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100 - Secrets of the Atropal [Cherno]
🕑 Added 2023-07-14 20:08:41 +0000 UTCLater in the day, she went to the Temple of Records. They let her in without asking any questions, with the librarian stating: “The High Grafter has made arrangements in your stead. You have access to Sections One through Sixteen, as well as special access to Section Thirty-eight. Temporary supernormal access may be requested, though it may not be granted. Our public title archive includes a comprehensive inventory of all documents within the first thirty sections.”
Unlike the Central Temple’s receptionist, the librarian was a grizzled-looking human man, with burning metal spheres in place of eyeballs and thick cables coming out the back of his head to connect into spots on his back. He was friendlier than the Central Temple receptionist.
Krahe had an easy time finding the documents she was looking for, or at least the general category. Everything was sorted by general topic, then by subtopic, and then alphabetically. Books on the basics of harnessing eidolons, known by other terms as demonology, occultism, theurgy, or spiritualism, were found far from any restricted section. In fact, they were so far in the open that Krahe felt the need to take them and scurry into a secluded corner to read.
There, she learned, first of all, that Eidolons could be bound in a vast variety of ways, not necessarily requiring a pre-empowered vessel as she had been made to believe by Thaumshot. It was, rather, one of the easiest methods of harnessing Eidolons, because the user didn’t need to actually work with the eidolon; the vessel itself contained the instructions for the spirit alongside everything “extra” needed to make it achieve a specific result.
“Throughout history, such objects of power have ever found their place among the most common and most well-established of conduits for eidolons, and for good reason. Sacrificial effigies, talismans and scrolls, arrows and more recently bullets. There is, however, good reason why the mighty wizards of olden times were so famous for memorizing their mightiest magicks and wielding wands and staves...”
She split her attention to a notably thinner and trashier-looking book, with a ghostly yellow snake winding its way around the Banishment Wheel with a representation of Zastreon in the center. Blocky, yellow lettering across the cover read:
SECRETS
OF
THE ATROPAL
Despite the sensationalist cover and foreword, claiming to have been written by a renegade from the group that first developed the Atropal line of Thaumshot, the book itself was very factual and well put-together. It went over the whole history of modern Thaumshot manufacture, placing great emphasis on how the majority of new Thaumshot was refined and empowered by a vanishingly tiny number of highly skilled craftsmen. It also openly admitted that their work was targeted at those who lack the skill, the patience, the understanding, or all of the above to make their own eidolon conduits and put together the instructions for the spirit.
“Imagine my shock, then, when I heard of well-respected wizards throwing around Citrine Atropals because they were, in their own words, good enough to get the job done.”
The history of Atropals and their rivalry with Reapers apparently went back over two thousand years, with the two eidolonmancies having been embedded in every conceivable form of conduit throughout the millennia. One particularly interesting method that stood out was the usage of scrolls wrapped all around a particularly high-grade casting catalyst, such as a staff, allowing the user to benefit from the flexibility of scrolls while empowering the effects with a casting catalyst. The book went on to lament that Thaumshot still fell short of more traditional methods in this regard, unless the firearm was explicitly designed to amplify a particular Thaumshot type, in which case it would be incompatible with others. Dregshot apparently outperformed Thaumshot in terms of output and was easier to manuafcture, but had its own flaws, including lack of focus and no reusability.
When she reached the section that meticulously broke down how an Atropal worked, Krahe realized what this book really was: A craftsman’s effort to procreate in the memetic sense, to pass his own discipline onto the next generation.
That same section also ended up swallowing her for several hours, with Krahe compulsively correlating everything with her own understanding of weapons systems. It was altogether occult and mind-bending, but by the time she tore her eyes away from the book, she felt like she had gained enough understanding to experiment with theurgy for her own. She had also learned that “Theurgy” was the most commonly used word for specifically referring to the pattern by which the power of an eidolon was channeled into forming the likes of Reapers and Atropals.
Before any experimentation, however, she needed to figure out how to get herself an eidolon. She read and read and read, finding numerous different methods and rituals, but, eventually, she became frustrated and queried Chernobog’s Mystic Wisdom regarding the Snare-sign of Blackest Pitch, and how she might most easily catch herself an eidolon. It pointed her towards Section Thirty Eight. So, she checked out a hefty stack of books, some scrolls, and a memslate, and made her way there.
Section Thirty Eight was well underground, in a cold, dry-aired chamber with heavy stone doors that used three keys, all of which the librarian had given to her. It was also a very small room, more of a large closet tucked away in the corner.
There, she found scrolls on Astro Diving and immediately knew why she had been given special access. Among them were texts penned by Barzai himself, significantly more readable than anything pertaining to the Liminal Coil.
Not only did she find instructions on how she might carry out a Full Dive, she found a whole rite for doing so safely and with precautions, the so-called Rite of Dho-Hna. The prerequisites were only that one needs to be capable of performing a Partial Dive unassisted, leading Krahe to believe she could make use of this rite even without a Gulf Key. The many treasures of Section Thirty Eight numbered far more than merely four volumes. However, Krahe found that, for the time being, most everything beyond the fourth volume was incomprehensible to her or simply covered the same topics from a different perspective. So, she took with her the first four volumes of Barzai’s work.
DREAM-QUESTS INTO THE ASTRAL GULF VOL. 1
OF YE UNGUENTS AND ANGLE-WEBS MOST SUBLIME
DREAM-QUESTS INTO THE ASTRAL GULF VOL. 2
OF YE INVOCATIONS AND WORDS OF POWER
DREAM-QUESTS INTO THE ASTRAL GULF VOL. 3
OF PASSING THROUGH THE VEIL WITHOUT RENDING IT
DREAM-QUESTS INTO THE ASTRAL GULF VOL. 4
OF YE RITE OF DHO-HNA
