Egerton Dist-inked Stationary Set

The Egerton Dist-inked Stationary Set was an export from Tiveley, first available around the year 300. Produced by Piet Egerton, the official and original Egerton Dist-inked Stationary Set continue to be a preferred distance communication tools.   The Dist-inked Stationary Set allows distant communication as the set's pen writes not just on the local page, but also on its paired page.  

Components

Pen

The official Egerton Dist-inked Stationary Sets come with a variety of quill pens, ranging from cheap disposable quills to heirloom-quality artifacts. The quality and quantity of the pens in the set are the largest factor in the set's price.   Sets generally contain either one or two pens, but may contain more. Pens are not associated with specific stacks of paper. The Egerton Stationary Company sells official Egerton Pens that work with the Dist-inked Stationary Set .   Some success has been reported with using third-party pens, but results tend to be spotty. With the cost of Egerton pens, however, a third-party market does thrive.  

Paper

The Dist-inked Stationary Set most often comes with two paired stacks of paper. The stacks range in size from just a single piece of paired paper in each stack up to stacks of 100 sheets.   The Egerton Stationary Company sells additional paired paper in similar stack sizes.   Paper can be purchased in more than two stack sets for multi-party communication. In this case, writing on one stack appears on the matching paper in all stacks. The cost for this increases exponentially, with more than four stacks being available only on request.  

Ink

The Dist-inked Stationary Set comes with a single bottle of ink for each pen or stack of paper in the set. Additional bottles are available for purchase. Third-party ink has reported success, although best results occur with official Egerton ink.   Other substances (e.g., writing in blood) have been attempted. Some success has been reported, but more frequently this ends in failure with nothing appearing on paired paper. Success appears to be dependent on the writer, not on the materials themselves.  

Color

The supplied ink is either blue or black. Additional colors can be purchased. The color used to write is the color that is written on the target paper, regardless of if the target paper has ink of that color nearby.  

Extra Paper

When the initial stack of paper is exhausted, additional stacks of paper are available for purchase from the Egerton Stationary Company. Third-party merchants do create and sell this component, but replacing the paper with third-party components produces the worst results of any of the three stationary set components.  

Problems

Ordering

The paired paper stacks are ordered -- anything written on the top sheet of the purchased stack will be written to the top sheet of the paired stack. Because of this, problems arise when the stacks get mixed up (e.g., if a stack was dropped). If the order is unknown, it's unclear which paired paper will be written upon. All papers would then have to be regularly checked to find if anything has been sent.   Similarly, if a single top page is lost, either the source writing will not be received, or will be written to the second page in the target stack, not to be checked or discovered for some unknown time.  

Numbering

Some buyers opt to number their pages to assist in solving these problems. The Egerton Stationary Company sells pre-numbered paper stacks at an additional cost.  

Container

Numbering doesn't help solve all problems -- losing a single sheet becomes problematic if the first and second sheets aren't both regularly checked.   Piet Egerton solved this problem by creating a stationary box and adding a slot in the container itself to hold a single sheet of paper. As effectively part of the container itself, this paper will not be lost unless everything is lost, and can be used to report issues with the paper itself.   A container for the paper is not a part of the stationary set and must be purchased separately. Third-party merchants provide their own boxes at a variety of prices with a number of additional features.