Location: Somewhere in the Backstreets
Rat Pete
Hey! Hurry up and scrape them up, now! Those Zwei goons might arrive any second!
Rat Lenny
I’m doing my best here!
Rat Lenny
I just can’t seem to get a clean rip of his guts, the contents of this guy are weirdly different.
Rat Lenny
I’ve never even heard of a body modification procedure that does this…
Rat Mang-chi
Something’s off about these organs. They’re looking really strange…
Rat Pete
Damn it! Their footsteps are getting closer.
Rat Pete
Forget about clean cuts, just pull ‘em out and take ‘em!!
Rat Pete
At this rate, our heads are gonna get nicely chopped offa our bodies.
Rat Lenny
Why does he have this kinda stuff in his body…
Rat Pete
Whatever, just take ‘em! We’re out of time!
Rat Mang-chi
Just about done!
Location: A Backstreets Hideout
Rat Lenny
Phew… That was close.
Rat Mang-chi
You’re a bold one, Pete. Going for a gut-harvest in a territory managed by the Zwei.
Rat Pete
These are the only jobs we have left.
Rat Pete
We have to climb up by any means necessary. Whatever it takes…
Rat Pete
You know my dream, right? To become one of the Fingers of the Backstreets.
Rat Mang-chi
I’ll admit, it’s rare to see someone with a dream these days.
Rat Mang-chi
Let’s sell off these guts we’ve hauled first.
Rat Mang-chi
We gotta prepare enough cash to offer to the Stray Dogs.
Rat Pete
True… This could be our chance to join an Urban Legend-class Syndicate…
Rat Pete
Alright, time to check out the harvest.
Rat Pete
Hey! Is this a joke? You sure you scraped up the right stuff?!
Rat Lenny
I told you. This guy didn’t have a single proper organ inside him.
Rat Pete
I expected innards soaked in drugs like Enkephalin at worst…
Rat Pete
These are damaged too badly. It’s almost like someone already blew them up.
Rat Mang-chi
We only doused him with anesthetics. Didn’t do no harm.
Rat Pete
This doesn’t make sense… How could he have even walked around with these messed up organs…
Rat Mang-chi
…What if it’s one of those? Y’know, rumors say there’s a guy who skewers and threads people alive to turn them into dolls…
Rat Pete
Yeah, I’ve heard of that, too. But look at the state of these things! Not the case at all.
Rat Pete
I hear those dolls are made by threading flesh and bones together. But this sonofabitch didn’t have any scars or stitches showing outside!
Rat Mang-chi
…Now that I think about it, there was a round orange symbol on the back of his neck.
Rat Mang-chi
I thought it was a tattoo at first, but he didn’t seem like the type to have one. He was a desk-working dweeb.
Rat Pete
Symbols? Tattoos? Damn it, please don’t tell me we poked the wrong beehive…
Rat Lenny
He also had this envelope in his body.
(Note 1)
Rat Pete
What the hell is an envelope doing in a human body?! This keeps getting worse… Gimme that!
Rat Pete
An invitation to a library? What’s this about…
Rat Mang-chi
Books? We can get books from the library? What a bunch of nonsense.
Rat Lenny
It was a flop after all. …The payment is due tomorrow.
Rat Lenny
We’ve got 7 hours, to be exact. That’s too little time for another run of gut-harvesting…
(Note 2)
Rat Pete
…We’re heading to the library as the invitation says.
Rat Pete
I don’t know what this ‘book’ thing is, but we’re out of options. We gotta take any chance we get.
Rat Mang-chi
Isn’t this just suicide? We don’t know what kinda place it might be.
Rat Pete
Can’t be any worse than dying to the Stray Dogs or the Zwei Association; we’re screwed anyway! Shut up and follow me if you want to live.
Location: Inside the Library - 1st Invitation Sent
Servant Roland
What was that we just saw…?
Library Director Angela
Fragments of the invitation process.
Library Director Angela
We can take a peek at the stories of our upcoming guests.
Servant Roland
Didn’t take you for a peeping tom.
Library Director Angela
It’s more convenient to know what kind of guests will visit us in advance, isn’t it?
Library Director Angela
Besides, this is the invitation’s will, not mine.
Servant Roland
That’s a splendid thing you got there, ma’am. Pries upon people and kidnaps them, too. A perfect tool for crimes.
Servant Roland
Heck, if the invitation can do all that, why don’t we just skip the whole reception part?
Servant Roland
Can’t we just teleport them right into a room full of traps or something?
Library Director Angela
I cannot do that. We can only take a peek when it has been decided that the guests are coming here of their own volition.
Library Director Angela
And the invitation’s power isn’t wholly mine, either. I am simply borrowing it.
Servant Roland
Yeah yeah, no way anything can go so smoothly in the City.
Library Director Angela
They’re desperate guests.
Servant Roland
Tell me, was the invitation responsible for that symbol and internal damage as well?
Library Director Angela
What? Not a chance, it doesn’t have anything to do with what happened.
Library Director Angela
The invitation simply finds a way to those who need it.
Servant Roland
That means those weird happenings were someone else’s doing…
Servant Roland
I’ve never seen that kind of phenomenon back when I was a Fixer. It’s like something from the Ruins…
Library Director Angela
Ruins?
Servant Roland
…I don’t know a whole lot, either. I only heard stories of it. Should I describe it as… magic?
Servant Roland
That kind of stuff exists in the Ruins, apparently.
Library Director Angela
In any case, we simply greet our guests. They seem to be low class, but oh well.
Servant Roland
Those are probably a bunch of lowly gangsters from the Backstreets. We call them ‘Rats’.
Servant Roland
Groups of half-assed thugs that barely qualify as a Syndicate. They don’t have money or power.
Servant Roland
They’re losers who only think about making ends meet day by day.
Servant Roland
Hmm… I might have just roasted myself here.
Library Director Angela
The Backstreets… I know of them.
Library Director Angela
Someone I know was from the Backstreets.
Servant Roland
Well, that’s nothing special, really. The Backstreets stretch all over the city like veins.
Servant Roland
Heck, it might actually be tougher to find someone who isn’t from the Backstreets.
Location: Library Entrance
Rat Pete
So this is a library. Looks fancier than I thought.
Rat Lenny
Could be a bunch of valuable things here.
Library Director Angela
Greetings, dear guests. This is the Library.
Library Director Angela
And I am Angela, the librarian of my role’s namesake.
Library Director Angela
You may find what you desire here, but you also may end up yielding your precious possessions to us.
Rat Pete
You the owner of this place? We’re allowed to take whatever we want here, right?
Library Director Angela
Indeed. You may earn books, to be exact.
Library Director Angela
If you’re able, of course.
Rat Mang-chi
Are those book things really worth a lot, though…?
Library Director Angela
Of course they can be, if the information they hold is valuable.
Rat Pete
Mang-chi! Beggars can’t be choosers. We gotta cling on to anything we can find.
Library Director Angela
May you find your book in this place, then.
