Moved stuff around

Author: JPCMarques

_layouts/light-novel-motherpage.html

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+---
+layout: subpagedir
+sidebarClass: sidebar
+navbar:
+ - Back: light-novels
+---
+<br>
+
+{{page.sinopse}}
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<strong><a href="{{site.baseurl}}{{page.id}}/expanded-universe/">Expanded Universe</a></strong>
+
+<br>
+
+{{content}}
+
+<ul>
+{% for ln in site.light-novels %}
+  {% if ln.url contains page.url %}
+    {% unless ln.title == page.title or ln.mother != page.motherID or page.ignore contains ln.title %}
+    <li> <a href="{{ln.url}}">{{ln.title}}</a> </li>
+    {% endunless %}
+  {% endif %}
+{% endfor %}
+</ul>

_layouts/study-wiki-motherpage.html

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+---
+layout: subpagedir
+sidebarClass: sidebar
+navbar:
+ - Back: study-wiki
+---
+
+{{content}}
+
+<ul>
+{% for sw in site.study-wiki %}
+  {% if sw.url contains page.url %}
+    {% unless sw.title == page.title or sw.mother != page.motherID or page.ignore contains sw.title %}
+    <li> <a href="{{sw.url}}">{{sw.title}}</a> </li>
+    {% endunless %}
+  {% endif %}
+{% endfor %}
+</ul>

