I Think Therefore I Learn

[Lexi]

Erika sat in her office, sighing at the long hours spent on such a strangely coded book. Thankfully, she hadn't been particularly needed beyond her usual observations of the city at large, but then again, if she'd been mortal, her eyes would be wrecked by the amount of small text she had to go over.

The strange book was slowly revealing its secrets to her, but it was taking far longer than she was used to, these days. Her eyes had slowly healed, and not having to read through a shield helped, supposedly. It was great that her bookstore was well stocked...the greek language had changed so much over the millenia, it took a lot of research to get the right form and language.

The nights were shorter these days; Erika didn't have as much time to work as she'd liked, but with her thickened blood, and distance from the world at large, it was just too hard to maintain control to stay awake and work all hours. Of course, it was also pretty damned dangerous...

[DaevaDude]

Narration:

After many, many hours of work, Erika finished her translation. The following is a summary of what is included in the long, rambling text.

The author of the text identifies himself as Daniel Bingham. He identifies himself as a member of a secret society or religious order – or possibly both – called the Shield and Spear. The pages apparently constitute the last several weeks’ worth of entries taken from a journal of some sort. Not all dates during that time are accounted for, but from the text, this seems to reflect the writer having been too busy to make entries much of the time, as opposed to there being missing sections within the text.

The text details the travels of Bingham and several companions who fled a temple in San Francisco after its location was discovered by witches who wanted the “items of power” stored within the temple. In the first entry, dated 13 May 1887, Bingham reports that through use of some of these items, he and his companions were able to escape the temple with the bulk of their treasures. Subsequent entries detail how this band was followed and repeatedly subject to attacks by magic and by the forces of nature (which Bingham states with certainty were being manipulated by the witches). He describes members of his band being subjected to attacks by unseen individuals, swarms of bees and spiders, thunderstorms and “sorceries capable of stopping the hearts and breaking the minds of strong men,” and how while his companions mostly managed to repel these attacks, they were gradually worn down by attrition.

At one point the group came to their “holy labyrinth outside the settlement of Sacramento”, where they were able to hold off these attackers even further, until the leader of his group of companions, identified as Brother Solomon, had his mind “subverted, no doubt by that unholy, jeweled vestment worn by the Witch in Black.” According to Bingham, Solomon awoke while most of the rest were asleep, killed several in their sleep and also killed those keeping watch, only to be killed by another of the companions, identified as Brother Francois, using “the black spear liberated from the walking dead of the City of Angels” in 1874.

Unable to defend the labyrinth with reduced numbers, the group fled “toward a secure location in the mountains to the east.” Bingham reports “with great consternation” that many “lesser items of power” had to be left behind on this leg of the trip, though “most of the more potent items” went with him and his companion, and that while on the way to this mountain stronghold, one of their number, Sister Susan, became deathly ill with “burning fever and a plague of boils” and had to be left behind before they reached the mountains.

The last several entries appear to have been rushed, as they were written in a less careful hand than the earlier ones and were briefer and less detailed. These entries discuss how the stronghold, described as “the final temple in this region” had been “warded and trapped” against attack, but how these measures seemed for naught. Bingham reports that one of his last companions was killed when their cooking flame “took on a semblance of life and did attack most viciously, and that within days all the others besides himself were dead due to their provisions and water having been “poisoned from afar by the magic of the witches.” It ends with his account of how he had “given a semblance of life to” his “small manikin servant” and sent it with the pages in hopes Sister Susan might have survived so the “Elders of the Shield and Spear” would know of what had inspired and be able to send others to retrieve the items, “whether from the witches or from this place.” The final sentence states he plans to “activate the most dread of the items and the final sentinels” and fight to the death, using “the black spear and other dread weapons.” The last entry is signed “Daniel Bingham, Brother of the Shield and Spear, 7 July 1887.”

The descriptions of the locations of these various temples and labyrinths are vague to completely lacking. The most detailed location was that of the final temple, which was described as having been uninhabited since its creation in 1859 and as being located “no more than five miles from the sign of the red bird.”

Several “items of power” are alluded to in the text, including the following:
- there are several mentions of “the dread black spear” which one of Bingham’s companions felt might have been “blessed by the Savior” but which Brother Francois thought “most likely cursed by the Devil”;
- the last part of the text mentions “sentinels of stone and of gold” in terms suggesting some sort of construct not unlike a gargoyle;
other entries mention:
- an “orb of divination” which Bingham said revealed an attack by the witches was imminent;
- the “eye of pride” which somehow disrupted the powers of the witches;
- unnamed “elixirs” taken from “an Arabian assassin.”;
- a “side iron haunted by the shade of the gunslinger who had borne it;” and finally
- a “horrid shroud” which Bingham planned to use to make himself more able to defend himself against the witches.