Bird Search

Flint wasn't expecting the church library to be so large. Finding any information on these “birds” was going to take way longer than he expected.

“You know how they organise this place by any chance?” He asked, turning to the envy bun beside him. All Jackal did was shrug, and beeline to the nearest bookshelf. “Now you actually gonna help, or you just plan on standing there and doing nothing?” She would pick up a book off the shelf if the title hinted at anything bird related, if it did, leave it on a nearby table, and if it didn't, just drop it to the floor. “Hey should we not be more careful with the church’s property?” “Why bother?” “Fair enough.”

Flint followed her lead, choosing a shelf on the other side of the library. Scanning through the titles, this section seemed to be primarily about different plants found across Burrowgatory. “Not here then anyway,” he mumbled to himself. “You say something?” He glanced back at the direction of Jackal's voice. Surrounding her feet was a mound of books, and the shelf in front of her near bare. A singular potential lead sat on the table. 

“No, no sign here.” He moved over to the next shelf, which seemed a little more promising, with titles such as “A Demon’s Guide to Surface Dwellers” and “Creatures of the Seas”. He flicked through their pages, scanning for anything of note. The former seemed to have a few pieces on these so-called “birds”, the latter not so much.

He placed the first on the desk to look through further later, returning the other back to its spot on the shelf. “Found where they should be, this section over here seems to be for surface creat- The hell happened over there?” 

The shelves on Jackal's side of the library were completely cleared, with all the books that once occupied the shelves scattered all across the floor. “Searching, dumbass. Any other questions?” She jumped over the mound, paying little heed as to what she stepped on. “Here you say?” “Yeah, this section.”

She started up searching the area in the same way as the ones before. Flint was a lot more careful with the way he handled the books, but couldn't care enough to stop her from her methods. After a few minutes, they had gathered a dozen or so books, each with information on birds in some capacity. Flint picked up the one at the top of the pile, and plopped himself down into one of the chairs. Jackal took another and made herself comfortable in one of the seats nearby, and both buns began skimming through the pages. 

“Hey look at this,” he leaned over, showing her the page he was on. The illustration depicted a large, feathered, bipedal beast with a maw full of hundreds of sharp canines, and small, clawed wings. “This guy apparently was 12 feet tall and could eat a bun in one bite if it wanted.” “Badass. What about this one?” Jackal pointed at one in her own book. “This one is apparently made out of hellfire, and when it gets angry, or it gets killed, it bursts into flames, incinerating everything around it, and then re-emerges bigger and stronger from the ashes it created.” “Oh deadly! That's cool as fuck!”

After a few hours of research and banter, and going through most of the library photocopiers' stock of paper, they compiled all the information they could from the books they had gathered. Though much was vague, or conflicted with what was found in other books, at least it was a start on figuring out the source of the feather. “It's getting late, want to head back and go through what we gathered again tomorrow?” He asked.

“Yeah, sure, that'll work.”

“Should we maybe clean up this place?” He beckoned to the mounds of books scattered across the entirety of the floor.

“Nah. I mean, they said we had free reign of the place. They'll be fine.”

He didn't see a reason to dispute, accepting her logic. “Yeah I guess, let's head off then.” 

They packed up their things, and all of the printouts they had gathered, switched off the lights, and locked the door, leaving the library in a significantly more chaotic state than they had found it.