me when i spread misinformation

Somewhere out in the vast reaches of space, one Lorem Ipsum had been summoned for a very, very important meeting.

Lorem never looked forward to these. Dealing with the one who had issued the summons was annoying enough on a good day, but having to face her in meatspace meant either something was going very well, or very wrong; and she was either about to get showered in praise or hissed at until she was a faint green smear on the velvet carpet. It was always hard to tell with her, and the directions had been what Lorem assumed was purposefully vague, explicitly to tick her off even more than she already was. Evidently, it was working- just the thought made her huff involuntarily, coaxing a concerned chitter from the shrimplike pilot of her private charter. She hadn't cared to get xyr name- it was hardly relevant to her- but she did offer some paltry reassurance as the gaudy vessel came closer and closer into the viewport of the pea-shaped ship. Xe seemed pleased enough, and Lorem was not interested in conversation at the moment. The charter hadn't even docked at the Scriptorium's port, but she could already feel her social battery draining in anticipation of what was sure to be one of the days of her life. Ever.

She crossed her arms as she leaned back in the padded seat, claws tapping impatiently against the plate metal floor. If the information she'd brought with her was so important to her employer, Lorem had to wonder just why she'd paid to have her shuttled across the vast nothingness instead of just asking for her to travel directly. She understood the importance of it being a face-to-face exchange, lest a telepathic signal degrade over the vast distance between the two of them (or, even worse, reach a target it wasn't initially intended for), and she knew how impatient the one awaiting her could be- it was strange of her not to value expedience over simply getting there. Whatever her reasons were, they left a bad taste in Lorem's mouth. The flights of fancy she was obligated to follow through on were troublesome enough, could she not be granted the mercy of not having to waste her time in this cramped excuse for a-

Another chitter knocked Lorem Ipsum out of her thoughts, nearly causing her to jump out of her seat. The charter had docked rather smoothly, actually, and the pilot was already opening the doors for her to disembark. Like she'd never been shocked at all, she rose, paid xem with the pouchful of local currency her employer had provided, and set foot on the gleaming marble of the Scriptorium's familiar port. She now stood in what was, quite possibly, the sorriest simulacrum of a spacecraft that Lorem Ipsum had ever had the displeasure of taking occasional residence upon. It wasn't that terrible in terms of its function; the Scriptorium was, for its untold age, in wonderful condition. Every inch of its exterior gleamed like brand-new. Besides that, though, it could hardly even be called a ship. Its body was composed of ultralight metal bent into the shape of a twisting quill-pen, not exactly lending itself well to any kind of travel so much as intermittently spouting out weak coughs of flame that'd, hopefully, push it a little bit further away from any prying eyes. In that regard, it fulfilled its sole purpose quite admirably. The Scriptorium was not a place of work, nor of refuge. There were many that resided within its metal expanse every now and again, but the vast majority of them spent most of their time lightyears away shaking down poor sods for scraps of irrelevant lore. The rest of the immense space within not dedicated to temporary housing for her fellow traveling schmucks was reserved for walls upon walls of immaculate tomes, each containing entire milennia's worth of knowledge on niche, hyperspecific subjects. Not a speck of dust on any one of them, though nobody ever seemed to be around to clean the towering shelves. Only one had the "honor" of calling it home full-time, and Lorem was expected to hold audience with her as soon as possible.

The space within was vast enough for one to assume that this was some sort of large gathering area, a cosmic conference hall of sorts, but the echo of claws on tile made it even more evident how empty the Scriptorium was. Such a waste of space and fine resources, all for the appearance of luxury and status. Appearances seemed one of the few things her employer could be moved to care about to begin with. The marble gave way to velvet carpet and velvet walls and velvet chairs, all the same shade of red, blending into each other like the furniture had sprouted naturally from the floor. Another identical room after that. And another. Being so alone with her thoughts was almost comforting- it was rare that Lorem ever got a moment of peace. Her life was haggling, haranguing, and otherwise being a pest to anyone she'd been sent to bother so that Vacat wouldn't have to be brought in to try and pry out whatever she'd been hunting through more physical means. Probably what she was doing at that very moment, if she wasn't destroying cities or snatching cattle from the fields or whatever that beast did in her spare time. A faint whoosh somewhere further down the halls told her that her opportunity to relax was coming to a close. Lorem fished out her pocketwatch, not even bothering to open it and check the time, and put it back in her breast pocket with a deep sigh as she steeled herself.

