Bottling

The act of putting something in a bottle and sealing the lid is stronger than most would like to admit. Beside glass' innate property of occult isolant, there is a significant power in this ritual. Thunder, Sleep and even Logic can be trapped in an inescapable trap, should the artisan be skilled enough.

Sealing away

The history of bottling traces back to thousands of years ago, in Mesopotamia. The first recorded use of an occult bottling was to contain a rampaging Efreet that was tricked into entering the bottle and sealed inside. At the time, forcefully sealing things was not possible, as it was only the premises of the ritual.

With time, expertise and an unexpected alliance between The Seventh Cabal and The Ninth Gate, bottle-making has been codified, refined and perfected. Indeed, not any glass bottle has the properties required to seal anything else than the scent of formalin. I myself lack the equipment to perform such a fine craft, so I resort to purchasing them from the royal forges.

Currently, about anything can be bottled, from immaterial aspects of reality to monsters and even gods, though that would require a ritual that few are able to perform, and even fewer would dare.

I possess many such bottles in my basement that I fear to open. Most are unlabeled, which is the cause of a lot of anxiety. Only poor work leaves the image of the sealed thing intact, and these bottles are of the finest work. However, all I can distinguish inside is a pale fog whirling and scrapping the walls of its inescapable prison. Leeroy McArthur, my predecessor, had to have an index hidden somewhere that I was not able to find yet, or so I hope, even though it would be a foolish act for such a wise man. More realistically, this knowledge was stored in his memories and passed away with him, leaving me with a stock of possible impending doom.