All right, I know I’m still new to a lot of this magiq stuff, so instead of trying to make sense of it myself, I’m just gonna tell you guys what happened.
So yesterday morning, I got an email that my hold on Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca was finally ready for pickup at the library (Brooklyn Central), so I decided to make a quick stop after work. Emphasis on quick, because it was supposed to rain all day and honestly all I wanted to do was get home and curl up with some tea and my new book and just have myself a nice, cozy evening.
Famous last words, right?
I still don’t really know how to describe it, but as soon as I got through the front doors of the library I just felt…weird. Kind of off, kind of distracted. The hold shelf and checkout desks are both on the first floor, so I was able to sweep through and get my book pretty easily, but as I turned to leave, the weird feeling got stronger. It started feeling physically forceful, like an invisible, almost magnetic pull had hold of my jacket collar and was trying to steer me with it.
It was starting to make me pretty uncomfortable, and I was even starting to think maybe if I just took my jacket off it would go away, but then I looked down and realized that the weird feeling was coming from the exact same spot on my jacket as my Herman pin.
Again, I’m pretty new to this whole magiq thing. I haven’t done any questing or puzzling, or gone looking for magiq in any way really beyond just being in the office, but something clicked for me then. I gave in to the pull and instead of going straight out the front doors, I followed it up the side stairs to the second floor.
I didn’t have to go very far – the pull was the strongest right in front of the doors to the Brooklyn Collection, which I’ve never been in, but I think is just an archival resource for research? Like, old documents and photos and stuff? I tried the doors but they were locked; it seems they keep different hours from the rest of the library.
My phone buzzed in my bag right after I tried to yank on the doors, which was only weird because it’s been on the fritz recently so I’ve been keeping it on silent to save battery, but I thought it was just the “oops I accidentally shut down and turned back on again” buzz and didn’t think anything more of it. The Herman pull stopped then too, so even though I didn’t find anything magiqal and just felt thoroughly confused (and more than a little disappointed, tbh), I figured I was free to go.
It wasn’t until I got back down to the subway station that I checked my phone and realized the buzz had been a notification from the Ackerly Green app.
The notification read: “A world that could not have been imagined by man.”
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Wow. That’s kind of ominous.
So a bit of rampant speculation and tinfoil time…but all the other times we got Herman prompts from the app, it was in response to a specific clue from our ghostie friend…we sort of knew what we were looking for. But this is different. It sounds like Herman brought you there pretty forcefully. So I’m wondering if there’s something in the collection that we need (but then why did the pull go away when you got the notification)? So does this warrant a return trip and some snooping? Or do we call it done like we did when we got the other clues?
It looks like the collection doesn’t keep super regular hours and they recommend that you make an appointment if you want to use the materials. Although, they also ask for “research requests” and I’m not sure how “my magiq pin told me to” would go over…
Anyway…some things to ponder.
Maybe we could submit a request asking if they know anything of a phantom lighthouse or if the number ab 16022 (or whatever it was im too lazy to search right now) references anything in their catalog?
Okay, prepare the tinfoil…
I decided to see if there was a way to look items up at that part of the library (presuming I’m even in the right part of the internet for that).
I tried typing in ab 16022 (with and without a space), nothing showed up.
Then I figured I’d try “lighthouse,” see what comes up.
As I’m scrolling through, it hits me that the “ab” could stand for “audio book.”
…then again, the more that I looked at the site, the more it looks like it sent me to the regular library collection rather than the special section Herman was pulling toward, so don’t mind me.
Maybe its a time code within an audio book? 1 hour 06 minutes 22 seconds in? But what book? A book in the collection about a ghostly lighthouse?
Yeah…that ball of tinfoil i just made can probably be seen from space.
Well, the one that came up when I searched for “lighthouse” and audio books, was something by Virginia Woolf.
Can we just start breaking into closed offices again? I feel like we need to start if we’re gonna get any of this stuff. lol
@Cj_Heighton I feel wierd about breaking into non-evil offices. KS was a “lesser of two evils” type thing, but this? Idk. Maybe let’s at least postpone the break-in until we know what Herman wants from us.
I called the Brooklyn Collection and talked with a wonderful woman that walked me through how the different materials in the collection are organized. Unfortunately, she didn’t have an answer for what the 10622 could be, but she agrees with the idea that AB probably stands for auidobook.
Probably nothing, but I just had one of those lightning bolts related to other things.
Eowyn came to mind.
No man could kill the Lich King.
But she was no man.
Virginia Woolf isn’t a man either.
On the off chance it is related, this is the book that came up: To the Lighthouse – Wikipedia
So im out of ideas so im going to start over. The last time Herman dragged an AGP employee somewhere (Saberlane to the storage unit) the location wasnt really relevant right? It was the message from the app that triggered Woolies memories.
So following that logic the phrase itself is the key to something. Maybe as simple as just telling the memory to Woolie in the office? Maybe the phrase is a pointer to something but i can find those exact words anywhere…which itself is interesting. Its certainly not common phrase.
I tried looking through my own library’s catalog, see if maybe they had the Virginia Woolf audio book downloadable (they only have it in book form).
But I did find something else (probably completely unrelated)…
Very interesting!
The library called me back today and told me that the Brooklyn Collection does not currently carry any audiobooks. So maybe it’s something unlisted that they don’t know about?
What if it’s Track 16 0:22 sadly I can’t bring up any of the albums in my app
Same. I’m going to try to delete and re-download and see if that works.