"We're on a mission from God." -- Elwood Blues

There was a book, or possibly a fancier name would be more appropriate. A codex? a grimoire? In any event, one sized for a creature clearly larger than a gnome, and with runic text incised into thin sheets of some metal or mineral I did not recognize. In my mana sight, it positively oozed with a virulent void aura that my mind couldn't quite decide was black or purple or some oscillating shade in between. It was not a color meant to be transmitted along optic nerves, and while mana sight didn't work that way, my mind still wanted to assign it a familiar category. The aura itself burned somewhat, and I couldn't decide if it was too hot or too cold. I guess what I'm trying to say is that while I am a true lover of books, and the older and odder the better, this one felt, well...wrong in some indescribable fashion. And I hadn't even tried to read the incised text yet; frankly, I wasn't even sure that I should, but I knew that pretending it didn't exist was never going to work.

It wasn't a large book by the standards of my old world – neither particularly large nor especially thick. In a moment of dissociation, I found myself pondering how they bound metal sheets to a metal cover and still made it able to flex as though it were paper (or at least a thick parchment). I shook free of those mental cobwebs quickly, though, recognizing that this was the least of the mysteries surrounding this apparently fell artifact.

I had the distinct feeling that this was a book I should not attempt to absorb, and I wasn't sure I could if I wanted to given the mana levels it gave off. It seemed clear to me that the gnomes must have felt equally conflicted by the lure of its power and the repulsion of its aura, and I was oddly confident that this book had left a string of cursed, or at least insane, gnomish wizards in its wake before it had been sealed away.

And it had been sealed; I had felt the breaking of some divine seal as I claimed the small trapdoor built into the ceiling. Now, all that restrained it was a thin, silvery chain glinting with minute runic engravings and tiny inlaid gems – itself magical and divine, if flickering slightly in my mana sight. It had been built to last, but even so its durability wasn't equal to that of the book.

I wondered why it had been left behind. Had it been hidden away and subsequently forgotten? Simply abandoned when the settlement was? Both seemed eminently possible, though I don't know how any wizard worth their salt could sit in the room below and not notice its aura of impersonal malevolence. I assume the divine seal that had just broken might explain that. I suspected that Janelle would be seeing its title pop up on her list, though there was simply no way I was going to upload it to the archives. Hopefully someone responsible would reach out, and I could have it secured wherever the authorities squirreled away such repellent things.

Suspecting I was going to regret it, I let my mana sight pass over the inscribed title on the front cover, and blessing the lack of any other adornment, I translated the title.

On the Summoning of Void Destroyers

Color me unsurprised. The book that was giving off a dire, eldritch aura covered the summoning of dire, eldritch monsters. Yeah, I wasn't touching this thing any more than I had done already. In fact, I took a half hour and sealed the whole mess behind a meter-thick wall of stone just to make sure no one else happened upon it. Sadly, I couldn't restore the seal, though I resolved to return to my core room and attempt to contact the Goddess of Knowledge. I was hopeful that she'd point me towards an appropriate way to dispose of the thing. I suspected that I could unmake the thing from a purely physical perspective, but I got the sense something was bound to that book and setting it loose would be the worst possible result.

Ironically, I was pretty confident that, like the hammer in their museum, this was a relic of the original builders. Both felt innately powerful, but this one felt horrifying in ways the hammer did not. Perhaps for a race of void-aspected dwarves, void devourers weren't a point of particular concern. I didn't really believe that though, and my suspicion was that even for the original builders this had been an accursed item that they weren't able to dispose of safely. Hopefully, whoever had created it had received some appropriate punishment millennia ago.

Trying rather unsuccessfully to dismiss the book from at least my conscious mind, I turned to the basement space on the other side of the lobby. As I'd rather expected, the space very nearly mirrored the other side, though with some variations. Where the iconography in the main hall on the other side of the basement seemed to refer to magic, the carvings here were geared more towards technology, or at least mechanical works. I saw stylized representations of the various simple tools – screws, inclined planes, levers, pulleys, and the like, switching over to water wheels, windmills, and eventually to stylized representations I could only guess at. I guessed that if the other side had been a magic library, this one was geared towards engineering, or at least tinkering.

