Marvellous Wright Note Taker

Mechanics & Inner Workings

The note taker consists of a wooden writing box with space for paper, quills and up to six bottles of ink. The inside of the box is covered in green and yellow magical symbols which appear to have been painted using something mixed with flecks of metal or glass as tiny spots reflect the light n odd directions. On the inside of the lid is a piece of metal which can slide along small grooves. The metal can be used to cover one of two words. When the metal is moved to reveal the word "on" a spectral hand appears and picks up a quill stored in the box. Anything that is spoken in a normal volume or louder within 20ft of the box will be written down. If multiple colours of ink are provided then the box will attempt to write different voices in different colours, otherwise it will attempt to use different styles of letters. The box seems able to correctly write most languages though it can struggle with spelling names or non-standard words. The box will continue recording what is said until it runs out of paper or ink, or the piece of metal is slid over to reveal the word "off". If the box runs out of one colour of ink but still has others it will record text that would have been in the missing colour in a different style of writing. Only one side of each piece of paper will be used by the box and it will not use a page that already has writing on it. If pages are being filled quickly and the ink isn't drying then the box will place completed pages on the nearest available flat surface withing 5ft of it. If no such surface exists the box will stack pages that still have wet ink.

History

August Wright was a human spellcaster during the time of The Empire. Though incredibly skilled at developing new applications of magic his tendency to neglect to write anything down caused huge frustration for his colleagues. Hiring an assistant to take down August's dictation proved ineffective as August was unwilling to slow down for the poor person trying to write down what he was saying, and he threw two of them out of his study for interrupting him. As was typical for August he then devoted more time to developing a magical solution than it would have taken him to just write some notes on his work. His solution was a device that could write down what he was saying, faster and more accurately than a person. It came as no surprise to anyone that he didn't write down any details about how he had developed the device. August and his device disappeared a little before the years of darkness, but the note taker re-emerged during the fourth age in the possession of a bard who used it to record performances of new stories.