The Wandsmen's Gazette
Towards the Infinite Frontier
by Ickis the Wayward, Wandsman of Kul-Manas
Since the time of the First Archivist, many have attempted to chart the Wanderers' Library, yet none have ever succeeded. The very nature of the Library – its hallways and bookshelves eternally changing and rearranging themselves in ways unpredictable and sometimes nonsensical to most rational minds – quickly renders any map inaccurate if not entirely useless, and it is the opinion of most cartographers today that further mapping endeavors are futile. I can attest to this reality: in my youth, when I first joined The Wandsmen's Gazette, I arrogantly believed that my expertise in multiversal cartography would suffice to trace routes that I thought to be fixed amidst the capricious warping of the Library; I had, after all, charted the Ways from my own native universe all the way to Alagadda and even the Immortal Empire, so I presumed this challenge would prove no more difficult. Instead, I ended up lost for a week amidst the silent shelves before stumbling back into the Main Hall, to my embarrassment and relief.
This is not to say that exploration of the Wanderers' Library should be discouraged in any way. On the contrary, despite the many dangers that lurk in a place as eldritch as this venerable repository of knowledge, it is in the best interest of all Wanderers that new areas be found and registered. Many of the currently known areas have been discovered by happenstance, including some that now serve as permanent settlements, thus providing refuge for weary explorers and demonstrating the longstanding theory that, the more concurred or populated an area of the Library is, the easier to find it becomes (which is the reason why locations like the Main Hall remain fixed in place).
Expanding the frontiers of our reach and understanding not only gives us a sense of permanence and direction that makes navigation of the Wanderers' Library easier – it also strengthens our multiversal community and renews our sense of wonder. Who knows how many lifelong friendships would have never been forged, how many notable names would remain in obscurity, or how many strange and fascinating secrets would be forever hidden in this labyrinth of books and scrolls if no one had dared to venture further into the unknown? To these brave pioneers we owe much of what the Library has become today, for though it is a foolish thing to think one can tame the vast wilds where no law exists but the unfathomable whims of powers unseen and unknowable, there are few endeavors as admirable as chasing curiosity to the very ends of existence.
For this reason, I will now tell you three short accounts of expeditions that, in one way or another, are deserving of remembrance, as are the people who took part in them. I hope that whatever you take from these retellings – be it inspiration or caution – they will grant you the Wanderlust that breathed life into the stories of those who came before you.
Narrander and the Hall of Flames
The Library is host to creatures of all shapes, sizes and substances, and accommodates them all. Tolerance and understanding between peoples and species are values that all Wanderers strive to uphold, but all convictions are eventually put to the test. One such quandary came to the Library in the time of the Second Archivist with the arrival of Elddansurin, a fire elemental with an unsatiable hunger for knowledge. Born in a realm of pure flame, this primordial creature came to the Wanderers' Library in hopes of spending a few millennia learning of other worlds and conversing with fellow scholars, but upon entering the Main Hall, it was met with horrified screams and accusing glares from the patrons and staff. As it turned out, the Way through which Elddansurin had come stood right in front of Jannaler's Shelf, which went up in smoke the instant that a loose spark flew from the elemental's body and landed on the piles of old parchment that filled the shelf to the brim.
Under ordinary circumstances, Elddansurin would have been at best transformed into a Page and at worst banished forever from the Library, but since the harm it had caused was not done out of malice, the Laws of the Library did not come into effect against it. Instead, the fire elemental was cornered by Docents and prevented from venturing further into the shelves while the panicked staff put out the flaming pillar that had once been Jannaler's Shelf.
When the ashes had cooled and the Library had begun the painstaking process of resuscitating and restoring the burnt tomes, Elddansurin apologized but remained steadfast in its intention to remain in the Library, provoking a heated debate as to what should be done. On one hand, the fire elemental had not broken any rules and was thus entitled to be considered a patron; denying it this right would have gone against the Wanderers' most sacred values. On the other hand, Elddansurin's very nature posed an obvious threat to the Library and its tomes, and even to other Wanderers; paper, parchment and flesh were all highly flammable, and the Library would surely turn into an ash heap if a living inferno was allowed to roam its halls.
It was then that a Wanderer named Narrander stepped forward and proposed a solution: since Elddansurin was a sapient creature whose culture possessed means of storing and relaying information akin to books and parchment, then such media must surely exist within the Wanderers' Library. It was narrow-minded, he said, to expect that all creatures across all realities develop paper and ink when the nature of their worlds and physiology was incompatible with the invention of these materials. Thus, Narrander vouched for an expedition into the unknown regions of the Library to find media that Elddansurin and other fiery creatures could use safely. His proposal was quickly approved by the Second Archivist, and a group of volunteers joined in. In the meantime, Elddansurin left the Library for its home reality with the assurance that it would be allowed back in once Narrander's expedition returned.