The furnishings, or what remained of them were closely akin, though the table on this side showed more scarring and staining, suggesting it had seen hard use in its day. I was, in retrospect, a bit surprised not to have seen similar indications on the table on the other side, but either they had rules forbidding it, or one of the earth mages simply restored it periodically. The bookcases had a similar construction but lacked the security measures of the magic side – no hihi'irokane here.

The podium had a similar trigger for a secret door, though it didn't require the input of mana of any kind. Rather, the inset button required a squirt of lubricant in order to function, and I found traces of mineral oil in a small reservoir below the button. Depressing that button and holding it allowed for a second individual to trigger a series of hidden latches on the secret door on the far wall.

Okay, so it wasn't just wizards and their secrets – the engineers were hiding things too. I hesitated to guess what they had concealed. And fortunately, I didn't have to. The space beyond the hidden door was not all that different from the mage's equivalent, though it had less of a sinister aura to it. I couldn't be assured of that, though – they had their own secret, sequestered spaces, but this time they were all empty. Whatever devices they'd felt deserved to be tucked away behind multiple layers of secrecy were long gone, presumably never to return. Just as well, I supposed. I had uncovered enough hidden horrors for one day.

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Still, I'd completed my self-appointed quest for a library and had plenty of material to build into a gnome-themed, third floor. As it was nearing dawn, I returned my focus to my core room and decided to come up with an appropriate gift to offer on the altar of the Goddess of Knowledge before requesting her advice. It didn't take me long to come up with something that fit the mood, though I wasn't entirely sure what she'd make of it.

Along with a fervent, if not particularly pious, request for advice, I offered up a copy of The Complete Fiction of HP Lovecraft. I'd read those works as a teen and periodically came back to them. I'd even briefly played Call of Cthulhu in high school and found the sanity mechanic a rather novel approach at the time. They were rather luridly written in what I could only consider purple prose, but it DID have a way of capturing ones' attention and imagination. And if anything was going to speak to a horrible book dealing with the summoning of things from beyond the mortal plane, that was certainly going to be it.

Between the offering and my prayer (such as it was), it seemed to get the message across fairly directly, and I felt the goddess' attention descend upon me with an air of concern and bemusement. Very much a sense of "What have you gotten yourself into now?" going on. She listened to my recounting, and I got a sense that she may have even reviewed the relevant memory directly. There remained no direct speech from her, but I was given the distinct impression that an appropriate representative would be sent to take possession of the artifact. At the same time, I received a general sense of approval for having the sense NOT to read the damned thing.

The goddess disconnecting was abrupt but gentle, and I took a few moments to ponder my next move.

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Sir Milback Fremmoor resisted the urge to hold his face in his hands as he received the commands of his God, Zymther, Lord of Order. It wasn't unprecedented to receive direction directly, but Zymther often seemed to have little sense of mortal perceptions of time, or at least, little regard for them.

It was very nearly 4 AM in the small, island village of Prongbarrow where the aging gnomish paladin had only just defeated the group of boggarts tormenting the villagers about three hours earlier, and he'd been eager to catch a few hours' sleep. Still, this was the job, and so he listened patiently as his patron deity ran down the basic quest outline.

He sighed. "So to be clear... You want me to travel 3000 km to the sky island of Tel Dorinth. Home to a dragon. Enter a brand new dungeon that was apparently reincarnated from an outworlder. Descend to its farthest depths. Explore a truly ancient ruin. Locate a powerful magical artifact in the form of a book dealing with forbidden summoning rituals. Remove it and transport it to the secured vaults of the Goddess of Knowledge if it cannot simply be destroyed in place. Is that about it?"

