Ahem Needlessly Long Introduction to The Book.

The idea came from the campain I was running at the time. One of the insane key players was always running around looking for a book of some sort. Of course no one has been able to figgure out what exactly he is looking for because he would mostly just hiss at the players and try to kill them. These things happen. Anyway we are in collage and before we breaked for summer vacation I told the players who had just botched a major BPN that they decided now owould be a good time to take some time off. So I asked them what they wanted to do and where they wanted to go. All sorts of neat little fiction chunklets came out of this time period. Includeing the three you are about to read. I really liked this idea and it is something I indend on useing so I'll put it on the web because it is slightly more stable than my computer. The problem is that there is a very real chance that other people might read this. Well all these ficvtion chuncklets I wrote over the summer were written in the second person through the eyes of the player charecters. So the start may be a little confuseing for you, that's fine. All the actual information is in there just sort of ignore the strange settings and the charecters involved and everything will be fine.

The Man The Myth The Book:

After a longer day than usual you decided to stop by the tea stand on your way back to the room. Mr. And Mrs. Lee were there like usual, and they must have been anticipateing your arrival because there was a cup of tea already out and waiting for you served just the way you like it. You sit down with them and like usual the conversation starts up and goes at a pleasant rate. Through the conversation you ended up mentioning WHITE and his endless search of the book. Both of the Lee's took intrest at this and imeadiatly asked for more info which you were unable to give. You spent most of your time with White bound and gaged so to speak. They smile and nodded.
Mr Lee looked thoughtful for a second and then eventualy said, "You know where I him I'd be looking for that nice fellow who came through here a few years ago. He went by the name of The Book, we was one of the most feared Dark Night terrorists to ever walk the land. The thing that make's him special though is that he is the one that got away. The Book has comminted just about every act of terrorism known to man. At one time or another just about every squad and contract killler was after the book to try and catch them. He avoided them all. No one is quites sure where he came from, in fact not even our contacts with Dark Night knew. He was never officialy part of Dark Night, he just showed up one day with a sword and a Dark Night Logo on his chest and processed to decimate several square blocks before leaveing. Of course no one in Dark Night was going to tell him that he's not officaly one of their members, in fact they were more releived than anything else that he was on their side. He never worked with a team, he was always alone and his devistateing attackes opened up a gate way for nearly dozen other Dark Night attacks. With the book's apearence there were nearly are dozen or so more break ins and robberys from Karma, Dark Lament, and dozens of different subsidiarys. Many of the technical advances today are from the plans Dark Night has stolen for their own use. Word down the grape vine is that they even manged to steal a LAD bed. But that's all rumor and speculation.
You see the Book was a master of disguise, he could look or sound like any human he could possibly want to. So he would spend weeks scouting out an area, placeing explosives and viral bombs, hidden guns and booby traps, all getting ready for the day where he would reveil himself as who he was. Then the bombs would go off, and he'd start cutting people down in droves, as newly reveild booby traps ensnared ops and shivers. Then he would start making his escape, always a spectular affair as his whole escape root was lined with weapons and explosives. In his time the number of Ops he killed was well into the thousands, and the number of civilians was well into the millions. He has to be the greatest interceptor dark night hs ever had. That last attack he ever appeared at was at a Karma research lab, the one responcible for making longevity drugs. He stole several breif cases full then disapeared into Orentia. We of course knew about his comeing long ahead of time and already had a fense for the drugs set up for him. We even got to meet him once. He was sitting right where you are chatting as we are now. He seemed like such a nice young man despite the millions of people that he has killed. He explained to us that his reighn of terror had come to an end for now. But he thought that it would be best that he live forever just in case the World of Progress needed him ever again. He did what he had to so that Dark Night would stop it's infighting and go back to the buisness of what it was built to do. With that he finnished his tea laced with longevity drugs and vanished. No one really knows where he went to. Many claim that he went expoloring off world to see the sights of the universe and mabey to even see what all the fuss about White Earth is about. Still I don't believe that. I think that if he went somewher else we would know about it. Mort is his home world, it is here where he blends, and here is where he is needed most. No I bet he is out there somehwere, living comfortably, watching and waiting. Heh knowing him he probley has a job with SLA and makes an honest living. Once you get high enough no one notices that you have stopped ageing.
Where I that Ebon I'd be seeking him out as fast as possible. Legends have it that people running from SLA, in great need have found him from time to time and he has led them all into safety or has gotten their name cleared. And it sou nds to me like that whole black lightning squad is in a heap of trouble.

