The Hunter's Notes
#1 of The Hunter's Notes
Your light flickers slightly as you step into the abandoned shack. This is where the map leads you? A dilapidated shack, in the middle of nowhere, on a little-known backwater planet? There had to be a mistake, but you were already here so no point in going home just yet. You walk through the dusty air, the floorboards creak with each footstep. Cobwebs coat pretty much everything.
And that was it, there is nothing here. A single room, with a single table, and nothing else. Perhaps there was something underground? Some kind of complex that branched out for miles, hopefully. You turn and start to leave, set on returning to your ship to start a subsurface scan. Out of the corner of your eye you spot it. An irregularity, a bump on the table. You brush your hand over it in a less than successful attempt to remove these damn webs.
A book! An old book. A very old, very dusty, book...
You almost left it here, but the possibility that it held information about the area was really the only reason you picked it up. You didn't even look at it again until the subsurface scan was complete. Nothing. You let out a sigh as you stared at the leather-bound book. Thankfully, the EDN-5 Explorer ships came with one of the highest quality analyzers that could fit on a ship this small. With a single press of a button, you learn that the leather that wrapped the book was... undatable? The hell does that even mean?
Removing this--apparently fucking ancient--book from the box, you open it for the first time. There were no words written here, just images scrawled on the front and back of every page. Wait...
You quickly scavenged through your belongings, eventually finding what you were looking for: a black iron amulet. Bringing it to the book the amulet began to vibrate immediately. This book contained magic! In fact, the motherfucker was pouring with it. All you needed to do was activate it.
After an hour of experimentation, you finally get the glyph of the first page to glow. As the glow faded the ink on the page reconfigured itself into words in the center of the page, words that could slide up and down as you dragged your fingers across the paper. Alright, magically induced scrolling was pretty neat. One brief consultation with a visual translator, and you were in business.
The Hunter's Notes
For my future incarnations.
And the bravely curious.
Fucking jackpot! Or at least the start of one. If this were legitimate you could get a king's ransom out of the Church, or Eden themselves if this contained some really juicy stuff. The back of the title page was a table of contents. One particular chapter caught your eye immediately. Thournes, there was information on the _Thournes_in here! Werewolves, kobolds, demons, arachnae, gryphons, dragons, and so much more. Forget a king's ransom; you could buy a planet with some of this stuff. A hefty portion of the Outsider's knowledge of the universe, in the palm of your hand.
You quickly--but safely--piloted your ship back into orbit and set the auto pilot for the nearest inhabited system. It was going to take quite a few months to get back, but at least you had some very interesting reading material to help you through the journey.