03/27/3034 -- Operation Book Around You

• Date: 20 Chy-sa 715AR. Starring Zey (commander), Charon (marshal), Koilos (spymaster), Storm (quartermaster), and Angel/Bloom (lorekeeper).
• We pick up with Zey, wandering through the camp. Zetian has just given him control of the mission. Zey assembles the A-team for the mission briefing. He tells us we’re going to show a book around, and asks if anyone has any old tricks.
  • Bloom says he has old tricks, but that they’re fairly destructive. Zey tells him no tricks for him. Charon asks if we have any paint, and says it’s for “old tricks”, but we don’t have any paint. Storm says something about a dead old lady, but refuses to elaborate.
• We split up to do brief things pre-mission. After some debate, Zey decides not to bring Unravel, but instead, we bring Charon and another spare book. Zey goes to procure a book from Mace Crane, and when asked what he’s looking for, asks for a book on friendship. Crane doesn’t have that, but gives him a book on allies.
• Charon goes to the Maiden to get some healing, and to speak to the Maiden. The Maiden is still at her desk, and greets Charon with a smile. Charon asks for some healing, and says we’re going to an office belonging to the Shivo Library. The Maiden warns it to be careful, because they hold onto some fairly dangerous books, and Charon says the Shivo fellow offered to buy her.
• The Maiden says he usually isn’t that rough around the edges, and Charon says it wasn’t that bad talking to him. She asks if the Maiden wants her to look for anything for her, and the Maiden says to focus on things to help Cordell, and maybe some books on devils. Charon asks if the Maiden’s doing alright, and the Maiden gives her an “Mhm”, but Charon doesn’t believe her. Charon tells her to remember to stretch and eat, and invites the Maiden to dinner. The Maiden finishes healing Charon up.
• Ki goes to Helmuth’s training grounds to ask about harmonic strike and harmonic flow training. He asks if she’s back for more (since she’s missing a health block and is down to 10SP), and she says there’s always room for improvement. Her voice is raspy from all the screaming she’s done the past few days. She asks about the training, and he says that both harmonic strike and harmonic flow are advanced techniques, and even masters struggle to perfect them. Harmonic strike involves focusing aether into the heart of a weapon, and releasing it at the strike, moving in harmony with the universe. Flow is much the same, but on a greater scale, and you must be in a perfect state of mind. Ki decides to go at this another day.
• Bloom and Zey go to Lucky Eight’s, and Storm goes to the Maiden for healing. Zey and Charon spend 1 recovery each to heal corruption (-2 recovery). We decide to take just 1 emerald, since we’re only going a few miles north, and will in theory be there and back in a few hours.
• The spymaster takes the training upgrade twice, upgrading Antoinette and Mark to level 2 (-2 morale -2 supply). They roll 9d6 at Benefit I, and gain +2 recovery +1 emerald.
• We spend 2 intel. We ask what a useful skillset might be, and are told puzzles and research. On a scale of 1-10, the danger level is 4-5. We ask about what the gains from Arsenic might be, and are told there might be scrap in the mines. The custom +8 comes from the selling of the arsenic. The quartermaster chooses to bring binoculars, 1x whistler (given to Zey), and 1x health potion (Healing II).
• The marshal roll [5, 4, 4] lands us in a risky position. We begin to move northward, and things go well for a time, until we run into some crows. We make a quick escape, since we don’t want to deal with all 50 of them, but we each burn 15sp to get away. The place we were directed to is in the middle of a twisted forest, and we find an unlit lamppost in the center of the woods. Though we’ve lost the crows, they’re still in the area.
• Zey inspects the lamppost, and sees some Dwarvish writing. He relays this to us, and Charon steps forward to translate it. It just says, “turn the page.” Charon opens Zey’s book and turns the page, but nothing happens. Bloom turns a few of Charon’s pages, but nothing happens then, either. We see ruts in the ground along the lamppost, from people walking down the path.