"Yes, Milback. That IS what I said." responded his Lord, a bit peevishly.

"With all due respect my lord, WHY ME?! There must be a closer paladin to take up this task. You recall that I'm over 400 years old, yes? And frankly, not that powerful as paladin's go?" The venerable gnome ran his still powerful hand through his thinning hair as he once again wished he'd been awake and in his armor rather than asleep in his nightshirt when the call had come. Somehow, he felt, that would have made this conversation more palatable. He grimaced, a bit ruefully.

"I'm aware. I have quite the decent memory, you may recall. To address your points, yes, there are other paladins that are closer, though not as many as you might think. They are not as suitable. It may have escaped your attention, since I recognize I woke you from a sound sleep, but the book is contained within the cellar of a library in an ancient GNOMISH city, making approaching it difficult for larger paladins. You are, in fact, the closest gnomish paladin available, and a paladin seems the right person for this particular job.

As for your level of power, well you're hardly weak, and this should not, in all likelihood, be particularly dangerous aside from dealing with the artifact itself. The dragon is tolerating visitors to the sky island, and the dungeon is essentially welcoming to visitors as a divinely placed and sapient example. In fact, it is the one who reached out to request help. As for the travel, well, I've made arrangements for you to be teleported to join an expedition from the Adventurer's Guild in the Orclands. I'd have you dropped directly on the island, but it's rather less clear how the dragon would react to that. There is rather a contentious history of paladins, in particular, being teleported into dragons' territory, so they don't really tolerate that on general principles."

Milback blew out a puff of air in abashed resignation. "Fine, fine. Where do I need to go to find the space mage? And how long do I have to get there?"

This time it was the God's turn to grimace. "Ah, well... There was a reason I woke you, I'm afraid. You'll be needing to mount up directly and make all speed to Skippermoor; if you're going to catch up to the Orc party, you're going to need to make it to the spatial mage by 3 PM tomorrow."

Milback groaned. "So a 25 km ride on two hours sleep, followed by one of those wrenching portals, to join up with a party of Orcish adventurers? Marvelous. Hopefully I'll at least be able to catch up on my sleep on the skyship."

His patron deity winced. "About that..."

**************************************************

The gnomish paladin wasn't the only one whose morning was off to a rough start. Lazgar, paladin of Drogma, jolted awake, having been given a divine update of his own. He, at least, had a few hours to make arrangements, and those were only going to be feasible because of the nature of the companion who'd just been added to the expedition.

"Great. Just great. This was already looking to be an embarrassing shitshow of an expedition, and now we have another paladin, for a god of Order, no less, watching over our shoulders. And with a secret mission of his own, apparently. I notice that I was not informed as to how that might impact our visit. I wonder if anyone has thought about how the dragon will react to having a couple of paladins arrive on her doorstep unannounced?

Well, not like she's going to be worried about a gnomish paladin of Order, I suppose. Couple that with the bedamned shipment from the central archives and we're basically glorified deliverymen at this point."

He barely noticed as the sturdy leather boot bounced off his back. "Why all the fucking muttering over there? Some of us are trying to get some sleep in before this ridiculous mission of ours kicks off," Lugrub griped, pulling her long, black hair into a quick horsetail braid. She chucked her other boot at her brother, snoring steadily away in his corner of the shared room; his snoring didn't abate, but he did roll over and face the other direction.

Orbul, by habit an early riser, had caught most of Lazgar's muttering and summed up, smirking, as she addressed the rogue. "Sounds like Drogma's added a chore to our dungeon run. Looks like we're bringing another paladin along for some reason. I'm not angry to have the help, but I AM concerned that there's something in that dungeon that requires TWO paladins to deal with." She turned to Lazgar, "And did you say 'gnomish paladin of order'? That's... unusual."

He nodded with a grunt. "Yeah. Don't think his mission involves us any farther than getting to the sky island, though. Far as I know, there's no part in whatever that divine mission is for me, beyond getting him there and back."

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