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Error's Game
1 The Book

1 The Book

Year 1323. Athalon Peninsula. The Still Ocean.

  A sailboat drifted through the boiling water of the Still Ocean, listing to one side. Wine-red stains bloomed in the water around it. The islands of Athalon were dark under the gray sky, flickering with flames where once cities stood, receding into the distance behind the boat. The Last Hero knelt on the deck of his foundered boat among the mutilated remains of his comrades, letting the boat carry him away from Athalon. There would be no true escape for him. He was the last human alive.

A massive shape that might have been another island was moving towards the boat. A supercell storm stretched up endlessly about it, and the air stank of ozone. Its many legs became visible through the steam and mist as it ambled on.

Flashes of lightning pierced the mire of fog and smoke, showing the writhing, crawling surface of the monstrosity as it came. Its sagging body was a city’s worth of skinned corpses twisted together. Thousands of eyes belonging to all species gleamed in the fading light. Innumerable mouths were open, all singing.

The Hero looked out across the sea towards his fate. His golden Imperial Legionnaire armor was battered and his red cloak hung in blood-soaked tatters.

The bodies all around him began to stir as the monster drew closer. The singing reached across the water and the bodies convulsed with each note. One groan became a chorus of corpse-voices.

The Hero ignored it. His feverish eyes stared through the beast, at the black sky beyond. He reached one shaking arm upwards and spoke to the heavens themselves.

“Celestar, Hammer of Judgement,” he rasped, as the corpses grabbed onto him. It wasn’t much of a command. He couldn’t hear his words over the singing.

But he felt the golden ring on his middle finger ignite. A fractal image of triangles within triangles shimmered around it in the air.

Above The Last Hero, above the black storm, Celestar awoke. Lights raced across the surface of the metal moon, and a glowing aperture opened. Annihilation descended from it as a pure white beam.

Several things happened within the span of a single heartbeat. The thermal pulse sliced through the planetary atmosphere. Rings of fire filled the sky above the Athalon peninsula. Ionic plasma hotter than the stars vaporised the Imperial Capital and sliced apart the leviathan of flesh standing over it.

Celestar went dark once more.

A mushroom cloud rose from the steaming seabed, painting the world red, parting the clouds. A colossal wave raced towards the lonely sailboat.

The Last Hero watched it come. He cried as he hadn’t cried since he was a child.

There was no one left to see it. He had killed the world with this final act of defiance.

The wave circled the planet three times before all was still.

----------------------------------------

Year 1298. Avalon, Capital of the Human Empire.

    There were songs in every corner of the Imperial Capital. High above Avalon, cutting across the cloud shelf, skywhales resounded their deep harmonies. Monks of the Celestar Order from the Isle of Saint Adriatica sang their blessed hymn “The Forging of the World by The Master Builder”, shaking spherical thuribles.

The City of Avalon was full of raucous urban noise. Human accents from all over the Empire mixed with the honks and guttural rumblings of Ferrum-made steam carriages. Beasts of burden sang, whinnied and howled and brayed, shaking jangling harnesses and clattering down the cobblestone boulevards.

But beneath all these city sounds, Avalon had a tune of its own, one that ruled them all. It echoed through every street bazaar, insistent under the sizzle of fragrant meat and the shouts of vendors hawking piles of glowing roots.

In the quietest walled gardens where scholars sat bickering, it was still present.

It came from every Imperial building and every carriage in Imperial livery. It came from within the lusterless full armor of the Probability Knights, faceless and unmarked save for their infamous sigil. The streets cleared out ahead of them whenever they came through, going quiet save for that noise.

Avalon’s Song of the Future, inescapable and irrepressible, was the buzz and click of a thousand tiny gears manipulating spinning rolls of numbers within gleaming metal carapaces. It was loud and staccato when it emanated from within the great Imperial prediction machines, but no less noticeable coming from the small probability calculators carried by all the ministers and officers of the Empire. The perfectly metered ticking stayed in perfect time with the future clocks shimmering in the great Probability towers.

