The History of the Vanishing Tower

From LSWiki

Description

a gold-edged leather-bound vellum book

The writing is in Anglic, and reads:
   The History of the Vanishing Tower

    A medium-sized book of vellum bound in leather edged in gold.  A title is engraved on the
cover.  It is open to page one of three.  It is open to page one of three.  You estimate its value
at about one thousand three hundred fifty gold.  
    It looks about two fifths of a dimin long, three dimins wide, and four dimins tall.  It weighs
about three and twenty-four twenty-fifths dekans.

    The commands 'open <item>', 'close <item>', and 'turn page [in <item>] [to <number>]' may be
used with it.  Keeping the gold-edged leather-bound vellum book costs ten keep points.  The
gold-edged leather-bound vellum book was created by Ambidexter, who wishes to credit Michael
Moorcock as inspiring this work; the source code was last updated Tue Mar 15 02:51:32 2016.  The
material gold was created by Lost Souls; the source code was last updated Tue Mar 15 02:18:46 2016. 
The material leather was created by Lost Souls; the source code was last updated Tue Mar 15
02:18:23 2016.  The material vellum was created by Lost Souls; the source code was last updated Tue
Mar 15 02:18:27 2016.

Text

    The writing is in Anglic, and reads:

                 The History of the Vanishing Tower
                               Tralast 


    The history of the Vanishing tower extends well beyond (ahead?) of
our current recorded history, but from the various myths and legends
that refer to it, a plausible approximation of the truth can be
obtained.

    On a particular plane in the multiverse, one of a collective of
planes within which the forces of Law and Chaos were at war, there was
a keep besieged by the forces of Chaos.  Seeing that his demise was
imminent, the lord of the keep asked for aid of the Gods of Law.  The
Gods of Law granted this aid in the form of shifting the main tower of
the keep to another dimension.  The Gods of Chaos were not to be
denied their victory though, and cursed the tower to continue its
plane shifting, never to remain on one plane for more than a few hours
at a time. 

    The original inhabitants soon went insane, but after millennia of

the Tower's wanderings there eventually came to the tower a mage named
Voilodion Ghagnasdiak.  This great sorcerer realized the power of the
curse of the tower could be tapped to his own ends, and set about
doing such.  Soon he had tapped into the power of the Tower, granting
himself eternal life as well as increasing his already significant
magical power.  Ghagnasdiak unfortunately found that by linking
himself to the Tower, he was unable to leave it lest the ravages of
time catch up with him, and so he was cursed as well as the Tower was.

    Voilodion Ghagnasdiak spent his time in the tower researching his
magic.  The occasional traveller who so foolishly entered the tower
seeking power, wealth, or just a roof over their head to shelter them
from some storm soon found that they were the "guest" of Ghagnasdiak
until such a time as he grew bored with them and killed them in some
magical experiment.  Ghagnasdiak had magically enchanted the front
door of the Tower such that although it could be opened from the
outside, once the victim entered the Tower, the door would shut tight,
only able to be opened by his magical key.

    There came a day when a young drow mage by the name of Tralast
came to the Tower looking for knowledge and power.  Tralast's natural
flamboyance, intelligence, and particularly his fine sense of etiquette

quickly won over Ghagnasdiak, who took him on as an apprentice.  Over time, 
Tralast took on most of the administrative tasks of the Tower, often
venturing outside to obtain needed reagents for spells, as well as more
mundane objects. He used the extensive travelling of the Tower to gain
great insight into a variety of different cultures and races, and is now
considered a great historian.

Relevant Skills

skills gained when read for first time go here