Isabella IC and I OOC have answered some of your questions and you don't find those answers sufficient so you seem to be circling back to those questions. E.g., she acknowledged it was a gamble to try to recapture you but thought she would be quick enough to do so. In-character, this is not a world where she knows your readied action will always be fast enough to dimension door out.
Similar with one stranger being a lot easier to quietly capture first and ask questions later than three plus a tough-looking dog.
Regardless, Isabella is a shady character. I personally would not be willing to do everything that she has been doing in this arc. If you don't agree with her, that's totally fine. If you mistrust her, that's also fine. She doesn't like Turion and Turion doesn't like her, to put it mildly. I don't see a world in which either of you apologizes for anything to the other or has any sort of reconciliation. All the more reason for us to shuffle this along, in my opinion. Hopefully the gesture I just posted in gameplay helps with that.
I kept circling back to e.g. the gamble of the recapture because to Túrion, it's relevant she must have been fine with both outcomes at that point. That she decided to abort talking and accepted antagonizing someone cooperative. In his eyes, out of the blue.
So that she now seems to want to cooperate all of a sudden seems - unhinged in a threatening way. Feels like the cop that gave you a hard time during the traffic stop, confiscating your stuff under civil forfeiture and having your car impounded while talking about smelling drugs, then suddenly turning mister nice guy and offering you a ride home to the other end of town with a malicious grin and an inoperable passenger airbag.
The easier capture - oh, I acknowledge that - one reason I dwelt on it, to drive the point home to the others that she is not being civil to them because she's that type of person - if she had the means, they would all be in a similar situation as Túrion, so he does not want them to let their guard down or allow her to separate them or anything.
I also fully acknowledge Isabellas ambivalence. I don't quite get why she has such distain for him, but Túrion actually liked her and was willing to look past the first assault(thinking it was a misunderstanding). Her sudden but inevitable betrayal was what he had a problem with. Kind of reversed his outlook because he realized what image he had of her was completely wrong.
I had no time to check gameplay as I have to move to the office shortly, but I'll do my best to look on it favorably. I mean, obviously no 180° turn on his side, but I'll try and do my part on moving on.
That said, his treatment is NOT something he will easily forget, or forgive. Barring extraordinary circumstances or her showing willingness to self-sacrifice for values he holds dear(as he will no longer trust words from her, only actions), I concur there will be no reconciliation.
On a different note:
what IS the correct english term for what I meant with "buying"?
That is, if my company wants to hire someone from the competition who received some expensive training and has a no-leave clause in his contract, we have to pay an additional fee to his former company.
Or with sports clubs, where the contract is for another season or two, you have to add extra expenses beyond the actual cost of the new contract to be paid to the original club.
Or when a contractor was pre-paid for a project and you work out a swap, where you have to pay extra to whoever contracted them so they can afford a replacement at a heightened rate.
In my native language, it would be right to "buy" the sports player, "buy" the contract, "buy" the worker from the other company.
The term is literally shopping for them.
(Much as a head-hunter in english is in most cases not technically only after the head or actually hunting in the classical sense.)
The fact that me wanting to buy her out from the madame seemed to be a big deal suggests to me that it does not parse.
So assuming there was some kind of work contract or bond, some agreement in place, and it was not the american "at will"-employment, what would be the correct term to use for paying that off to free her for new employment?
(Also for expedited access - around here it's 3 months notice, because the previous employer needs to fill the position, possible have a knowledge transfer or train a replacement, transfer all responsibilities and roles etc...if you want the person to transition on short notice, after 2 weeks or so, you'd have to pay a significant additional fee for the former company to waive their access(unless they already have someone lined up - in which case they will be happy to not pay the guy for 3 months during which he is considered a liability.))
(Incidentally, part of the trouble, as I expected she'd need a few days or a week to get ready, by which time I hoped we would have dealt with the Baron. It was unexpected that she seemed ready to depart instantly. Or I would have brought it up to the others beforehand.)
Figured if that was one root of trouble in this exchange, I might as well get something out of this so I don't put my foot in my mouth if I'm ever discussing this topic in the future with people in english.
(which is a very real possibility as I am working in an international team, and would not want to imply any forms of slavery or human trafficking...even if work at times feels that way).
