Thanks Marty! Well this new information raises a lot of questions.
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Ascender’s new response.
I don’t know how much I can help with complication 15 but if you tell what you know, what you need, I’ll do what I can. But I have to tell you, my mind is elsewhere these days.
First off, the Joradian safeguard seems to work here, on the front face at least, but the storm can get in through us, bypassing its protection. Don’t spend to much time here. We jeopardize anyone who’s still hiding and checking here for help when we do.
Do you remember when Luminor found the poem hidden in complication 3? It had nothing to do with that phase so we thought it was just a bonus narrative. (Back when a lot of us thought this was some kind of game. We were all naive then.) Well, a couple months ago I found a reference in a book from the “AG vault” the Benefactor found. It was a book about witchcraft and historical magic myth. It referenced a half-finished “story spell” called The Lantern of Low Hollow. The page had the illustration of a snake. The same snake that surrounded the Record of Loss in complication 3. The poem they found was The Lantern of Low Hollow.
The old story says there was a blacksmith whose wife had become possessed, ranting and raving, hurting herself and other people. Cursing god and swearing allegiance to the devil. Her doctor wanted to perform trepanation. Their community wanted her drowned. Their friends and family abandoned them. Desperate, the blacksmith wrote a prayer, a poem, that he hoped God would hear. He hoped it would help reveal she wasn’t possessed at all, but as he suspected, being controlled by some physical force. Not by some devil, but by a vengeful person. With the poem he created a way to hear “voices on the wind.”
I’d tried it on the book, but it didn’t work. So I forgot about it. Until we saw Missouri and the others in the woods, like they were commanded by someone to wait for us. Until Knatz and I saw the storm firsthand. When it touched me and I thought I saw something in it. Heard something. I started wondering what it was and how it worked. Was it some metaphysical force of nature, bent on stopping anyone who tried to learn the truth? Or was it guided by something, or someone else.
So a few weeks ago I rented a motel cabin, left my laptop logged into the forum, and hid in another room across the street. The storm came again. Searching for me. I cast The Lantern of Low Hollow and heard the voice of someone telling it to come for us. To wipe the mountaineers out. To “seek them and take their minds until none remain who know.”
I’ve been luring it out, the storm. Listening. Trying to figure out who’s talking to it, where they are, and how I can get to them. There are other sounds, other thoughts, I just don’t have the power to hear them. But they have to slip up at some point. Say something that reveals them. I know I’m playing a dangerous game. The storm’s almost found me more than once. I think it hears me too, listening. And it’s getting closer to catching me every time I light the lantern fire.
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So do we use “The Lantern of Low Hollow” spell to help in our fight against the storm?
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Stay safe! Hopefully you’ll here from them soon. We’ll keep working on the Fragment and the Defensive and Offensive spells!
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Someone is online again
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Those times someone’s on and there are no updates must be when he’s trying to lure the Storm out for some eavesdropping.
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Random thoughts.
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Ascender seems to assume we’re from his lodge, or at least familiar with his lodge’s history with the Complications.
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Interesting both fragment 3’s seem to involve poems and stories involving loss, but maybe not important…maybe.
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I think we can save Ascender from a lot of danger if we just told him about the Silver behind the storm and the Palace of Doors. Any thoughts on this? It wouldn’t reveal anything about us being in the future.
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As for what we need for Fragment 15. We need anything he has, any clues the book sent out, or anything. I’m not sure what to ask for specifically.
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I think we can’t. we dont know the poem.
either way, we should be more safeguarded, but its only a matter of time until we need to write back.
new message to them involving what we know of Complication 15?
maybe provide them with a word to help jog their book’s memory and give us some instruction?
Cause we dont know what the next clue is.
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We might need to provide their book with a prompt.
I still think we should try to link him the General shield sigil from Aorthora.
We might need to prompt him with the minnying as well, maybe that will awaken their book.
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I think we should tell him about the silver as it could benifit us in the long run but it could also change the time line
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I think we should definitely tell him what we know about the Silver - it may give him more background to piece together snippets he hears from the storm when he casts the Lantern spell.
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I agree with everything, especially telling him about the Silver. And he will ask about how we know about them. So we tell him we found a page in a journal that talked about the different paths?
