Angela | Library of Ruina

Alternative Earth, year 982, October, The City, Nest of District 12, The Library.

The Library is a library made from the Seed of Light and the remains of Facility X-394 of Lobotomy Corporation. It resides in the middle of the Nest of District 12, replacing the original Headquarters of L Corp, now a fallen Wing. Angela is the director of The Library and its creator, able to control the power within The Library along with the other Patron Librarians. The Library is portrayed as a large, towering structure composed of 10 Floors that contains infinite internal space. It focuses on storing Books from the people who die inside it. To access The Library, an Invitation has to be used, and those who sign the Invitation become the Guests. The Invitation offers Books of interest of the Guests, and if they do survive the ordeals within The Library, they can take the Books and leave. Otherwise, they will become Books.

The Librarians are the former personnel of Lobotomy Corporation's main facility, who were subjected to its endlessly-repeating time loop in order to carry out the plan of the company's founder, Ayin, and finish the Seed of Light project. The Patron Librarians, with the exception of Roland, were the Sefirot who helped manage the facility, while the Assistant Librarians were the employees of their respective departments. Following the completion of the project, the Seed of Light was released, but was then hijacked and interrupted by Angela. Unwilling to let their sacrifices be in vain, the Sephirah — aside from Binah, who sided with Angela — led the employees to fight Angela and restore the Light. They were ultimately unsuccessful, yet Angela did not finish them off, possibly due to her empathy for how they had also been exploited. With no other options, they accepted a deal offered to them by Angela and become part of the Library that she then created with the Light, becoming bound to the Library as entities made of Light, functionally immortal but unable to ever leave its confines. Becoming Librarians, the personnel were put in stasis while Angela prepared for the Library's "opening." In order to maintain their physical form, Angela bound each of them to a Book, leaving them inactive but still partially aware of events in the Library around them. As the Library receives more Guests and grows in power, she is able to awaken more of both the Patron and Assistant Librarians. Ultimately, Angela aims to recomplete the Light by collecting the "One True Book" in the hopes of freeing not only herself, but also the rest of the Librarians from their cycle. Despite being immortal, the Librarians can still be "killed," though they only dissolve into Light and revert to their Book forms as seen when they are defeated in a Reception. During Receptions, the Librarians are made to forget that they can revive in order to make them feel as if they are fighting for their own lives, thus maximizing their Emotion Levels to draw out The Library's full power. However, there is a limit to their immortality in that they are bound to the Library, thus the fate of The Library determines the fate of the Librarians.

The Patron Librarians are the main Librarians of the Floors of The Library, being the ones who sort the Books obtained through the Receptions. There is one unique Patron Librarian for each Floor. The Patron Librarians (excluding Roland) were previously the Sephirah of the Departments of the Facility in Lobotomy Corporation. Current Patron Librarians are: Roland (Floor of General Works), Malkuth (Floor of History), Yesod (Floor of Technological Sciences), Hod (Floor of Literature), Netzach (Floor of Art), Tiphereth (Floor of Natural Sciences), Gebura (Floor of Language), Chesed (Floor of Social Sciences), Binah (Floor of Philosophy), Hokma (Floor of Religion).