(technically, the term would most often be "freikaufen", or "buy-to-be-free" but is often colloquially used as "einkaufen"/"shopping/purchasing" or only "kaufen"/"buy")
I would also like to bring to attention that I very much did set aside and mentioned/offered a significant payment as "wage" for the first half year, so even if my wording was off, it should have been clear that Túrion wanted to employ her, not "own" her as purchasing a slave would imply. Just mentioning that post-factum. (Not changing anything here, but the way I expressed things clearly did not match what I meant if it was perceived as an actual purchase-a-person to own attempt.)
Linguistically, I do think "buy-to-be-free" is what an English speaker would be more comfortable with than buy. "Pay-to-be-free" might be even more cautious.
And then context layered on top matters a lot. If you were talking about a while male employee in America and said "buy", people might be a little uncomfortable. If you were talking about an African American employee and said "buy", many people would be triggered by what would seem like insensitivity at best. Similarly, the context with Isabella where, for appearances sake, it is a grown man waving money around to "buy" a thirteen-year old girl he has taken a special interest in at a brothel, even if it's a reputable one. Isabella disliked this and dislikes/mistrusts Turion. She has a different attitude toward the others. This is probably colored by my personal perspective, too. In America, there is a LOT of very exploitative prostitution even when it can seem like it's between two consenting adults. I don't know how things are in Europe. So that informs my whole view of prostitution and probably comes into how I imagined Isabella would react.
So the sooner Isabella and Turion part ways, the safer everyone will be, methinks.
P.S. I think Turion's conclusion that Avinoax is different and he wants to go home is a nice way to take this. Especially in the end stages of the campaign. One of the heroes has preserved the continent but just wants to go home. That's classic.
Aye, but IS it an idiom in use? "Buy-to-be-free"? It's like, I'm looking for the correct "native" term to use, not what translation would be more acceptable.
The money you pay during that is often referred to as "Ablöse" or "Ablösungszahlung/-summe", which is translated as "transfer fee" or "key money". But whats the process during which you pay that called in english? (A "transfer" seems right for the sports guy, but not for regular workers, or applicable to this situation. I did not want to "transfer" her to my own business - and besides thats the process itself, not the action on my part. Or is that exchangeable in this case?)
(Also, as for prostitution in europe, there is quite some variety, but most of the german-speaking areas including my country fall within "Legalization - Prostitution legal and regulated" - they have to be registered, pay taxes, get sick leave, all the works.
Thats not to say there's no unregistered ones coming in from other countries or even pimping, and it's not as respectable a job that you'd proudly tell your parents you started work at a brothel. But it's also not something that would turn heads or cause problems in your CV. So yeah, it's where I assumed there would be some way of work contract or so, especially in a public, seemingly legal, and high-end establishment. Exploitation was not on my radar. Well, not that kind.)
As to the attitude, yeah, no reason to revisit that. As mentioned, she could have put a stop at any time. The way she presented things made Túrion worried about her. And she seemed eager to get away, not even having any additional questions or doubts.
Appearances and all that be damned, assuming she was what she seemed and WAS pressured into that line of work by her mother or other family, I'd have no idea what would have been the socially acceptable way of freeing her from that situation.
It's easy to say in hindsight that she needed no rescuing and so Túrions interest could seem creepy (despite me trying to always keep things distanced and respectful). But if the girl had been in peril with no way to get out on her own? That is, if what she seemed to be had been true - it's not like there's some Child Services he could notify, nor did he want trouble for the Madame. I readily admit it was a grey area, but even in retrospect, I'd have no idea how I could have handled that in a better way.
That problem may lie entirely within my perception of the situation as a player, admittedly. But my SO was working with abused and mistreated kids and she seemed like one of the archetypes of that, so I wanted to get her out of there into a safe environment. The fact she so readily went along with the suggestion implied that she urgently wanted to get away and risked the unknown over the known. (she was ready to go that same evening, completely ignoring his suggestion to say farewell to any family she might have in town - so avoiding her own mother in favor of going with a stranger? that carried some heavy implications in my interpretation.)
*shrug*
PS: Yeah, with Isabella he felt that she was wrong, because he KNOWS he had no ulterior motives. Mel then cutting into him as well really took him down a notch, because he had to realize that for all the good intent he believed was driving his actions, the perception of even people he cared about(heck, he attempted to court her shortly before) was that he was deeply flawed and what he did was wrong, intent be damned.
And not to forget that in preserving the rest of the continent, that means more trouble for Avinoax, because the Concordat would no doubt focus their attention there if the other plans don't come to fruition. (Of course, in the long run, any other development would also not have been better, so it's not that he regrets helping)
Oh, and he will want his revenge. He will be bitter. But unless he dies a violent death, time is on his side. It may be in 20, 30, 40 years, but he will remember vividly.