The probability calculators were worth more than their weight in gold or magisteel. The craftsmanship required to make a single one required the finest workers and mages from across the Imperial realm. Nevertheless, even the dullest street urchins knew to look away from them in fear. The stickiest fingers suddenly turned slick with sweat. The Empire was great and merciful to her subjects. Except for when she wasn’t.

The Imperial ministers liked to describe Avalon as an example of a perfect machine, each gear in perfect magical resonance with all others. They imagined themselves as the brilliant engineers of this faultless system.

Until, all at once, the engineers of civilization found a bit of a clusterfuck crashing down around their ears.

The ticking of the city stuttered, as if time and space had sucked in a surprised breath. And then, all across the city, the tiny metal letters and numbers began to whirr into new positions. The Minister of War spilled his tea when his maid held up his probability calculator for him to see.

The Minister of Plague and Pestilence heard his pet infectoid gurgle in alarm, looked over to the future clock at the end of the Boulevard of Good Works, and became equally upset.

All the probability calculators and Imperial predictors in the city announced that the world would end in twenty-five years. Time-wizards whacked their homebrew calculators with divining rods and blessed crowbars to no avail. A massive Probability Knight withdrew their calculator from within their cloak, its gold chain glittering. The Knight’s helmeted head angled down, and then they held the device up to the narrow visor slit as if to see it better.

There was a commotion in the grand halls of the Conservatory of Continuity. Magisters scurried about barking at clerks to Fix Everything Right Now, and clerks wheedled engineers, demanding that they Explain Everything Right Now. The Master Probability Engine appeared to be running perfectly, but now its endless gilt ticker tape spat out words such as:

CATASTROPHE

SHINY KITTENS

TALKING CORPSES SING BADLY

FLESH MONSTERS RISE

APOCALYPSE

BOOK OF SORROWS

YOU BLEW IT ALL UP

LAST HERO NEEDS BETTER FRIENDS

Engineers and clerks crowded around the machine, their faces pale with shock and confusion. Minister of Continuity Thromf Thadeux, a portly man with an impressive mustache, pushed his way through the throng.

"What in the blazes is going on here?" he bellowed, snatching up the ticker tape. His eyes widened as he read the predictions.

A young clerk named Elirra spoke up, "Sir, all the probability calculators in the city are showing similar results. The future clocks are in agreement - the world will end in twenty-five years.

Thromf scoffed, "Nonsense! This must be some kind of malfunction. Have you tried turning it off and on again?"

"Yes, sir," replied a harried-looking engineer. "We've tried everything. The predictions remain the same. Unless we do something, the world will end."

"M'yes," Thromf muttered again, stroking his mustache. "This sounds like quite the pickle we find ourselves in. But every crisis is an opportunity, as they say!"

Elirra looked puzzled. "An opportunity, sir?"

"Indeed," Thromf's eyes lit up as he eyed the girl up and down. "We've got to work with what we we've been given!"

He tapped something on his personal probability calculator and looked up at Elirra, who was still staring at him. "You there, girl, what's your name again?"

"Elirra, sir."

"Elirra! Lovely name! Follow me into my office!"

When the Minister of Continuity closed the door behind them, he turned to the pink-haired girl. The walls were lined with shelves of ticking probability calculators, their gears whirring softly.

"How would you like to be our newest Minister of Farming?" He grinned.

Elirra's jaw dropped. "Minister of Farming? But sir, I'm just a clerk. I..."

"Your current status is important," the Minister of Continuity waved her off. "What's important is seizing the moment."

"I... don't understand," Elirra blinked. "Why me?"

"You're from Tirconnel Citadel, yes? I can tell by your distinctive violet-orange eyes and pink hair."

"I am," she nodded. "My family owns several Agrilopods, but I decided to go into Administrative work in the capital since I've had no talent in Agromancy."

