Book of Despair

**OFFICIAL OAL ENTRY**

The Book of Despair, or 📘, is the fourth and most powerful of the Greater Arcane Books. It was written by an unknown author, possibly even forged primordially, and is currently being borrowed to be subsequently pored over and reviewed by M/Z for errors and clues that might assist the Inner Arcane Circle.

**HISTORY OF THE BOOK OF DESPAIR**

[Z] Hi, so \*feedback\* Wait, is this thing on? Hello?

[SOMEONE IN BACKGROUND] \*sigh\* It’s on, Z.

[Z] Oh, ok. So, hi, Z here. Or Minerva if you really want to go by my Arcane name but whatever. I don’t really have a preference. As long as you call me something moderately reasonable \*cough\* I \*cough\*, it’s fine. Anyway, so, here’s the deal: essentially the Arcane Libraries have asked me to do a voice recording explaining what we know about the Book of Despair, since we just recently retrieved it from the Underworld Library of Babel when we went on this crazy adventure where we first learned about the IAC . So, anyway, like I was saying. Essentially, I’ve been going through the book, or the half of it that we found anyway, to try and learn what I can about it because: here’s the thing. While we were on that adventure that I mentioned before, one of the people on our team… Well, it’s a really long and complicated story that I’ll tell you later when I have the time but he betrayed us and managed to escape with the Book of Ailments before joining with the Arcane’s most bitter rival: this evil organisation called \_\_\_\_\_. So now that \_\_\_\_ has one of the books, it’s really important that we somehow find out what the Book of Despair does and how to unlock its spells and secrets and all that amazing stuff. I mean, no pressure. I’m just a thirteen year old girl who happens to have a goddess stuck in her head who’s now being expected to unlock the secrets of the universe. \*awkward silence\* Yeah, no pressure at all. So, unfortunately, while the Book of Despair is the key to finally defeating those who wish to overthrow the order of the universe and seize all power for themselves to establish supreme dominion, it is the most mysterious of all the books with barely anything being known about it. So, um, without further ado, let’s get started. Oh, God, I sound like a teacher… or a YouTuber… that’s even worse…

Alright, let’s begin at the beginning. The mystery of the Book of Despair isn’t just because we don’t know anything about it now. No one ever really did understand it. I mean, unlike the other books, we don’t even know who wrote it. In fact, from what I’ve learned so far, it doesn’t have an author. It’s not like the other books because this isn’t a compendium of magic created by humans. This is a primordial… uh, I forgot what I was going to say… thing. Oh, I’ve got it. It’s a primordial vessel of celestial power. It gives someone the ability to manipulate the very essence of nature—both human and otherwise. That’s why it’s the only book that’s split into two halves and it was hidden dee–wait, actually I’ll get there later. But the point is, this book was forged by Time and String Theory into two halves, with unique yet similar properties for each.

Anyway, even the beginning of the Book of Despair’s history is shrouded in mystery.

**SPELLS FEATURED IN THE BOOK OF DESPAIR**

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