Book of Neverending Darkness

### Description

- A book of complex magical instructions on how to cast cruel Mass Tier spells that involve fates worth than death, torture and dimensional entrapment methods
- This book holds information that can abuse the mechanics of the Death Protection that Katie has for herself, by trapping her in a fate worse than death

### Effects

- A mental attack on the reader's sanity proportionate to how much of it is read.
- Characters with high Mental Fortitude such as The ChessMaster, Nightmare, Binary and Dianna will be able to read this with minimal repercussion

- Infusion with knowledge of magical techniques, which will give the user the ability to understand the mechanics and understand how to cast it. However, it needs practicing and perfecting.

The Book of Neverending Darkness is a pivotal secret book being created somewhere in The Underground as a disturbing way to overthrow Katie and wreak havoc upon the Human race.

Fortunately, due to the complexity and ultimate stakes involved in using this book to overthrow Katie - it is unlikely that it will ever actually be used, since the gamble too big for The Final Council that can cost them their lives. However, it still remains as a secret, uncomfortable reminder of the sheer hatred brewing within the Final Layer, and what Katie is protecting humanity against.

## Relevant parties

### Katie

Katie is the reason for this book's creation. Due to her ability to revive herself immediately via the Pillar of Life if she is ever killed, the book has a Universe Tier spell that will prevent her from reviving herself by causing her to permanently fuse with the entire island - such that she is technically alive, conscious and able to feel, speak and hear, but cannot move or cast most magic. The Pillar of Life only triggers and re-creates Katie once it detects that Katie's soul has been destroyed - and nobody but her would have nearly enough knowledge to revert a Universe Tier spell. If this happened, The Final Council will then proceed to destroy The Pillar of Life, essentially resulting in a magical checkmate. Due to the disturbing nature of this, there are several other parties interested in stopping this.

Due to not only the ultimate severity of this high treason, but also the use of Forbidden Magic, if Katie found out about this book, she will immediately want to destroy it, remove most of The Final Council members from The Pillar of Life and organize all her loyalists to gang up on them with her help, essentially executing them immediately to cause their Permadeath for the sake of the safety of herself and her people.

### Dianna

Dianna is one of the few Harmony Freaks who know about this, having found out accidentally. Her ability to turn into a 2-Dimensional shadow is extremely powerful for sneaking, as it allows her to sneak without giving off a Life Signature, and not even Magical Signature, being virtually undetectable by everything other than a keen, paranoid eye.

Having heard of the nature of the tome and the exact Universe Tier "Mesh with Earth" spell, Dianna is extremely infuriated with this plan. She wants to steal the book for herself, learn the powers and ultimately use it against The Final Council on a smaller, more reversible scale as an act of vengeance. Dianna is one of the few freaks powerful enough to take on a duel with some of the council members. Dianna is very eager to cross the gap between going from a Tier HyperMass freak to a Universe Tier freak - because it will serve her ultimate purpose - that she is determined to go to any length to make sure that Katie is safe, because she loves her.

Dianna knows that the spells in this book are Forbidden Magic, and understands that practicing this would be not only highly illegal, but would risk her getting banished. Although she might get away with just a punishment if she were to just admit that she learnt it, she still plans to use such spells covertly in her personal dimension for anyone that she wants to use as a personal punching bag, while denying any use of any of the spells.

### The ChessMaster

The ChessMaster, despite being a member of The Final Council, is in an awful situation. He is a long-time friend of Katie and ultimately cares about her above anything else. He performed the Great Reset with her, and lived for a millennium and several hundreds of years by her side - he remembers all the moments he cuddled with her to successfully help her sleep through the nightmares she was going to have of the Total Annihilation of the Original Universe. The only reason he is in The Underground in the first place is because he willingly consented to it for the greater good, because he was getting too tempted to abuse his chaotic powers to toy with humanity again.

Feeling all this, The ChessMaster walks a tight rope between playing on The Final Council's side, while trying to sabotage and get them to unnecessarily delay their plan by using several excuses and adding doubt. He is also feeding them misinformation, such as claiming that The Pillar of Life will still trigger if she is unable to move for long enough, but this is not true - they cannot prove him right or wrong, and they do not want to risk Permadeath if their plan fails. He has also covertly suggested to Katie that she actually adds this feature, although when Katie found this to be an oddly specific feature request, he dismissed it as a suggestion "just in case".

Ultimately, The ChessMaster cannot risk telling her prematurely, because if they found out that he ratted them out, they may cast an irreversible spell on him, and that he will be unable to help Katie in the time of greatest need.

With all these complications, his plan is to stall them for as long as possible, and then turncoat on the council when Katie decides to remove the from the Pillar of Life. He would rather have the Mesh with Earth spell hit him instead of her, as he has more confidence in Katie's abilities than himself - and he knows she would do everything to reverse it once it would be all over, even if it takes spending a hundred years like that while she researched a counter-spell. But he himself has no idea where to even begin reversing such a spell, and his attempts to research a counter spell almost got him caught before he had to abandon it and hope for the best.

### The Other Council Members

This book was created by The Final Council, employing several of non-repenting banished freaks to help gather the materials, knowledge and power. In addition, some of the banished are even covertly captured to have these tested on them. Some subjects are even willing to be tested on, such as Hoers, who knows that the book is going to be used in a revolution, but does not know that the book is going to be used against Katie.

The Final Council has to be very careful of the repenters, as while they are banished, they are still on Katie's side and will spill the beans. Due to this, the whole operation is kept secret, and the few freaks who are starting to catch on their trail back off and silence themselves out of fear, when they are threatened with fates worse than death.

