S1E1 - Into the Wanderers' Library - Episode 1 - Into the Library

There we are. Can never figure out these damn touch. Okay, we're recording. Hello all. Greetings and welcome to the first edition of into the Wanderer's Library. My name is Professor Artyom Harkin. I am a professor of cryptozoology, mythology and folklore. And I am one of the many lecturers and scholars who have been gifted and arguably imprisoned in the not so mythical Wanderer's Library. So for those who came in late or haven't listened to the prologue introduction to this, the Wanderer's Library is effective. If you've. If you ever read about the Library of Babel, it is that. It is the library with a capital L. Any book, any story, any film, TV show, anything you could possibly imagine you can find, here it is, I'm fairly certain, its own dimension, possibly its own planet, possibly its own universe. It goes on four miles and I am yet to find the exit. But we do have WI fi, which is how I'm able to send this. It is as Mr. Powers who is hopefully the one editing this. I think he's still going to edit this. It might be. I might end up getting Maddie to do it, depending on whether or not he. Depending on whether or not Theo is free. I think he is. He seemed very eager at the time. But it is as. As my. One of my students, Theo explained a fantastical place of stories told throughout all of time and space. Place. Oh, bloody hell. He made that rhyme. Theater kid. But this, this is a multivarium of different texts that span across different universes. And myself personally, I have been studying many of these infinite texts for arguably centuries now. It's been a very long time since I last. Well, since I last warped on earthly soil. But it's all right. I'm not complaining, honestly. This is basically catnip to me. I'm quite content where I am. But the purpose of this particular series is I've been given quite unique permission amongst the rest of the scholars here. I've been given permission to impart some of the various findings that I have uncovered in the Library to you, the listener. Now, some of you may be listening to this in one of the. The University of Progress's lecture halls. Some may have just been sent this link and maybe listening from their dorm, some of you may be watching on YouTube. I don't know if they'll be putting this out publicly. I hope so. I hope so, because this. You know, I've. I've. I'm quite a big fan of. Of these kinds of podc, you know, the. The scp read alongs. Those kinds of things. If nothing else, they're just fun to fall asleep to. Which is a godsend in my case because I have very bad insomnia. But. But that is me tangenting. So without further ado, let me just read our first text coming from King Shush's shelf. Shash's shelf. I can't say that with my hissing tongue. We start as we go on, right? Oh, should read the placard on the shelf itself as well. This shelf states, I will translate this to Earth English Lord the Lord of the Lazy. His kingdom is anywhere in which sloth reigns above activity in the hearts of all those who devote to lounging over labor, he and his secret army wage a war against all doers, a battle for the universe that can only end and the cessation of all motion in the universe or total unstoppable chaos. How very optimistic. So our first text is excerpts from St. Emile's Bestiary and I believe we are on, or at least I am on, chapter 11 on the common Vampire. So I imagine members of the Helsing Club will be taking notes. Incidentally, there will be a digital copy of these texts, although I have been advised by faculty members to warn you as a general disclaimer not to print out any of these copies in physical form, as have been several incidents recently of the enchantments on certain pages continuing on to new copies of them. See last September's Death by a Thousand Paper cuts. We do not want a repeat of that. Apologies if that is triggering. I probably should have trigger warned that, but yes, that's that's on me. Just general warning. If you have a copy of this, keep it on your phone. You're less likely to get curses through a touchscreen, but you are likely to get really buggy glitches. In this case, I am recording off a quite old iPhone. I need to get a more advanced model, but we bull we ball. So where are we? Yeah, the this is the introduction. The common vampire vampire Draculae dwells in the interior of Europe, most often in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains. All vampires of the basic similarities and the current model of understanding divine through careful dissection and comparison has led me to the belief that the common vampire is the common ancestor of all of a vampire species. There is a footnote here. Exceptions can be found in chapters 12 and 15 concerning the Cathay vampire and the