Book
The Book of Briars was a book sought by The Mountaineers during The Monarch Papers. It is also the name for the current era of time within the Briarverse.
Description
The Book of Briars appeared to the Mountaineers as a dynamic image in the form of a green book, with four locks on it, one on each corner. As each part of the book was unlocked, the lock transformed into a green silhouetted shape, unique for each phase. Whenever a key had been recently been found, papers would stick out of the top of the book, indicating that new content is available from the Book.
In the bottom left was the flower-shaped keyhole of the Flora Key from Phase One, and in the top left was the butterfly-shaped keyhole of the Fauna Key from Phase Two. In the upper right corner was the hole for the Cosmos Key, and the hole for the Time Key was in the lower right corner. The materials unlocked from each phase could be viewed by entering the appropriate URL at the end of the book’s website.
On the sides of the Book was written the following:
Sixteen chapters locked within, truth and treasure you might win. The gathered parts unlock the door, beyond is what you’re looking for.
Unlocking the Book of Briars was the primary goal of the Mountaineers during The Monarch Papers. They believed that the book held the secret to the disappearance of The Lost Collection, a series of books supposedly published by Ackerly Green Publishing in 1955, in The Book of the Wild.
Content
As the successive keys were turned in their respective locks, new content became unlocked. For example, the Flora Key unlocked an image of fraylilies, as well as pages one and two of The Ant and the Caterpillow, and the Fauna key unlocked an image of a hippocampus, and pages three and four of The Ant and the Caterpillow.
The Book as a Character
Several times, when recruits solved major puzzles or struggled, the Book took action on the Ackerly Green forum to steer them in the right direction. For example, during the Second Magimystical Assessment, the Book bolded words that were correctly correlated to a guild. In another instance, the Book edited a post to indicate that the post in question was correct, during the tetrahedron assembly of Fragment Eight. Despite this, the Book has limited its interactions with readers.
The Book as a Spell
During Fragment Sixteen, it was revealed that the Mountaineers, by unlocking the sixteen fragments, had been performing a collective spell. Every fragment, as part of the spell, taught the Mountaineers something about magic, and in turn taught the book something about magic.
The Book as an Era of Time
The Book of Briars officially began on February 1, 2020, when the Book of Kings ended as a result of the successful casting of the Wellspring spell. The Book of Briars as an era of time is also known as Mirumagiqum.
2020 Release
The Book appeared on the forum again for the first time since The Monarch Papers on February 1, 2020, after the Wellspring spell had been successfully cast. It posted the first line of its first chapter, the following pages of which were then emailed to the Mountaineers. It would continue to post to the forum occasionally throughout the spring and summer of 2020 each time a new part of the book was unlocked, and the respective chapters would then be emailed to the Mountaineers. It is expected to be published in full by the end of the summer of 2020.