction to that other dude (the Viviarium) seemed excitable, but not like this one. Somepony's been skipping meditation or something. :P
Applejinx
Seriously? Somebody is a shipomaniac (what a terrible word conglomeration) around here...
-Chessie
Kind of raises the question what her relationship with Hardy is exactly... Does she want to sleep with him too? If that were true, one could assume that she's trying to not let her physical distractions get in the way of having a really good friend.
It's just seems awfully close, and yet to me it's more like longtime friends than siblings. She doesn't behave like his sister or anything. Maybe it could be, but I'm not quite seeing that.
If you can make sense of that, good for you
Zefu sounds like trouble, the limp is clearly there to mollify other ponies. But he's up to something and considering even his own Father won't tell him of the locations of all the magical artifacts has got to mean something too.
I've no doubt his brother is in on the same thing, having a cutie mark in what appears to be silence he'd make a very effective assassin or spy.
So let me do a quick run down of the characters
Stella the crossdressing dragon and her folks at vivarium
Police Chief Jade previous employer of Hardy
Father figure Tome the mysterious man and his sons
The now dead Cosmo who was swindled on a heart and his ex-gang.
The Aroyos
The fella in charge of the morgue with a hamster assistant. I forget their names.
Queeny the bug/parasprite living cameras.
Hardy and his gang
And as yet unknown the "Umbra, Animus, and Armature" group with fairly substantial power in the area
also unknown is PACT, though they sound about as subtle as a sledgehammer going to work in a tool shed.
Tooling up for a gang war? That's what it sounds like when mixing all these different groups together, most of them are armed and have no problems with violence and/or skullduggery.
I also suspect Hardy's openness to this Tome fella playing up the "True neutral" card. Considering he also has access to magical devices that could level entire city blocks.
If he's got the destructive powers of a god at his disposal you better hope he's got the wisdom and morals of a god to match.
So, even more characters to ponder just in case the previous ones weren't enough.
3061662 Eeyep. We'll have to fix those. Thanks!
-Chessie
Well I didn't mean it like that, I meant it's a lot to keep balanced. I mean weird is good as far as this story goes, but with all of those characters in.
It's a lot to keep in mind.
Also I'd love to see them talk to the Scholar, I like meta things like that.
Oh, are we going to FINALLY see that one character who's been in the story description, but hasn't shown up in all the *checks* 27 chapters previous?
Doctor Who reference, "bigger on the inside"; I suppose that counts as Shout Out *glug*
By the way, since I'm trying to work on expanding the TV Tropes page; if anyone sees this, can you point out the other references to other stories/shows/etc that have been made in here?
Accomplishments In Ignorance *glug*
"The story goes that nopony told the architect you can’t build a bigger building inside of a smaller one... so he just sort of... did."
I'll need to read further to see what exactly the building is called before I add it to the TVT page.
I'll have to check the trope page, but I know there's SOMETHING for the Don being useful so he doesn't get arrested, and it might be Vetinari Job Security.
So the Don's a zebra? Awesome.
Although Don Tome doesn't EXACTLY fit the Knowledge Broker trope, at least as far as I've read, it's not like anyone's going to correct me.
I hope Zefu gets to be a main character from now on, if only for Taxi's reactions.
Lol, Redbush trying to do a list of characters... :D go look at my Who's Who tab... they are missing a few
“It’s either this, or I’ll go buy you a coffee and you can sit there and never meet the pony who managed to resurrect me from the dead. You’ll wonder, every day, just what interesting things he might have told you about your little dental issues and the PACT... that you missed. It’ll hang in the back of your mind, an eternal question, squatting in your brain forever-”
“Sir, that’s not fair!”
“Fair? Really? You want to talk to me about what’s fair?”
“...right ...sorry, sir...”
This is the only story I read (apart from end of ponies) that sends into TRUE fits of giggles.
Damn. That zony is so hot _I_ would like to play with him, and I'm into mares as a rule. 
Why does it make him MORE sexy that he is slightly lame? Does it help him be grave and serious and steady? Whoof! *fans self with hat*
Am I the only one who isn't into "muscles" ... it prob doesn't help that I know what he's like more than his snobbish behavior here.
First Minox, now this guy, I get the feeling Taxi like muscle. 
I'm curious to see if her direct approach works on this guy. Also, Swift being as cute as ever, not wanting to leave her gun. 
I'm glad she had lots of ponies to comfort her when she retold her story again though.
I just want to say that The Scholar is the unsung STAR of this show. Consistently excellent writing, while providing world-building and reinforcing the tone of the story? Moar plz :)
I'll leave Taxi's little Freudian slip to the more opportunistic commenters.
(P.S. A chapter basically titled "Silence in the Library" and a "bigger on the inside" structure? 
I see what you did there.)
VNilla Eeyup. The Scholar's Notes are all Kasen. He writes those. I may have the consistency, but he is a really skilled writer. We do this together, but he's the one who creates those.
-Chessie
He’d saved more lives than anypony would ever know and remained content to sit on his secret throne; an old zebra in a library, reading by the fire with a plate of cookies and milk.
That is awfully Generous of him, isn't it?
And I'm assuming one of the sons is our long-awaited fourth main character? But which one....
1563 King Charles IX of France declared an adult at 13
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