Gaelic vampire. So that is Cathay as in C a t H a y as opposed to cafe or cafae in case you Think that this is a vampire with a specific craving for caffeine or you know, the works of Cml Onge. Gaelic vampire of course refers to vampires found in the United Kingdom area, particularly in places like Ireland or Wales or Scotland, which is my mother's native soil. Bit of bit of Artyomaharkan lore there there. While all other vampire species have adaptations suited to their environment, the common vampire is the only one with no defining unique characteristics. Indeed, its notability comes from the fact that it is a template of sorts for all other vampire species to be modeled off of. Understanding the anatomy and weaknesses of even only the common vampire will give you an advantage over all spec of such you may encounter in your travels. The importance of which cannot be overstated. Even the banal common vampire is many times more powerful than a human and poses a significant danger in combat. I suggest you use this chapter to arm yourself with the knowledge that might one day save your life. Speaking from personal experience, I wish I'd found this book sooner because my first and currently last encounter with a vampire did cost me an arm and a leg. Well, it didn't cost me a leg, but it definitely cost me the arm. I have thankfully got all of my legs intact. All eight of them. So on that note, we have Anatomy Vampiri Draculae. Again, no prizes for guessing where that ape came from. Is largely similar in shape and form to Homo sapiens sapiens. That's redundantly redundant unless it's specifying Earth based Homo sapiens as opposed to the Homo sapiens you may find on colony worlds or on other universal planes. An erect biped with a wingspan roughly equivalent to its height. So an Alice sized vampire will have Alice sized wings. A Nate sized vampire. Because Nate is six foot I believe. If Nate is still even in class now, but I've graduated. Christ, he might even be. Wait, what was that? What? No, that was class of 82. Yeah, he's definitely graduated now. Pardon me, but a six foot vampire would have six foot wings. The most obvious feature discerning them from a vampire is the shape of their hands. The vampire's claws. The vampire's hands, pardon me, are claw like with long hard nails extending up to 2cm, often sharpened to a point. The muscles in these hands are taught and powerful. They can be quickly contracted to exert immense pressure on anything in the vampire's grasp. It's like a natural vice. There are actually diagrams showing the enhanced musculature of these hands as well as the nails that frankly any, any femme presenting person or wannabe drag Queen or Goth would find envious. Those are perfectly formed claws, much like my own, actually. This ability is commonly used to crush the skulls or bones of prey. So they are very much predators in their. In their physical structure. Naturally, the vampire's teeth are the second source of notability. The fangs of a vampire are stuff of legend, and it is difficult to extricate extra. Extricate, extricate, extricate. Pardon me, myth from fact. Dissection of the adult specimens have noted sexual dimorphism in the dental region. While males pictured here have two score and eight teeth, to the females two score, they are less dangerous. Four of the males can be described as fangs, both front facing, two on top and two on bottom, each a centimeter above the gum line. Comparatively, females have eight fangs, four in front and two on each side. Her front fangs are up to 1 1/2 centimeter above the gum line. And I believe this. If I just take a ruler here. Yes, this, this diagram is actually true to life. It is actually 1 1/2 centimeter. Yep, 1 1/2 centimeter above the gum line. So not the kind of thing you'd want in your neck, so to speak. The legends have preserved one important bit of truth regarding the fangs. They are used exclusively to suck blood from the vampire's prey. They bite into the flesh, most often at the neck or thigh. Ooh, yeah. Definitely no to thigh bites. There are a lot of sensitive nerf endings on the thigh. If you've ever been bitten there or like, poked there. Yeah, you feel it? You feel it? I still feel mine, but, you know, I don't know. That's. That's not something for this, for this podcast. Don't think. But they bite into the flesh, most often the neck or thigh. The vampire uses its lips to create a seal around the incisions before sucking. However, study of their feeding habits has led me to an intriguing discovery. The writer, not myself. Although I suppose this is an intriguing discovery in my case. As soon as the beast separates itself from its prey, its saliva soothes the wound and encourages faster clotting. While this is pure speculation, your author theorizes that this is