For seven months, Narrander and his fellow Wanderers faced what no one before had ever seen, media alien and incomprehensible to them who had eyes with which to read and ears with which to listen to a narrator's voice. They saw strange coral growths that chittered with the messages held in circumscribed rings at their core. They witnessed writhing fumes of multicolored gas that shifted slowly to tell stories that could only be perceived through smell and taste. They fled from a living wave of jumbled words that contained the entire bibliography of a world whose people did not understand the concept of separation or editing.
At last, they came across an igneous field where colossal shelves made of obsidian stretched towards the horizon. They were full of slabs and tablets fashioned from metal, rock and other materials that none of the Wanderers could name. Narrander even found a few paper books that had somehow been enchanted to resist fire. Triumphant, they returned to the Main Hall carrying some samples, and the Second Archivist established a secure path towards what would become known as the Hall of Flames. The crisis was thus solved, and Elddansurin and other fire elementals were finally able to enjoy their time reading – or whatever equivalent they may have.
Narrander's expedition demonstrated that the Library truly is infinite both in its size and in the media it contains, not merely limited to paper but home to any form of communicating knowledge to others. It was the first of many ventures that helped find adequate media for the infinitely diverse patrons that came to the Wanderers' Library. Thanks to him, generations of Wanderers were inspired to go further into the unknown regions, which eventually led to places like the Wanderers' Depths being discovered and made accessible for all patrons. Indeed, without his bravery and commitment to the ideal that knowledge is the right of all sapient beings, the Wanderers' Library would be much smaller than it is today.
Gerion at the Last Bastion of Reason
Some expeditions are destined for catastrophe before they even begin. Once a respected scholar and holy man, Gerion fell from the grace of his fellow Mekhanites when he proposed that their deity was broken no longer, arguing that Mekhane had long been rebuilt but remained in a sort of cursed slumber, her spirit lost and unable to return to her restored body. For this heresy, Gerion was cast out by the Cogwork Orthodoxy, and he would have surely been killed had he not fled to the Wanderers' Library.
Here, Gerion continued his studies into what he believed was the truth of his goddess, she who was so close but ever out of reach. He was convinced that the location of her spirit was somewhere in the infinite expanse of the Library, the domain of the Serpent who – according to one legend – was Mekhane's blood sibling and betrayer. By piecing together the different scattered myths and stories that spoke of them both, Gerion intended to discover the final resting place of Mekhane and commune with her, bringing about her return at long last.
As years went by and the Broken God's faithful grew further apart through schism and disassembly, Gerion gathered a following in his exile. No longer was he seen as a mad heretic, but as a wise teacher who had peered deeper into the schema of God than any of his misguided detractors ever could. Young Mekhanites who had begun to question their elders' dogmas gravitated towards him, entranced by his assurances that Mekhane awaited them and that the promised return to paradise was close at hand. To this day, those few who met Gerion and still live say he had a charming voice that could rouse even the dimmest spark of faith into a zealous devotion towards their sacred mission, and that not once did they doubt the truth of his words until it was too late.
When his followers swelled into the hundreds, Gerion began organizing expeditions into far corners of the Wanderers' Library. With no need for rest or sustenance owing to their mechanical augments, these devotees went farther than anyone had dared to tread before, braving the hostile fauna and warped shapes of reality that stalk distant shelves in search of the immortal essence of their deity. Although they had little information to guide them other than the somewhat cohesive narrative Gerion had assembled through his years of study, they were unshaken in their faith, willing to lay down their own lives in the name of their cause.
Despite the size of their membership, the Brass Runners – as this faction came to be known – were soon spread thin throughout the Library. To maintain group cohesion and better protect each other, Gerion devised mystical instruments that he called Medallions of Deliverance. When a person whispers the word help to one of these small brass talismans, any nearby user will be alerted to one's plight and be able to pinpoint one's location in the immensity of the Stacks. Time would prove this to be an efficient method of beckoning for help, and its success was so rotund that, by decree of the Sixth Archivist, Medallions of Deliverance are now given to anyone who wishes to explore safely.
Unfortunately for Gerion and his Brass Runners, his invention would do him no good on his final expedition. After many years of searching fruitlessly, Gerion did what nobody thought possible: he reached the end of the Library. Now, something defined by being infinite cannot possibly have an end, this is true, but the infinity of knowledge is smaller than the infinity of what is not knowledge. Gerion had found this edge, this barren place where no books filled the empty shelves and even the ground itself began to warp into things that were not meant for mortal or godly minds to comprehend. Gerion called it the Last Bastion of Reason, and it is also the last place anyone ever saw him, for he and most of his followers – convinced by some unknown discovery that Mekhane awaited somewhere on the other side – walked into the sprawling nothingness and vanished. No one knows what happened to them, for those who stayed behind to tell the tale never received a call for help from beyond the empty shelves; the Medallions of Deliverance remained silent.
