Riloth 19th the 5th

Dear Spellbook,

This coffee stuff is growing on me. I didn’t expect it to, seeing as my body seems to restore itself to this state of misery every day.

Show me the doodle I ripped out the today before.

It seems pages not in you during a reset don't come back with us. Before when I ripped pages out they would return at dawn the next day, that at least tells us that the resets occur before dawn. I was up till 12:40 last night, but I dozed off and on all night and missed it again. I'm going to need to take a nap one of these todays to figure that out.

[Doodles of Daulf trying to wrangle a giant goat]

Riloth 17th

That morning I was not woken by a thunderous knock, Daulf being busy saving the world or something. The first thing I did that day was ring the room service bell to see about getting a bath. Simon was not on duty that day and I never caught the names of most of the other attendants. They directed me to a room on the first floor behind the kitchen.

What I expected was a small private room with a wooden bathing tub. What I got surpassed my wildest dreams. Well, wildest bathing-related dreams at least.

It was quite possibly the single most magnificent thing I have seen in my entire life. The bathhouse was made entirely from marble. A long pool took up the floor entirely beyond the entryway. The pool was one hundred feet long and twenty feet wide, and every ten feet it had an opening for a private bathing area. My first step in was magical. I can literally do magic, and it was magical. I think that if I could cast Clean, I would still come here every day just to experience it.

The water was just on the edge of being unbearably hot, and it smelled wonderful, like a mix of roses and fresh crisp winter air after snow. The entire chamber was made of the purest white marble and the floor of the pool —also marble—was so smooth it was as if I wasn’t even touching the floor but floating. At first I thought the water might become stagnant, but once I was chest-deep I noticed a subtle flow to the pool. If I let it take me it drew me to a drain in the very center. Looking down at the drain through the water I could make out the faint lines of ward runes.

The private bathing areas were ten-foot square enclaves along the edge of the pool. The rooms had submerged benches and enchanted braziers outside the water you could ladle water onto to fill the enclave with steam, and lounging benches outside the water to lay on. You could seal the area off and get out of the pool and enjoy a private sauna. I had balked at the two silver entry fee, but I would easily pay double for this.

I may have gotten carried away with the description of the bath, needless to say, I stayed there till lunch. They wouldn’t deliver it to the bath even though the kitchen was right there. Simon’s second betrayal of many.

After a long bath and a quick lunch, I headed out to check out the libraries in town. Everyone else seemed to be doing their own thing today so I decided to get to work translating the passages you showed me.

Asking the front desk of the hotel, not Simon, I was directed to the town's library. For a town of Crossroads size, the library was out of place. I speak from experience, having seen a lot of libraries in my day and browsed countless books. Don't be jealous, they didn't mean anything to me.

Something about this library seemed not to fit the town. I had seen larger libraries and fancier libraries but never one with so much... weight? As if the knowledge inside was affecting the world around it in a tangible way.

The library was built in the same style and colors as the Parlor. The steps leading up to the front door were a miniature version of the grand stairs leading up to the Parlor. Above the entrance, a sign read "Crystal Dragon Book Repository". The sign showed a dragon coiled possessively around a hoard of books.

On the door was carved a notice "Books cannot leave the premise." As I opened the door and stepped through it, the open door revealed that the threshold was inscribed with intricate warding runes. At the time I did not notice these, but it is strange that I've seen two instances of rune wards in this small town when I'd only ever seen a handful in my life. There must be a resident warder somewhere. This could be a great opportunity to learn the skill. The few who know it outside of the dwarves guard the art as much as the dwarves do.

Inside there was a sign on a lectern with the same message and I was greeted with, "Good afternoon, welcome to the Crystal Dragon Book Repository. Books cannot leave the premises. How can I assist you today?" The speaker was an elderly man who stood behind a desk. He was dressed in a less fanciful variation of the uniform worn by the Parlor staff and was working on a book's binding as I walked in.

Looking me up and down I saw recognition in his eyes, "Oh yes, you must be Apprentice Theral! Kine told me to expect you. I am the keeper of this wondrous collection, you can call me Jarreth. What can I help you find? An epic? A romance? An epic romance?"

He said the last one with a wink.

I'm not sure how he got word to this man so fast. Kine, apparently the name of the man at the desk, must have some magical means of communication with Jarreth. This is another odd quirk of yours. I could not remember Kine's name while writing about speaking to him, even though I learned it later and since forgot. I could have told you the number of buttons on his shirt had I tried, but not a name I didn't know in that moment. I suspect there is something going on here beyond simple memory enhancement. Some of the things I'm remembering don't seem possible for me to have perceived, even passively, when the events occurred. The runes on the door jam, for instance, I know I was not looking at the floor as I crossed the threshold because I read the sign as soon as the door opened.

I digress. I get distracted easily as you are learning. But you also are a book and are incapable of caring. Right?

So back to the library. In answer to Jarreth's offer of aid, I pulled out a sheet of the unknown text which I tore out of you that morning. "I’m afraid my pursuits are a hair more academic in nature. I am looking to translate this text, do you recognize it?"

