Compendium Singularia

The Compendium Singularia is a Singularity artifact linked to Zaarthren. Although the artifact physically manifests as a book, it is not a tome in the traditional sense. When the book is opened, it is revealed to be a conduit for Zaarthren's stream of consciousness and memories as the user's mind is flooded with thoughts, voices, and visions that are not his own. While it is undeniable that a direct link to Zaarthen--an endless repository of knowledge and secrets--would be indescribably valuable, this value is totally negated by the equal measure of danger incurred when one chooses to open the Compendium; all documented readers have gone insane almost instantly, either crawling into their own psyches never to emerge or committing suicide. As such, the few who are aware of the Compendium's existence and understand what it is consider it functionally worthless other than as a horrible way to choose death.

History

It is unknown when or why the Compendium was created; it is either a natural extension of Zaarthren or a tool he created intentionally. Regardless of its true nature, it resided in High Singularium until the Singularity Civil War, when it was cast to Universe BR-45327/B in the calamity. The Compendium came to rest somewhere in the Milky Way Galaxy, where it would remain undisturbed for countless millennia until sometime after 980 PRE. It was discovered by the Ban-José Corporation, who swiftly discovered the danger presented by the artifact when, between bouts of screaming, the researcher assigned to study it slashed her own throat open with a light fixture she broke into shards. [[[Joseph Gemintry|Joseph Gemintry,]] the head of Ban-José, became reluctant to condone further sapio-organic testing with the Compendium and instead tasked an artificial intelligence with studying the book. This, too, ended in failure when the AI's matrix spontaneously shut down after its construct opened the Compendium. Digital analysis of the matrix revealed the AI sustained informational input in excess of what its storage medium could contain, causing a catastrophic overflow that resulted in irreparable data corruption. Attempts at analyzing the Compendium with non-sapient AI ended similarly.

After sapio-organic and sapio-synthetic testing both resulted in cataclysmic misfortune, Joseph ordered the Compendium sealed away. It remains secured in a Ban-José Corporation vault.