_light-novels/book-hunters/chapter-1.md

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+---
+layout: book-hunters
+relativenavbar: true
+navbar:
+    - Back: ..
+mother: bh
+title: The Infinite Book
+comments: true
+id: chapter-1
+---
+  A man opened a door, illuminating a wide room, until then pitch black, revealing shelves upon shelves of books, books and some
+  loose pages lying on the floor, covered in dust, most eaten by long-dead larvae as sustenance. The light coming from the opening
+  allowed the man to see just how big the place he found was, as it seemed it would go on forever in the void of darkness.
+
+  "Jackpot!" - he shouted. Two more men came into the room from behind him, armed with guns that gave off a faint light
+  from the barrel - "Look at the size of this place! Seems like we'll be having a great haul today! Stand guard while I
+  try to find the valuable ones."
+
+  "Man, why are we always the ones stuck with the boring tasks? We want to go hunting too!"
+
+  "Speak for yourself Dean, I like to just chill with my gun and get paid. Easiest job I ever had"
+
+  "The most boring too."
+
+  "Yeah well, at least you're still human. That tin can over there has hardly anything human remaining in him."
+
+  "I really wish you would stop bitching about having the easy job."
+
+  "It's easy but you get the free augs."
+
+  "Well, I also get the pain and the freaks. Hardly anyone remotely normal wants to have sex with a man that's half robot."
+
+  "That's because you don't have the right augs."
+
+  "Unlike you, I was born without needing them there."
+
+  "Oh, go fuck yourself, tin can. Just do your thing with the books and we'll stay here, bored half to death."
+
+  "Don't let him do anything stupid, LL."
+
+  "Don't worry Raynell, I have been babysitting him for 5 years now."
+
+  "Dick." - replied Dean, turning his back to the two and walking towards the entrance.
+
+  "This could take awhile, it seems to be at least 100 meters in length."
+
+  "Chill, the longer you take the more likely it is for us get an actual good haul. The last ones were shit."
+
+  "Yeah I know. We could barely fuel the reactor for this trip." - Raynell turned his back on LL and proceeded into the dark, while LL joined Dean.
+
+  Raynell went through the corridors, looking for anything that stood out from the rest, before starting to process all
+  the books, turning on his night vision augment. He let his hand slide through along the covers of the books in the
+  shelves, feel its rough and old edges against his artificial hardened skin.
+
+  *Is this how it really feels?* - he couldn't help but wonder. - *Is Dean right? Am I even still human?*
+
+   He continued into the library, absorbed in his existential crisis, wandering aimlessly. When he came to, he was lost.
+
+   "Dean, LL!" - Raynell shouted, with only echo in response. He tried running in what he thought was the direction he came from, to no avail.
+   Always coming back to what seemed to be the same bookshelves, the same pattern of loose sheets of papers and footprints in the dusty floor,
+   began to feel panic, immediately steeled himself.
+
+   *Calm down. No point in wasting energy*
+
+   Raynell carefully studied the room around him, but nothing seemed to be out of place. Always the same pattern of footprints
+   on the floor, the same pages on the floor and the same books on the shelves.
+
+   *Hmm... If I'm not leaving any new footprints, I wonder if I can have any effect on this place, at all?*
+
+   He tried to pull a book off the shelf. Instead of the book moving, it was like his hand was pulling an immovable object.
+
+   Next, he tried to punch the same book.
+
+   *Strange. I expected it not to move when I hit it, but I didn't get hurt trying to punch it, either! What the fuck is going on?!*
+
+   At that point, he truly began to feel scared. He was trapped, like a bird in a cage, with cold sweat dripping from near
+   the corner of his eyes. Panicking, he threw more and more punches, all with no effect.
+
+   After pointlessly exhausting himself, he sat on the floor, with his arms over his knees and his sweat falling on the floor,
+   without mixing with the dust, instead just laying there in tiny pools, without even touching the dust on the floor.
+
+   *I'm not in the library anymore! This is a place entirely different, where I can't affect reality!*
+
+   He ran into the walls. They didn't budge, but he didn't feel pain either. Instead, he just bounced back.
+
+   *On the bright side, this means there is definitely something of value here. Otherwise there wouldn't be such an intricate trap here.*
+   *On the other hand, I'm probably going to die here.*
+
+   <center>&diams;</center>
+
+   Time passed, for what felt like days. Most of his status augments (time, location, life form scanners...) weren't working at all.
+   He felt tired from several tries of breaking the trap. Even worse, he was thirsty and hungry, with hardly any emergency supplies.
+
+   Laying down on the floor he thought:
+
+   *This is probably the slowest, most boring, way to go. I should probably rest and hope someone comes to save me.*
+
+   He closed his eyes, and felt his consciousness slowly fade away.
+
+   *Who are you, and why are you invading my domain?* - an ominous voice echoed in his mind.
+
+   *What the fuck?!*
+
+   *Well, what the fuck, what are you doing here?*
+
+   *My name is not... never mind. You were the one that trapped me in here. It's not like I tried to get here.*
+
+   *That's impossible. My trap is set to activate when someone attempts to invade the sanctum.*
+
+   *Invade? I was just walking among the dusty shelves when I got trapped in here.*
+
+   *The Library IS the sanctum!*
+
+   *To who? It wasn't disturbed in millennia...*
+
+   *The Book Hunters, of course!* - the voice almost yelled, proudly.
+
+   *Who the hell are those?!*
+
+   *They are the greatest order of magicians in the planet, and the most ancient one too.*
+
+   *Your magicians must suck, hard.*
+
+   *YOU DARE INSULT US?!*
+
+   *Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to insult you. I'm merely observing that your planet was dead for millennia, so they
+   can't be really that great.*
+
+   Silence fell in his mind for a while.
+
+   *So that's why it wasn't activated in so, so long. Well, time for me to sleep, and for you to die.*
+
+   Raynell felt excruciating pain emanating through his spine. In his mind, he yelled:
+
+   *STOP! What if I become a Book Hunter?*
+
+   The pain stopped.
+
+   *Hmmm. Well, I guess if you pass the entry test I can't kill you.*
+
+   *What do I have to do?*
+
+   *Open your eyes. I'll meet you in the trap.*
+
+   He opened his eyes and stood up.
+
+   In front of him was a cloud of energy in the form of a human being. In its hand, was a small book.
+
+   "This is your test. Read this book and we will know if you are a Book Hunter." - he passed the book to Raynell, who held
+   it suspiciously.
+
+   As he grabbed it, he felt a slight hum coming from the book. Its cover was plain, made of a leathery material, with a
+   title nowhere to be found. Suddenly, words began to form in his mind: "Endless".
+
+   "Is something supposed to happen?" - Raynell asked.
+
+   As soon as he finished the sentence he felt excrucianting pain all over his body,
+   and his consciousness slowly fading away. The last thing he saw was what seemed like a grin on what would be the face
+   of the entity in front of him.