My aim is to update tonight either way. Unless he says otherwise, I'll assume Kazador is willing to go with the majority.
For the record Hal is going to want the group to take some precautions - head to somewhere safe, and heaps of dispel magics and waiting out spell durations mostly. Might cost some time, but Turion could have a buried suggestion, passenger, skin tag or curse.
He can be overruled, but his paranoia is (understandably I think) up at the moment.
Also, I can see this might be pretty boring, so I'm okay with skipping a lot of it.
Oh, Túrion will wholeheartedly support that, Hal. Just to make sure no tampering was done with him while he was out.
Same with the equipment. Make sure it's as clean as can reasonably be deduced, and then still assume she has some trick up her sleeve - but at least rule out all the "obvious" stuff.
I concur that it probably does not have to be played out, but there's two paranoid spellcasters around, so definitely no overruling from my side.
That seems like a sensible precaution.
I was going to suggest a one time pad cipher. Is that something I need to have Hal make a skill roll for? He has a ridiculously good Linguistics.
Just give me a linguistics roll for establishing the cypher and communicating it to Isabella. You don't have to fully explain it IC but can just say IC that you explain it.
I had a thought. If we're closing in on the conclusion we could maybe hide out in Brookside for a day or so? Only really worth it if it works with the narrative, and as a reflection of how far the group - well, a part of the group - has come.
It would require a lot of description to Hal, of course.
Otherwise it'll probably end up being a border inn he stayed in on the way here... unless people want to cram 5 bodies into a small prison cell.
I figure we can then skip over the actual precautions and about a day, and stroll back into town tomorrow morning in new personas.
If there is anything people are very worried about they might want to pick it up beforehand - thinking about Mel's stuff here. The boat needs to wait as it almost certainly has Reap trackers on it by now.
I imagine Hal could get us to Helm easily enough, but Brookside might be a harder sell. I don't think he's ever been there, has he?
Narratively, I'm inclined to think it makes more sense to stay in Bannerhold. We can wrap up any outstanding plot threads after we've dealt with Beaumont.
Speaking of which, I'm not sure how to approach that. We need to obtain that Book of Whispers as proof of his treason. But he's guarded by fighters and wizards, he's apparently has great Perception and Sense Motive, and he keeps it on his person at all times. Plus there's a whole laundry list of things we don't know:
- Where he lives;
- His manor's layout;
- What his routine is like;
- Whether he keeps it on him while he sleeps;
- How many guards he's got;
- An assessment of their capabilities;
- An assessment of Beaumont's personal abilities;
- Who his friends and associates are;
- Probably a bunch more I'm not thinking of right now.
I'm just going to throw out a whole bunch of ideas here.
I've been wondering if there's any way to eavesdrop on messages sent via the book of secrets. It would be cool if we could intercept his communications with the Magister of Divination and use them to uncover him. But I don't think that's how it works -- it's not like a radio transmission where we could listen in. The words just appear in the book. If anyone can think of a way to make this work, that would be cool.
We could go to Turick, tell him about it and see if the King might be willing to issue a search warrant. But that's a pretty big ask based strictly on hearsay from a group who has been acting in direct opposition to the government.
We could go to Turick and ask his advice on how to secure further evidence that might lead to such a warrant. Maybe he'll have useful insight.
We could report it to Count Aral and ask his advice. I think Mel's probably going to do that one regardless.
We could use divinatory magic to gain more information. Commune would be nice, assuming we know what questions to ask. But we don't have anyone who can cast it. Mel could theoretically use a scroll if she passed some checks, it's on the warpriest spell list. Hal or Túrion likely has arcane divinations of various sorts we might use, though I suspect he's probably got countermeasures against that sort of thing.
We could just go scout out his estate -- a casual walk-by keeping an eye out -- but that's likely to yield limited information.
We could get friendly with some of his servants and pump them for information. I don't think another infiltration mission is called for here, though.
We could try to arrange to get the Magister of Divination to pass him false information that would result in him unmasking himself. But that would be quite difficult, not least because she would not be anxious to unveil her own treason, and she's in the Concordat while we are in Bannerhold.
We could declare the continent a lost cause, hop on the Siren and sail into the sunset in search of an entirely new continent, thereby ensuring another six or seven years of campaign for our long-suffering GM. ^_^
Given that he is hiring fighters and wizards to protect him, could we perhaps get hired on? Make it an inside job. That way we could get inside without raising suspicion. If we can find where he hires from, maybe we have a connection we can use to get us in.
