Oct 9: I am very excited to say that I finally managed to get the Encyclopedia plugin working! Y'all have no idea, I've been trying to get this to work since AT LEAST 2016. 
The player gets a cell phone with a built in E-Reader. This functions as a Codex which allows the player to explore extra lore of the world (while keeping it entirely optional if that's not your bag). Talking to NPCs about the customs and practices of this country will unlock excerpts from in-world books that can be accessed from your E-Reader at any time.
Next I need to figure out how to make the entries more visually appealing. I want the colors to match the rest of the theme, and I also need to figure out how to format these entries so they're not just a big block of text. But those are problems for later. For now I'm just hype I finally have a working in-game cell phone.