The papers are very dry and a lot of it uses obscure SECO lingo and investigative codes, so it takes you a bit to slog through it all looking for clues or information. You do learn that the "object" that was removed has a classification code implying that SECO has been following it for a while - they only give out this specific flavor of object code to important long-term objects, kind of like when an SCP gets a super low ID number.
You also learn that, interestingly, there was apparently an "incident" shortly after the crime scene was investigated involving one of the people who was actually present at the scene. The wording is brief and vague but reading between the lines, you get the impression that one of the people who was there that night was interested in this object for the wrong reasons.
Something about these types of objects just seems to make people drawn to them for negative reasons.
"...So, it seems like we went out looking for deep sea diving training and ended up with some kind of conspiracy? What do you think we're supposed to do with this info?"
"DESTROY IMMEDIATELY" combined with the fact that somebody who was there at the crime scene apparently caused an "incident" makes you wonder if there's a reason that all that's apparently left of this case is some weird, scattered bootleg scans of ancient documents in a suitcase.
"Hmmm... Could the Gesta Eldrstraumr be the book we fought? Despite all the precautions that were taken to contain its power, we just saw it cause an incident."
The page still seems blank, but it's odd - you have this strange feeling like there is something here. Your magical sense is prickling slightly the longer you look at it. It doesn't feel like the photograph where somebody deliberately concealed information on it with a spell - this feels more like the page itself is hiding its true nature.
It's the same feeling you get around mimics. Like the page isn't really a... page.
In a strange way you feel like even though it's completely separated from the book, it's still connected to the book.
I furrow my brow and think. Grasping my spell book, I begin to barrage the page with spells that might help to reveal its true nature without destroying it. Prestidigitation, Light, more Prestidigitation but a different effect...
@Laurel You have a general notion of where magical object information is kept - a few places like the archives you've already been to and some specific people you could ask - but as for a really dangerous and notorious object like this, nothing specific comes to mind. The name is Dwarvish, so you could possibly do a history dive?
Maybe somebody in the historical record itself has encountered objects like these before.
You focus your spell on the page. For a long moment, you feel the usual feeling you get when you identify something - a sense of slowly unpeeling the layers of magic of the object and getting close to the core to learn its nature and properties.
And then you feel in your mind that there is a forest. There is a deep, dark woods full of dark trees, standing high and tall in a place with no name in a land that is strange and alien to you. You feel a sense of enclosure, as if the trees are closing in. There is a deep, dark, pit of impending dread in your stomach. You feel very, very, small. It's all in your head, and yet it feels real and close, like you're standing there, in this forest with no name. The page is the forest. It is darkness.
You feel something in these woods, something that is ancient. It is watching you, and watching all things. There is a sense that whatever is here is very, very old and very, very patient. You feel as though a great pair of wings is slowly closing in around you, encircling the world, feathery darkness - and then you're back standing with the page in your hand, feeling very, very cold. The forest is gone.
The spell is complete. This is a book of darkness. Somehow, despite only being just a page, it is the book.
"This is the cocoa they taught me to make when I was doing rigorous training in the snowfields of Alaska. Some agents report it shattering their teeth from the sudden increase in temperature from sub zero to the burning fires of Mt. St. Helens. Some say that the head of the FBI himself subsisted on it alone for 45 days in both the African savannah and the amazon rainforest...Which they were...at for some reason." "..." "Here's your cocoa."
