By Paul Niziol
"17 January: This is a most curious item. It is a large crystal or piece of glass, about five centimetres across with many faces. It is quite clear, and sparkles in a way which make most diamonds seem dull in comparison. It is also rather heavy, almost 3 hectogram.
Inside the polyhedron is a world of reflections and refractions. I can see myself and my surroundings reflected, distorted and permuted in a myriad ways. There is also something else in there. I have not yet seen it, but I feel there is something hidden behind those illusions."
"21 January: Today I saw it. I don't know what it was, or if it was a pure hallucination. Suddenly, I saw something in a facet move, and it was not a reflection of myself. Instead, it was a reflection of something... different. I can't explain it in words, but whatever it was, it was definitely not human."
"1 February: I have seen other things in the polyhedron. One time I saw a strange room, or perhaps a building. The walls were made of living colours, meeting in obtuse angles and baroque ornaments. The other time I saw several (or perhaps only one, but disjointed) things move. I am not sure if it danced, gesticulated or dissolved (maybe it did all three at the same time). What I am sure about, is that it saw me. It definitely saw me."
"3 February: I have studied the polyhedron, using Coxeter's excellent "Regular Polyhedrons". It belongs to the symmetry group {7,5,2}:which cannot exist in three dimensional space. This confirms my speculations. It is not from here."
"4 February: I have communicated with them. No language can contain it. There is only the lattice of symmetries between us. Sometimes light is only what remains. What rules the circle also rules illusions of hope. Strange I didn't think of it before..."
The Polyhedron of Andreas Arenamontanus is a strange artifact. Its name derives from an obscure Hermetic scholar during the 11th century, who described it in his work "De Naturae Mysteris". It is a polyhedron of heavy crystal, brilliantly clear and cool to touch. Inside reflections and refractions dance, breaking up white light into strangely discoloured spectra. Using it as meditation object can lead to startling insights (+3 dices to occult, enigmas and cosmology. If the user botches, double the number of 1:s.). Anyone with science 4 or Correspondence 1 will notice that the polyhedron has a very unusual shape, which should not really exist. It has other unusual properties, like its fantastic hardness (much harder than diamond) or that it never will become warm.
If studied carefully, the user may notice that there are glimpses of other places among the reflections inside. The places reflected are completely unlike any imaginable place, filled with weird objects and eerie beings. Nothing has the faintest resemblance to anything known to man. According to Arenamontanus, the polyhedron is a window into the Deep Umbra, showing the denizens of realms so far off that humans never have reached them.
The polyhedron not only allows the user to look out, it also allows the things out there to look in. Arenamontanus relates the story about a monk who was driven insane by seeing something inside the polyhedron look at him. Even trained mages find themselves disturbed with the things on the other side. They do not seem to have any familiar concepts at all: time, space, dimensions, matter or energy may be unknown concepts to them.
The polyhedron does not allow any matter or energy to cross, only information. In some cases the things on the other side have tried to initiate communication using something akin to Mind. This has invariably driven sleepers insane, and even a trained mage will have to fight for his sanity against the terrible alienness. Still, this has not deterred many mages, who have tried to communicate. The exact results are unknown.
The polyhedron is not magickal in any way; it contains no extra quintessence, and does not absorb quintessence in any way like a normal artifact does. Arenamontanus speculates that the polyhedron actually is a normal, mundane thing from a realm somewhere in the Deep Umbra, where the laws of nature are so strange they allow such things to exist. On Earth, it would constantly attract paradox due to its existance, but curiously it does not appear to do so.
According to Arenamontanus, the polyhedron may be a Marauder artifact, deliberately left on Earth to trap the unwary. On the other hand, it does not appear to do the spectacular type of marauder-magick one is used to. Another theory is that it is a Nephandi artifact, a window to the hidden masters of the Nephandi. But if that is true, how come the things outside are not more actively malign?