The Final Council are aware that by keeping such a politically dangerous book, they are risking their own removal from The Pillar of Life, and understand that once it is attempted, it will either result in their victory and being able to go use the rest of the cruel spells on the Humans - or their Permadeath at the hands of Katie and a mob of loyalist freaks.

Due to this, council members are very hesitant to actually do it, even though they have the most important spell ready. In addition, The ChessMaster's influence is stalling them further, as he, pretending that he is on their side, tells them that it is "too early to strike now and risk permadeath".

### Grumps

Grumps is the one who is ultimately responsible for the "Mesh with Earth" spell, having stemmed from a sinister use of his biological powers. Grumps has the secret ability to perform some horrible biological transformations, such as fusing one of his stretchy cat legs into someone's mouth and nose to momentarily stop them from breathing. He is also able to fuse his body and other people's bodies with inanimate objects, like becoming intricately connected to soil and growing out of it like a plant.

These bio-powers can be horrific - the 'unspeakable' thing he has done was when at some point in the past, Binary and Sir White because began challenging his abuse of others through political connections. When he started flirting with Katie, Binary had told him to back off because she suspected he was doing it for nothing more than political gain. After he refused and paid her back by causing her to lose her own property, Binary spilled the beans to Katie, who realized what was happening and intervened. This caused Grumps to instantly lose all his political power, to which he was so angry for, that he ambushed Binary in the forest to assault her. After a prolonged fight, and realizing that she keeps getting up from fatal blows, Grumps used his biological powers in a horrible way - he caused her to become half-fused with a tree, and moved a spiked branch in such a position that if she doesn't continuously pull herself up, that her eye would fall onto it. He left her like this - Binary couldn't be revived due to not being dead, and her ability to use determination to persevere through death and even hunger and thirst forced her to stay alive, constantly making an active effort to keep herself pulled up. Worse still, since her boots were inside the tree, the radio broadcaster was destroyed, so The Protectorate could not get a reading on where she is.

Fortunately, this exact destruction of the signal was what tipped off Katie. Katie used Binary's Life Signature to locate her. Katie had no idea how to separate her from the tree without killing her, but at least she removed the branch and got her into a comfortable position. Tired and after 20 hours of having to constantly keep muscles tense, this is the first and only time that Binary had ever cried as a freak. After some hours of overnight research next to Binary to keep her company, Katie figured out how to reverse this process on a small scale, allowing Binary to be free and unharmed.

Furious at this, Katie had banished Grumps immediately to the Third Layer of The Underground without a trial, and told him that his actions have made her grow distant to him, and all his previous flirting served for nothing - because she is going to find it hard to forgive him for what he has done.

Due to this, Grumps was very hurt, and took his frustrations out on everyone else in The Underground. He soon became the most hated freak due to his nastiness to everyone. This quickly got others to react badly and fight with him regularly. This distinctly toxic behaviour was noticed by The Final Council, who asked him how much he really hated Katie. He said that he would kill her if he had the chance, or worse. Interested in what he meant by "or worse", they found out about his biological powers, and tempted him into helping them combine powers to invent a new Universe Tier spell that Grumps could use to pay Katie back, by turning her into the entire island.

With all his rage, Grumps agreed, and helped them understand the mechanics of his spell. Together, they created "Mesh with Earth", a spell that will require body-slamming a target with a huge force. Grumps was greatly rewarded by The Final Council, who in return, helped him instantly get into high political power by making him The Governor's adviser, giving him a briefcase full of Favorcoin, and enslaved some freaks to build him a private mansion. Grumps was happy with this arrangement.

The next month, Katie came to make one of her routine visits to The Underground. When Grumps spotted her, he was planning to attack her. She noticed him unexpectedly early - and came to stand in front of him. All she did was crouch down and plant a kiss on his cheek, saying that she may have grown distant, but she still loves him - and she has faith that one day, he can be a good person.

Grumps was so baffled by this, that he ran away crying because he did not know how to handle it.

After a long, serious conversation with his best friend, he listened to how Hoers endlessly praises Katie as this mother-like figure. Seeing that even his best friend loves Katie so much, Grumps started to deeply regret what he did to Binary, and felt ashamed of himself. After a few days of quiet self-reflection, he had a great change of heart.

Then, to his shock, he remembered that it was too late - he had already helped The Final Council create the "Fuse with Earth" spell. Grumps was so floored by this realization, that he stopped functioning for days - luckily, Hoers made the effort to keep feeding him and trying to help him continue doing his work - just like old times, when Grumps did the same thing for Hoers when Hoers stopped functioning. When Grumps eventually snapped out of the shock after a week, he went straight to the Final Layer to approach The Final Council, pleading to them to stop the uprising - that he didn't want Katie to be hurt anymore. They laughed at him dismissively, and after a pathetic attempt to fight them, Grumps was evicted from the Final Layer and told that he got what he wanted. They then threatened to use the spell on him if he were to spill this to Katie, and out of fear, he could not risk it - because he was not sure whether his biological powers could reverse the sheer power of "Fuse with Earth". He does not want to tell Hoers about it, because he knows that he does not understand the implications and would instantly spill the beans, so he keeps it as a dark, painful secret to himself.

He now has a very mixed relationship with Dianna, who sometimes is furious at him and visits him to put him through abuse as punishment for creating the spell. But at other times, Dianna apologizes for her anger, hugs him and reassures him that she is on the case. Dianna even helped Grumps apologize to Binary, and even though his attempt for an apology was met with severe cussing, Grumps still appreciates that Dianna at least got the message across for him.