Feat of Sensitivity (11-10-2011)

“Foul sorceress! You’ll taste steel for your crimes against the public library!”

The sorceress backed away a few steps, Sir Bibliotheque having left barely an inch between them as he spoke. “I’ll scour the flesh from your bones! I’ll…”

He moved in so close his nose pressed against hers, bending it to the side. “Fiend! Those books on Erotic Necormancy were due back on Thursday, and yet I find you in your accursed lair on Monday afternoon, books nowhere in sight! Did you even intend to return them? How long would they remain your prisoners, beyond the hands of the good and just members of our library system?”

She backed up again, her glowing wand dropping in front of her as she held her hands out. “Look, you’re really making me uncomfortable with that close-talking stuff. Please respect my personal space.”

Sir Bibliotheque would not be deterred, and walked in between her hands, barely a hair between them when he grit his teeth. “Don’t speak to me of personal space, hag!”

“Hey, the names are uncalled for! Who’s your supervisor, anyway?”

He seemed stunned, falling back to a space that was only outrageously uncomfortable instead of unspeakably uncomfortable. “My…supervisor?”

“Yes, your supervisor. I want to know where you get off calling me foul, a fiend, and a hag. I want to talk to your boss about the inappropriate language you’re using when you go out on quests to reclaim lost artifacts and tomes.”

The next few hours were a whirlwind of scrying pool meetings and magical missives, all ending with the books still in the sorceress’ possession and Sir Bibliotheque seated across from the holy form of the head librarian.

“Bibliotheque, how long have you been working here?”

“I have long served the house of learning, flogging many a ne’erdowell…”

The librarian held up his hands. “You see that, right there. That’s the sort of talk this administration can’t be using any more. When you’re at the top of some collapsing tower, collecting books back from an unliving corpse that was once your brother but now is animated by the cruel machinations of a necromancer, I can’t have you calling him or her names. It’s rude, and I won’t stand for it.”

Bibliotheque leaned forward in his chair, so far that when he balled his hands into fists, they were extended almost a foot behind the librarian. “What? You’re saying that sorceress can take books with no intention of returning them, and I can’t even engage in some adversarial banter?”

The librarian didn’t back away, instead pulling up a nearly-empty cup and straw, slurping at the feeble remains of his drink. He let out a loud breath as he put it back down. “Maybe it was all right for library-serving adventurers to throw around a few quips and insults during battle a few years ago, but we’ve moved past that. We’re a much more different society than we were a few years ago. So, when you’re going to cut down someone in cold blood in order to get our property back, do you think you can do it without using a bad name?”

Bibliotheque looked down, pushing his forehead into the librarian’s nose in the process. “I…I can.”

The librarian stepped away from his desk. “Let’s try some roleplaying to make sure you’ve got it. I’m going to summon the buried denizens of a hoary underworld, and you’re going to fight them without saying anything insulting to their race, creed, or religion. All right?”

With a wave of his hand, he called up the Murder Gluttons, creatures born from a place much darker than the deepest depths of the Deep Dark.

Sir Bibliotheque drew his sword, froth spewing from his mouth. “Wretched creatures from…”

The librarian shook his head, ignoring the room as it filled with masses of teeth and claws, caustic drool falling from the creatures’ chins. “No, you can’t say that. Why not say something a little tamer, like ‘I will slaughter your young and feast on their innards.’ There’s not a single unkind implication in that sentence, and it still gets the point across that you mean business about getting our books back.”

Sir Bibliotheque looked unsure, his sword wobbling in his hands. “I will bathe in your blood and feast on your bones, you…guys?”

The librarian nodded. “Perfect.”