an adaptation to preserve the life of the prey in order to remain a consistent food source. Now, there were, I believe, some studies and experiments done in, I think, the 60s during the Vietnam War, with regards to using samples of synthesized vampire saliva as a kind of emergency remedy for. For blood wounds as. As a way to encourage a class the. The clotting and to lessen the risk of death via blood loss. I don't think it went anywhere. And if it did, those findings are currently classified. Although. Classification. Classification. Where. Where am I wording? Where am I wording? Although classified documents here obviously don't mean anything because the library can practically access anything. So if and when I do find those documents, I will ask permission if I can link them here as well. Because I mean, it's. It'd be a godsend if you ever get a paper cut or if you get any kind of injury that. That's a lifesaver, particularly in. In areas of conflict or areas of high risk. Although I do believe there are still like rumored risks of any kind of interaction with vampiric bodily fluids causing vampiric conversion in a human being. So I don't know if they will ever continue those studies, but I would personally like to see if it goes anywhere or if there is any truth. Truth to truth to the studies themselves. Throughout its body, the tissue of the vampire is tight and strong. Even its skin resists in dissection. From my sharpest scalpels, there is little to no fatty tissue found anywhere in its body. After thorough inspection, I believe this due. This to be due to the unique nature of its diet. The musculature is powerful and beautiful. Actually. Come on, arty, arty, please. Altogether, the musculature is powerful and allows the vampire to perform feats of strength beyond the capacity or capability of a human, such as high leaps or climbing sheer rock faces. It also provides the creatures with an edge in close combat. Despite this, I have noticed vampires of all kinds, not just draculae shy away from personal combat. Not all of them. Indeed, combat altogether seems to be avoided. Again, aside from some exceptions, study into this is ongoing. Never, never put a vampire in a one on one fight. Never, never challenge vampire to one on one fight. Ladies, gentlemen, another. You will not be walking out of that hole. I cannot stress that enough. The Oculus is another point of notability. Survivors of vampire captivity report that looking into the eyes of one puts one into a fugue, unable to resist or combat any suggestion by the vampire slaves to its will. So the the myth of vampires having a level of hypnotic suggestion. There is a. There is truth to that. Postmortem dissection of the eye reveals no outstanding differences from a human. And this author is led to believe that this is due to the sheer intimidating presence of the vampire, coupled with the confusion and lightheadedness that naturally follows a victim losing a large amount of their blood. So it is weakening the perception via blood loss. And you know the vampire being, to put it in a colloquial manner, bloody terrifying. Part of the pun. The innards of the vampire also fail to distinguish themselves from a human in structure. However, I have noticed a phenomenon present in nearly every specimen dissected, namely a black mold or fungus found across several organs of particularly long lived members of Draculae. So it seems, at least in some of these diagrams and drawings here, to be quite, well, the face not too dissimilar from. Hang on, let me just double check. Sure. I've got my notes here somewhere else. Part of me, ladies and gentlemen. Yep, symbiotes. They are very, very similar in texture and possibly movement to variants of symbiote or symbiote. However it's. However it's pronounced. I'm sure you know what I mean. See Professor Parker's lecture on creatures such as venom. But that is a lecture for another time. For now we are talking on common vampire. So black mold or fungus found across several organs of particularly long lived members Draculae. I remain unsure the origin or effects of such a mold, but I have collected several samples and preserved them in the cache for future study. There should be links to images of this of these samples included in the digital copy of this text. If not, just take my word for it, it is not pleasant to look at. They're awfully shiny and they feel like they're watching you. I expect they probably are. So. Diet. The diet of the common vampire is quite simple and is enough of the few truths present in the numerous legends and myths surrounding the species. V. Draculae subsists itself almost entirely on the blood of living organisms. Near all creatures are possible prey for it. But the vampire presents a preference for the fresh blood of humans. Whenever