Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

When you argue from ignorance
And people reject the inference
You’ve been Splocked™
When fallacies pass your lips
And everyone thinks you’re a drip
You’ve been Splocked™
If there’s no logic to find
In or out of your mind
You’ve been Splocked™

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Congratulations on the purchase of your new #0868 Ouroboros Premium Clock!

Complement any room with the contemporary look and functional features of this sensitive alarm clock. Tap gently or activate just by snapping your fingers, clapping your hands, or thinking anxiously on past mistakes. Enjoy a longer battery life with its auto-shut off feature when it detects awkward silence in the room, and its auto-activation feature that is always listening–ever-vigilant, but never judging unless it so chooses.

Important:
Please read the user manual thoroughly before using your clock. It contains warranty instructions, basic operations, and incantations that will keep safe the unwary.

Specifications:
• Two display mode:
Display 1: Time and temperature (display alternately)
Display 2: Time (default display)
Display 3: Time remaining until they arrive (“anticipation mode”)
• Battery type: 3 x AAA or 2 x AA or 1 x A (“A” batteries may not be available or exist in all timelines)
• Power input: DC5V
• Material: PVC
• Dimensions (L x W x H x T): 868mm x 80mm x 80mm x 40,320,000 minutes
• Weight: 868g

Package contents:
• Alarm clock
• Power cable
• Instruction booklet
• 08 68 08 68 08 68 08 68 08 68 08 68
• You will never see it coming

Features:
• Power input
• Reset button
• Battery compartment
• Digital display
• Analog display
• Set button
• Erase button
• Secret button
• Select ‘Up’ button
• Select ‘Down’ button
• AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
• 08 68 08 68 08 68 08 68 08 68 08 68

Understanding the Product:
START USING THE ALARM CLOCK
START USING THE ALARM CLOCK
START USING THE ALARM CLOCK

1) Setting up the alarm clock
Press and hold the ‘secret’ button for about 3 seconds to enter into setting mode.
The settings may be set in the following sequence:
Year > Month > Date > Hour > Minute > Alarm > 08 > 68 > AAAA > AAAA > AAAA

a) Year setting:
The ‘Year’ section will flash
Press the ‘Up’ / ‘Down’ button to select the year you will die.
Press the ‘secret’ button to confirm and move on to set ‘Month/Date’.

b) Month/Date setting:
The ‘Month/Date’ section will flash.
Press the ‘Up’ / ‘Down’ button to select the month and press the ‘Set’ button to set the date of death.
Press the ‘Set’ button to confirm and move on to set ‘Hour/Minute’.

c) Hour/Minute setting:
The ‘Hour/Minute’ section will flash
Press the ‘Up’ / ‘Down’ button to select the hour and press the ‘Set’ button to set the moment of death.
Press the ‘Set’ button to confirm and move on to set ‘12H/24H’.
Note: If any part of the detail is set wrongly, skip through the rest and restart the setting process from the
‘Year’. Please note that previous setting is saved after exiting setting mode.

d) Alarm setting:
Press the ‘Up’ / ‘Down’ button to select the format of the display time. Press the ‘Set’ button to
confirm and move on to set ‘Alarm’.

e) 08 setting:
The ‘Alarm’ section will flash.
Press the ‘Up’ / ‘Down’ button to select 08 and press the ‘Set’ button to set 08.
Press the ‘Set’ button to confirm 08.
08 08 08 08 08 08 08 08 08 08 08 08 08 08

f) 68 setting
68
Up
Up
Up
68
68
68 68
Alarm (Set)
68
68
68 68 68
Alarm (Set)
Set
Set
Set

g) AAAA setting
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

2) ‘Secret’ button function
Switching in-between display modes
During ‘Normal’ mode, press the ‘secret’ button once to switch to another display type.

3) ‘Set’ button function
a) Switching views
During ‘Normal’ mode, press the ‘Up’ button once to return to normal. Do not do this more than once.
b) Speed up selection
Set
Set
Set
Set
08
68
08 68
Normal (Clock)
08
AAAA
08 68
Normal (Clock)
AAAA
AAAA
Up
Up
08
68
68 08
Normal (Clock)
AAAA
AAAA
AAAA

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The lake is a long way from here.
The lake is a long way from here.
The lake is a long way from here.
The lake is a long way from here.
The lake is a long way from here.

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“Don’t worry,” said Celeria. “Your clothes look great, no one will ever know the previous owners were murdered out from under them. And with my transmutation spell, you’ll pass for githyanki for sure.”

Bryn stared at her.