_light-novels/book-hunters/chapter-2.md

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+---
+layout: book-hunters
+relativenavbar: true
+navbar:
+    - Back: ..
+mother: bh
+title: Staring Into the Abyss
+comments: true
+id: chapter-2
+---
+
+When he regained consciousness, Raynell was in a seemingly infinite, pitch black room. In front of him,
+was the amalgamation of energy resembling a humanoid creature.
+
+"Welcome to the Void. This is a place that breaks most human beings, specially the religious.
+This is where you come from, and where you will ultimately go to. The essence of all things and,
+ultimately, their demise."
+
+"...What?"
+
+"When someone is born, they are shaped by whatever method of conceival of their species, to
+transform from the miniscule portion of the Void that they are, into the miniscule being that is born.
+At your core, there is nothing and yet, everything. But, eventually, this place will claim them and
+they will return to it."
+
+"Nothing? But I have beliefs, dreams, goals, enemies, loved ones..."
+
+"If you think about it, there is nothing at the core of those beliefs and emotions.
+They are the consequence of the collective consciousness you call a society, and of
+themselves. One such example are your enemies and loved ones. They are, ultimately,
+a consequence of your own actions, which are ultimately consequences of previous actions, ultimately
+influenced by your societal laws, which are ultimately consequences of your collective actions, stemming
+ultimately from nothing, at all. And that's what makes Life beautiful. You build, from nothing,
+these mechanisms to derive meaning from meaningless things, that is ultimately empty and void."
+
+The humanoid remained in the same position throughout the whole speech, instilling a sense of
+primal fear in Raynell, aggrevated by what it said.
+medieval time
+"So everything is pointless?! Everything I had to endure in my life, had no meaning?"
+
+"That's for you to decide, as you are the only one who can draw meaning from your life."
+
+"What about gods then, don't they surpass that?"
+
+"There are *no* gods, only beings whose *power* you can't comprehend, analogous to taking a ship to the medieval times.
+Those primitive humans would probably revere you as a god. Now that's a funny thing with conscious beings - if you see
+something you can't comprehend, you see it as godly and worship it as so. If, however, it is within the realm of fantasy,
+like flying, making flowers bloom, creating fire and water from nothing, you brand them as either heroes or monsters. You
+humans are a notable example of this. You see this guy walk on water and kill his clone, and most of the bloody planet worships
+him as God for a couple thousand years. Yet, you see people healing others, possess super-human strength and burn them at the stake.
+But, eventually, the beings you call gods too must die, and return here, paying the price of life."
+
+Befuddled by the revelations, he just stood there, looking apathetically at the humanoid.
+
+"This will be your test. Stay here and return to the Void, or choose to continue to live."
+
+Realizing his meaningless, Raynell asked:
+
+"Whats the point thought?" - his crushed morale could be heard clearly from the tone of his voice.
+
+"There is none. Life is pointless and no one will spoonfeed you meaning, you have to carve that meaning for yourself. That's why
+the eon old question of "What's the meaning of life?" has never had a consensual answer - everyone has a different true answer."
+
+Feeling even more crushed at the absence of meaning in his existance, he dropped to his knees, giving no answer to the humanoid.
+
+"I see you've made your choice" -  it said, before turning around and creating a portal - "Goodbye."
+
+As it was about to go through the portal, Raynell almost jumped, yelling - "Wait!"
+
+Slightly turning its head around, the amalgamation calmly asked - "Yes? What is it?"
+
+"How are Book Hunters magicians? How do they perform magic? And how are they different from "gods"?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Well, I take it that shifting me to another dimension isn't exactly obeying the laws of physics. And since you're made up of
+pure energy, it's not that far-fetched to claim that you are a Book Hunter, the creation of one, or perhaps one of the beings
+one might call "god"."
+
+"And? What of it?"
+
+"Since you said that the Void is everything that was, is, and will ever be, my theory is that Book Hunters, or magicians, or
+whatever the fuck you want to call them, channel it to "cast spells" and surpass the laws of physics."
+
+"That is correct."
+
+"However, I can't believe that the Void created everything."
+
+"Why's that?"
+
+"Well, let's assume the following scenario. Before there was anything, there was only Void, right? So, that it implies that it,
+if it could even achieve a consciousness, couldn't have known what the concept of life was, or even matter beyond itself for that
+matter, therefore not being able to create it, even if it had the capability to. So, if there was only Void before everything, there
+most certainly was something before the Void. My guess is, there was, at some point, a being that created life *through* the Void."
+
+A moment of silence fell in the endless room.
+
+"There's a higher being isn't there?" - he continued - "The Void is just an ocean to us fishes, unaware that there is land and sky beyond it."
+
+The humanoid began laughing jovialy.
+
+"That's a fine theory, but that's all it is. No one knows for sure how life began, or how it will end. I can't possibly answer your
+question with absolute certainty, as that is one question for which the answer remains unknown to this day."
+
+"That is my answer then. I will find my creator or prove I have none, and become such a being myself."
+
+"That is a good purpose, that many have had, and even more see it as a fool's errand. Besides, it's not like purposes are *always* permanent.
+I accept your answer. Welcome to the Book Hunters! My name is Guardian, an artifial being made to protect the Sanctum you so carelessly walked into,
+and a *de facto* butler for the Book Hunters inside it. Now, come on, maintaining this portal isn't exactly easy."
+
+"Cool. But first, allow me to try something out."
+
+"What?"
+
+Raynell placed his hands on the ground - "To consume the Void." - he began imagining the Void flowing into him, through his hands and to himself.
+
+"NO! STOP!" - it began to fly towards Raynell
+
+Just as Guardian finished yelling, black tentacle-like things formed a circle around Raynell, undulating and growing in size, their tips moving towards
+a point above his head, until they finally enveloped him in a cage.