possible, it will seek out this food source over easier to quiet alternatives such as animals or rabbits. However, if put against the threat of starvation, a vampire will begrudgingly feed from rats, cattle, fowls, swine and other creatures unrecorded. This distinction appears to be a mental one. Subsisting off the blood of animals presents no visible damage to the health of vampires studied in captivity. Although there are no real current official records of vampires in the wild. With regards to this, vampires have been seen consuming in glutinous amounts, I might add, ale, wines, raw meat, cooked meat, bread, cheese, human flesh and in rare cases, other vampires. Bloody Nora. However, the only foodstuff needed for survival is blood. So apologies to all Stephanie Meyer fans. Vegetarian vampires are not quite. Not quite as likely as you would hope. Unfortunately, behavior the common vampire is A wolf among sheep, it seeks to live amongst its preys, accruing note and power to better safeguard its tenuous position in the world of humans. Pardon me. Vampires are oft found in the highest echelons of society. Nobles, bankers, men of means, or I suppose in the modern world, politicians. The massive castles and towers of old have given way to new lairs, manors and estates filled with humans to serve and feed from. This is a matter of self preservation. By disguising itself to appear as though human, the vampire secures its position as the epicenter of its world and masks its tracks from its own predators. Now that predator is of course, you. The vampire will never be truly human, no matter how well constructed the facade. The beast will seep through the cracks, appearing in the slightest of movement. Think that wonderful scene in the Bela Lugosi Dracula film, the first one, where Abraham Van Helsing, Professor Van Helsing, tries to show him his reflection and Dracula immediately claws the mirror out of his hands and knocks it to the floor. After presenting such a civilized, dignified, gentlemanly veneer. There's that little hint, that little seeping of feralness, of the beast, of the. Of the predator just, just there. But back to the text. The beast will seep through the cracks, appearing in the slightest of movements, a fanged smile here, a predatory hunger, and the sight of an open wound or cut there, which is one of the few things the Twilight books and films got right. I will stop harping on it. I do actually quite like those books. To the untrained eye, these actions are invisible. But to educated hunter, these are like a deer leaving prints in the freshly fallen snow. Mistakes, accidents, hints. It does not even realize it has left. Watch for these. They can be the difference between life and death. Now, the slaying of the vampire is extraordinarily difficult, mostly due to its uniquely resistant body. Again, some legends hold true. The easiest way to eliminate a vampire is a stake driven entirely through the heart. So the old kebab through the tiki toky muscle, as it were. Why the hell did I say it like that? Sorry. The cat. I need caffeine. I need caffeine, but. Well, I'll get myself a cappuccino after I'm done with this. We have still got caffeine. Have we still got a coffee machine? Or did one of the professors eat it? I'll check later. I'll check later. This is less a weakness of the vampire and more of all beings. There are very few creatures in the universe that can walk off being Poked in the chest, as it were, the whole way through. I know I certainly haven't. Well, I guess I did. But I did have to get it very quickly replaced. Got me old ticker here. Hang on, hang on, hang on. If I. If I. If I do. No, no. I don't know if you can hear it. If it just opened. Just lift that bit up. Just. There you go, the old ticker. Ah. So a hunter would be hard pressed to find an entity that survives such a fatal wound. God. Writers thinking the same thing I am. Although I don't think they were talking about my mechanical thing. The composition of the stake is irrelevant. I have seen wood spears, metal lances, and once even sharpened human bone. Oh, that's wicked. Successfully be the end to a vampire song life. That is the. Imagine like stabbing a fanged vampire as opposed to unfanged vampire. Imagine stabbing Dracula in the chest with a bone. That's objectively cool. That is objectively cool. Aside from the stake, beheading also functions not quite as cool as, you know, shanking with a goddamn femur, but here we are. Though it is obviously more difficult to accomplish. It's always difficult to get the vampire's head. Is that a dirty joke? I can't. I don't know if that's a dirty joke. I promise next time I do this, I will be more caffeinated and I will be a little bit more together. But this is my first time, but okay, okay, okay. Rooting the