Gerion and the Brass Runners have a mixed legacy. On the one hand, countless Wanderers owe their lives to the Medallions of Deliverance, and these talismans are now a vital part of life in the Library. He also proved that the Library does possess an end of sorts despite its infinity, and many scholars consider the discovery of the Last Bastion of Reason a historical event that is only overshadowed by the Great Searing. On the other hand, Gerion led hundreds of followers into oblivion; those who do not believe him to have been a blind fanatic consider him a delusional charlatan who bought too deep into his own lies. Until he returns from beyond unreality, we shall never know.
The Crawling of the Serpent's Lair
Despite their blundering and overall lack of efficiency, the group known as the the Serpent's Forearm is not as harmless as it seems. At least one death is attributed to them, and its members have engaged in acts of theft and violence within and outside the Library. Even after several setbacks and humiliations they remain active, and some reports indicate that their numbers are growing. How they continue to elude punishment by the Docents and the Library itself is unknown, but this seems to only have emboldened them into ever more dangerous activities. This can all be traced back to one individual called Levin MacFynns.
To call Levin MacFynns a fool would be an understatement. This is not an insult, but an objective truth: the hubris and foolishness of this man are embedded in the pantheon of imprudence the way a barnacle clings to a slippery stone. MacFynns fancied himself a revolutionary icon whose exploits would undoubtedly bring about the change dreamt by the oppressed and downtrodden of the Multiverse, as well as bring him some very well-deserved recognition for his efforts to overthrow tyranny wherever it may hide. Having left behind the ineffectual infighting of the Serpent's Hand, he formed his own group of like-minded individuals to fight the good fight.
In reality, Levin MacFynns was none of these things. A petulant little man, he spent most of his time posturing in meetings that rarely resulted in any significative action been taken against the perceived enemies of the Forearm. When something did happen, it more often than not resulted in a petty strike against an equally petty target, with vandalism being a favored method of enacting "retribution" and "making a statement." Such lowbrow hooliganism, combined with a pervasive frat bro attitude from prominent members of the Serpent's Forearm, quickly earned the group and its leader the mockery of most other militant organizations in the Wanderers' Library. Being taken seriously seemed as far a goal as their true purpose – the one that would prove to be MacFynns' undoing.
Before the Forearm's ill-fated expedition, the existence of the Library's Basement was nothing but a rumor, a local legend meant to scare newcomers and elicit a debate not too dissimilar from the one that was settled with the discovery of the Last Bastion of Reason so many ages ago: where the limits of the Wanderers' Library lie. In that same vein, confirming the existence of the Basement could potentially lead to the uncovering of an even deeper secret that has fascinated every Wanderer who has stumbled upon it: the location of the lair of the Serpent. Believed to be the very root from where the Library sprouted, finding this place would undoubtedly bring its discoverer fame beyond fame, or so thought MacFynns. More than that, whomever found the Serpent could convince it to return from its self-imposed exile, thus ushering a new era of endless possibilities.
Drunk with delusions of grandeur, MacFynns and his cohorts mounted an expedition to the depths of the Library where, to everyone's surprise, they succeeded in discovering the Basement – or at least what they believed to be the Basement – and ventured into it. What happened next was a succession of violent death, paranoia, mutilation and madness, with expedition members succumbing to the monstrosities that populate that place at the bottom of the Library and turning against each other as the situation deteriorated. What happened to MacFynns and those others whose bodies were never recovered is still a mystery, and neither do we know if they succeeded in finding the Serpent.
However foolish and misguided MacFynns was, and as disastrously as his expedition ended, the impact he left behind far exceeds anything the Serpent's Forearm ever achieved. Word of his endeavor has run like wildfire through the Stacks, and his name has become synonymous not with the consequences of hubris and shortsightedness, but with a sort of valiant lost cause. Against the warnings of Library staff and more experienced Wanderers, a slew of would-be adventurers has taken it upon themselves to continue the quest for the Basement and the Serpent's lair, intent on rousing the ancient deity from its slumber for a variety of reasons. From crazed zealots who wish to bring about the end of the world to presumptuous new factions who clamor for revolution, more and more people arrive each day to join the search.
In the end, Levin MacFynns might not be the one to claim the ultimate prize he sought, but he has certainly paved the way for the next fool to bring about dire consequences for us all. Who knows what will happen if someone does find the Serpent, or what it will say when it turns its elder eyes upon its once and always domain and, unblinking, passes judgement.