We could certainly try, but it sounds chancy to me. He has well-known prejudices against non-humans. Hal's human, Mel and Túrion can be disguised without too much difficulty since the major difference between humans and elves is pointy ears and a slighter build. But Kazador is pretty solidly dwarven.
Also, we're not as under-the-radar as we used to be. We participated in the raid on Cust's place. Turick's people definitely saw us, as did Cust's staff. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Beaumont has spies in the households of other great nobles, just to keep an eye on them. For that matter, Cust's house guards are out of work and might well have gone looking for work from Beaumont, bringing news of us with them.
Whatever keeps us moving. If it is not an opportunity I was hoping to fade to black and pick up the next day. Can do it faster if needed. Could just be an inn a few hours away from us I guess? If there is a chance they're tracking us, going back to the house seems like a bad plan.
Well, if we wanted to be sure of breaking any tails, we could just duck into an alley, check ourselves for any magic tell-tales, and if we don't find any (or get rid of any there are) then teleporting away would shake any physical tails as well. Unless they happen to have Trace Teleport, which is a pretty high level spell. And even if they do, they would need Greater Teleport to follow us since Trace Teleport doesn't provide enough info for the regular Teleport to work.
If I recall correctly, we just woke up maybe an hour ago, and Hal still hasn't prepped spells for the day. So effectively I think we're at the beginning of a day. We could lay low for a little while, and that's not a terrible idea. Among other things, Mel could write to Count Aral and get input back from him.
On the other hand, I have this nagging feeling that things are in motion, and the longer we sit on our thumbs the more time things will have to happen.
It is still early in the morning, yes. You guys can do whatever you like. There are advantages and disadvantages, statistically, to different approaches. But neither approach is going to result in a definite loss or anything razor's edge like that.
I am reasonably certain that I have not recovered any spells and did not have a restful night.
So I would very much prefer to take a day off, make sure we are REALLY clean, and come back the next day.
With 3 Level 5 spells, we could teleport, then move in some direction for 5 minutes, and teleport again, which should also throw off trace teleport.
Honestly, I am more worried about scrying of any sort.
As for how we approach Beaumont, Túrion is reluctant to weigh in on that, and I will reflect that.
He still wants him taken down, for his own reasons, and the fact that also furthers Isabellas agenda won't change that even if he would prefer things to be different.
But some things said when you retrieved him will stick with him for a while.
No need to play that out and he is not turning into the broody edgelord sitting in halfshadow in the tavern, but work is currently not kind to me, draining a lot of energy, so it just seems right for him to take some time to digest things, rather than jump back an as if nothing had happened.
Actually, now that you mention it, Count Aral's estate might be the perfect spot for a brief respite. We could confer with him in person about Beaumont.
Plus I don't think any of us were anticipating a jaunt out of the city when we left to go find Túrion. Mel definitely did not bring spare clothes, food or her bedroll. I imagine Count Aral could put us up for a night, particularly since we've been working diligently to advance his interests in Bannerhold. Mel's got her combat gear and the book Count Aral gave us, but a lot of her mundane gear is in the townhome.
So if Túrion can get us there, great. I think maybe we should aim for someplace just outside his estate and approach in a more mundane manner. Turick's guards got awfully twitchy about us appearing out of thin air in his garden, and I have to imagine that Count Aral's guards would react in a very similar manner.
DM, here are a couple of knowledge checks:
Aaaand I roll terribly on the one with the lower modifier. Naturally.
With those rolls, what does Mel know about the Concordat's Magister of Divination?
Hal has skin tag - if they managed to force something down Turion's throat while he was asleep that'll make divinations much easier. I grant you some of his combos are pretty unlikely to show up outside an intrigue focussed build.
he also has Mage's Private Sanctum, so if we are careful we can definitely have a scry-proof place to stay.
Hal made his way here along a similar route, so while he did not stop at the estate, he might have stopped somewhere close enough? Otherwise a double jump t-port from Turion should work fine.
Mel doesn't know a lot about the Master Diviner's magical acumen, not practicing much magic last time she visited the Concordat. But she does know the woman, Amrynn Faedi, has a reputation as very knowledgeable about magic and the mundane, politically savy, and personally ambitious. She also knows that there are some rumors that Faedi is corrupt but nothing that her political opponents, including the conservative, anti-war party within the Concordat, could prove.