vampire into a position in which you can stake or behead them, though, is the most difficult part of hunting. They will have both human securities and beastly ones. Expect to be engaged in a long, slow battle with increasing difficulty. A hunt I, the writer, undertook in Paris several years ago lasted a staggering three months. Amateur. The Beast had built itself an eminent. The Beast had built itself as an eminent Parisian socialite with an estate on the river. I masqueraded as a visiting English minor lord and finally sprung my attack during one of its parties. I set the mansion aflame and during the chaos, drove a burning length of oak through its back. This is a reference, I think, only the Street Fighter fans. Or no, it's not street fights, it's Mortal Kombat. What the. Part of my language this is a reference to only the. The fighting game fans might get, but. Toasty. God, I'm a nerd. But burning length of oak. Burning length of oak through its back. This, I have come to find, is a particularly efficient strategy. I'm not surprised. There's very few things that can survive wood going through chest to back, let alone a burning one. Although I suppose it does cauterize the wound. Particularly efficient strategy, both literally and metaphorically. Ideally, the beast will never know it is being hunted until the moment its world goes up in flames and it finds a stake through its heart. This is the ultimate platitude and lesson for the hunting of vampires, friend. Find them, study them, and then once they are truly at their most vulnerable, set them alight and drive a stake through its shell. Have no mercy. Just like they would have done when sucking on your throat as you hang from chains in each dungeon should you fail. That is a hell of an image incidentally, the platitude lesson of finding, studying, and then once they are at the most vulnerable, set them alight and drive a stick for its chest. I think that applies for both vampires and the rich. There are plenty of people who aren't just fanged bloodsuckers in the literal sense who definitely deserve to be kebabbed and then barbecued. They didn't write that bit. That's, that's. That's the bit that I've just sort of ad libbed. Oh. There are notes here for several of our exchange students. We have translations of this text in France and Polski, so our French and Polish students, they will have a more accessible copy if they so desire. But that is on the common vampire from St. Emile's Bestiary. And so concludes our first lecture podcast episode whatever of into the Wanderer's Library with Professor Artyom Harkin. In case you're curious, I am actually Russian, hence the name. I've just worked very hard to lose the accent, mostly because I don't know if this is a particularly good one to hear over audio. I can't imagine outside of, you know, people from my native native land will find this particular voice a engaging one to listen to quite as much as the English accent. At least I found from personal experience when I was doing in person lectures back in the 20th century that people tended to be a bit more responsive, a little bit more accepting of, you know, your standard bipedal Englishman as an academic lecturer as opposed to, well, niece. But if, if you enjoy this, please leave a comment below. If this is the YouTube copy that you are watching. If you have any further questions, please direct them to, to your lecturer, whoever is presenting you with this or just send me an email if, if my email is allowed to be included here. I don't know if they allow that kind of communication anymore. From the library to you lot But I will certainly ask. Mostly because it gets a bit lonely talking to the only other academics here. I mean, most of them are old, some of them are dead, some of them are post dead. And some of them have ascended to, what do I call them? Beings of pure energy. Eyesores. Eyesores. They've ascended to eyesore level, which makes them really hard to talk to without really strong ray bans. Not spawn. Do they still say hashtag? I expect so. But that is. That is my lecture on the common vampire. My reading of the excerpts from St. Emile's Bestiary. Thank you so much for listening. This has been surprisingly fun. I hope this isn't boring. And I hope that when Mr. Powers gets around to editing this, A, he doesn't kill me for rambling as long as I have, and B, he's able to make this into something a bit more palatable and hopefully engaging. So once more, thank you for listening. This has been into the Wanderer's Library with Professor Artyom Harkin. Thank you for joining me. It was lovely to speak with you all and hopefully you'll be hearing from me again very soon. Soon. Thank you and good night. But how the hell do I end this? There we are. Found it. Come on. Plastic touch screen.