The Study and Analysis of Passoal by Jonde Lercake Ter Sabrine

Analysis

  This is a dense scientific tome. Most of it doesn't make much sense to you.  

Excerpts

  These are the relevant pieces of information for you.  

Introduction

  I was introduced to passoal by an old friend of mine. Yonik Ter Gate of Maz is an interesting fellow of the Pidee 'ba. He claimed that the branch he gave me was a shard of the great mirror that once stood between the coins of the world, the one their trickster god Tul're had shattered. Being familiar with the story, I pointed out that there had only been one coin.   He laughed and told me if that was what I believed, then I was right. I do not feel so sure I was right.   The Pidee 'ba, so the story goes, are the children of Tul're. They have no reflection in the coins that the 'ba claim separate the worlds. For that reason and that reason alone, they say they can travel between them. Yonik told me that in another world, another time, I was driven mad by the passaol. In yet another world, another time, we were enemies who could not talk these things over with mead by the fireplace in my study overlooking Lake Zarovich. In this one, he felt safe to   [Page has been edited several times. The last one appears to be a note in the margins from Sabrine herself stating, "If you keep erasing my writing, I'm removing my books from your shithole of a library and going to the mayor, Alexander."]   It's for this reason, I felt it paramount to make a study of the material and analyze its properties.   Yonik has said he can no longer travel between the world. Strahd broke the coin, not the mirror. Now, we are in a sinking ship with a madman at the helm.   Much like the humans who watched themselves in another world, we stand at the precipice of a great and changing time. Not only in our world, isolated as it is by the magic of the Crown, but in all worlds. If my dear friend Yonik was right then it will not be long before my own reflection seeks to find me to kill me much as the Pidee 'ba warriors fought with the hunters of old. As I write this book, I can only hope that the success of Strahd in shattering the very coin Barovia lived on will somehow reach those other worlds.   It could be a lesson to prevent such future disasters.  

Chapter 3

  In this chapter, we discuss what properties make the metal immensely unstable. If we extend the Pidee 'ba theory of every world being on its own coin with a mirror at the edges, we can succinctly begin to see a picture of the danger it poses. As the passoal resonants with the same frequency as the supposed coin that the worlds sit upon and much like a well-trained opera singer with a wineglass, the right amount of force can bring it to shatter.   What this does to the world that the coin sits upon is evidenced in Strahd's own success in doing so. The world becomes isolated, from magic and the outside except that which Strahd himself allows. Those without means die and those with means, such as myself, become trapped in the vortex he has created. Strahd can choose who leaves, but cannot leave himself. One could suppose that if everyone left and none returned, Strahd would be trapped in this place alone.   However, from my research Strahd is not the first nor last person to even attempt such a thing with more disastrous results for themselves rather than the world. The Year of Melody was started as such because a particular Fao mage got the idea to attempt to rend the world from within a pocket dimension. According to Yonik and Tyun, the mage was quite successful in his endeavor. So much so, in fact, that the resulting wave of magic caused droughts the world over.   Since the pocket dimension was within a bag of holding, the poor mage was confined in the bag with no escape. Unable to die, the Pidee 'ba took pity on the man and were able to extract him. He was never exactly the same afterwards and the passoal he used disappeared into the bag never to even be felt again, but it serves to show that at least some 'ba can traverse the complex networks of isolated planes though I've yet to fully understand what gives some such an ability and not others, like the Pidee 'ba of Lake Zarovich.   Further, it shows that if one is able to   [The rest of the chapter is marked out in careful black ink.]