The Book of the Flesh

Book of the Flesh

While takeing a tea break while researching information` on ebb powers and such the necanthrope currators of the library, much to your dismay, come and join you. While you do get along fairly well with all 4 of them it is still a tremendouse strain to have all of them around at the same time. Still you are the first new person they have gotten to speak to in many dozens of years and they are curiouse about the things you have seen. After a few minuts have gone by the initial discomfort you felt let up and only the dull ache given off by their aura's could be felt. After a moment the conversation took a perfectly normal course of past BPN's that you had once been on. When you mentioned White and his quest for a book they all took keen interest and wanted to know more. Unfortunatly much to their dismay you couldn't give them much else, your time with White was mostly spent as his captive and him babbleing incoherently. They understood and then the conversation quickly turned to the different things that it could be. In their time they had heard of many different books that would possibly be useful in his situation but the book that would prolly serve him the best would be the Shemellineria or the book of the flesh. It is an anceint tome that contains the the secrets for many strange and terrible ebon abilitys.
You see most Ops never really get a BPN involveing the activities of cults. This is for a very good reason, while most cults are just silly little religions cooked up by silly little people, several of them are highly dangerouse and are capable of produceing powers that are not unlike our own ebon abilitys. Most of these things are due to things that we can't really talk to you about, double D notice and all. However we can tell you about how the book came about. Several centuries ago a strange little cult was plaugeing mort, it was call the Followers of the Flesh. The strange thing about this cult is that it wasn't just downtown lowlifes getting in with it, there were also reports of high level coporates falling in with that crowd. Corporates that have a secrets that SLA industrys can not afford to loose. So in the usual heavy handed manner he ordered a the whole cult wiped from the face of the earth. At first a couple of squads of ops were sent, but they always were found latter either horribly insane or twisted beyond all recognition. So when the ops fail the Necanthrope Unions are sent in. The name of the union as the necanthropes that were in it have been lost to history, buryed most likely by Perceptor Teeth. Anyway so this union goes out to whip the cult away. One of them kept a jornal from the experience, in it he recorded their stange abilitys to twist and meld flesh together in different forms. He also noted that all the animals in the area were mostly sporting horrible mutations. As the next few years progressed they slowly whiped out the cult, but not before divulgeing all their secrets. You see they thought that if they could get the screts of their rituals they could combine the powers they showed with their own. At first of course this was a noble venture with good intentions but soon afterward their work twisted them. The combonation between the ebb and cult powers was one never to be crossed and they were eventualy all executed. The book was kept in this very libray here on Mort, and it was lost a week before it was suppost to be transported to Static.
At least that's how the legend goes. Of course everyone knows that cultists don't actually have magic powers that is just silly. Still there are records of the book excisting. More than likely they were working on unauthorized ebb powers. You see it has been well documented that feral ebons have been seen using powers that are not covered by any of the ebon schools of teaching. Also both the ebb using members of the Black Lightning squad have been seen using powers that are not of the standered set. These were mostly likely gained from thouse Glyph cards. You are lucky that you missed the period of time where thouse idiotic things where all we had. Times were a lot tougher back then. But I digress. I theorize that this book contains a fairly large listing of all the unauthorized ebb powers and how to preform some of them. If this were true this makes the book very dangerouse indeed because as oyu well know some of the unathorized powers are signifigantly more powerful than the ones you and I use. On top of this they are also extreamly unstable and can cause several problems of a classified nature. That is why SLA industies is so adamant about hunting down feral ebons. If a group of them were to get together and something was to happen to them the destructive power they could acidentaly release would be utterly increadble. They would be, by instinct using powers that are far beyond their abilitys under normal circumstances. Now if someone had acess to this sort of knowlage and the ability to use it at will and on purpouse then we could have some very seriouse problems."