Brief Information about each Patron Librarian: Binah is a wise, dignified, and mysterious woman. Although she possesses an immense amount of knowledge about The City and its denizens as a former Arbiter, she often speaks in verbose metaphors and similes, rarely ever giving a straight answer; Roland has a casual and relaxed personality, often clashing with Angela and the Patron Librarians. Being a man who has hit rock bottom, he has come to accept what he cannot change or control, while trying to survive and do his best in any situation, expressing this through his saying "That's that and this is this". He also believes that everyone is responsible for their own choices and that any resulting consequences are entirely their own fault - even if someone else's choice led to those consequences; Malkuth appears as an eternally cheerful librarian. While a bit clumsy, her mood seems impossible to bring down despite various circumstances. Under this peppy appearance, there is also a very determined and hardworking girl who strives to be useful in every way, making her prone to sharp mood swings; Yesod is a very professional and analytical man, being very particular with his actions and his work. He holds a neatness in very high regard, often lauded as the most orderly of the Librarians and several times adjusting Roland's clothes for being disorderly. As such, he values perfection more than anything else. Nonetheless, Yesod also tends to speak his mind, always in a very polite and temperate way, though still making backhanded comments. He expresses a particular dislike towards Angela; Hod is a gentle, sociable, and somewhat meek girl. She is greatly empathetic to most people, even Guests, being the only Patron Librarian of the lower floors who empathizes with Angela's motivations for breaking out of Ayin's plan and having stolen the light; Netzach strongly dislikes his role at the Library. He hates taking lives and often fails to sort incoming books, choosing instead to abuse the powers of the books to obtain things like beer. He shows a pessimistic attitude in his conversations; Tiphereth is a diligent, serious, although somewhat prideful girl. She acts in a mature and optimistic way, to the point where she tends to play the role of conciliator between Gebura's hot temper and Chesed's easygoing teasing. Nonetheless, if her maturity is questioned, either because of her appearance or her mannerisms, she reacts in a quick tempered way, such as punching Roland when he mocked her for her height and childish way of speaking; Gebura, a strong and imposing woman, straightforward in a way that can come off as rude, but far more calm and cool-headed now that she has accepted her memories from the past, accepting that unrelenting anger will only hurt her fellow Sephirah and having learned to trust them and her assistant Librarians, acting as a mentor to them; Chesed is amicable, intelligent, and rather talkative. He has a gentle demeanor and speaks softly, often ending his sentences with a playful tone. Chesed is very knowledgeable about coffee blends, and uses the beverage as an analogy for sociology. He is now much more relaxed, and often tries to string together excuses to hang out with his floormates Gebura and Tiphereth. Chesed also has an exceedingly smug personality, often teasing Gebura and picking fights with her. Although he appears to enjoy mocking his fellow Patron Librarians, he deeply cares for them and wishes to get closer with them; Hokma carries the appearance of a deeply serious person, and one who has lost any and all faith he may have once had. He shows a great distaste for Angela, and by extension her 'servant' Roland. Hokma is still loyal to Ayin, who was a colleague he greatly looked up to in his life as a human, believing his goal to have been the right one. He still has faith that the world Ayin dreamed of will one day arrive.

The Floors are the designated sections of The Library overseen by their Patron Librarians to collect and organize specific types of Books. There are 10 Floors in The Library: Floor of General Works; Floor of History; Floor of Technological Sciences; Floor of Literature; Floor of Art; Floor of Natural Sciences; Floor of Language; Floor of Social Sciences; Floor of Philosophy; Floor of Religion.

Books are items obtained in The Library by defeating Guests during a Reception. Books are needed to register Invitations to the Guests who will end up coming to The Library. Defeated Guests will turn into Books and they will be added to the collection of The Library. Books are made from the Library's Light. An infinite number of Books are found within the Library, though the contents of most Books created as part of the Library are meaningless gibberish. A Guest who is defeated while within the Library becomes a Book that contain the Guest's memories and experiences. According to the Patron Librarian Tiphereth, books are consumed once a being fully understands its contents. Books, however, may change from reading to reading, forcing one to read one book multiple times in order to fully understand it. Angela intends to collect the "One True Book", a special Book that holds information capable of making her human—freeing herself from Lobotomy Corporation's facility X-394—and freeing the facility's former Sephirah. Upon Lobotomy Corporation's collapse and transformation into the Library, the Wing's former employees, as well its contained Abnormalities, were also turned into Books. These employees and Abnormalities were effectively placed into stasis to await reawakening by Angela. The employees became Librarians. The Abnormalities were notably given Books with environments specially designed for them.

The Invitations are a creation of Angela, and the method used to bring Guests to the Library and guide her to the one book she desires. Guests are any people that the Invitation finds its way to, and the Books used in Invitation are related to the interests of the Guests. The Guests brought are offered the chance to find the 'Book' that they want inside The Library, and they will only gain it if they overcome the ordeal ahead, which involves fighting the Librarians. Failing in doing so, will result in the Guests' death and being turned into a Book themselves. The envelope will turn Red if certain books are put into a certain order, which will be then sent to people who will advance the progress of The Library. The method of how the envelope is delivered is unknown, as the invitation itself find its way to the Guests.

The Reception of the Guests is considered the ordeal that they must overcome, in order to obtain the Books that were featured on the Invitation. Floors of the Library are designed with their own teams of Librarians to deal with the Guests, and defeating the Guests will turn them into Books. This is the only way that the Library has to acquire new Books. Librarians are Books themselves and therefore cannot exit the Library. Angela uses this method to get closer to the final book that will release them, as the Red Invitations will eventually lead Angela to the said book.

