Bibliox

Mumble, mumble...

Bibliox, Chapters 3 and 4

Bibliox (JP: ビブリオクス) is a Darkner enemy and NPC in Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 of Deltarune. The first Bibliox is encountered as a singular hidden NPC in TV World, before later appearing as an enemy type in the Dark Sanctuary. It is a wise, book-like monster that inhabits libraries.

Profile

Appearance

Normally, Bibliox resembles an inanimate hard-cover book with a blue cover. It only reveals its true self during encounters with the party, or when found as an NPC. Bibliox retains its blue coloration, but now resembles a stout, bearded wizard with a robe and a pointed hat. The beard resembles pages of a book, and its outfit is covered in lighter-colored letters, the robe it wears featuring "A", "B", "C", and "D" letters.

In the Light World, it is heavily implied to be a book.

Personality

Bibliox is mentioned often doing wizardly things, usually relating to words, and mumbling. It often speaks with misspelt words or homonyms.

Etymology

"Bibliox" contains the prefix "biblio-", which has Greek origins and means "book". The "-ox" suffix could be a reference to the Oxford English Dictionary, considering Bibliox's ACT mechanic of correcting misspelled words.

Main story

Chapter 3

The old hermit Bibliox mumbling next to the TV puzzle in the Nowhere area, as a slowed-down version of man plays

A peaceful Bibliox NPC (referred to as "the legend old hermit" by Shuttah) is met in Nowhere in Chapter 3, playing a TV puzzle. He is implied to be the Dark World counterpart of the book of hymns on a side table in the Dreemurr residence's living room.

When Bibliox is interacted with in the overworld, he only mumbles and "fumbles". Kris can talk to him by entering the game and talking to the Bibliox NPC inside of the puzzle. He mumbles and talks to Kris, offering them a TripTicket if talked to enough. He claims the ticket is in a nearby wardrobe, presumed to be at the right-side room. However, the wardrobe only appears in the first room after reentering it. After inspecting the empty wardrobe, Kris can talk to Bibliox once again, which has him state that they had the ticket since they entered the room. He will then resume mumbling. After this, when interacting with the overworld Bibliox, he expresses difficulty understanding Kris, and suggests they "speak up".

If the Shadow Mantle was obtained before the TripTicket on the Sword Route, Bibliox has altered dialogue in which he informs Kris that the characters within the game have already gone nowhere, and that the TripTicket is now hidden under the ball machine.

Chapter 4

In the Dark Sanctuary, Bibliox appears as an encounter in the northern room on the left of the Study. If the party backtracks to the long prophecy walkway in the Lower Left area, the path is blocked by a Bibliox NPC who recites "[its] long tale" to an eagerly listening Cuptain.

In the 2nd Sanctuary's Gallery, a petrified Bibliox is found among other Dark Sanctuary Darkners that were turned to stone. Next to it, an Organikk muses about the ancient text carved in its beard and believes that spellings were different and better back then.

In the 3rd Sanctuary, Biblioxes appear in the library passage among the Darkners who guard the entrance to the Dark Fountain. If some Darkners in the Dark Sanctuaries are recruited, and none beaten by violence, Bibliox joins the stack tower and helps the party reach the top to confront the Knight.

In battle

Appears with

• Another Bibliox
• Winglade

Attacks

• Books open to either side of the bullet board and send alternating arcs of tornado bullets at the SOUL.
• Books on either side open and shoot up fire in a vertical pillar at the SOUL's position, shooting out additional fireballs to the left and right if there are no other different attacks.
• Books on either side open and shoot bubbles into the board, which sometimes will stop and split into three smaller bubbles. The small bubbles shoot off, slow down, and disappear.

Available ACTs

Proofread

Fix typo for MERCY

A time-limited ACT, which quiz Kris on correct spelling for 110 frames (~3.66 seconds). Kris must select from one of three words that the cursor rotates through every 10 frames (~0.33 seconds). Possible words it quizzes on are (chosen uniformly at random):

• GALLERY (GALLURY/GALLORY)
• ROOTS (REETS/RAATS)
• FESTIVAL (FESTIAVL/FESTAVIL)
• FLASHBACK (FLESHBECK/FLOSHBOCK)
• SWORD (SORWD/SOWRD)
• GUARDIAN (GAURDIAN/GAURDAIN)
• ATRIUM (ATRUIM/ARTIUM)
• SYNTHESIS (SYNTEHSIS/SINTHESIS)
• AMPHITHEATER (AMPITHEATER/AMPITHEATRE)

A correct answer increases MERCY by 100% for one Bibliox. If an incorrect answer is picked, nothing happens.

EasyProof

More time to fix

Gives the same action prompt as Proofread, but allocates 200 frames (~6.66 seconds) to select the correct spelling. The cursor rotates through words every 15 frames (0.5 seconds). A correct answer increases MERCY by 100% for one Bibliox and makes it tired. If an incorrect answer is picked, it only becomes tired.