I think we just need someone to announce that they're casting Teleport to get us to Count Aral's estate.
Can do, just didn't know if you wanted to lock in certain roles first or just wing it when we get there.
For the sake of forward motion, let's wing it.
Also, Nelly's magical size reduction will run out in a few hours. I will excuse myself and head to the woods, not join for the formal dinner. (I can officially simply travel on due to some urgent appointment only involving me).
You can pick me up tomorrow at some agreed-upon spot, but I'm not hiding a large wolf in my room and hope no servant comes by, nor leaving Nelly alone out there.
Túrion will be glad for a change of scenery and some green (plus it saves you guys from more broody posts) - but if there's more scanning or scrutinizing to be done, we'd best find some time before.
Just FYI that I'm traveling for the holidays and will be spotty on my posting until January 2nd.
Regarding filing a bug report on teleportation trap security vulnerabilities with the Crown, I'm not sure what we were supposed to do in that scene with that. We're not in the royal household right now, and none of us have had any contact with them. Count Aral is sitting in his country estate because he's not in favor with the Crown right now, so I don't know if he's in a position to put us in touch. We could ask Turick, I guess? But he's not here right now.
Is it just that none of us really said anything on the topic that makes you think we're not interested in doing it?
Yeah and that's fine. It's much more convenient and natural to report it to Count Aral. He's just a little nervous that this could be considered a state secret and doesn't want any of King Stephen's advisors to be able to claim that Aral withheld such information from the Crown, even for a minute. So he's going to be passing the info along as fast as money and magic can make it happen.
No need to get hung up on it either way. It's more of a vignette of the world reacting to a creative thing the PCs did. It's not intended as a major plot point.
I like the fact Aral picked up what an issue this could be - I hadn't realised the full implications of what we did until now.
Not sure if Hal needs to make a bluff check for his post. Technically everything is the truth or supposition, but he's definitely slanting what he's saying to look more sympathetic.
Wanted to get something in. What does the plan say we do next?
I mean, I guess we gather information. The most obvious way is to go collect these plans for the Duke's manor from Count Aral's people in Bannerhold.
All those years trapped in a mirror dimension have really messed with Hal's architectural skills.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Apologies for my slower than normal follow-up. My computer screen is busted and my replacement computer has been taking far longer to get here than it should. Tomorrow it should be here!
Sorry to hear about your computer screen. I feel you. My 2 year old threw a remote control at our TV, breaking it...it is nowhere near as bad as having a broken computer, but still, I feel your pain.
And for my part, apologies for long silence. Ever since getting back from the holidays I've been juggling a half dozen major projects at work (inventory, surplus, annual evaluations, setting up and deploying new computers for a third of the staff, three separate non-trivial server replacements) plus reading and scoring 84 separate grant proposals for a statewide library funding committee I got appointed to sit on. Plus my parents announced last week that after fifty years of marriage they're getting divorced.
So I have been busy. But now that all that is done and dusted (except the divorce stuff which I am only peripherally involved in), hopefully I can slow down enough to pick up again.
Wow. Sorry to hear that, Mel. I hope things get better for you as the year goes on.
Sounds terrible! Glad things are starting to settle down.
I must confess I'm pretty stumped as to how to go about this Beaumont case. If it were up to me I'd probably infiltrate the place as a servant. But A) we've done that already, and B) that sort of thing works better as a solo mission. I'd rather have something where everyone can participate.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Thanks Kazador, I was stumped for something to say.
I feel like the answer is to get him to host a massive party, and use the opportunity to snoop... but I can't see how to make the pieces come together.
@Brookside GM: out of curiosity, if we got access to one of the book of whispers, would it be possible to link a 'third' book into the system? Showing the king the words appearing as the Duke commits treachery would be very satisfying.
Cool idea. Yes I'll say that can be done with a third book of whispers, some ambitious spellcrafting, and components equal to half the cost of the third book (3000 gp). Let's say it would take one hour. It's hard to imagine it being faster than that.
Listing some options that have been discussed so far to try to help the party think about a way forward:
1. Have Viscount Turick get you a secret, private audience with the King and convince the King to pass false information to Beaumont. This would require some good convincing as well as cleverly devised false information.
2. Infiltrate through the sewer entrance. It is probably guarded magically and maybe elsewise.
3. Infiltrate via some social means, like posing as servants or during a large party.
4. Risk divinations on Beaumont's book, person, and/or manor.
Ha-humm...
sorry to read about your troubles.