"Tirconnel is one of the cities of Agropolis," the Minister of Continuity explained. "Being born there is enough for you to be nominated as the Minister of Farming. The current Farming and Harvests died two weeks ago and the Agromancers are still bickering about whom to pick as the next Minister. I'll have the Conservatory of Continuity push you through as the girl who can save their farms from certain destruction."

"And they'll just... vote for me?" She blinked.

"When fools are scared enough of the future they'll vote for any random idiot," Thromf waved her concerns away.

Elirra squinted at him.

"Let me explain the true purpose of our probability engines," Thromf began, settling into a plush armchair, "You see, they're not just for predicting disasters."

Elirra sat across from him, still looking bewildered. "They're not?"

"Of course not!" Thromf exclaimed. "That's just what we tell the public. In reality, these marvelous machines are tools for shaping the future itself."

He leaned forward, lowering his voice conspiratorially. "You see, when the Engines make a prediction and announce it to the people, they react en' masse and change their behavior. And in doing so, they change the future drastically!"

Elirra's eyes widened with understanding. "So we're not just predicting the future, we're influencing it?"

"Precisely!" Thromf beamed. "Now, with this doomsday prediction, we have an unprecedented opportunity. We can guide the entire Empire towards a new future - one of our design, one in which we get to ride the wave of change towards a better tomorrow."

"A better tomorrow?" The girl repeated.

Thromf leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers as he regarded Elirra with a calculating gaze. "My dear, what we have here is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The Empire has grown complacent, stagnant even. Since the deposition of Emperor Maggelan two hundred years ago, we've had the Ministers manage Avalon. But now, with this glorious apocalyptic prediction, we can shake things up!"

Elirra shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "But sir, shouldn't we be trying to prevent the end of the world?"

The Minister of Continuity chuckled. "Prevent it? Oh no, my dear. We're going to orchestrate it."

He stood up and began pacing the room, his excitement palpable. "Everyone saw the scary words. Now everyone will look to Conservatory of Continuity for further guidance... for salvation. Out budget is going to quadruple this year alone!"

Thromf paused, turning to face Elirra with a gleam in his eyes. "And that's where we come in. We'll gradually introduce new policies all under the guise of 'saving the world.' We'll reshape society as we desire! We'll consolidate power like never before. And when the twenty five years are up, and the world doesn't end, we'll be hailed as the saviors of humanity as the people who steered our ship away from the storm!"

The clerk's violet-pink eyes lit up.

The Minister of Continuity leaned in close, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "And that, my dear Elirra, is where you come in. As the new Minister, you'll help me introduce... certain new policies during the meeting. See, if I were to propose them, the others will simply shoot them down, but with a new, pretty face... the probability of the future can be greatly changed. Are you in?"

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"Yes sir," Elirra nodded.

----------------------------------------

The elite Magocracy gathered within the week. Various mage scholars stammered out explanations of the bizarre readings to the Ministers, but nobody was fooled. The Magocrats turned their uncertainty and fear under their bravado and began arguing, each pretending they had a real idea of what to do.

The Minister of War, a lanky man from the Ferrum Isle named Magnus Klein, slammed his fist on the polished marble table. "We must mobilize the Magisteel Legions immediately! If some threat is coming, we need to be ready to face it head-on!"

The Minister of Continuity, leaned back in his chair, a smug smile playing across his lips. "And where exactly would you have them march, Magnus? Against what enemy? We don't yet know the exact nature of this threat."

"That's precisely why we need to be prepared for anything!" Magnus growled, his face flushing red with frustration.

The Minister of Plague and Pestilence, cleared his throat. "Perhaps we should consider more... unconventional methods. My department has been developing some rather interesting strains that could—"

"Absolutely not!" interrupted the Minister of Health, a plump woman. "We will not resort to biological warfare!"

"We could breed a new deadly viral strain designed to take out anyone who's planning to start the apocalypse," the Minister of Plague proposed.

