O.C.

O.C. is the name by which a slender, handsome man of the Sürgün Günlükleri ("Exile Chronicles") campaign is known; his full name is not given. He had written letters to the company about the hunt for The Puppeteer. The warrior Hermes also received a letter, signed with a similar name, urging him to drop the matter and keep silent, though who sent it is not certain. Kemp Corvus, Sarah and Ephorus first met him when they broke open a sealed gallery of the Demirkapı amethyst mines, marked on the stone in red, and found him standing among many dead duergar.^{1 2 3}

His story

Wiping his weapon among the bodies, he introduced himself as the writer of the letters and sat down with the company, telling them that duergar patrols passed about every six hours and that they had a few hours to talk. He was not born noble, he said, but uncommon luck had brought him schooling and advancement, and he had lived through the collapse of his school in an earthquake. He described himself as a being who looks human but may not be.^{3 4 5}

He believes that some people are luckier than others because, behind a barrier in their minds, they know where to stand and which card to play. Once, while he slept for days and could not be woken, someone was found to have entered his room. He woke without his old luck, but with small visions in its place, and by following them he still found the right moves. That search led him to a set of volumes in White City, which he stole.^{5 6}

The volumes

The Volumes of the Architect are some fifty books that, by his account, record the places and dates of events in the lives of such fortunate people, without their names; he identified his own by research. He studied the movements of the fight with the duergar a week in advance and followed the written steps, sure that he would not be struck. He showed the company a worn black volume marked XXVII and said he had read no further, for fear that knowing the future would change what he did.^{7 8 9}

He does not know what The Architect is. He says the Puppeteer finds and kills people like him and works to bring about the opposite of what the books foretell, and that the Puppeteer can change memories, force people to act and weave illusions as strong as reality. Because the books no longer told him what to do, he wanted to find out what had gone wrong and set the plan back on course. He had written to an order he called the Chainbearers, but feared to go to them in person lest they take his books.^{10 11 12 13}

He hoped that the three companions, who were not among the people written in the books, might make a difference through what could not be foreseen. He told them that he had seen amethyst fragments on those who followed the Puppeteer willingly, and they shared with him the angel-wing dust they had found. He warned that, after he left, the book foretold a great attack on the dwarven city, though it did not name the enemy as duergar; the companions passed the warning on to the dwarven command without revealing its source.^{14 15 16 17}

Parting

The company agreed to help one another, and he left them food and water before walking away, saying he would be where he was needed when the time came. He met them again at a safe cleft where they were reading a duergar notebook, though he said he could not read its dating system quickly.^{18 19 20}

His next step, he said, lay west through the Westreach countryside towards the Free Ports and the islands, where he meant to spend about six months following his contacts, using money and hidden circles of teleportation to travel fast. He could pass books and notes to them through safe houses and secret circles in the great imperial cities, though not always free of cost. The companions chose to stay in the dwarven lands instead, agreeing to share what each side learned. He left them a pocket watch that shows not hours but the rising and setting of the sun and the phase of the day, and suggested they keep in touch around sunset.^{21 22 23 24}

Spoiler: The last standRevealSpoils: Sürgün Günlükleri #50 · Say what you have read

O.C. was with Kemp and Sarah on the upper floor at Osterhn when the allies stood against the Puppeteer. When the fighting was over, he was alive.^{25 26 27}

Free for the first time, he left the company to gather himself. The book no longer wrote anything further, and he was troubled that he might have spoiled the Architect's plan.²⁸