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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Whizbang Dustyboots" data-source="post: 3761995" data-attributes="member: 11760">"Why couldn't a book do this?" Hazel pats Skeeter's head as the dog paces beside the trapdoor. "I mean, if it had a spell on it or something to make the abbess want to turn to chaos. Or maybe after the book, they sent more gifts.""No!" Oktav responds, fear making his response almost a scream. "Historically, they've been seen as sort of malevolent idiots, incapable of anything beyond being a nuisance. Church records don't record more than a dozen deaths caused by them in the past century. They're not considered any sort of major threat to the church or empire."Below, Emus brushes the chest scraps off the book as best he can, and exposes a small book bound in some sort of black hide. A silver crescent moon is embossed into the cover. Looking at the book from several angles, Bufer can see what appears to be a piece of paper slipped between two of the pages jutting out the top.With a glance at Emus, Bufer runs back to the ladder and calls up to the others above."I think we might have found it," he says, "But we need a way to get it back up there. I ain't none too eager to touch it, and I don't think there's room enough to do the ritual down here, and fight whatever it's gonna conjure up. Anyone got any bright ideas?"Emus grunts and reaches into his pack. After a moment he pulls out a small cloth sack."We can give this a try." He casts a doubtful look around the storeroom. "Wouldn't want to trust anything for long, though. Whatever the book is, it seems to warp everything around it. I'll hold open the sack, and you use the flat of that fancy new short sword to push it into the bag.""I ain't got any better ideas," Bufer says, then calls back up the ladder. "Scratch that -- sounds like Shillelagh might have figured it out. Get ready to pull us back out!"Tucker his aspergillum into his belt, Bufer draws his short sword, then heads to the ruined table. As he sets the edge of his sword on its surface, the flat of the blade just a few inches behind the book, Emus stands at the end and holds his sack open."Just be careful not to let your thumbs brush it when you catch it," Bufer warns.As Emus nods with a grunt, Bufer pushes his blade against the book, sliding it slowly and carefully towards the waiting sack. The book drops gently inside, its pages opening a little as it's deposited within. The piece of paper tucked between two pages becomes dislodged and almost falls out of the book. Emus can see some handwriting on it as he closes up the bag."All right, we've got it! Get ready to haul us back up!" Bufer calls up to the others. He examines his sword for any deformities, then tucks it back into his belt.Hazel leans over the trapdoor and beckons."Start climbing, boys.""Potentially deadly artifacts before beauty," Bufer says to Emus, gesturing toward the ladder."I reckon she'd skin me if you got stuck down here," the dwarf snorts, lifting Bufer with little effort. "Up you go, Fancypants. Best get to climbing."Bufer squeals and wriggles in Emus' hands. Grabbing hold of the rope, Bufer shrugs out of Emus' grasp, and ineffectually kicks at his head."If you tell anybody I'm ticklish, you'll wake up one morning with your beard shaved off an tied into a neat little bundle on your chest, with your eyebrows keeping it company." Bufer snatches the sack off of Emus' belt the second the dwarf has cleared the edge of the trapdoor, and carries it back to where he had set up his portable altar."All right, so we got the book," he says, setting it down next to the altar case. "Redshirt, what am I doing with it? Is it enough that it's here? Or do I need to use it as a focus for the ritual somehow?"Oktav rubs his head, while not too subtly moving as far away from the sack as he can."Well, it seems to be connected to whatever happened here. Maybe try to exorcise it? Or maybe something in it ... I don't know. This isn't something that was in my books.""We ought to look at the extra paper what's stuffed inside before you go mumbling and praying over that book." Emus scratches his chin. "Mighty fancy writing on it, in Imperial, I think. Could be it'll tell us something."Grabbing hold of the bottom corners of the sack, Bufer lifts it up and shakes the book out onto the floor next to the altar case. Setting the empty sack down behind him, he then reaches up into one sleeve and produces one of his daggers. He uses the tip to flip open the cover, then one page after another, until he's reached the page that's bookmarked with the slip of paper.The piece of paper is not a bookmark, per se. Instead, it appears to be a note written on extremely expensive stationery from the book's donor:Dearest Sisters:In distant Ptolus, I have heard of your mission and agree that the end of the Empire may be fast approaching and that Chaos and Darkness will follow in its wake. Your goal of preserving the knowledge of the Empire against that day is both wise and farsighted.Please accept this contribution from House Vladaam's library. The Book of Ascendant Night is a rare and ancient book but it specifically discusses the coming darkness and its harbingers. I trust that you will find it enlightening.Yours truly, Iristul VladaamAs for the book itself, it is not written in the Imperial Common tongue."Westron," Oktav mumbles, looking over Bufer's shoulder. "I can't read it, but it's what a lot of the church's older books are written in."One of the pages the book opens to also contains a woodcut of robed figures dancing under a moon hanging low in the sky.Bufer frowns and glances up and around at the others, then reads the letter aloud for all of them to hear."Seems to me that the abbess got more enlightened than she bargained for," he says once he's finished.</blockquote>

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