"No!" the Minister of Health shook her many chins. "Last timed we tried that your strain mutated into an annoying flu that infected nearly everyone and didn't even kill the intended targets!"

As the argument escalated, Elirra, the newly appointed Minister of Farming and Harvests, sat quietly, observing the arguments. She caught Thromf's eye, and he gave her a subtle nod.

Taking a deep breath, Elirra stood up, her chair scraping against the marble floor. The room fell silent as all eyes turned to her.

"Ministers," she began, "while we argue, our people grow fearful. Perhaps what we need is not more weapons or plagues, but hope."

"What kind of hope?" The Minister of Health asked.

“If you have a hole in the chicken coop,” the Minister of Farming said, “you don’t get upset about the hole. You get your hounds and you look for the fox.”

“But we haven’t got a chicken coop!” the Minister of the Trust exclaimed.

“The woman thinks that now is a good time for a lecture in basic poultry management?” the Minister of War grumbled.

“No! Look-- it’s-- nevermind, that doesn’t matter. What I’m saying is that we mustn’t focus on the readings. Our engineers tell us that the Probability Engine is not broken. It has not failed us before. So, what we ought to do is look for the anomaly that’s altering the trajectory of the future. Once we find it, we can destroy it.”

The Ministers stared at her blankly. The Minister of Farming pressed on.

“We’ve brought all the spoils of the world to the Empire,” she said. “Strange bewitched artifacts, eldritch creatures, memetic magicks--”

“--Exciting new venereal diseases--” the masked Minister of Plague and Pestilence added approvingly.

“My point is, we’ve brought a good number of metaphorical foxes into our nation. And now we need to round them up and shoot them.”

“Will the shooting be metaphorical as well?” asked the Minister of War. The Minister of Farming smiled.

“Obviously not,” she said. “I raise a vote before the assembled Magocracy. I posit we write up a decree and form a new committee to forcibly confiscate and collect all aberrant items and entities, magical and mundane, that may be threatening the realm. The artifact confiscation will be preformed by our brave Constabulary to give the people of Avalon hope that we're doing something. I propose myself as head of this committee. All in favor, say aye.”

“Aye!” said the Minister of Continuity at once.

"Aye," the Minister of War agreed.

There was a pause as the others considered. The probability calculators continued their frantic mechanical chatter.

“Aye,” said the Minister of Health, who was technically her superior since she was a newly elected Minister.

“Aye,” said the Minister of the Trust, who still seemed a bit confused.

One by one the rest of the Magocracy fell in line and assented unanimously.

“We’ll need some hounds, then,” she said, turning to the Minister of Continuity. “The Empire's put a lot of gold into those Probability Knights of yours. It’s about time they had a proper crusade.”

The Minister of Continuity smiled under his bristling mustache. “Indeed."

The Minister of Farming turned to the rest of the Magocracy.

“I’ll be recruiting other Ministries to serve the Future Disaster Committee as I see fit. For now, go about your duties. We have an Empire to run.”

----------------------------------------

Year 1298. The deepest catacombs of Avalon.

In times of old, Athalon had been called the Hollow Realm. The people who had called it that were long gone, of course, but it was still true. The mountains were riddled with thousands of miles of tunnels, grottoes, crevasses, caverns and massive hollows, spiraling down through the islands and burrowing deep below the seafloor on which they stood.

Human cartographers had mapped at least five hundred and fifty-five levels, but the casualty rate for explorers was very high and nobody really knew for sure. After all, there were things down there that quite liked their privacy. And there were answers to questions that should never, ever be asked.

A tiny bald wizard raced through the echoing black depths. He was carrying a backpack nearly as big as he was, and accompanied only by an orb of light that bounced along above him. He had been running for days, maybe weeks. There was no day nor night in the tunnels. He’d passed through strange subterranean villages and evaded the hungry things that waited in the dark, and now he simply ran.

He had committed one of the best Imperial maps to memory, and he faithfully chose the correct fork of each tunnel, and scrambled through the right crevices. He was running too fast to look at a map anyways, and his hands were full with a giant leathery tome.