• Charon conjures a small flame in the lamppost nest, and it catches, lighting up the area. Ki sees that it’s giving off two red shadows. Charon blocks the flame, and the light diminishes slightly, but those shadows don’t seem to move. When it flips a page, a third shadow appears, and more are added as she flips more pages. She ruffles through all the pages, and hundreds of tiny red shadows appear, before magic flows over us, and with a buzz, the lamppost turns off.
• When we hear the crows approaching, we use the whistler to buy us some more time. After some dicking around, we figure out that we need to create 5 shadows, and stand in each of them. Each of us hears a question in our head – “librarian or civilian?” Everyone says civilian, except for Charon, who says book, and resets the lamppost with that. The crows are coming closer, but they roll a 1, so we have enough time to retry. This time, when we’re asked, everyone says civilian.
• The shadows draw inward as we’re all sucked in toward the lamppost, and we find ourselves in the atrium of a library, lit with soft blue magical lights. We see a spiral staircase going up to the 2nd floor. The 1st floor is primarily rows and rows of books, with an indexing desk near the front. Upstairs, we see windows into cubicle-style offices. Behind us a lamppost identical to the one we used to get in.
• There’s no one at the indexing desk, but no chair for anyone to sit at, either. Zey looks for a sign-in sheet to be respectful, and a very large tome with gilded pages floats up to him.
  • “Greetings, civilian. Welcome to the Shivo Research Library and Interplanar Offices. How may I help you today?”
• We tell it we’re here to do research, and it tells us that civilian access requires donations. It tells us it is Index 1106, but that we may refer to it as Index. Zey introduces himself, and after clarifying spelling, Index flashes a bit and turns to a page, and we see Zey’s name written in the ledger. Zey presents his ally book for the donation, and the book floats up and flips around like it’s being scanned, before floating down to the desk. He’s told his book is of sufficient quality, and he’s been granted access to the Gold+ membership. He gets access to over 128 subjects covered in this branch of the library.
• Charon comes forward to give its name, and when prompted, presents a textbook on religions and mythologies, as well as some journals she’s written of her Brigade experience. Both are accepted, and it gets Gold Supreme membership, as well as 2 guests. Zey donates another book, and gets upgrades to Gold Premium, along with 1 guest.
• Charon chooses Bloom (who gives the name Angel) and Ki for its guests. Index asks if either of them have criminal records, and Angel shrugs, so Charon says no. Index finds this acceptable, and asks if we’d like any help finding books on our subjects. Charon starts simple, and asks for books on martial schools. Index says they have 3 books on martial schools, and that they’re being highlighted in the library for us now. We see a book on a shelf begin to glow.
• Charon asks about devils, and is told there are 1644 books on them – the library lights up like the sun. She suggests they ask about “the man himself,” and Index says they have 2 million books on men, promptly flashbanging us. We ask about Unravel, and Index says that information is in the restricted section. When Angel asks how to get into the restricted section, it says you need to be a librarian. It asks if he’s a librarian, and he says he personally isn’t.
• It asks us to rate our service out of 5 stars, and Zey gives it 4.25/5 stars. Storm tries to check in, but fumbles giving his name several times, and it gets spelled as “Sto”, “Stom”, “4”, etc… when he’s silent long enough, it writes in a blank space and asks if that’s correct. Bloom peeks at the ledger while it’s trying to write in Storm’s name (since Index wouldn’t tell us who had last checked in, or when), and sees that the last person to sign in before Zey was named Maraseleigh.
• We are told to remember to check out our books before we leave, or they’ll have to enact SECURITY MEASURES. We can check out a book for a 3, 7, or 14 day period, but if we don’t turn it in in time, they will enact SECURITY MEASURES. It tells us that, “Knowledge is for everybody. Except knowledge that should not be for people.”
  • The punishment for an overdue book is servitude! Eternal, depending on the book taken.
