I've got a suggestion for you, Cal, to put finding information of this nature (the 3 part Harbinger story, or at least parts of it) into game play.
How about designing a plug and play code that works like a turn-in quest?
Add random spawns to particular MOBs, a spawn of letters (books or scrolls) that we can loot and turn in for parts of the quest. Add locked down books, items with names or words, etc., that we click on and get a quest gump as part of this quest.
The idea being that we collect parts of the story, turn in those parts (and collect extras for our own library collections), and when we collect each piece of the puzzle and turn them all in, we get a reward of things like a golden book or a wall plaque or a bust, with appropriate phrases, and maybe also a few items of greater worth sometimes. And while we do this, we learn the elements of the story beyond a base that you start us off with.
So in this story, you'd start us off with the court rumors of the meeting between Zhah and Uskadesh, some relevant info, and strong clues where to go to next to find letters, stories, names, etc. These can be from both sides of the story as well as just chance NPC encounters.
This doesn't have to be too extensive. It could be as simple as a series of "letters" on enemy corpses along with the story from a courtesan. Or it can be more extensive, depending on your tools (which could be developed and expanded over time).
It would make the information feel more realistically gained, but most importantly it would put it into game play.