Temperance composes a letter to send home explaining the concept of a printing press and then goes to sleep. She wakes up early and starts doing magic research on her own. Comparing what she knows and what the book tells her. She has a late lunch and then remembers to actually send her letter.
That done she sits in the library and proceeds with her research. She ate enough at lunch that she decides to skip dinner and wait for Kaede while reading.
"Not unless they're specifically made to, but it's not unimaginable that a light source would."
...well now they get back to staring at nothing, with a possible pause to try to figure out what the rest of the contents of that cube are.
They take turns, sometimes breaks to figure out sorcery just to have a different thing to do.
Felix relearns everything he can about sorcery, memorizing some rituals that he can do in a pinch.
Accessible to non-metamancers! They should perhaps multitask and let Felix read them while Temperance and Kaede squint at stuff.
There are years of entries—where does he want to start?
The first entry to see if he can get any basic details (ideally the identity of whoever wrote the journal), then he is going to take a look at the last entry.
It starts with a date in some date system other than the one present-day Galatea seems to use. Then the actual log starts, in a language that is as readable to someone fluent in Laokaban as 1700s English would be to Felix:
There have been a lot of suspicious sightings reported at the border with Malaod, no one's sure what to make of those. Atana thinks we should mobilise and prepare for an attack, perhaps even actually prepare an attack. Strike first and all that. Much too premature, if you should ask my opinion, and thankfully my opinion on these matters is in fact often asked. Besides, if it turns out to be nothing on their side they'll have reason to be suspicious of us and that'd be a disaster. Plus, overland scouts have failed to confirm these sightings. I'm loath to accuse anyone, but Atana's been itching... Anyway, I managed to talk him down—or, at least, delay him—so for now that's that. We should maybe just keep a few more eyes out, but nothing threatening, not for now. And Larinad said they'd ally with us if it came to a fight.
In other news I managed to talk Bebia around on the immigration issue, we'll hopefully be seeing a couple of changes being helpfully suggested here and there over the next couple of months. Maybe that if anything will help defuse the tensions, help us keep the image of a peaceful giant and all that—and provide aid to Thebeean refugees, which is the whole point after all. Cost me a couple of favours but should be all good.
Relationship with the South is stable, if not the friendliest. Their superstitions make negotiation difficult, and it's not like they don't have a point, when leaders of seven out of eighteen nations are metas that is rather suspicious, but, well, at least I know Bebia's honest, and so am I. We're drawn to positions of power, what can we do? Also Vinnik's an ass, I have no idea how he managed to get elected, and that doesn't make things better for anyone.
Day's been mostly quiet, otherwise, I shouldn't worry so much. Ninie sent me pictures, the little ones are growing way too fast for me to keep up, I might need to pay her a visit soon.
Felix morbidly wonders how long the "little ones" survived.
He reads the last log.
It's dated thirty-seven years after the first one.
This is all or nothing, and my last entry. I got Bebia today, and I'm certain Vinnik will join in when he can. I hope this is enough. Whoever you are, who's reading this—I hope this is enough. I hope you will be able to learn from our mistakes, I hope this information will be sufficient for them not to be made again. I hope someone actually reads this, I hope we have not completely exterminated all life on this planet.
Here I go into the unknown.
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