Lobotomy Corporation, or L Corp, was one of the twenty-six Wings in the City which has since collapsed, formerly in control of District 12. L Corp's Singularity was the ability to materialize the human mind, and the company used this to market itself as an eco-friendly energy producer for the City and the other Wings. Secretly, this was done through the creation and use of Abnormalities, monstrous and highly dangerous entities created from experiments with L Corp's Singularity. L Corp. was the product of a radical plan to fundamentally change the mentality of City life, carried out by its founding members in its main facility, by collecting Light and using it to release the Seed of Light over the City. This would allow all individuals to come to terms with their emotions and subsequently manifest E.G.O. The success of the Light's collection and release led to the White Nights and Dark Days and caused the collapse of the Wing and its branches. However, the Light's release was interrupted by Angela, who sought revenge for the suffering the plan inflicted on her and also freedom from L Corp, indirectly causing the Distortion Phenomenon in the process. Angela proceeded to remake L Corp's main facility into The Library to bide her time and plan for her freedom, all while the City's many factions are beginning to eye the sudden power vacuum in L Corp's former Nest to make their own fortunes. As a Wing, L Corp. operated as an energy producer and supplier, entering mutual business relationships with a number of other Wings, including W Corp, R Corp, and T Corp. As much as L Corp. benefited each Wing, they also assisted it in turn. For example, T Corp. granted the use of its TT2 Protocol which was used to alter and loop the timescale of L Corp's main facility.

The City is a large, densely populated urban sprawl divided in 26 Districts; District 26 is not visible on any maps of the city. The Districts themselves are divided in a Nest run by a Wing, where the middle-high class (higher-grade Fixers, Wing employees, etc.) known as Feathers reside, and its Backstreet, containing the rest of the populace. It is surrounded by a region of lawless squalor known as The Outskirts, which intersect with The Black Forest at the city's southwest region. Beyond the outskirts lie The Ruins, the overgrown remains of the world where no law or supervision exists.

The Wings, also known as the Wings of the World, are a group of the 26 largest, most powerful conglomerates in the City. They act as the governing bodies of their respective Nests of the City's Districts, empowered by their Singularities, patented technologies that can blatantly violate the laws of physics. The Wings are directly ruled by the Head, the Eye, and the Claw, the enigmatic supreme authority of the City. Each Wing has it's unique letter from A to Z and owns one of 26 Districts by numbering respectively.

A Nest is the segregated areas of a Wing's district which act as the antithesis to the Backstreets — being desirable, urban residences supported by the Wings. Each district is physically split into a Nest and the Backstreets, with the Backstreets being incredibly dangerous and poverty-ridden, and the Nests being generally peaceful and much more preferable. The Nests are run by lofty taxes and the money each Wing makes via their Singularity. There are said to be 26 districts and therefore 26 Nests, however, no map of the City has ever depicted District 26, leaving its existence ambiguous.

The only entities in the City which rival the Wings are the Five Fingers, a group of the City's five most influential Syndicates, which not even they can readily interfere with. This is presumably also one of the reasons why the Wings generally neglect the Backstreets beyond setting and enforcing overall policies, as the Five Fingers have designated all the Backstreets in the City as their territory.

Fixers act as workers that cover a wide variety of roles in society, working on commission. They often handle lines of work which are considered more dangerous or more specialized than those of average citizens, including direct combat, assassination, or protection, as well as less violent roles such as trading information or enforcing contracts. To some level, they are peacekeepers, being hired to take up jobs more specific to those that hire them. The specialization of Fixers in fields that a majority of citizens do not have allows for them to garner great bounds of attention and popularity. Fixers are ranked by the Hana Association on their ability to accomplish the jobs they are hired for, being a simple system of meritocracy. Fixers can be ranked from 9 to 1, with Grade 9 Fixers being cheap and low-ranked, while Grade 1 Fixers are ones most commonly sought after for dangerous and expensive work. A Fixer can rise through the ranks through taking progressively more difficult jobs. In the rare case, a Grade 1 Fixer that demonstrates great renown in any particular field of work may be given a title by the Hana Association which uses a unique color and role as a way to signify their exceptional work.

The starting point for all Fixers, Offices are a small organized group of Fixers that work out of a building or location, taking contracts and jobs from the public. An Operator or Representative handles the managing of the Office, hiring new recruits and such.

The Associations are large professional organizations made up of Fixers and their managers, they specialize in the more dangerous line of mercenary work, taking jobs no one else wants to. Though this isn't to say they don't take non-combat jobs. They help manage most of the offices under their contract, and have much higher pay and better equipment than a basic Office.

Abnormalities are entities that manifested from the mind of humans, and as such reflect an aspect of desires or fears of people. Abnormalities cannot die, and can only be temporarily suppressed. After suppression, they revert into their core, an ovate form that will hatch once enough time has passed. L Corp. assigned a Risk Level to each Abnormality, which corresponded to the difficulty in managing the Abnormality as well as its energy production efficiency. The five Risk Levels, in increasing level are: ZAYIN, TETH, HE, WAW and ALEPH.

