Osheen picked her way through the terrifying oaken bookshelves that towered above her menacingly. She had been used to tiny public libraries which you could see all the walls of at one time, this demonic cathedral of written works was an entirely new experience for her. It would have been a lot to take in even if it had been a university library of the more mundane sort back on her own round world. The grimoires that growled and rattled in their chains and the random sparks of occult energy only added to the confusion.
At long last she emerged from the maze of ancient shelves into the little foyer with the librarian's front desk in the corner, a quick glance on all sides revealed his little nest of straw and partially finished paperwork. Feeling that she was entering a residence without permission she sat among it, sniffing the scent of the kindly orang that had rescued her from life as a book monkey, even if he seemed to be one himself. As she sat a sudden clunk suggested to her that someone had entered the room, she cautiously lifted her head above the desk and saw that the figure was a dark haired human in round glasses. He wore an unusual dress and a pointy hat which she had only ever seen on covers of books in the fantasy section, he strode nervously over to the desk and rapped on it. He saw the orange forehead and declared confidently, "Ah there you are, sorry to bother you but I need the manual for casting 'Norton's Wall of Fire'. HEX has picked up a couple of little curses from scanning L-space that are making him run very slowly, I thought a metaphorical wall of fire might be just the thing to protect him from that."
Osheen ooked in genuine confusion. She watched as he removed an index card from his pocket, similar to the ones she was used to but like everything here, somehow more medieval and arcane.
"Hex printed that out," said the wizard, who she later found out was named Ponder Stibbons, "Surely you will be able to find it for me, you are the librarian after all."
Osheen took the card and stared at it, she had never been able to read before, and in fact she still couldn't. However, in the disc's strong magical field, words have a tendency to be sentient and shout their meaning at your mind's ear. The numbers on the card made perfect sense to Osheen's mind and, acting on her training, she headed off into the maze of shelves.
She thought her days of fetching books were over but it was what she had come to expect, after all, if she didn't fetch the book Stibbons would no doubt shout "No!" and inflict pain on her with a cattle prod. She hoped that the orang-utan would come back soon, perhaps life in libraries wouldn't be so bad if he was there with her to keep troublesome humans in line. Shrugging off the thought she reached the shelf that the numbers had specified to her, she looked up and gulped. It seemed the shelf she needed was at the very top, her instincts took over and she began to climb with great sweeping movements. Her fear forgotten, she felt absolutely wonderful, the long missed experience of climbing brought back memories of happier times in the forests of Borneo. Her old mistress would never have let her do this, if she had tried to climb the squat metal shelves in her own library she would have shouted "No!" (Not to mention inflicted pain on her with a cattle prod).
Reaching the summit of the trees (all towers of wood that you can climb are thought of as trees in orang-utan culture, perhaps this is why the librarian enjoys his work so much) she seized the requested book proudly. She could not believe that she was enjoying the experience of book fetching for once, with another burst of strength she heaved herself onto the very top of the massive bookshelf and ran in the direction of the entrance. The shelves seemed to stretch out in all directions infinitely, in most situations this would be a metaphor but here, that was exactly what was happening. She reached the end of the shelf and tossed it to the figure of Stibbons far below with a triumphant "Oooooooooooooooook!
In the magical field of the library the book fell as though through treacle, Stibbons caught it and left hurriedly, perplexed by the Librarians' odd behaviour.
Osheen looked around at the infinite wooden platforms she had to explore, although she would not go back into the deep library, what she had seen there had been terrifying. She sized up the nearest one and made a jump for it, but was struck painfully in mid leap by some burst of magic, the books did not take kindly to strange orang-utans in their domain. She fell painfully slowly, as the book had done. Books leapt out at her from the shelves all the way down, until she finally landed softly but with great force. Books continued to leap off the shelf, burying her in a pile. Finally, it stopped, whatever cloud of magic that was riling the books had probably drifted away. A hand emerged from the now inanimate pile of books followed by a head, then a body. Eventually a whole figure stepped out…it was a young human girl in a thin white dress.
