The Found Papers
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A TICKET RAISED WITH THE AETHERIC SUPPLY & SUNDRIES BOARD

Found paper — a strip of scrying-tape, printed by the orb itself. Three characters are absent throughout. The reason is given in the ticket.

AETHERIC SUPPLY & SUNDRIES BOARD Orb Support (Tier Two) — "Your Enquiry Matters, Eventually" TICKET #0RB-77713 · RAISED: Tuesday · STATUS: OPEN · PRIORITY: URGENT (downgraded to NORMAL by the Board)

FIRST SUBMISSION, AS TRANSMITTED. UNEDITED.

DE□R SIRS.

MY CRYST□□ B□□□ H□S □ F□U□T. THREE KEYS □RE DE□D. P□E□SE SE□D □ REP□□CEME□T.

THIS IS U□□CCEPT□B□E □□D I □M VERY □□GRY.

— M□GISTER FIZZ□E, TOWER, C□ST□E B□ST□B□E

BOARD RESPONSE (AUTOMATED): Your ticket could not be processed. The NAME field must not contain the character □. Please resubmit.

SECOND SUBMISSION, COMPOSED WITH GREAT CARE, USING ONLY SUCH LETTERS AS THE SPHERE STILL PERMITS.

Sirs.

My orb is here before me. It is good. It works. It sees. It predicts.

Three of its keys reject me. I press them. It emits — (here the tape is struck through, hard, twice)

Sirs. I tried to write the word for "the empty result." I could not. I have just now written it with a pen, by hand, upon this tape — which is why my hand is presently the better of the two devices before me.

I wish for fresh keys. Six, if you keep them. I proffer for these keys six good dry SPUDS of my best crop. I would offer to trade upon better terms, but the word for the better terms uses my dead keys.

I cite my post: I keep the tower. I do the fire, the fumes, the smoke, the very odd BOOM. I did the roof twice, both by mistake, both better for it.

I write to protest, deeply, upset.

NOTE THIS, SIRS. I would tell you the proper word for the document you now hold. I cannot. The proper word for this document uses every single one of my three dead keys. So this document is simply THIS, and you will simply have to work out what THIS is.

Yours, with much stress,

M. FIZZ.

(This is the whole of my house-word that my orb permits. Do not use it to prove it is me. I could not prove it is me if it were the price of my life.)

BOARD RESPONSE. TIER TWO. TRANSMITTED IN FULL, WITH EVERY LETTER OF THE ALPHABET, IMMACULATELY.

Dear Valued Practitioner,

Thank you for contacting the Aetheric Supply & Sundries Board. Your enquiry is important to us and is currently forty-first in the queue.

Before we proceed, have you tried scrying it off and scrying it on again?

Our records show your device — ORB, GAZING, DOMESTIC, MK II, with the ominous swirl — has exceeded its supported lifespan. The warranty expired in 1478. We note that the warranty expired before the device was manufactured. This is a known issue and is not a fault.

To progress your enquiry we shall require:

Please note that replacement characters are supplied only in complete sets of twenty-six. We are unable to supply three. We are unable to supply six. We are able to supply twenty-six, at a cost of four hundred sacks, or one (1) tower.

Please note further that the fault you describe is a character-emission fault, and character-emission faults are handled by the Character Emission Board, which is a separate body, whose enquiry form must be completed using your device.

We hope this resolves your enquiry.

This ticket has been closed as RESOLVED. If your issue persists, you may raise a fresh ticket at any time, using your device.

— The Board. (We do not sign. Signing is a Tier Three matter.)

AT THE FOOT OF THE TAPE, IN PENCIL, IN A HAND THAT PRESSED VERY HARD INDEED:

They say the number is on the side of the orb that faces away from me.

It is a sphere.

Every side of it faces away from me.

Archivist's note. Magister Fizzle never received his keys. He worked around the fault for eleven years, and in that time became the only wizard in the realm who could conduct an entire correspondence without the use of three letters — which the Quill nuns regard, correctly, as the single most impressive act of scholarship performed in this castle in two centuries, and which Fizzle regards as the worst decade of his life.

He is on record, in the tower, at the height of it, with the orb in his two hands, shouting the only sentence that has ever fully summarised the realm:

"IT IS NOT MAGIC! IT IS A DEVICE! AND IT HAS A HELPDESK!"