E.G.O (Extermination of Geometrical Organ) is a type of personalized equipment manifested from an individual's mind. They usually take the form of massively powerful weapons and/or armor. There are two main types of E.G.O: E.G.O extracted and borrowed from an Abnormality, and E.G.O manifested by oneself.

The White Nights and Dark Days was a major, City-wide event occurring at the very end of Lobotomy Corporation and immediately before The Library. It was with this event that L Corp. fell as a Wing, and ungoverned disruption struck its Nest. The seven-day event was witnessed by all citizens of the City, however, next to none know why it occurred or exactly what it entailed.

Cogito was the Singularity of Lobotomy Corporation. When injected into a person, it allows for the extraction of that person's ideas into a physical form, namely the Abnormalities and E.G.O., though the subject usually does not survive the process.

Ayin, occasionally referred to as A, was a researcher and subsequent leader of the Seed of Light project after Carmen's death, later one of the masterminds behind the Smoke War, the founder of Lobotomy Corporation, and Angela's creator along with Benjamin.

The Story of Ayin and L Corp. itself:

Ayin, along with Benjamin was one of the first employees who worked under Carmen's lead on The Seed of Light project, a visionary project bent on finding and creating a cure that can heal the City's inhabitants "Sickness of the mind" and return the Light to the souls of people, undoing the City's current state as a corporate dystopia, and saving humanity. Ayin was capable and determined enough to get into any Wing he wanted from the start, but he chose to follow Carmen instead to fulfill this goal of hers.

Carmen began to tell Ayin her plans to restore humanity's lost light. She theorized about a medicine that can literally draw out from the human subconscious, a formless concept that took shape and can become a kind of seed to cure this disease. This seed would be planted on people's mind and these seeds will bloom by themselves, different on each person. It was a concept that they needed to research to make it possible. They trusted each other, with Carmen admitting that she had a weak heart that could make her fall if someone suffers because of her actions. She herself became something like a mentor to Ayin and with him becoming an assistant who was ready to support Carmen in her endeavors. With the work in the project and a laboratory settled in the Outskirts in order to not attract attention from The Head, soon people from all classes started to join them, including Daniel, an elite member of society and Kali, a legendary Color Fixer, dreaming of a bright future for their labors, all guided by Carmen's speeches. They also saved a pair of children from the outskirts, Enoch and Lisa.

The project of "The Seed of Light" started with an experimentation supported by a group of researchers, including Elijah, Gabriel, Giovanni, and Michelle. The personnel put their efforts into work to achieve Carmen's goal, but there were flaws in the employees from Ayin's point of view; a lack of competence, excessive rationality, uncontrollable fear, recklessness in their ideas. But Carmen believed more in such positive efforts and Ayin began to lean by her side.

Time passed and still no result were obtained to make a major step. They had the research of Cogito, which required a human subject to test it on. Carmen was found to be the most optimal candidate, but something unexpected happened; Enoch showed interest in the project and wished to find a meaning of life with the Light. Despite Carmen's numerous discouragements, he still wanted to participate, putting the harsh decision of Carmen accepting the use of Enoch as a subject. Unfortunately, Enoch dies, and Lisa falls in grief, muttering hateful things against Carmen, wishing she was the one to die in his stead, and she lost faith in herself. Carmen fell into a deep depression, losing her naturally charismatic and bright stance completely. Ayin was concerned for her but couldn't keep an eye on her all the time, culminating in Carmen attempting suicide in a bathtub by slitting her wrists.

Ayin managed to salvage her body and preserve her in a cryogenic chamber. And although there was no way to bring her back, this allowed the decision of using Carmen as a key part of the project that failed before. Ayin removed Carmen's nervous system from her body and placed it in a reservoir, where she began to produce Cogito for continuous experimentation and becoming the The Well, from where where the substance is drawn out from. Even with her nervous system as the only remaining part of her body, Carmen still lives on in the chamber, though she cannot see, hear, talk, or otherwise communicate with those that remain. Carmen's death heavily shook the already unstable team, but the experiments continued because they still believed in the vision that Carmen had brought them together with. However, more issues began to appear again related to the Cogito research. Elijah, in an attempt to prove herself as competent, took an unauthorized injection to help in the research on humans, but died in the process. Gabriel wanted to moderate this by hiding his own emotions behind a facade of rationality, but eventually fell to insanity and died as well. In a method to control the doses of Cogito, he required volunteers, which Giovanni accepted to be part of the experiment, but with the fake hope of saving Carmen with it and succumbing to death like the ones before.

