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Crushing Knowledge

A gestalt furniliar created by Stefarina the Vile Temptress that combined a bookshelf and it's books. The bookshelf was made out of a very durable and heavy white oak. Alone the bookshelf was simply known as Crushing, named after it's favorite pastime. The books where collectively known as Knowledge. It's important to note that Knowledge is not actually a gestalt by itself, each book was it's own furnilar usually known by it's respective title. However it's easier to just refer to the lot of books as Knowledge as some of the books have very long and difficult to pronounce titles.

Crushing by itself was on par with other bookshelf class furnilars. The books that made up Knowledge however, individually were not extrodinarily dangerous, even the most foul tempered books were little more than a nuisance. Working together though Knowledge was quite a force to be reckoned with when faced against individuals of less than moderate strength and fighting ability. In general though Knowledge was usually underestimated, because honestly, who's afraid of books? Besides the illiterate?

While Crushing and Knowledge were capable of working seperately as individual furnilars their power was greatly magnified when combined into their gestalt form, so they remained combined most of the time. The main benefits were added weight for increased crushing power and increased intelligence. It also kept things neat and tidy and the need for that runs deep through Crushing Knowledge's most basic instincts for some unexplainable reason.

Crushing Knowledge's intelligence and skills were dependant on the contents of the books contained in Knowledge. However the individual books where often at risk from being damaged or destroyed. This had the negative effect on Crushing Knowledge because he would lose the knowledge and skills the destroyed book previously imparted. As such new book furnilars had to be created to keep Crushing Knowledge at full power. Rare and valuable books were often protected from harm, the most valuable books rarely ever left the protection of the shelves.

Over time as new books replaced destroyed books, Knowledge itself would change and take on subtle different traits, which would in turn give Crushing Knowledge new abilities and traits as well depending on it's library. Not every change was strictly beneficial or desireable Crushing Knowledge had no real taste as far as what books it added to itself, it was just driven to keep its shelves full. As a result Stefarina the Vile Temptress had to occasionally cull the "pulp" from her mighty gestalt furnilar and replace it with higher quality material. There was this one time when Crushing Knowledge had aquired an unusual amount of romance novels. You really don't want to know the fiasco that caused.

Eventually Crushing Knowledge gained the ability to control normal non-furnilar books when a copy of Everything You Wanted to Know About Elemenstoring, But Were Afraid to Ask was added to it's number. While Crushing Knowledge could control almost any book with it's new ability the power was really only useful in libraries where books were exist in plentiful numbers. The gestalt could lay in wait posing as just another shelf of books, when an opportunity arose it would cause random books to attack library patrons. Since attacking books could come from any direction it was key ability that helped Crushing Knowledge stay undercover. If discovered a mountain of books could be summoned to crush everyone in the vinicinty which would allow Crushing Knowledge to escape easily (as if it needed to escape).

Stefarina often used Crushing Knowledge to terrorize children to instill an unnatural fear of books in them. She referred to it as, "her long term mayhem plan". Crushing Knowledge was to be the death of many unsuspecting librarians and bookworms in general. During that period reading on Battal was not fun for all ages.

Crushing Knowledge's best friend was the Door of Eternal Slamming. Often The Door and Crushing Knowledge would work together savagely slaughering library patrons. The Door would insinuate itself into a library wall and Crushing Knowlege would attack the patrons. Some patrons would try to flee after escaping Crushing Knowledge's initial assault, thinking The Door was a safe exit they would find themseves being slammed to pieces. The pair never quite got sick of doing that.