He was fighting with the book even as he ran, trying to scrub the title off of the gnarled cover. The letters bubbled up and reformed each time, always spelling out the same title: The Necronomicon.

Acid, magical razors and curses made no difference. The book insisted its title over and over.

The Necronomicon.

The Necronomicon.

The Necronomicon.

“Bloody hell, you’re stubborn,” panted the wizard. He skidded to a stop, dropped the book, and put his hands on his knees while he caught his breath. The snake-venom potion that had given him his strength so far seemed to be wearing off a bit. He pulled a vial from his bag of holding.

Adder-All! The vial read. Solves all your problems! The wizard threw back the rest of the potion with a grimace and fumbled around for his blood-magic quill, dipping its tip in whiskey to sterilize it before stabbing it nervously into his quivering arm. The quill eagerly sipped up the dark venous blood.

The wizard wrote his new title over the reforming letters on the book’s cover.

AdvEnture's GUide to ADvENtuRing

DUngEons in DRaGons

“You’re making a mistake there,” the book said, irritably.

“Shut your cursed book mouth!” the tiny wizard snapped. “I’m trying to save all of humanity, you leathery old beast!”

“Alright then, carry on with the mutilation. Hope you know what you’re doing,” said the book, cooly. “Altering my narrative is a dangerous undertaking.”

The wizard ignored the book, trying to orient himself. He ran through miles and miles of tunnels in his head, trying to figure out where exactly he was.

“Left, right, past the glowing pools of Gwend, down the third crevasse… where’s the damn tunnel?”

“You missed a right back past the forbidden sacrificial altar of the Gorefield,” the book said, tiredly.

The wizard cursed and turned back, finding his way once more. He was closer than he’d realized. Soon he entered a cavernous passageway with an arched ceiling curving up into blackness beyond his floating light. The stone was stained and blackened, and there were patches of greasy residue under his feet. Metal glimmered at the edge of his light, and he moved forwards to see a crumpled metal sign warped by heat. The metal had the unique luster of Ferrum handiwork; no ordinary flame could have melted it.

The sign had a single word embossed into it, letters painted chipped red: DRAGON.

There were more signs further in. DRAGON. DRAKON. ENTER AT YOUR OWN PERIL. OGNEVIKA. ДРАКОН. Skull-and-bones icons stared down at him along with alchemist sigils warning of fire and explosives. A mushrooming cloud that formed a heart had been painted directly onto the rock in dripping red.

There was a strange smell that intensified as the wizard advanced past the signs. It was sooty and rich, like the blackened grease dripping beneath a roasting beast on a spit.

The passage became narrow, the ceiling lower, the stone blacker. There were funny, lighter shapes on the walls that looked sort of like people frozen into startled poses. There was junk on the ground that the wizard suspected might have been people. Now it was impossible to tell where armor, clothing and flesh had been separate. He avoided looking down.

“Oh, this is nice,” the book said. The wizard jumped. “Plenty of free skeletons down here.”

The wizard hissed a silencing spell at the book, sparks spitting from his lips.

Now there were no more human remains, save for the thin layer of black grime. Only warped pieces of armor remained, and a handful of sorry-looking weapons.

“Look at all this free stuff,” the book whispered.

Indeed, there were more shining things up ahead. The narrow passage was opening up into a softly-glowing chamber piled high with glittering treasure. Above and around the hoard, fainter but no less breathtaking, flickered valuable crystals of mana, emerging from stalactites and stalagmites all around the immense cave.

The pile of treasure sloped up, as great piles of treasure tend to do, towards the massive coiled form of a sleeping dragon. The lustrous red scales shifted smoothly as the creature snored. The wizard extinguished his light and continued down the slope into the hoard cavern. When he reached the base of the treasure pile, the wizard shifted his grip on the book, cocked his arm back, and aimed at the dragon.

