Published at 4th of February 2023 4:00 am

Chapter 716: Oghma

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A/n: Help me reach my Goal on P4treon & Join Discord! ➡️ https://linktr.ee/donovel or Google “Donovel Linktree” ⬅️

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Jon wasn’t sure what to expect from the Oghma Infinium. Some called this the Librum of Knowledge for the immense amount of information it possesses, others called it the Tome of Power for the diverse powers that it grants its reader, and others called it “The Book that Knows” from how terrifyingly accurate that book can be at offering the information that the reader wants to know.

Still, with all its might and glory, it is a book of single-use. Once read and its secrets are unraveled to a certain extent, it goes away to find another reader.

One can say that this book is the only gateway available to the secret knowledge from the trove of the all-knowing hoarder, Hermaeus Mora.

Still, there is too much about this book to take one’s mind away apart from the content within itself. This, of course, speaks of the book’s grand history as an artifact that is associated with not just one Ada but two of them. The first is obviously Hermaeus Mora but the other one and the recognized creator of the book is the one and only Xarxes, the Elven Deity and the Scribe of Auri-El.

This goes back to a time when the Original Spirits and the Wandering Ones were incoherently intermingled and time wasn’t yet fathomed as this story happened in no particular Era while in fact some of the conceited Elves claim that it was Merethic. They said that Xarxes was a mortal of their kind and he achieved apotheosis by the blessings of Auri-El as their kind was always meant to have, still, as with all things Merethic, it is hard to tell the truth from the fabrications.

The story of which two characters are focused on. One is Xarxes the Scribe and the other is Oghma, his journal and later, his wife.

It starts as all things beautiful, in an age of beauty, magic, and purity. Xarxes was in love with knowledge, especially the records of history and tales of old. Deciding to account his favorite moments in a single tome, the Scribe scribed to his heart’s content.

There was, however, the interference of the impure in this story. The third character that wasn’t meant to appear in the Elven records, is Hermaeus Mora, the Daedra of Secrets.

In some accounts, Hermaeus Mora claimed that Xarxes “lacked” certain pieces of knowledge about his most dear history and his search led him to the doorstep of Hermaeus Mora, the One Who Knows. He, who was very pleased to fill the gaps Xarxes had in his tome, in his Oghma.

The Oghma Infinium was the product of Xarxes’ love for history where he added his favorite moments as said. It was a detailed account that contained a lot of stories about the Heroes of old, the Kingdoms that rose and fell, the secret eras within the Merethic Era, and much more. As a matter of fact, the Oghma Infinuim’s content has much more than just secrets about the techniques of Fighting, Stealth, and Magic.

By his nature, Hermaeus Mora wouldn’t let any mortal into the deep secrets of his knowledge for unlike the noble Xarxes, he is one who hoards knowledge and keeps it a secret, not the one to spread it. It is said that Hermaeus Mora was left with free reign over a mortal society, he would strip it from all its memories and knowledge, leaving behind nothing but an uneducated gathering of helpless mortals.

As for Xarxes and his Oghma, the myth doesn’t explain much more than the fact that Love is Divine and Love made the Oghma of Xarxes something much more profound. Profound as per se that the Oghma had become something Xarxes would call his “wife”.

At least he didn’t clone himself into female versions and boned them.

With that out of the way, the story goes on and on about Oghma and how she questions whether she was created with the will to be Xarxes’ wife or with the choice. While there appears to be no definitive conclusion to the tale of Xarxes and Oghma, she was still called his wife in the unreliable records of the Altmer.

But the Oghma Infinium is now in the hand of Hermaeus Mora, who uses the book as a reward of sorts to bestow the knowledge within on mortals whom he deems fit. Regardless of the criteria, the book was said to give people power almost in the realm of a Demi-Prince.

But there was one thing that Jon found almost fascinating about Oghma, particularly about the Oghma Practice. In the Lore of Xarxes, the Elven deity commands his followers in the Aldmeriad, the famous Saga of Elves, to keep the Oghma Practice in these lines: “As ye are true Children of the et’Ada, thou shalt honor us by honoring thy own lives. For in each of ye is housed the Divine Spark, and thus the record of thy actions is a sacred duty. Keep, therefore, each and every one of you, an Oghma, an everscriven scroll which shall memorialize thy brief lives. Thus in at least this way shalt thy Spark be Immortal.”

An interesting concept and at the very least an act of passing knowledge and experience. One must not forget that Ysgramor’s “Songs of the Return” were some sort of an Oghma which he wrote to be the first human historian after he developed a runic alphabet for the old Atmoran speech.

“Augur. You have been recording all my actions, right?”

< Yes. Memories, actions, and fights. Much like the Memory Stars of Sotha Sil, you can have something like that outputted from my memories if you provide the materials. >

“Guess I have had an Oghma all along.”

< Glad to be of help. >

Jon smiled and started to spread his legs by walking around in the Chamber of the Augur down at the Midden.

He had a ton of books with him that he had to go through before thinking about using the Oghma Infinium. He used the Black Books before but aside from being gateways to Apocrypha, the Oghma Infinium is something that is bound to be a lot more dangerous on the psychological front.

Aside from the books, he had magical artifacts that can cast protection, the Augur who can predict the magical nature of things, and a Containing Chest that can keep the Oghma Infinium sealed while all the preparations are done.

And they were. Jon was simply excited and only wanted to make sure that nothing would go wrong. He cracked his fingers, his neck, and his back before taking out the Oghma Infinium and placing it on a pedestal.

“Alright, here we go.”

Jon and the Augur seemed to be equally interested in the knowledge they were about to get their hands on. As students of the Arcane Arts, they’d focus on the Tome’s Path of Magic chapter and try to traverse its secrets.