I had my own share, with a prolonged (and unexpected) stay in the hospital during january.
Then an unrelated death in the past month, and a ton of anxiety about having been missing from the boards.(and knowing I was on thin ice e.g. on this game, regarding unannounced absences).
So either way, I finally found the energy to go back to the boards. If still welcome, I'd try and get caught up in the next couple days.
Yes you're definitely still welcome, Turion. Sorry to hear about your troubles as well. PBP games lose momentum slowly over time and this game is at it's very end. So let's all keep going as we are able and be forgiving to each other so you guys can finish saving the continent. From itself. Well, really saving it from certain very powerful and selfish individuals who would put bad things into motion.
I really like Hal's idea of "putting a tap" on the book of whispers, so that anything written into it gets copied into a book in our possession. It neatly solves the problem of Beaumont noticing that the book is gone, because it won't be. I can't think of any spells that do explicitly that, but perhaps we could research one or modify an existing spell.
I've been toying with a plan revolving around Steal Book. It copies the contents of a book into another book of similar size. The chief stumbling block is that it erases whatever was in the book originally.
But! It's not an "instantaneous" spell. Its duration is "permanent", which means the effect can be ended. Presumably, once the magic is no longer active the effect would be reversed: the original book would once again contain the text, and the copied book would not.
So we could:
- We get two blank books.
- Either Hal or Túrion learns Steal Book.
- We cast Steal Book on the Book of Whispers, dumping its contents into one of our two blank books.
- Somebody casts Scrivener's Chant and uses it to copy the info into our second blank book
- The original caster casts Dispel Magic, targeting their own Steal Book spell.
- Boom! We know exactly what our dear Duke Beaumont and Amrynn Faedi
Buuuut there are problems with that. First, Steal Book specifies that it does not work on magical writings. The explicit examples are wizard spellbooks and magic scrolls, which this is not. But considering that the Book of Whispers is a magic item that transmits written messages across any distance, I suspect that it would probably count.
Second, if I understand correctly the contents are protected by a Secret Page effect. We would still need the password to get the real contents. Otherwise we might wind up with totally unincriminating nonsense like, I don't know, 87 different recipes for pudding or something.
Maybe we could research a modification of Steal Book that would just show whatever it's currently got in it without erasing it? Then we wouldn't need the password, because Beaumont would unlock it for us the next time he consults it. All we would need is to watch our copy like a hawk and make fast notes about anything we see while the book is decrypted. Still not ideal though.
Man, this is a tough nut to crack.
I rule the book of whispers does not count as magical writings. It's not the same kind of thing as written spells, which are very special.
Did I really write "We know exactly what our dear Duke Beaumont and Amrynn Faedi" without finishing the sentence? Grargh. I hate it when I accidentally omit words. It should have been "We know exactly what our dear Duke Beaumont and Amrynn Faedi have been writing to each other" or something like that.
My speciality is noticing a grammatical error, editing at the last minute, and leaving a far worse error.
It's hard to proof read your own stuff because you know what it is supposed to say... though I have to admit I've forgotten to close a tag at times.
Okay, mechanical question. Is Beaumont's book more like the one Count Aral gave us, or are we using the full mechanics for the Book of Written Whispers? Because there's a whole lot of detail in that item description which might affect things.
Like, Count Aral's book just lets you write back and forth. There aren't any word limits or destruction clauses or anything. But the Book of Written Whispers is highly specific: each book is good for exactly 25 messages of exactly 25 words each, and writing a message in a book transmits it from the "source page" to the matching "secret letter", which is just a loose piece of paper, not bound. And the recipient doesn't appear to be able to respond unless they have their own Book of Written Whispers whose secret letters have been deposited with the other end.
If that's the case, then what Beaumont has are piles of loose paper containing concealed messages from Amrynn Faedi, and a book (or actually probably multiple books) containing messages he sent to her. And since each book can only send 25 messages, if they've been at this for some time then they probably have to have worked out some way to swap components. Every time a book gets filled, that person needs to acquire a new one and arrange some way to send all those secret letter pages to the other without getting caught.
Honestly, the item is way more complicated than it needs to be. I wonder if it was created to support a very specific scenario where the author needed there to be letters on one end rather than a matched book?
The idea of a book where what is written in one appears in the other seems much more thematic given the principle of contagion. Please don't feel the need to use something as written if it does not make sense, Brookside GM!
I'm pretty excited about the idea of hacking the sympathetic link :)