Book: The Diary of Ernen Kebble

Ernen Kebble appears to have been a pre-disaster wizard or sorcerer who became an oddly prepared mummy. His remains were found in 1412 in a pre-disaster lighthouse which was discovered in the mountains east of ["Wolsnium"] in ["Jorlinum"]. The diary was is in poor condition when found, but described some of Kebble's work into what he called the Von Valden effect, after one of the magical masters he was studying under.

The book is a leather-bound notebook, about 14 inches tall and 8 inches wide. Inside there may have been fifty or sixty pages, but the process by Kebble was embalmed seems to have glued many of the pages together. This yellowish bile extends to all of the paper in the book, but the last few pages are not stuck, and some of the writing can be read. The book also has an odd aroma, whether it is the bile or something used in the ink, or even the paper used in the book is impossible to tell.

The contents of the diary use a calendar which is no longer recognised in the post-Disaster world, this makes it difficult to provide a clear time line to Kebble's work.

Perhaps there are experts who could free up the stuck pages and gain a greater insight into the magic user's work? Here are the contents of the diary that can be deciphered:

... from the dates in von Valden's notes. We had a hard time decoding the number sequences but Aldric, ever the mathematician, came to our aid again. It turned out (as I'd suspected and I'd told Aldric privately) to be a way that the energy sources could be held open, but the whole thing is theoretical anyway. I think Walter and I need to spend some time in the lab investigating that. Aldric, is going to be busy for the next few days working out some other sequences. The energy calculations do not match what we had for the other channels we'd opened last month, and it's all very confusing. At times I'd have really wish that Master Otmar and I had spent more time looking at this while he was still with us.

Essaris 12.

Aldric has demonstrated once more our faith in his genius. Last week I spent time in the laboratory trying to prove or disprove von Valden's power and energy volume sequences for open energy channels. I did neither in the end as the information I was using to propel my research was incomplete. This was only the case because the Aldric had called for more time with the equivalence equations for these energy sources. As his work was not complete, I encouraged him to complete it but I tried also to press ahead and test those theories before his work was ready. I could not achieve my goal, however. There seemed to be no sequences that would work for this energy source, and I struggled at times to contain the power that was trying to squeeze through my small energy pipe. It was yesterday that Aldric completed his numbers, and we discussed them at great length yesterday evening over our shared meal with Cabrin and his crew in the tower above. This afternoon Walter and I showed that for low values of e that the sequence suggested, all the power levels remained as predicted. As the values of e rise, though, Aldric predicted that the energy levels would deviate; and they did. Master Otmar's research did not predict this, we are extremely proud of Aldric for his foresight.

This evening we dined in the laboratory as we completed our last experiments. It was late in the evening when we finished, yet we ended with some joy at the accomplishment. Walter is bringing our research log up to date as I compile this note.

Essaris 18

We have barely completed our work with this energy source, and its presence here on the material plane as plasma, yet Walter requested that we harness that power and trap it into a wand or a rod of some kind. We know that this work is far from complete, but that suggestion seemed like a sensible line of investigation. It does break from the theories of von Valden, though, and so I am reluctant to pursue this for long, but we have a clear understanding of what we're doing with this energy source now - and the manipulation of it is so different to the magic I have used before. Perhaps it could be that it does not diminish the spell proponent when preparing magic stores in this way. It was one of the persuading arguments presented by Walter when he requested that we try this.

I have agreed on this basis to spent just two weeks looking into this issue. I'm not sure what master Otmar would have said if I'd have looked at this during my studies with him. He would, of course, have planned our research for many months in advance - this he always did, and so such requests could never have arrived in the schedules quickly. If all goes well, maybe we can produce item or artefact of power and raise extra money for our research.

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