Sceptical Manuscripts

Sceptical Help and Advances of Galia's Society

[301 A.E. Temp d’Ouro, 11th]

Taken from Valdonado’s report on Galia’s civilisation. (The writer of this report has made any thoughts or assumptions based on what is known about the traits of the subjects.)

Despite the scepticals’ so-called “gifts,” there’s still a lot the Galians need to wrap their skulls around if they want to keep stumbling forward. But before I get into that, let me give you an update on my last report. It turns out that the far-fetched idea about Professor Grandfold being behind the disappearing bearers wasn’t so far-fetched after all. He was indeed snatching them up from their routes. And it’s not just me who’s caught wind of it—the royalty and bruxas did too. They’ve clamped down on security, and the disappearances have stopped. For now. As for where Grandfold and his little collection of bearers have scurried off to and what he plans to do with them? That’s still a mystery. You might be wondering why I haven’t been down to southern Sungar to find out, but I’ve got other pressing matters that I will discuss in this report. With any luck, I’ll have some more solid answers for you in the next report.

As you know, the scepticals knew about their demise long before they actually went extinct (although extinct might not be the best word, or we wouldn’t still have humans and all their different species). In a last-ditch effort to save their species, they scattered some crucial bits of knowledge around Galia, tucked away in vaults. The idea was to give the next generation, who came along, a fighting chance at building a new civilisation. And yes, we’ve gone back and forth on whether we should hunt down these manuscripts ourselves and torch them, just to make sure the Galians don’t repeat the same mistakes as their ancestors. In the end, we decided to let the basic eighteen manuscripts be, figuring they’d need at least that much to avoid mucking it all up again. As you know, we tried to track down the more advanced and dangerous ones, but it’s easier said than done, though. We’ve only managed to lay our hands on two so far.

I don’t know why I’m reporting all of this, but I’m sure you all remember the endless debacles over this particular issue. With this, I know that Galians have found twelve full manuscripts (although they often ignore the “Basic Principles of Governance and Laws”), five partial manuscripts, and one is still missing. Now, the way scepticals designed this knowledge progression means that Galians will not have access to advanced knowledge until they not only have the knowledge, but also know how to apply it properly. Although it did come to my attention that at least one advanced manuscript has been dug up from some ancient vault, which could not happen. What’s even more intriguing is that this particular manuscript contains the knowledge to create firearms, which, as you may recall, is not mentioned in the documents we’ve discovered regarding the transferable knowledge from scepticals to the future generation.

So, are there rogue manuscripts we don’t know about? Did this manuscript come from beyond Galia’s borders? I believe it is our duty to get to the bottom of this before moving forward.