The Great Library of Kalkador

The living's call echo's through the steep staircase down into the library. Lit only by the dull green lights that run through out the city, the end of the stairs could not be seen. 

Ern's call is met with silence. Even the very gentle rustling of the Library Stalkers has stopped. If Ern wanted to meet with his host, he will have to descend alone.

Ern walked down the stair case into the darkness below. It decended only over fifty meters underground until a platform was reached, at the end of it lay a grand archway, leafed in polished gold. Beyond that the library proper began. 

Beyond the doorway on either side stood layers of bookshelves, lined perpendicular to the entrance. Every ten meters a flicking green torch could be seen, attached to a dark stone wall between the shelves repeated into the distance.  Yet that was not what immeditaly caught the eye of Ern. What greeted him was a hunched figure facing away from him. Talking in a strange tongue to some sort of giant centipede. Its body twice as tall as the figure it replied by chirping its metallic mandibles, creating a strange pattering sound. 

Seeing the guest the giant creature arched backwards like the body of a desert viper, and shrieked at Ern. It's hundred small glistening green eyes staring intently at him. The dark figure quickly turned to face Ern, then said a few words quickly in a strange languge. Which seemed to calm the creature down. 

"I am sorry...about that...I lost...track of time...You are the guest...of the Land Tillers...State. Correct?" Replied the figure, lowering his hood, showing a face that looked like it came from decomposed corpse. "You are here...for a tour correct?"

The terrifiying creature behind the librarian began to quickly circle around Ern, keeping its distance but keepings its many eyes fixed on him. The figure raised his hand and accepted the handshake. He turned to head to face the centipede and spoke one word in a strange tongue sharply. The large creature then immediately turned and as fast as lighting scittered into the darkness. 

"You must...forgive...them. They are not use...to strangers." intoned the undead book keeper. "My name is Yareth. Allow me to show you...our knowledge."

He turned around now, and began to walk slowly down the hall for several minutes in the opposite direction of the hall. "This is our...first floor of seven." Stated Yareth while he lead Ern through the rows of bookcases. "This floor containes the ... most basic of our knowlege. Bureaucratic papers, names... of visitors and the like, as far as...we can tell...the oldest tome that we...have on this floor is approximately thirty seven thousand years old. It was from when...our empire first...began. The spiders took excellent care...of them while we...slept. They where passing dozens of rows of shelves, that seemed to stretch into the darkness. Not a single speck of dust could be seen on any of the shelves or books. It was all extremely clean and tidy. 

At last the opposite wall could be seen through the darkness. It seemed to contain a doorway of some sort, over looking a fenced balcony. Yareth gestured for Ern to enter first once they arrived. "This will give you the best idea of the scope of this place. It's size is quite... deceiving." 
From the balcony the entire library could be seen. Six layers of floors, dug into the walls of the rock slowly descended into the darkness surrounding a vast open space down onto the lowest floor, making the library look almost like a giant rectangular pit. Hundreds of thousands of shelves could be seen from the balcony on the different floors. All illuminated by dull green light. Several figures could be seen moving about of the various levels. Some in the shape of humans, reading books or moving about shelves. While others where of massive spider like constructs that interacted with the books, re-shelving or cleaning. While out of the corner of Ern's eye, in the darkest shadows of the complex, the elongated, many legged constructs clung. Scanning the library ceaselessly.

"Each floor is reserved ... for a certain subject, with an average size ... of one kilometer by five hundred meters ...each floor is a maze... to the uninitiated. Best to stay with ...me for the entire tour, we don't ...want you to get lost down here.