Increases MERCY by 15%.

Increases MERCY by 30%.

Strategy

Several other conditions allow for Bibliox to be spared:

• Sparing (when its name is not yellow) increases MERCY by 10% for one Bibliox.
• Using Spin on Winglade while Bibliox is also present increases MERCY by 10% for Bibliox.
• Using SpinS on Winglade while Bibliox is also present increases MERCY by 60% for Bibliox.
• Using Whirl on Winglade while Bibliox is also present instantly spares both enemies, for a 64% TP cost.

Quotes

• Mumble, mumble... [Neutral]
• To by, or not to by? [Neutral]
• Lauren Ipsome, Lauren Ipsome. [Neutral]
• It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times. [Neutral]
• Human soles, monster soles, Book soles... [Neutral]
• ... whose do we? Whose do we decimal... [Neutral]
• [Ralsei] Susie? [S-Action #1]

Flavor text

• A worldly wizard that casts spells by spelling. Unfortunately prone to typos. [Check]
• Bibliox opens up! [Encounter]
• The flapping of wings and pages fills the room. [Encounter with Winglade]
• Bibliox rearranges bookmarks in his beard. [Neutral]
• Bibliox conjures letters in the air. [Neutral]
• Bibliox augurs with alphabet soup. [Neutral]
• Bibliox mumbles a hymn... but, the lyrics were mistaken. [Neutral]
• Bibliox is mumbling and bumbling. [Neutral]
• Smells like parchment. [Neutral, 3% chance]
• Select the right spelling! [Proofread or EasyProof]
  • Success! [Correct choice]
  • ... but, it was misspelled! [Incorrect choice]
  • Out of time! [Out of time]
• [S-Action #1]
  • Susie attempted to read!
  • ... But there were no pictures!
  • ... Susie fell asleep!!!
• Susie attempted to read! [S-Action #2+]
• Ralsei wore reading glasses! [R-Action]
• Bibliox can't keep its pages open. [Tired]
• Bibliox's beard flaps happily. [Spare conditions met]
• Bibliox looks ragged. [Low HP, unused]

Gallery

• 
  Bibliox flying in its book form
• 
  Bibliox revealing its true form
• 
  Bibliox stroking its beard
• 
  Bibliox facing backwards in Chapter 3
• 
  Bibliox as a statue in the 2nd Sanctuary
• 
  Bibliox's pixelated avatar in Chapter 3's Nowhere area
• 
  Bibliox concept art by Toby Fox

Trivia

• When speaking to Bibliox's avatar through the TV puzzle, he communicates using both upper and lowercase letters, a distinct speech pattern from other dialogue seen in The Legend of Tenna-esque environments. This quirk is also shared with the Shadow Mantle holder and Rouxls Kaard before the Cooking Show.
• There is a small chance of the Annoying Dog appearing on the pages of the books Bibliox uses to attack.
• Many of Bibliox's neutral quotes are literary allusions, including A Tale of Two Cities, Hamlet's soliloquy, the placeholder text lorem ipsum, and the Dewey decimal system. The quote "it was the blurst of times" comes from The Simpsons episode "Last Exit to Springfield".
• Many of the words in the Proofread and EasyProof ACTs ("GALLERY", "ROOTS", "FESTIVAL", "FLASHBACK", "SWORD", "GUARDIAN", "ATRIUM", "SYNTHESIS", and "AMPHITHEATER") correspond with the titles of certain tracks in the OST: Gallery, Digital Roots/BIT ROOTS, Festival, Flashback (Excerpt), SWORD, GUARDIAN, and ATRIUM. "SYNTHESIS" and "AMPHITHEATER" do not currently have counterparts. The connection with song titles likely relates to Bibliox's connection with hymns.
  • Several of the chosen titles are in all caps. While Gallery is not, it is internally referred to as GALLERY.
  • "FLASHBACK" is the official Japanese title of Flashback (Excerpt).
  • "amphitheater" is the title of one of Toby Fox's fan-made Yume Nikki tracks, posted by him alongside man_nes and an earlier version of man.
• If the game's language is set to Japanese, the words in the Proofread and EasyProof ACTS are simply more obviously misspelt in English. Said misspellings are mainly letters repeating a significant amount of times. This matches how the above tracks on the Japanese version of the OST are either transliterated into katakana or in all-caps English.
• Bibliox is the only character in Deltarune to use the primarily Spanish letter "Ñ" in their dialogue.

Version differences

Game edition	Version tag	Changes
Deltarune Chapter 4	v1.03	Added a new word, "AMPHITHEATER", to the EasyProof and Proofread ACTs. Previously, an error in the code prevented it from appearing.