• Zey goes upstairs to investigate the offices. Ki asks Index for books on Althara, and is asked if she means Althara (name), Althara the Impure, or Althara the chef. She is told there are 2 books that discuss Althara the Impure. Charon collects the martial school books, and asks for materials on the researcher Van Rome. Index tells us there are 39 books written or contributed to by Florian Van Rome. When Charon asks specifically about a disease he studied, Index says they have 0 texts. It asks Charon to rate its service out of 5 stars.
  • “Oh, Index, I just love you. I would say 5.”
• Angel asks for the books on Althara the chef, and finds some cookbooks by Althara Moonstone, a chef that lived about 200 years ago and mainly worked with Breoan cuisine. As Angel reads the cookbook, we all hear a voice. “New rule: Water is now poisonous.”
• Ki asks Index what that voice was, and Index asks if she’s referring to us speaking now. Ki says no, and Index tells us they have 526 books dealing with hallucinations.
• We look at the books on Althara the Impure, and find talk of her legend, that she attacked the Dark Ring and killed thousands, if not millions. Looking for information on diseases, we see that she was a master of the disease she spread, and was able to infect most of the population of the Dark Ring.
• We look into the offices, but they seem to be cubicles like in any of the major cities. The office was clearly being used – there are papers scattered about, quills and ink, a plate of food, some shirts and jackets, etc. It seems like all the people left at once. Toward the end of the room, there’s a hallway leading deeper into the offices, past a few storage lockers. Zey looks over some of the desks, and sees reports from places on the Primordial Ring. Potential cases of grimoires, and librarians making plans to investigate. He also sees some family pictures, and taxes paid to Kynaston.
  • He investigates the taxes, and finds they belong to Kazal Van (sic?), who is delinquent in 2700 gp. He was summoned to Tpres, and there’s a warrant out for his arrest. The tax information is months old, and tucked into the back of the drawer. The most recent information is dated from 4-5 weeks ago, which lines up with the appearance of the Dark Star.
• We go to the storage lockers, and find 7 of them. 2-3 are open and have been cleared out, but the others are unlocked, and seem to have extra sets of clothes, new pens, and knicknacks, among some other items – we find a set of basic heroic heavy armor, a set of basic light elkhorn II armor, a ring of wisdom I, and a heavy II longsword. Zey takes the ring of wisdom for himself.
• We peek down the hallway, and hear the voice again. “New rule: You cannot leave this pocket dimension.” None of us are very happy about this. Down the hallway is a door that says “Grimoire Vault”. Ki gets a hero point for looking for a training manual for a new librarian, and finds some onboarding training papers that say things like get here on time, you must take an oath of absolute secrecy, lunch is at 12PM, etc.
• We also find some notes on the grimoires: there are 5 total vaults, with 3 of them in use as of 2 years ago. Safety precautions include not going into the vault without a friend, if you’re experiencing a bad mental health day don’t go in the vault, don’t go in if you’re susceptible to manipulation, etc. You can contain a grimoire with the following:
  • Place it in an interior space coated with 25% platinum, 47% copper, 28% iron. Place it on the floor of the space at least 9ft from any wall, and clean the floor with holy water, salt, and dragon blood every 9 days. Interactions must be done with a protective suit, no exposed flesh, in 5-minute non-concurrent increments.
• We also see reference to a Shivo Handbook for Grimoire Nullification, though we don’t see the actual handbook around. Zey finds the ID card for Kazal (an orcish fellow with long red dreads, and a gold tooth in the portrait). The rest of us find gloves and other ID cards, and decide to pose as librarians to ask Index for a new copy of the handbook.
• The voice goes, “New rule: You may only walk backwards.” Ki gets 2 hero points for recognizing it’s a grimoire fucking with us. As we walk backwards to the indexing desk, the voice goes, “New rule: Only speak in questions.”
• Charon uses an illusion to disguise its voice and says it’s signing into work as Kaval Van. It gets a spirit check (2 successes), and Index says it has them all signed in. Charon asks us what the book is called, and Angel says it’s the handbook for grimoire nullification. He feels something grip him, and a voice says, “You have broken one of Mother’s rules. This is your warning. Next time, I will have to discipline you, Angel.”
