Monochrome Auteur

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The Two Auteurs ^[+]Loading...["The Two Auteurs (short story)"]

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Monochrome Auteur
Species:	Archon
First appearance:	The Cactus and the Corpse [+]Loading...["The Cactus and the Corpse (short story)"]
Appearances:	PROSE: The Two Auteurs [+]Loading...["The Two Auteurs (short story)"]

Incarnations of Auteur

The seventeenth incarnation of the renegade Archon known as Auteur went by the moniker of the Monochrome Auteur. He was born when Naimon's blood was scattered over the burnt ashes of his previous incarnation, allowing him to regenerate. He was eventually eaten by the Bookwyrm when the latter got bored of him.

Biography

Reborn from the ashes

258 years after Roland burnt Auteur to ash for attempting to sacrifice his child to the Bookwyrm, the cryptic notes on a mysterious map led fugitives Callum, Maritsa and Coloth to try and get to Floor 899,167,435,042 from a higher floor, with a Master Librarian in pursuit, none other than Roland's grandson and heir, Naimon. Naimon ended up falling to his death down the elevator shaft. There, Auteur's scattered ashes came alive upon being supplied with his spilled blood, which they used as ink to write down Auteur's name over and over in fractal patterns. This allowed Auteur to enact a regeneration, his sixteenth, reconstituting himself out of scattered fundamental particles into a new skeletal body. This new form largely identical to his previous one, although the robe he wore was now black and tattered, having been coagulated out of "shadows and grime". (PROSE: The Cactus and the Corpse ^[+]Loading...["The Cactus and the Corpse (short story)"])

Swallowed by the Bookwyrm

By the time Callum, Maritsa and Coloth made their own non-lethal way down to Floor 899,167,435,042, Auteur was waiting to greet them. He was particularly excited to meet Coloth, as he had met an older version of Coloth out of synch during the Gongen affair. To the children's horror, he revealed that, having anticipated their meeting, he had taken advantage of his stay in the Library to retcon several aspects of their history, most notably altering the spelling of Marissa's name and destroying their Birdhemoth friend long before he could meet them, because Auteur believed that it made a more interesting story for the trio to be on the run in the Library for months without a means of instantaneous escape. Before the children could do anything to stop him, Auteur then put Naimon's blood to a new purpose, using it to complete his original ritual to summon the Bookwyrm.

The Bookwyrm, however, had no interest in serving as his steed; appearing out of nowhere, it expressed its annoyance at how long this had taken, and promptly ate Auteur. The Bookwyrm would go on to tell this story to a human who had wandered into the Library, an unclear amount of time later; only revealing itself as the Bookwyrm quite late in the telling, the creature had previously made several asides implying that Auteur had survived being eaten, and that the Bookwyrm regularly had conversations with him, describing him as "a man, even now, very close to my heart", some of whose ideas he found "harder to digest than others". For example, the Bookwyrm once asked Auteur why he spoke French, and specifically, whether he was just being pretentious, to which Auteur replied: "Pretentious? Moi?" and then laughed without further elaboration. (PROSE: The Cactus and the Corpse ^[+]Loading...["The Cactus and the Corpse (short story)"])