A yellow blur whizzed past her with a speed that, even in all her years of service, she still never expected. She tried not to flinch when her feathers were blown back in its wake, and the golden eyes of her employer stared down at her expectantly as the great, glimmering serpent coiled around her until she was the only light that Lorem could see.

"Did you get it?" the Librarian asked, voice melodic and tittering. Lorem only barely rolled her eyes as she projected a terrestrial crustacean into her thoughts; its rough size (220cm from rostrum to tail, 90cm at the shoulder), its habitat (lush, open plains with a suspicious smell of saltwater that Lorem had still yet to scrub from her feathers), its diet (tall sawgrasses, supplemented by a local species of poisonous flower that they'd evolved an immunity to), trying to maintain her train of thought while the Librarian nodded so frantically you'd think that she was trying to launch her head from her neck and send it flying planetside herself. Why she was like this, Lorem could only guess. The Librarian never did like to reveal her motivations for... just about anything, really.

Which left Lorem rather shocked when her idle question of "Why did you call me again?" actually received an answer. Kind of.

The Librarian tapped a talon to her grinning lips and motioned for Lorem to follow her deeper into the Scriptorium's corridors, through long, winding halls and glass elevators and stairways that looped in on themselves just to arrive at the same floor, until a set of gold-studded double doors stood before them. The press of the Librarian's paw against them lifted the enSourcelled seal on her private chambers and caused the gaping maw to open wide, sending stacks of papers flying out onto the carpet. It wasn't Lorem's first time seeing this place, but... it was more of a mess than usual. Red threads and handmade charcoal sketches were pinned to the cork-lined walls (evidently put up while Lorem was away, judging by the stacks on stacks of books sitting on the floor that had been neatly shelved last she saw them) or floating in the air through some unspecified force. The creatures depicted weren't ones Lorem had ever seen before, and her mental bestiary was not exactly a small one. As she gawked, the Librarian flitted around the room with a surprising speed, adjusting her little crooked papers or sticking threads back onto pins so that everything connected nice and tightly again.

"What... is this? What is this even for?" Lorem's eyes squinted, jaw hanging agape as she stared up at the infinitely deep spider's web that had been constructed within the room. The Librarian giggled- a ringing, echoing sound- and swooped down from her lofty perch to tilt Lorem's head up with one massive talon.

"We," she stage-whispered, "are making life."

"Unless things have changed since last I was here, we didn't have any facilities on the ship for storing organic matter, much less fleshwork-" the same talons pinched Lorem Ipsum's jaws shut, forcing her silence.

"That's not what I'm talking about, and we both know it. Too much effort- bleh." The Librarian stuck out her tongue like a child, an exaggerated shudder running down her considerable length. "No, no, we're going to let everyone else do it for us. I've been working on a little pet project- it gets so lonely in here- and I wanted to see just how far the idea could spread... and how many would actually believe it."

Lorem huffed as her mouth was released. "So you made up a guy."

"I prefer to call it an original species. Besides, it's just a little experiment... unless you hate fun."

Lorem did, indeed, hate fun. Typically because the Librarian's idea of fun was sending her on a wild goose chase and losing her mind laughing when she came back to the Scriptorium begging for forgiveness for her inability to find what was requested. Her employer could probably tell that she was currently being given the stink eye, and responded with a gentle poke on the tip of Lorem's snout. "That's where you come in. You're not going to have to extract anything from anyone this time- you're going to be delivering it. Tell them it's a little gift from me, to thank them for their patronage. Word of mouth spreads terribly fast, you know! What I want to see is just how fast it can spread. If given some hot new goss, that is."

"So you want me to lie to them?"

The Librarian shrugged, twirling a lock of her shimmering hair-feathers around a claw. "Basically, yeah."

"And if I don't want to?"

"Well, of course, somebody else can do it... but that could cause-" her Draconic form twisted in shapes that caused the dim lighting in the room to glint off of the stardust constantly stuck in her feathers, which Lorem vividly recalled that little to none was her own- "problems, in our business relationship."

Lorem Ipsum sighed. To be fair, there were worse things that she could've been asked to do when she was called in. Churning the rumor mill was unfamiliar, but... probably no more difficult than her usual. "Alright. Tell me about it." The sound of schoolgirl laughter was almost instantaneous as she agreed to the terms, and was promptly followed by frenzied clapping.

"Okay! Okay, okay... here's the plan..."