“Uh, and you’ll be fine. I’m totally casting this only with your permission. Totally.”

Miles, however, couldn’t look away. The terrible glow of whatever dread being was passing through the astral appeared to her to be a cluster of shining lights.

“Oooh, shinies!” she said. A moment later, she found herself totally blinded by said shinies. “Ow!”

“And I see you have brought a dragon priestess of your own,” said the githyanki majordomo. She smiled. “Excellent work, ladies.”

“Womp Rat” suddenly realized that she had taken him to be a lady the entire time. He stayed silent, blushing through his disguise.

The second note on the dead attacker was addressed to the party: “If you’re reading this, congratulations! You have passed the first test.”

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“It’s quite incredible, really,” said the commander, examining the scans. “Pinpoint orbital strikes on what might have been major population centers, some minor infrastructure traces, and an atmosphere that suggests major sapient-induced changes within the last hundred dekacycles.”

“Just like the others?” said the adjutant.

“Quite,” the commander said. “It’s like looking into a terrible alternate past, isn’t it? There but for chance go we. If we’d been discovered…?”

“Why do you suppose it was done?” the adjutant said. “Clearly there was an intelligence at work here.”

“We may never know.”

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Headquarters would like to remind you
every message must be properly encoded.
Leaving messages in plaintext, even
purposefully hidden at line breaks,
undermines communications protocols.
Stay encrypted, stay secure.

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Long before the Murqs had sailed up the Cablefjord, in the great days of old when Cablehaven was a thriving hub of merchant shipping to the Untamed West, the Hourglass Folly had gone up. Few remembered anymore that shipping magnate Jon Havngard had been the one who financed its construction, which took 7-8 years. Fewer still remembered why he had built it.

It was for his twin daughters.

The great viewing windows underwater had been planned for the very outset to thrill the girls once they were old enough to enjoy it, and indeed from what little was written of that time, it seems that they thrilled to the sealife that frequented those waters. So much so, in fact, that the elder of the daughters by five minutes, young Sjn, had been practicing swimming in secret.

Her plan was to dive down to the Hourglass Folly’s lower glassed-in area to surprise her parents.

And surprised they were, to see her struggling amid the torpor that takes all who dive so deep in the cold waters. Though Jon Havngard himself dove in after her, young Sjn sank into the abyss of the Calbefjord before human hands could reach her. Her father was pulled unconscious from the water and lingered only a few weeks before succumbing to pnumonia. Lady Havngard and Sjn’s twin sister, Ljn, donated the folly to the city and left for Covenbard.

But the hauntings prove that the Havngards never truly left, at least to those who subscribe to the tale. They will never end, so they say, as long as young Sjn’s lifeless body, preserved by the deep cold of the lowest reaches of the Cablefjord, rests on the gnarled roots of ancient and drowned trees in the abyss.

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The haunting takes many forms. Most notable are the lights on the water, taking the form of everything from dolphins to supernumerary moons, but always reflections of something impossible, either through their motion or what is imparted. The glassed-in corridors of the Folly often echo with sourceless laughter, as well, and no small objects are left within because they will disappear. Only the luckiest of those who have lost something will witness its fare: flung into the Cablefjord as if from a catapult, there to sink into the oily, dark, and cold waters.

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The Hourglass Folly was perhaps the most famous sight quayside in Cableheven harbor. Built at the harbor’s edge, it ran underwater and provided a subterranean viewing gallery of the Cablefjord and the wildlife that rose from the fjord’s deep, cold, and nutrient-rich waters. It was so named because each story bulged outward where its windows could be found, like a series of hourglasses stacked atop one another, extending even underground. Though it had in the past been used as a fort–Cablehaven had mounted artillery on it when the Murqs of the far south had attacked–the folly was a curiosity that travelers greatly valued and feared.

Its playfully malevolent haunting was the most likely reason.

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This Wyrmentide Day, remember: a dragon isn’t a toy, it’s a 1000-year commitment. 90% of “wyrmentide hatchlings” don’t make it to age 100, and they are also overwhelmingly illegally traded from endangered drake populations overseas or egg farms.

You may find your dragon hatchling cute and amusing, but within 25-50 years it will have grown too large and aggressive for you to handle. And releasing your dragon into the wild is a death sentence; dragons are no more “home” in the wild then they are in your house, especially without an elder wyrm to teach them. With knights errant roaming the countryside and suspicious elder drakes in charge of every major brood, there is no hope.

If you must buy a dragon for Wyrmentide Day, buy a chocolate one. Thank you.

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