“Oi!” the book whispered hoarsely. “Don’t just chuck me, I’m extremely valu--”

The wizard launched the book upwards with an air spell, which flew in a decent arc, leather pages flapping as noisily as pigeon wings, and landed on the dragon’s forehead.

The dragon snorted out a streak of dragonfire in annoyance. A single golden eye opened.

“Seriously, who throws a book?” she muttered.

The wizard didn’t answer, as he was now on fire.

“Ahhhhckkhhkk,” he said.

“You know, normally adventurers try to take this stuff,” the dragon remarked. “This isn’t a dump, contrary to how it looks.” The wizard ignored her, desperately casting an aquacceo charm. Steam burst off of his body and the flames flared higher.

The dragon tutted at him. “That’s dragonfire for you,” she said. “Water only makes it worse.”

The wizard had fallen into a smoldering, unmoving heap. The dragon wrinkled her nose and went to investigate the book. She pinched it between two claws and held it up, turning it in the faint light.

“This better at least be valuable,” she muttered. “I’m not running a junkyard here. Evaluate item!”

[________________]

The Appraisal incantation merely displayed an empty frame in her field of vision. As the dragon stared at the utterly blank description, the book slithered out from between her claws and fell back down the sliding piles of gold. The dragon squinted suspiciously at it. The title was written in uneven, crooked letters. It smelled like musty leather armor, but… worse.

“And now there’s a questionable book in my hoard,” she griped. “Dungeons… in Dragons? Seriously? Hey, small wizard-- you still alive over there? Where’s your party? Who just wanders around in the catacombs with a sketchy book? You some kind of perv or something?”

The wizard was too dead to answer these questions.

There was a metallic clattering as a blue kobold came skidding into the hoard room, bounding across the loose and shifting mounds of treasure.

“Mistress Ognevika!” the kobold cried. “I heard a man and smelled his magics!”

Ognevika glanced over at the lump that had been the wizard.

“He’s magicked his last, I believe. Wizard-shaped barbeque, if you like it.”

The kobold grinned, showing rows of small, needle-sharp teeth.

“We can eat him?”

“You know the drill,” Ognevika said. “Undress it, dump any valuables into the hoard, eat the rest. Oh, and search him for rubies. I might be hungry later.”

She pointed at the book sitting in her hoard.

“While you’re at it, take this questionable book away. While hilariously named it's clearly worthless and now it’s interfering with my nap time.” She punctuated this last sentence with a cavernous yawn that made her massive jaws pop.

The blue kobold dutifully clambered up the hoard, taking a bit of time to claw the book out of the pile of other things. By the time she scampered back down, the wizard’s corpse was surrounded by other kobolds with colorful, crystalline scales.

One whipped around as she drew near and hissed in her face.

“Agate, the slowpoke! Last come, last get! You doesn’t deserve any manflesh!”

Agate could still smell the tasty roasted meat; her mouth watered. The others glowered at her, clearly waiting for her to shove off. They were all bigger than her. Without their blessing, she had no right to eat here.

Agate knew better than to stick around and test their patience. She fled with her stomach growling, scampering down the narrow kobold-sized passages leading out of Ognevika’s chamber, carrying the leathery tome along with her. She didn’t know what she was meant to do with it. She licked the book, seeking more information. It tasted of old tanned skins, with darker, bitter notes under that. Perhaps, it would make for a nice snack?

Agate carried the tasty book into the dense warren of tunnels leading through the solid rock to the second, larger chamber behind Ognevika’s hoard. She felt the rumble of the subterranean waterfall nearby as the tunnel widened and opened into a magnificent chamber the size of a city block. High above, the distant ceilings of the chamber were covered with glowing clusters of crystals. The air was cool and fresh from the waterfall, near which Agate had emerged. The water flowed between glittering sandbars and past the towering hollow columns that stretched up to the chamber ceiling. Agate hopped from sandbar to sandbar, splashing through cool, clear puddles as she made her way to one of the stone columns and entered another tunnel at its base.

