Scroll Thief — 133 of 138

Chapter 2 - The Archivist

The archivist is a masculine ghost. "The spectre of an old archivist floats in midair." Understand "old" or "spectre" as the archivist. The haunted location of the archivist is the Main Stacks. The description of the archivist is "He appears to be an old man in faded robes. But his body is pale silvery and nearly transparent when you look right at him."

Greeting response for the archivist: say "He doesn't seem to notice you."

Default response for the archivist: say "The archivist takes no notice."

Every turn when the archivist is on-stage:

if a random chance of 1 in 3 succeeds:

let the place be a random archivist-traversable room;

if the place is the location of the archivist, make no decision;

if the location encloses the archivist, say "The archivist floats off through the wall.";

move the archivist to the place;

if the location is the place, say "The ghost of an archivist steps through the wall, muttering quietly.";

otherwise:

if the location encloses the archivist:

say "The ghostly archivist mutters something about [one of]how nothing can be found any more[or]why the new system of organization makes no sense[or]such important magical objects just being piled in the storage area, it's ridiculous[or]how things were better kept back in the day[or]how nobody will be able to find anything if they need it, it's all piled up in the storage area[at random].".

Definition: a room is archivist-traversable if it is the returns room or it is the main stacks or it is the scrying room or it is the disused closet or it is the storage area or it is the secret tunnel.