• Charon asks for a copy, and when Index asks if she’s lost it, she says yes, she hasn’t seen it. A book materializes on the desk in front of us, a 6-700pg book bound in black leather. Index tells us we may take it, but we have to return it, as they must have it at the desk just in case. We wonder out loud where the nearest sitting area is, and Index very helpfully highlights it for us.
  • Angel gets 1 trust point for returning the cookbook he was looking at earlier.
• In order to be able to utilize the handbook, we have to either be able to see and touch the book, or have a lot of data on it, as it’s a taxonomic guide. We look through with what we remember about Unravel, and find that the book says to never touch Unravel, read it, or share vulnerable information around it. As a potential reprieve, the entity within the book is weak to pure elemental weapons, and purely magical items that can be no further reduced.
• We decide to go look at the grimoire that’s currently tormenting us. The voice says, “Hello, children. New rule: People in the Brigade forget you exist until they see you.” Zey pulls out his rope, and we tie ourselves together. “New rule: If you stop moving, you stop breathing.”
• We reach the vaults, and see a space with 5 heavy steel doors. 2 doors say vacant, and 2 say occupied. One more says occupied, but is slightly ajar. Storm speaks without phrasing it as a question, and gets the warning. He ignores it, and walks in normally, instead of backwards. There’s a pop, and then there’s a blueberry pie on the ground where he once was. Ki asks Storm if he’s an idiot, and moonwalks back to pick up the pie. Charon uses fell curse to place a kick-me sign on the pie.
• Inside the vault, there are 4 pies on the ground, with some suits and other materials on the ground next to them. The materials look a bit crusty (literally). In the center of the room appears to be a little children’s book sitting on acid-burnt metal. It’s titled Mother Gillespie, and the cover shows a nice old woman baking pies. All of us suit up, and Charon unties itself, since it doesn’t need to breathe. At some point while Zey’s talking, he doesn’t phrase a few sentences in a row as questions, and also gets turned into a pie.
• “New rule: Your vision only works when you’re talking.” The world goes dark, and Ki asks Charon to hand her the handbook. Charon doesn’t recognize her, due to the rule about Brigade members forgetting who you are when they can’t see you, and asks who she is. They repeatedly ask each other to keep talking to them, and this goes on for a few minutes until it’s ruled that the characters figure out they can mumble shit to themselves to keep their vision when they’re not talking.
• We go through the handbook to figure out how to nullify Mother Gillespie. The only never is to never break the rules near the book (within its vicinity is bad, within eyeline of it is worse). To get a reprieve, we can attempt to give Mother Gillespie a new rule, or follow one rule to the letter until you’re forced to break the rule. Both of these will anger her and temporarily short-circuit her. If we call her the wrong name, she’ll be angered and retaliate, but the reprieve will be longer.
• To actually nullify her, we have to close the book, say, “These rules are for thee and not for me,” cover the book in salt, and seal the book for 12 hours. This will put it into dormancy. The voice says, “New rule: In 10 minutes, you will become a pie.”
• Ki says, “Is there a new rule that you must breathe in 5 seconds, every 5 seconds?” There’s a buzzing in the air, and our restrictions technically end. Zey and Storm turn back into themselves for a moment (the other pies revert into corpses). We rush downstairs to get salt, and Charon finds it right before the effects turn back on. Zey and Storm become pies once more. Angel picks them up, and we hurry back upstairs to start the ritual.
• We do the ritual, and the book throws a bunch of new rules at us as we do so (“New rule: You have two left feet. New rule: Your eye constantly twitches. New rule: You feel like everyone hates you.” Etc). We spread the salt and carry our pies out of the room, closing the door behind us. The powers of the grimoire fade, and we’re able to recognize each other, and breathe. Zey and Storm become themselves once more, and Charon locks the door, dragging over a locker to block it.
