Benefactor was a pseudonym given to an individual who assisted The Mountaineers in their attempts to unlock the Book of Briars.
Description
The Benefactor was an alias used by a least two people – one in 1998 who remains anonymous, and Knatz in 2017. The title was used by individuals who assisted the Mountaineers in solving the fragments and provided spells and materials which the Mountaineers otherwise wouldn’t have been able to obtain.
History
The '94 Mountaineers
Benefactor was first mentioned by Augernon in Fragment Thirteen. According to Augie, nobody knew who they were, but they had been supplying the Mounties with clues every now and then, particularly with old stuff from the Ackerly Green Publishing offices.
In Fragment Fourteen, Knatz mentioned a clue that Benefactor had given to a Mountie named Nib: a locked briefcase that, when unlocked, contained the materials for a magimystical box. When the box was built and the riddles on top of it solved, the box opened and contained the word Obscuriotempus.
The Benefactor helped Ascender learn about The Lantern of Low Hollow in Fragment Fifteen by supplying a book from the “AG vault." It was a book about witchcraft and magical myths.
Modern Day Benefactor
During Fragment Fifteen, a user named Benefactor began posting on the forums. When Martin Rank came out of hiding to check the server farm to which Aether had uploaded Kemetic Solutions’ data, Benefactor texted Martin to tell him he didn’t have time to sort through the data. Warning Martin that The Council of the 18 Gates’ protection was fading fast, Benefactor told him to find Theodore Fallon. After getting the address, Martin flew to Boston, and Benefactor told him to say he was R.K. Adler.
While the Mounties communicated with Ascender in the past, Benefactor posted to warn them that they didn’t have much time left before the Book of Briars disappeared. Benefactor told them that they needed to get the other half of the Lantern of Low Hollow spell from Ascender and that they needed to harness immense power to get the Storm to swap out the Book of Briars for another powerful object.
In order to convince the Mountaineers that they could trust Benefactor, they told the Mounties that they had acquired spells at The Lost Athenaeum. On The Day of Change, Benefactor signed up with the name “your nightmare buddy,” something that Knatz had said in her blog. Knatz came clean to the Mountaineers, telling them she couldn’t bear to forget that there was magiq in the world, so she hadn’t performed the bastard hex and instead lived a life similar to Ascender, never staying in the same place for too long. She taught her daughter, AlisonB, from afar. Knatz helped the Mountaineers when she could, and signed off, wishing them luck, saying she might be able to see her daughter’s face again if they were successful in defeating the Storm.