This one is short and almost all puzzle. Scoti_Garbidis is on the server alongside Basket, and the two of them spend the episode reading books out loud and arguing about which way is west. An on-screen note at the start warns that the audio doesn't always match up, because of an issue while recording.
The instructions
The job comes from Vargos, in chat: "Ezariah's old office is on the roof. If you can figure out which levers to pull and push the button on his desk, it should cast a translation spell on the book. You should be able to find clues in the library on the ground floor." One of them is relieved: no trip back to the wizard tower.
They find the way up, and the office has a desk with a button and a bunch of levers around the walls. Then it's back downstairs to the library.
A library of strange reading
The chests hold books, and a book taken out of a chest comes right back, so nobody has to worry about putting them back. There is a Fishery Survey by R.S. Stokasa, tax reports for the Eastern Province, a book called Western Winds, a grim account of lizard folk, immortal creepers and ninjas, and a review of an awful concert.
The fishery numbers all have a minus sign in front. The list ends with "-1 Red Herring" and the note "Numbers are low. Tlaxani overfishing?"
Twelve levers
Back upstairs there are 12 levers. The first theories involve math: subtract the tax numbers, add up the revenue column. Then it clicks that the books have directions in them. Eastern Province taxes, Western winds, Southern fishery, and a choir from the Northern realms. "Maybe it would be the ones on the east wall."
The next clue is the capital letters. In Western Winds the words Low, Middle and High are capitalized, and the wind goes from low to strong to low again. The tax book says Eastern taxes have been "consistently High," so all the east levers go up. "Nope, didn't like it." Later the chat line reads "The spell fizzles out." They also wonder whether the red herring is the word Southern itself.
The off-key twin
One of them had missed the concert book. It turns out to be the north wall's clue: a dirge sung much too High, a singer who Left the stage, a new Low, and twins in the Middle of the stage where "the one on the Right was off-key, Higher than his brother." So the third lever goes up and the second goes down.
The desk takes it this time. "The spell activates, and a translated copy of the research notes magically appear!" "We decrypted notes. We're so good."
Still unreadable
Back at Vargos, the good news doesn't last. "Cleverly done! Now we can finally... Of course it's in Tlaxan. He always did love that language." The next step is a translator named Armece, who left the city years ago and "was a bit reclusive, so perhaps he lives somewhere in the swamp?" One of them has seen a hermit. One of them had also expected to fight through another tower, and wonders what's in it now.
