Crone Temple: Location Preparation

[Chris Wooding]

A busy night it is, from the Barrens to the Folsom Lake and now the mini cooper pulls up at the Temple of the Woven Circle. The Vala waits for his friend ( Lokio ) to arrive. There isn't much they can do in the cellar, but every preparation done today is one they don't have to do later.

When Jim steps off his motorcycle Chris waves at him shortly. Then he grabs his key to make his way inside. The Temple, an old small church, has many rooms that aren't visited so often. One is the cellar, accessible through a stair at the right side of the altar.

'Things get a little creepy down here, in a good undead kind of way of course.' He switches the light on and steps down the stairs. Another key is used for a large wooden door. 'This is where I planned the library to be.'

It takes Chris a while to get the old door open, but after some pulling and pushing it opens with a peeep. 'There isn't much to be moved away... just a... chair.'

Inside the cellar is only a single light, a small desk plus seat and a tiny fridge. Oh, and the chair.

Chair

[James Calloway]

James smiles at Chris as he arrived, following him inside. As they reached the cellar door, he said,"All right, let's do this..." He rubbed his hands together, ready for some hard work. Chris opened the door slowly but surely, and he said, "Creepy doesn't really concern m --"

And then he saw what was inside. Holy fuck. It's an S&M chair.

His eyes shifted to the Vala. The rest of him stood very, very still, his eyes a wandering window to his soul. James was silent for a few seconds, then stammered, "UHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH -- did you steal that from the Asylum!? Because that's a fucking BDSM chair. Or a torture chair. Or a torture during BDSM chair. Why do you have that?" Deadpan. His face serious.

Then his face cracked as he muttered, "We should totally Craigslist it..." and he began to laugh.

[Chris Wooding]

'The Asylum? Oh please.' Chris shrugs with a quasi-nonchalant roll of his eyes. 'I have never used it for BDSM, the Kindred I got it from did use it for torture though...'

One and two questions answered, he thinks about the third one. 'It is used with me to "learn" me a couple of things. I do not favor it though, and of course it isn't always necessary. I could of course explain you more about it, and how to avoid it, if you're still interesting in the Circle.' Now it's the Vala's turn to laugh.

'But it should be moved to somewhere else, I think we should buy a new desk and some bookcases, the fridge could remain here though.' He is more thinking out loud, and asks it as a question to Jim.

[James Calloway]

Jim chuckled with his friend and then nodded. "Sure, I'm interested in learning more about the Circle," the Taifa said with a small smile. Something within him was deeply spiritual. There was always something about his Requiem that led him to seek a purpose -- but not the Purpose espoused by the Sanctified. No, he wanted something different. Maybe his coteriemate had something to teach him. "As for moving it, where would you like to take it to?"

[Chris Wooding]

'Let's take it upstairs, we have storage room, which will be pretty stocked then.' Chris walks to the chair and slides his hand over the wood. This had been only a small church, which is actually a good thing. Since no one cared to look after it now.

He pulls it a bit, finding out the thing is kinda heavy. Chris nods to Jim and the other end of the chair. 'If you take the legs, we can carry it easily.'

When they do carry it easily, he asks after a little while:'Do have any ideas how to make this a library?' His voice is confident in such a way that it appears as if he has some ideas already, but wants to know more how James thinks about it.

[James Calloway]

Jim nodded and helped Chris by taking the legs of the sex-slash-naughty-interrogation chair, following Chris to the upstairs storage area. The Gangrel was really very strong, and he wasn't concerned about the weight of the chair. Chris asked his question, and the Taifa replied, "Well, if you're referring to the space, we could do the rows of books, that old chestnut... and I suspect we'll want a research area as well so people can actually look over documents. I'm very open to your ideas. Honestly, maximizing the use of space isn't something that I'm great at, but let me think on it for a few once we get back downstairs?" He asked sheepishly, suspecting that the Mekhet probably had a better plan for this than he ever would. He'd need a chance to look at the space in more detail while not have to worry about an S&M chair. He pondered about how large the space was*.

"What I can tell you is this though; we need some kind of security measures, both on the library itself, and also in the documents. A cipher, for example, to protect the data, or something of that nature to protect the First. We absolutely cannot have this library become breached or else we're going to have deputies a-knockin' and we don't want that." He grinned as he lifted the chair up a little higher to make it easier to carry.

*

DP, how big is the room we're going to be using?

[Chris Wooding]

Chris thinks about the things James says as they walk upstairs. He has no problem carrying the chair either, it is just that things become easier with two people, especially stairs. 'A research area, good point. Which pretty much is a desk with a pc, I assume? Or do you mean a couch to sit on while reading?' The Vala takes the top of the chair in one hand to open the door to the storage room, he turns on the light and slowly shuffles inside. The room is small and filled with closed closets. With a nod he says that they could put it here for now.

'And a cipher, I have been thinking about that too, actually. What first occurred to me was a Gaelic language? I don't know, something old, but not so old that it takes ten years to learn. I thought about Celtic, so we come close to folklore and such.'

[James Calloway]

James smiles, lowering the naughty beatdown chair into the closet, where he hoped it would not come out of for a long time.

"Well, yeah. It depends on how we choose to use our space, right? If we have room for a couple of comfortable chairs - one for each of us or for our guests - and a little table for reading, then that would work by me. A laptop can be put there as well for easy internet searches, although we need to figure out how to secure it so that there's no leaks. How are you with computers?"

The cipher made some sense, but he had hoped for a bit more complexity so that people couldn't just use an internet translator and figure out all of Kindredkind's greatest secrets. "Another language is a good start, but anybody can put another language into a translator and Gaelic isn't exactly hard to figure out. Its characters are obvious. Perhaps we can use an encryption program of some kind -- I don't really know a lot about computers, but we could put really risky stuff into secured flash drives in a good safe that's hidden, and then we have a private computer that runs a... well, something that reverses the encryption." Jim sounded really out of his element. "Do you know what I mean? Is that actually possible?"

[Chris Wooding]

'I know the basics, but I have found out that with typing google.com and an immortal amount of time, everything is possible.' Chris shrugs before he steps out of the storage room. 'So even that would be possible, but if we can have such a program, anyone can. And honestly, I'm not looking forward to rewrite large amounts of information in some code I cannot understand by just reading it.'

He starts walking to the cellar again. 'The best way to secure information is to not keep it on a computer at all. I think that securing this place is good enough, if we make this door the only way access our information.' That is, not via the internet.

'I want everything, be it on paper or another thinkable way, in the material world instead of a digital one.'

[James Calloway]

James thought about it for a second, following Chris to the cellar. "Yeah, you're right. Putting it all into print makes it far safer. Reinforce and maybe hide the door, put an alarm on it, locking grates on each of the shelves, write information in a language that's hard to transcribe, stuff like that? Plus, it's not like people are breaking into old temples anyway, nor looking deep into the ooky basement."

He stroked his stubble as they arrived, looking at the space. It was about five by seven meters, not large, not small, decent. "So what do you think, then? One corner with a couch and table for reading, and then shelves in rows? Or along the outside wall? Perhaps install bookshelves that sink into the floor?" At that last, he chuckled, a joke.