• We decide to wait out the ritual, so that we can get the additional nullification handbook still in the vault. We get some independent research time. Zey asks the Index about the Blood Ocean, and is told they have 8 copies, so he goes off to get them. Charon asks the Index about Titans, and it says they have 1237 entries (flashbanging Zey). She asks about Niorax, and Index narrows it down to 1100 entries (flashbanging Zey again).
• Ki asks about the Xeroxixia, and is told that that requires Apotheon level clearance. Ki starts to write out the prophecy to give to Charon for donation, but we decide that that’s not a good idea, since we have no idea who has access to the donations. Angel asks about the Eon Lattice, and is told that that is not in the databanks (but eon salad is).
• We ask about a devil named Bob, and we’re told that there are 10 entries on a devil by that alias. Zey happens to be passing by that section, and gets flashbanged again. We ask about Widowstone Keep, and are told that there are 3 books in the standard collection, and 188 in the private collection.
• Angel asks about Solandis, and Index asks where he learned that name. He says he doesn’t remember, and Index asks if he’d be willing to stay to speak to someone. He says he doesn’t really have the time, and Index asks, “Does time matter to one such as yourself?” Angel says we are on a time crunch, and have to be getting back soon… Index asks him to hold while they get a librarian for him, and promptly shuts down. Angel yells up to the others that he may have fucked up.
• Charon looks up the shadow school in the martial school books, and sees that it’s argued to be the 2nd-most or even most powerful martial school. Most practitioners have been previous Dorchas, and learning the nihils (forms) involves taking in new ways to put your opponents off-balance, destroying from the inside. The fighting style is meant not only to destroy, but to humiliate. Charon notices that it’s naturally done some of the nihils on its own with its scythe.
• No notable practitioners are mentioned other than the Dorchas, and no teachers mentioned. A voice says, “It’s alright, though. I am more than happy to be your teacher.” Charon turns slowly, and sees the Man in Red smiling at her. No one else is around. She hesitantly greets him, and he says hello, before asking if it’d wish to learn more about the shadow school. It says it was curious, and he says he can see that – she went to a library. That’s where curious people go.
• He says he’ll train Charon, and refers to her as his child. Charon says, “Your child?” and he says that now that Charon’s thrown off previous convictions, it is of low magic, of the Dark Ring. Truly a child of him. Charon says she doesn’t think they’ve been introduced, and he says he’s been with all her life, through everything. Even the… (Charon gestures at herself here), though he’d consider that to be a mistake.
  • “I see… so you must be… You must be.” ( – Charon)
  • “And you must be. See how this works?” ( – Man in Red)
• He says he’s here to help Charon become the best version of itself, and that it needs to become the best version of itself. Nicholas is gonna want her back, and with how she is now, she won’t be able to save the Maiden from what’s coming. Charon is suddenly much more interested, and agrees to train under him. He says that when Charon’s ready for training, he’ll be along.
  • “You’ll just know?” ( – Charon)
  • “I will. It’s nice having a friend like me.” ( – Man in Red)
• The Man in Red disappears, and Charon lets out a heavy sigh. Meanwhile, Zey is doing his research on the Blood Ocean and its workings. It’s a very large layer of the Cosmic Stack, covered by a literal ocean of blood that’s theorized to be from many different places. The growing number of land and islands indicates there’s a draining of the Blood Ocean from some source. Civilizations exist on the layer, and ride around on massive boats, harvesting creatures that reside within the ocean, and following storms to get (rain)water where they can. The Blood Ocean is fairly close to us in the Cosmic Stack.
• Ki looks for why Widowstone was founded, and related details. It’s a destination marked on a lot of maps. She finds that it used to be Widowstone Cathedral, and might’ve been built before Alethrendil. It was a refuge in a place of worship for the high gods, and was destroyed in an unknown incident and rebuilt as Widowstone Keep. It’s been destroyed and rebuilt no less than a dozen times over a few thousand years, but the scholar doesn’t get into why. It occupies a strategic position, and is probably a marker of Archfey domains, but that seems like fluff. It’s very old, and it seems like it’s protecting something, judging by the fact that Archfey are never the ones fighting there. It’s always something else. Archfey and also goblins are always around Widowstone.