Jon opened the cover and the first page in front of him was a diagram of many interlocked shapes all written in Magical Script. By following the triangle shape, one would discover the three chapters of the book. By following the circles, one would read the overall content of each chapter.

“A clever way to make an index.” Jon said.

< Mysterious! Sounds exactly like the work of Xarxes. >

Jon touched the first page and a few drops of green acidic ink gathered around his finger. He moved his finger up to the right tip of the triangle to where the Path of Magic was then moved his fingers to the first page of the chapter on the circle diagram.

Just like that, the book came to life and the pages started to turn on their own until they reached the first part of the chapter.

“Now would you look at that!” Jon laughed in glee and waited until the pages got to where the chapter begins.

The text was magnificent, the words were elaborate, and the details were astonishingly on point.

“… The Root of Magicka begins in Aetherius and grows through the veil till its branches bear their fruits all around Mundus … the Children of Magnus are spirits of pure energy and shine … the Stars and the Sun and the Celestial Bodies … the Magicka is bound to assimilate into the world and the Magic is bound to grow weaker until our magic is not the same as the ages beyond us … Auri-El in his great wisdom understood these concepts and knew that a predecessor is of vital significance in understanding the nature of one’s self … the past, the present, and the future intermingle in the ways of the Psijic and the wording of PSJJJJ underlines all the mystic ways of royalty …”

Jon read the first page and kept skimming and skimming before moving to the next one and the next one. He then rolled the pages as fast as he could to the last page in the chapter and…

“Augur, what the hell?” Jon asked.

< It appears the quality of the content on these pages is quite unbefitting. >

“That’s just some regular stuff.”

To Jon and the Augur, the content of the Oghma Infinium was a tad underwhelming and didn’t present anything new. Still, when Jon reached a certain point, he discovered that the pages wouldn’t turn anymore despite the existence of a lot of pages still remaining till the end of the book.

“That doesn’t make sense.” Jon frowned, “If this is all the Knowledge we can get from the infamous Oghma Infinium, then why bother?”

Jon tried to brute force his way into the remaining pages but they were tightly sealed and even his fingernails couldn’t dig through them. The book was infuriatingly durable.

“Fuck!” Jon stepped away from the book after having the worst case of blue balls since his reincarnation. He was angry and upset to a degree that irritated him.

< Leave this one to me. Such tomes usually contain clues on how they were made across their content. Once analyzed, we may figure out a way to access the restricted sections. >

Jon turned the Oghma Infinium on the pedestal towards the Augur and walked away to think as he skipped back and forth in the chamber. He kept thinking and thinking before deciding to turn back and take one more look.

< It appears that there is some mysterious thing happening with this tome. >

The Augur said so but Jon couldn’t really understand what the Augur meant until he looked closely at the text.

“What the…”

As if the ink on the pages was being dried out, the text and the magical diagrams were disappearing from the pages of the Oghma Infinium at a fast pace as if something was taking it all away.

“Hermaeus Mora!” Jon exclaimed, “He’s trying to keep us from knowing the tome’s secrets.”

If it was like that, then Jon was absolutely right. Hermaeus Mora was interfering as fast as he could to keep Jon and the Augur from learning what he doesn’t want to be learned.

Jon was desperately turning the pages of the book to spot something that he can hold in memory before it all disappears but he wasn’t even given enough chances to do so.

“Fuck! Can’t he just take the book away instead of doing this?!” Jon shouted in anger.

< The Contract between the Oghma and its Reader is for the latter to learn one chapter from the book before it can never be held by that reader ever again. It was the method that Hermaeus Mora used to keep people like you from learning too much. >

“Bastard!”

< The problem with you is that you are already aware of all the knowledge he affords to spare in the Chapter of the Path of Magicka. He can’t let you know more secrets. That’s who he is, the Prince of Secrets. >

“Really?” Jon angrily replied, “Then how about this?”

Jon immediately casts various runes around the chamber, runes that can generate many dimensional spells.

“Nefertiti, I want you to catch that book from the shadows and isolate it from the influences of Oblivion.”

Nefertiti didn’t reply but she seemed as angry as Jon was and immediately sent her shadow magic from the runes Jon had cast to hold the Oghma Infinium from various angles. Once she got a real grip on it, she started to do as Jon said and completely isolated the book from outside interference.

“Is that enough to keep the influence of Hermaeus Mora off the book?” Jon asked.

< Maybe. But you won’t still be able to pull back the knowledge you need in a place Hermaeus Mora knows. You need to hide the book in a place he can never look into. >

“Shit!” Jon cursed, “Hide in a secret place from the Prince of Secrets? That’s basically feeding him information when it is kept a secret.”

As a force of nature, Hermaeus Mora is the knower of all secrets, he can’t be kept away from a secret unless it involves another Original Spirit. And even those kinds of secrets he is actively hunting.

Just how to hide this tome away then?

“I’ve got an idea.” But at this moment, Nefertiti spoke to Jon.

“Rub it in cat fur?” Jon asked, “Is Hermaeus Mora allergic to cats?”

< That… may actually work. >

“Yes. Evil beings can’t withstand the might of cats.” Jon made a quick deduction.

“That won’t work, hooman.” Still, Nefertiti denied Jon’s last hope.

“No! Kitty cat, how can you say that?” Jon desperately spoke.

< What is your method, old neighbor? > The Augur then asked.

“Don’t we have that?” Nefertiti materialized in the chamber and around her tail was the key that Nocturnal bestowed upon Jon.

The Shadowkey.

Now it was clear. A place even a Daedric Prince wouldn’t find is beyond a Shadow Gate. Now that they have the Key, they only need the Gate.

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A/n: Help me reach my Goal on P4treon & Join Discord! ➡️ https://linktr.ee/donovel or Google “Donovel Linktree” ⬅️

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