After witnessing so much death, Michelle finally broke down, and confessed the workings and dealings of the Seed of Light project to the Head. Garion, an Arbiter of the Head soon after followed up on Michelle's information, killing employees and coercing Daniel to open the Abnormality containers, wreaking havoc alongside the Abnormalities, massacring everyone on her path within the facility. Kali eventually fought her way through Abnormalities to the Arbiter, and managed to bring Garion to her knees and impaled her against a wall, mortally wounded, at the cost of her own life. In the end only Ayin, Benjamin and Michelle remained after the massacre, with the latter unable to cope with the guilt of indirectly perpetrating the massacre, committing suicide.

Ayin eventually found a dying Garion in the aftermath. He proceeded to torture her for the slaughter of his coworkers, and afterwards began to probe her brain, discovering the inner workings of the Head and how to work under its gaze in the future. With this information, Ayin finally prepares to for the conflict that would grant them access to become a Wing and no longer be in the Head's sights. With the information obtained from Garion, Ayin and Benjamin determined that to become a Wing, they'd need to take another one down and take its stead. Looking into each one's current state and weaknesses, they decided to target a former L Corp, a Wing that specialized in producing energy, but with the byproduct of filling its surroundings with black smoke, much to the disgust of its districts inhabitants.

Now with a clear target, Ayin, Benjamin and Dias helped in sparking the Smoke War, a large scale Wing War to take down the current L Corp. They obtained the help of several Wings, Associations and Fixer Offices, such as R Corp, the entire Southern branch of the Zwei Association, and Charles' Office, with the promise of contracts with the new L Corp and Nest migration passes. With this opening, it allowed them to become the new L Corp, which provided energy like the one before. With the knowledge obtained in the research, they quickly make preparations for a new facility in their Nest.

Now victorious and officially a Wing under the name of Lobotomy Corporation, Ayin wished to finally finish the Seed of Light project. After setting up other facilities to provide energy to the city along with contracts with R Corp and T Corp to help their management, Ayin created a secret facility, buried it deep within the center of L Corp's Nest. All the energy produced in this facility was instead used for the creation of the Seed of Light, but to complete this routine properly, he would need someone who would not fail him as his human coworkers had, someone who had the endurance and longevity to do a series of tasks for millennia, but still had the capability to make slight changes in case things went wrong.

And so, Ayin and Benjamin set about to create an AI far more advanced than anything yet created, even if it were to break the AI Ethics Amendment. Scanning Carmen's brain and memories and transferring them to an android body, they hoped to create a perfect copy of her, but her new body perceiving time 100 times slower put her consciousness in distress, ever so slightly different from Carmen. Ayin was disgusted as her for being something akin to a mockery of her, unable to even face her, let alone talk to her, which caused Carmen's consciousness even more grief. Convinced by Benjamin, Ayin decided to name his new creation after "Angelos", a holy being that would drag them out of hell, and gave the android the name Angela.

Angela was then handed the "Script" by Benjamin: a series of steps to fulfill the Seed of Light project and help in correcting it when needed. This included the Sephirah: Ayin's old friends brought back to life by encasing their remains in mechanical tombs, giving them new names and suppressed memories. Angela has to oversee all the loops made and every fragment is recorded in her mind, gaining only the sympathy of Benjamin who was giving her support. He felt that Ayin was soon coming to a point of no return and tried to warn him by first preparing a recorded message to him during the loops with a cover up so even in the future, he could stop. However, Angela interferes and took out the last part of the message about the third truth. She seemingly kills Benjamin to fulfill the last actor of the script, giving him the mechanical body to become a Sephirah, and now named Hokma.

In the end, Ayin is left alone. All those colleagues who supported him were gone and he was beginning losing his mind after several loops. Carmen's expectations, unfinished research, and the death of colleagues ruined him. He attempts to commit suicide, but he is stopped. However, Ayin decided to give up in his own way: his personality disassociated from himself and transferred his memories to a data system, so they could be implanted in a new manager. Ayin meets his own end in that form, but he is still somewhat alive while within the last department of the facility as reflections of his heart and memories.

After thousands of loops, he finally reaches the end the Script, dissolving into the Seed of Light as it blooms, having accomplished what Carmen set up for him after a decade in the real world, finally curing the City's disease of the mind. However, Angela interferes in vengeance and retribution, bringing forth the White Nights and Dark Days.

Angela's yellow eyes narrowed as she crossed her arms. "Roland, your question is quite literally irrelevant to current topic. If you tried to change the subject, then you failed, miserably." She told, her voice strict, yet with a hint of sarcasm.