The Bible of Phone Numbers

The Book Part1

One day while you where in the bar talking it up with some of your new corporate drinking buddies you jokeingly mention the ebon White and his bizzare obsession with a book. White, a member of the black lightning squad is someone you have never met but have heard your squad mates mention in passing. You were all drunk so the story was greatly amuseing untill you got to the part where he was searching for a book. The group you were with were instantly curiouse and wanted to know more about the book. While you couldn't be sure as to what he was after your corporate drinking buddies had a pretty good idea.
It is a book that is known as the bible of phone numbers. It is the alpha and the omega of everything that has to do with every phone system within the world of progress. Whom ever manages to get ahold of it would weild increadble power. It is said that there is a list of numbers in the book that has the personal numbers of every high ranking official within SLA Industries with the exception of Slayer himself. After the number there is a 4 digit code prefix that when put in you can issue an order that can not be qustioned nor can it be ignored. There are supposadly numbers for Karma, Dark Lament, Cloak, Third Eye News, every other telivsion station on the planet, as well as some other creepy stuff. When you look at the history of some of the buissness people here in Mort Centeral you see some pretty inexplicable things going on. You gotta look long and hard but they are out there. The legend around the coffee matchine is that these people some how got ahold of the book and used it move up through the ranks quickly and irrefutably. If you are smart you don't get caught, all you gotta know is who to call first. They all agreed that if they were forced to go into hideing the first thing they would go after would be that book. With it they could call cloke and have their investigation called off and their status restored. After that it would be time for some pretty heafty raises and a promotion or two.
One of the buisness men who was takeing slosh along with his drink started telling a story that a professor at meny told him one day," Now you got to remember kids that this was a couple of decades ago when this supposedly happened so don't ask me. But this professor had actually found the bible of phone numbers. He was takeing a break in orentia and some little street urchin was selling it for 100 credits. He didn't really ask where it came from, he just bought it so the kid could get something to eat ya know? Anyways he gets back to his room and actually starts looking at the thing. By the time he got back to Meny he was a nervouse wreck. You see he aparently was this over weight history prof, and now he was as skinny as a wraith raider. And his full head of brown hair had noticably thinned out and was all white. The guy looked as if he had aged 20 years since he left. Anyway the prof that told me the story actually got to look in the book once. He flipped open to a page somewhere in` the middle. All that was written on it was the word GOD and it was full of numbers. He said it made his head hurt and his stomach sick and he threw the book down. He even reported the professor to cloak but nothing came of it. Three days latter the guy vansihed though. It's some fucked up stuff."

One of the corps who had a job at Karma laughed at the story," Come on man God? What are you thinking about. That's a load of bullshit. That history professor ws probley crazy from the start. Besides think about it, what would you do with a number for god?"

"So what you don't believe in the bible of phone numbers?"

"Now now I didn't say that, of course I believe in it, it makes sense after all on two very important in irrefutable levels. First look at it from a buissness stand point. Sla industries is a massive beurcracy that can sometimes take years to function on a most basic level. About the only thing that runs effecently here in SLA is the BPN halls and Cloak Division. And even the bpn halls get backed up and clogged every once in a while. So to have a book of numbers that let you give irrefutable orders is a great thing to have. The problem with using it is that once you do you'd be sure to catch the attension of cloak. Of course you can call the cloak head office and make yourself golden. The only thing you'd have to worry about is someoen else having the book. And I don't know about you but I'm sure Mr. Slayer has a copy. As long as you don't attract his atension you should be fine. Yeah were I that ebon I'd definalty go for that book, I could get out of any level of shit with it. Good stuff, I could probley even rig a fight between Jonny Automatic and some other big wig, make enough money and retire off world."

You ask, "Hey there were two reasons, what's` the other one?"

"Well that is way over your SLC pretty lady, but I might be will to tell you if…" you feel his hand slideing between your legs. However it was quickly retracted when you stuck your Buzzsaw in his crotch. There was laughter all around and the drinking continued.