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Here’s a stab at a reply. I was struck by the urge to write, sorry for the length. Feel free to edit and change.
Actually we don’t know Luminor.
This is going to be complicated. We are from another lodge, another community entirely. And it’s become clear to us we’ve been following a similar, but different path from the Book of Briars than you.
After the third assessment the book stopped speaking to us. It simply left us a small window we could use to communicate to someone. We had no idea who. Turned out it was your lodge.
Our tin foil hat wearing theorists (I’m assuming your lodge had them too?) thinks we were a backup lodge. We were meant to learn how to solve our complications, and learn some lore, but we were never meant to open the Book ourselves. We think the book stopped speaking to us as a safeguard of sorts. To protect us so we could solve the last complications. Unfortunately for your lodge it still wants to be opened. So it had to keep it’s connection to your lodge open and it sent us to help you. Maybe with your connection to the book open and our remaining resources, we can make this work.
This was, to put it lightly, a punch in the gut to all of us. We worked this hard to open the book only to find out it didn’t want us to do it, but someone else. We soul searched a while. Some of us even wanted to quit. But in the end calmer heads prevailed. We want that book open, no matter who does it. That’s why we are here.
Without any information from the Book we are totally in the dark. If it’s sent you any communication about the 15th Complication, we could use it.
Also to help you out, here’s what we know about the storm. Forgive me for the parts you already know. This is from a history we were given by our own Benefactor.
It begins with Anne of Brittany and a secret guild of artists who studied Magiq. Upon her death the guild split into two paths they intended to follow to search for magiq in the world, the path of Wool and the path of Silver. (Don’t ask me why they are named that. Her burial rituals were rather disrubring.)
The path of Wool changed over the years and became the group known as Monarch’s Mountain, our ancestors. They discovered a land outside of ours, a place of magiq called Neithernor. It’s a pocket world of sorts, protected from whatever happened to ours that took away magiq. The Monarch’s were happy there for a while.
Eventually those who followed the Path of Silver found it as well. For a time they lived there together in peace, but one day, we’re unclear why, war started between the two. Whoever started it, the Monarch’s won, and banished the Silver from Neithernor.
The Silver, were not happy, and holed up in a corner of our world known as the Palace of Doors. They’re still there, plotting to get back to Neithernor, collecting any Magiq they can find, and worst of all, sending their creation the Storm to destroy anyone who knows about Magiq so they can keep it all to themselves.
There’s a machine in this world. Ancient, angry and massive. It wants to destroy everything we have built, everything every generation of Mountaineers have built and keep it for itself. It will not hesitate to wipe our minds to do so.
We have to stop this Storm. We have to stop the Silver. What happened to your lodge can’t happen to another. You and we can make that happen.
All we need from you is to tell us anything the Book says. Anything it added after the 14th Complication and the word Obscuriotempus. That’s the start.
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You know, I kinda would rather tell Ascender the truth; this is harsh in a new way. But it is really good. I’m wondering what his reaction will be to a “back-up” lodge. Also, if the Silver and/or Storm see it, hopefully they will begin looking for this secret lodge, taking their focus off Ascender. Do you think it would be a good idea to mention how many of us there are? It would have a bigger impact if it was said that there was “2000 Mountaineers” try to open the BoB.
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Right, and if they’re looking for our secret lodge in the year 1998 then they won’t find us. 
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I’m hesitant to tell Ascender of the storms true nature, the urge is there but so is the fear that we could create a paradox.
That being said I think that is a well written response… I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if our secrecy brought him to more harm.
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For once, I can’t see how a paradox will come out of telling Ascender. We really are trying to create a paradox anyways by opening the BoB in the past, so as long as it pushes towards that goal, we should be okay.
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I wondered about the paradox. However, Ascender says more of his memory is slipping away each day.
I’m thinking that a valid timeline would be that we tells him all this. He uses that knowledge to help us open the book, and then the Storms damage finally takes it’s toll and he forgets all about it. All except for his driving need to keep going and open the Book.
I think we can make this timeline work… Well, I hope we can… Maybe I’m grasping for straws. 
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I vote send it, if you haven’t already.
I agree it seems like the best path we could take from here, or at least the one of lesser risk.
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This does explain why Ascender didnt reply straight away though
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