Be good to your assistants.

The most unlikely divination tool imaginable. Imagine if you will one Adam Cooper, stick-to-itive college kid extraordinare. His father raised him right–don’t give up, don’t stop, and always do things to the hilt. Kind of an ass, but whatever. The pertinent thing is that he started out like so many of us–that is to say, with his head up his ass and bold misconceptions about the state of the universe. Like some of us, he was suspicious. He found out a few things, cuz dammit, you don’t just let a subculture of clued-in occultists just slip past.

Pity for Adam that he didn’t have the stones to take what he found out. So he offed himself in his bathtub–used a straight razor on his wrists, the stupid twat, and he cut the wrong way. Trooper kept his mouth shut and they found him the next day all bled out and stuff. And a rambling, unstable little spiral notebook of his discoveries.

A Bibliomancer filched it and tried looking into it. It’s got magick out its little paper ass, but here’s the bad thing: so far, nobody with -mancer skillz has been able to get anything out of it.

That’s all ya heard, right? Well, here’s a little somethin’ they might’a… glossed over.

They figgered how to get stuff out of it. See, they kinna… well, who knows what the hell he was thinking at the time, but it worked. Here’s how it works.

See, the book is filled with spooky insane ranting, you know, trying to be insightful and just pointing out he didn’t know what the fuck he was getting into. There’s writing in pen and pencil and whatever he could write with, page after page, most of it useless. But the final page is blank. It’s covered in the indentation of writing from the last couple pages (he wrote pretty hard), but is elsewise pure.

If you strap a mundane in and make ’em stare at it, without blinking or shifting his gaze from the paper, for ten or fifteen minutes–it depends–writing shows up. It’s little, it’s in pen, and it’s hard to read, but it tells ya something. The guy you get to read it probably doesn’t know it means something to you. Tends to creep ’em out a little, though. But hey, you’ve got a little tidbit. Not much, but it’s usually straightforward, just like our dearly departed snoop. Usually it’s something like “Bad stuff goes down on Tuesday in the usual place.” Or “What you’re looking for is under the sink in the house of your enemy.” Stuff like that. It’s never for the reader, but always for the guy who’s being read for.

Weirdly ’nuff, adepts can’t get a thing out of it. The guess is Adam wanted to keep the occultists what drove him to suicide out of his buisness. Weird that it gives divies for them, huh?

Well, that’s the story, anyway. The guy who was supposed to burn it if he couldn’t get anything out of the book? Supposedly he ashed it, but he’s had quite a lot of good luck lately. Finding things he ought not to have found. All ‘cuz he knew somebody who he could trust.

You know what else about that book? The page, really? It doesn’t just say something about the adept who wants to know something. It tells the reader a little somethin’ about the adept. Like, “he always leaves the back door unlocked.” Or, “he’s got arachnaphobia.” Or, “he is very protective of his sister.” Or, “He won’t be ready next Tuesday.”

See, the thing takes extra time to give you a divvy when you go for a repeat performance. First it takes about ten minutes. Then twenty… thirty… And sometimes they won’t squirt saline into the looker’s eyes, depends on how desperate they are.

Bastard.

Now, anyway, I’m tellin’ you this ’cause You Know Who isn’t gonna be needing that book soon. And I want ya to know that should ya use it, be kind to the guy you get to look for you. It’s in your best interests.

Excuse me. I got things to do. It’s gonna be a very good Tuesday.

For me, anyway.