The Ballad of Adler Young, Canto 2.5

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>Adler: Uh, sure. Tell her to just make sure she reads it from beginning to end. She should also take notes and you'd like to see progress reports if there is time for it.
>Rebecca: Begin studiously and devoutly reading the book while occasionally laughing maniacally.
>Adler: Huh, this may very well be the first time someone has laughed like that while reading the Foxspell.

"Sure, whatever," I shrugged. "You need to read the book from the beginning, and when you get to a part that says 'lorem ipsum' and so on, stop. That's when we will review and I'll quiz you on what you've learned."

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Rebecca sat down next to one of the menhirs and started reading the Foxspell. Every few seconds she would burst out with peals of laughter. I remembered the book being lighthearted, but never thought it was that funny. Lowfolk certainly were strange.

>Adler: Realize your new heights of power, ponder what other amazing & useful items you can apport back here? Food? Weapons? Gold from the vault to get even more food and weapons? That one issue of Jane you missed out on?
>Adler: Get a sudden realization that in fact there were only very few elves that had this kind of power and all of them old and terrifying, or at least old.
>Burnside: Totally use this moment to check if Adler can summon HiPower Spirits too. Like, 120 - 160+ proof or more.

I paused for a moment to reflect on the fact that over the course of this single afternoon I had apported numerous objects seemingly from nowhere, without knowing their exact location beforehand. This should have been impossible. The only elves on record accomplishing such feats were legendary characters from the Long Ago. What exactly were the implications of this newfound ability?

"Hey," Burnside murmured, interrupting my thoughts. "Think you could produce a bottle of good usquebaugh?"

>Adler: Now then, back to the disturbing matter you found in Rebecca's Witch-journal. Well, it's all disturbing, but specifically the parts that were magically sealed from Burnside. You should flip through it some more to see if anything is hidden from you. If not, it may be because she gave you permission to read it. Have Burnside and Vernier look through it too. How much is barred from them?
>Adler: Take a risky peek at the more risque illustrations Rebecca did, just in case they offer insight to what might help cure her mind, so absolutely damaged by years living with the other rabbits in hopes of maybe helping her overcome her urges by filling the void in her fluffy (if sooty) heart. Maybe she just really needs a loving hug?

"Not right now," I declared. "I need you to show me the part of this journal where it said 'lorem ipsum' and all that."

Burnside found the page and showed it to me. It was the beginning of a standard dissertation on celestial mechanics, but it ended abruptly in the middle of a sentence and was not continued on the next page.

I flipped through the journal and examined it more closely. Scattered amidst the fashion and hairstyle sketches were snippets of gardening advice (all of which Burnside could read), excerpts from a basic primer on Gramarye (she could read those too), and fragments from what must have been an astrological handbook (all 'lorem ipsum' to Burnside). Pages seventeen through twenty-three seemed to have been copied from a Mephitist marriage handbook; Burnside could read all of them with much chuckling and winking. Toward the end of the filled pages were many drawings of me in ridiculous costumes, with notes completely misconstruing my words and actions. The final dozen pages of the book were still blank.

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"What do you make of this?" I asked Vernier. "How much of it did you actually read?"

"Oh my," Vernier exclaimed as she examined the notebook. "Is that what elves do on their honeymoon? That's quite an interesting technique. Do you actually know how to do that, Sir?"

"Yer durn tootin he does," Burnside declared proudly.

"Never mind the pictures," I snapped. "Can you read what's written here?"

"Is it written in Elvish?" Vernier asked.

"Does it say 'lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,' and so forth, the stuff Rebecca was yelling a few minutes ago?"

"No, but it does appear to be some sort of otherworldly gibberish."

"What about this?" I asked, flipping to the gardening tips.

She could not read those either, nor any of the other copied passages; however, only the astrological material appeared as 'lorem ipsum.' The rest of it was simply written in an unfamiliar language. All of Rebecca's own notes were, of course, entirely legible - albeit incomprehensible.

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"Where did you copy this from?" I demanded, brandishing the notebook as I interrupted Rebecca's reading.

"Some old books that were hidden at the old O'Daisies manufactory," she stated matter-of-factly. "This Reynard was a real character. I'm starting to get a feel for the subtly nuanced evil that you keep calling 'Seelie.' It's quite charming in its way."

"Why would you copy old books from the O'Daisies?"

"Everybody knows their inventions came from hell and their financial success was due to daemoniacal magic," Rebecca explained. "So when they were driven away by an army of trees, naturally I had to sneak into the abandoned building and see what relics I could find."

"Can you read any of this?"

"No, but it's got to be magical. It's written in, like, Elvish, right? And there were pictures of people doing wicked sexy rituals. That's always a sure sign of evil. And that one book contained parts of the Overspell so naturally I had to write that down."

"What's this Overspell? How do you know about it?"

"You are testing me, My Lord," Rebecca grinned. "Fragments of the Overspell are passed around in witchy circles. We all know the first few lines, but nobody has ever seen the whole thing. The one who finds it and can tame its power would be able to destroy the world and remake it to her liking!"

"Do you still have the books you copied this material from?" I asked, feeling nervous at the thought of several volumes of elvish lore floating around loose in the lowfolk world.

"Oh no, My Lord. Much too dangerous to get caught with them in my possession, plus they would have been too bulky to carry. The one with the Overspell was badly waterlogged and I copied the only parts that were legible. The other ones didn't fare much better. They're probably all ruined by now, unless somebody else found them."