• Charon looks for information on Niorax – he was considered one of the deadliest Titans, second only to Zolona and Xix. They were the greatest destroyer in legend, and even the gods struggled to put up a fight against Niorax, partially because they wielded a weapon that could kill material gods and perhaps even high gods. Niorax was defeated and scattered amongst the rings, to seal them away. Material god deaths are estimated to be between 28 and over 250, but a part of Charon feels that both of those numbers are very low.
• The books on Bob are mainly recurring entries on him popping up and fucking up someone’s day. None of them seem to record anyone being able to one-up him. Charon also looks for Gunavar, but finds nothing – there’s not a lot of Titanic Era information. It also looks for texts on triage, to bring back to the Brigade, since Anahi is gone.
• On Archfey and Bells of Atonement – the Bells were created during wars between Archfey, to use if Archfey encroached on each other’s domains. They have a canceling effect where, if Archfey stray too far, you can ring the Bell, and the Archfey temporarily loses their abilities/powers. These locations are typically kept very secret, but outsiders have used them twice; once a lone individual, and second with an army. That Archfey (Gydoral (sic?)) survived long enough not to be killed, and then proceeded to make the army tap-dance until their deaths (9 days straight). We also find information about an Archfey tomb on the High Road; two Archfey signed a peace agreement, and put the clothing the Archfey wore at that event at that shrine.
• We look up the Banker, and find records on what he’s done, from kids’ bogeyman stories to the time the Banker replaced every doctor in a hospital with cannibals, before starting a war and sending all the soldiers to the cannibal hospital. This went on for 5 years, until a material god stopped him by ending the war. This pissed the Banker off, and the Banker chased the god for 3 years, until they thought they were fine. They then disappeared a year later, so they probably were not fine. There’s also record of an event where a bunch of cultists performed a ritual for him, and 2k people near the eastern end of Zell were viciously murdered.
• We look up the Maiden – there are some notes on here, like that she got involved in a potential coup event, was involved in the rise of the Umber Prince, etc. She just kinda pops up everywhere, but they’re keeping track of her.
• Just for fun, we check out Charon in the grimoire nullification handbook. They’re listed as an Apotheon level threat – the protocol is to evacuate immediately, and contact Raymond Shivo directly for a team to be sent to retrieve the book, and that there is no safe way to handle or contain it. Charon mentions that Shivo offered to pay 70k gp for her, and to give the group an orb that lets you speak other languages, but that he wasn’t pushy about taking Charon. They told him to go toward the sun.
• For the next week, all of us are allowed to text Colin any more questions we have, and see what we can uncover. In-game, hours have passed, and we eventually get ready to leave. We leave the crusty manual we took from the vault next to Index and keep the one it gave us, and Zey takes a few of the containment suits. We state that we’ve been turning in the books we read as we go, and we each get 2 hero points for that.
• We book it to camp, and take some notes on Unravel. We figure out a potential ritual to nullify its effects (though reversing them is another story):
  • Bathe the book in holy water, and close and bind it with platinum chains. Have an ordained cleric place 12 seals of protections, bathe the book in holy water again, and throw the book in a containment chamber for 12 hours.
• After relaying everything to Zetian, including the shrine information (which they already knew), Ki trudges back to her tent, staring at her left hand and feeling a little disappointed, since nothing came of her days of literal torture. And she’s completely right, nothing did come of it… she’s walking to the tent feeling gutted, even empty, like she’s not making any progress, and begins to realize something very strange. The Torvian appears on her right hand. She now has the Vacuous Torvian!
  • Vacuous: Can create nothing. Absolutely nothing. As an action, you can create a rift of empty space between you and a target, where there’s nothing. Warping the world to put nothing there, just emptiness. [Plus some other things]
• We all get a level-up!