The narrow spiralling passage led up and up into the cluster of kobold dens high above the ground, near the glowing ceiling.

Before she could retreat into her own den, she came upon another group blocking the tunnel ahead. She tried to make herself small and slip through undetected. The others laughed as she tried desperately to push past.

“Hey, dum-dum, whatcha got there? A book?”

“Trying to look smart? It won’t work! S’not like you can read!”

“I bet she already slobbered all over it, tryin’ to gain smarts by eatin’ it,” a big, unpleasantly green kobold drawled. The others cackled at this comical suggestion.

“That’s gotta be it, Screw,” another said to the big green kobold.

“You’re wasting your time trying to gain its power by eating it,” Screw told her. “Nobody’s fooled. Nobody wants a rock-licking, slimy, webbed moron like you as a mate.”

Agate focused on being small and inoffensive, pretending that she was a pointy cave rock instead of a kobold. She’d heard all the insults before, but her face flushed at the slobbering comment. She had planned to nibble on the book, but now she felt too ashamed to do so. Finally, she crept into the shelter of her own little moss nest. It was set a bit away from the other young females, which she’d learned was a wise strategy for her.

Bioluminescent patches of moss provided a soft and soothing light perfect for sensitive kobold eyes. Brighter crystal shards twinkled within the moss. At last Agate relaxed and set about investigating the item the Mistress had left with her.

Agate set the book down and squatted in front of it, flicking through the pages without much interest. It was true that she couldn’t read, and there weren’t many pictures. She decided to add some. She rummaged around in her nest of rags and tattered pelts until she found a charcoal stick that she sometimes liked to scribble with. And then she found a blank page.

“What are you doing, you little wretch?” the book demanded with a barely audible voice, still mostly muffled by the wizard’s spell. “You're supposed to read me, not write stuff in!”

The kobold’s catlike pupils widened with surprise.

“A talking book?” she gasped, and shook the book as if expecting something to rattle around.

“First the wizard tampers with my title, and now this,” the book said. “Hey-- enough-- that’s enough of the shaking! All the words will fall out.”

The book was alive, it whispered words to her! Was it some sort of a sneaky, mimick-y critter masquerading as a book? Did that make it okay to eat it? The commotion had gotten the attention of the nearest female neighbors. They were poking their heads out of their dens and watching Agate closely.

The book didn’t realize that these judgmental glares were saving it from certain consumption.

Agate contemplated the nature of talking books. Mimical critters did not chat, they bit you with fleshy insides, she recalled. Without a doubt this was a much more advanced form of dungeon life.

“...Do you want to be friends?” Agate whispered to the book.

“No,” the book answered, coldly, cleaving Agate’s little crystalline heart.

Agate angrily put the book down, and then grabbed her charcoal stick again. She was determined to draw in it now, talking or not. This book deserved to be drawn in! The book just sighed with annoyance.

Agate began to draw a happy picture. The ancient yellowed page accepted the charcoal with a slight hiss. She drew Ognevika her mistress flying above a human hive, burning it with dragonfire. Below that, she drew a lonely little kobold like herself, daydreaming, wishing for a best friend that could be as clever and wonderful as her mistress.

“Ah yes, all your master’s charming personality, and none of her power,” the book sneered. “All of her memories, but no ability to smite you. Yeah. That’d make a great friend, I’m sure.”

Agate stared at the book with her plain, somewhat daft-looking face screwed up into her meanest look.

“Books taste bad,” she said, adding a pretty spiral pattern around the drawing of the kobold and the dragon. She wanted to say something much more hurtful, but she couldn’t think of these things on the spot.

“Well, from the mouths of fools…” the book conceded. It didn’t offer any more comment on Agate’s artwork, but it whispered all the while in deep, foreboding undertones.

Many voices overlapped and resonated. It went quiet when the kobold grew bored of the annoying whispering and shut the book, her drawings hidden within.

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