It seemed like I came to the right man for while studying the page he began to speak excitedly "I can't say that I have. This is fascinating. This could be a Pre-Flood script that didn't survive the trip to The Continent. The writing implement seems to be some sort of dull tipped quill, which rules out the Dwarves and Gnomes and all the other deep dwellers who developed writing using sharp chisels. The elves have records from their original written language and that used brushes and looked nothing like this. Orcs didn't write before... They still don't really write. The Demonblood script is known to me and is more certainly not this, again like the elves has survived the ages unchanged. And halflings never had a script of their own." He stopped and took a breath.

"So what we have here is either a lost human language or—" He paused, maybe to think, but I suspect it was for dramatic effect, "a script of an otherly sentient race."

An otherly sentient race is a very scholarly way of saying monsterous race. Minotaurs, sirens, centaurs, ogres, and so on. The races on Kaltis that exist somewhere between man and beast, though not to be confused with the Forsaken or twisted creations of Bilieth and Erebog. Some of these were created by the gods in their persuit of men, but most were created after us. Some were even made by us. They were once referred to as the unblessed sentients, but this was proved untrue in a few notible examples.

He continued, “I am afraid to say, but no book here is going to help you identify this language, but you're free to see that for yourself. I recommend you start in aisle 4 D. If you have any more text like this, I’d love to see it.”

“Thank you for your advice. I think I will try anyway. Unfortunately, that page is all I have but I will keep you in mind if I find more, or translate it,” I lied.

The stacks of books were spectacular. Each shelf reached the full height to the ten-foot ceiling and had a ladder on a track that ran its length. The shelves themselves were made of slabs of marble that left me with many questions as to their construction method.

I fought my worst nature and surveyed the recommended section. To my father’s endless frustration, my typical “strategy” when first entering a new library, was to wander aimlessly until something struck my eye and read it cover to cover before picking something new. After a few hours, I made a discovery: Jarreth was correct. None of the books had anything close to the language in your pages.

One thing about the library that is coming back to me now, which I hadn't realized at the time, was that each book had a small gemstone set somewhere on the book and it was surrounded by a rune. Most were on the spine but some were on the inside cover. I will have to go back and investigate those. Runes and wards are very rare outside of dwarven holds.

The rest of the evening was uneventful. Simon was off duty so Kine brought my dinner up to the room. While the room rates were extortion the meals were fair, expensive for sure, but worth every copper bit. I spent a lovely evening alone in my room, and eventually decided to study the spellforms in your pages.

I tried to decipher the Light spellform that night as well, but I couldn't figure it out. Its appearance didn't match the lessons my mother taught me or the crude examples she drew. Each spellform, or so I was taught, is drawn on a frame of three concentric circles. The outer frame is the anchor for the construct template. The middle ring holds the locations of the gate you must enter the Arcane Realm through, and the inner ring holds the Font you are drawing from. Between the middle and inner rings lies the path. Each of these is represented by complicated swirling curved lines that mean nothing in and of themselves but hold in them Imbued Will with the knowledge needed to learn the spell.

The spellforms in your pages are wrong. Sorry if that offends you but they look incomplete. They have only two framing circles, the construct and the Font. Furthermore, the construct is far more complicated than it should be for a cantrip. I'd say my mother's lessons were completely wrong, but the Font is identical as she described. Who was your previous owner?

Maybe if I can figure out what's written below it will shed some light on the mystery. I took a stab at trying to translate that text that matched the language of the spell. This is not going to be an easy process. I planned to spend the night translating that document, but I couldn’t recognize any of the text. It doesn't resemble any language and without something to go off of, I’m at an impasse. Is it an impasse if you’ve made zero progress before being forced to stop?

-Leads-

Leads:

House Barion Landing Command tent Giant north of the town Outlaws out in forest ruins. Investigate runes Baths

Before writing I’d say that day had been uneventful, but those runes are certainly something I need to investigate. Runes are very rare outside of the Dwarven holds. Not that I or anyone I’d ever met before Edgewater had ever been to one. Another lead that's unlikely to lead to the cause of this prison, but it is an oddity that should not be overlooked and maybe a big opportunity.

Needless to say, the baths require extensive further study.

Resources

Library

Copy my To Do list below the line I will draw.

To Do

Find a way out of these resets Find others aware of the resets Find a way to wake up early Cure this hangover Learn the capabilities of this book Learn the language of the spellforms Learn how to read spellforms Learn spellform writing

Interesting. I can give you a command that's delayed to a trigger. This definitely requires some more exploring.

I’m off to spend the rest of the night in the bath till the reset. I think I might try to sneak some food in. What are they going to do, kick me out?

Dear Spellbook,

I snuck pastries into the bath last night but they got really gross in the heat and humidity. In here but now I can’t relax. I keep thinking about my life before this loop. My parents, our travels, my “training”.

I grew up on the road, traveling with my parents. We traveled all over The Continent, looking through private libraries and forgotten ruins. We never stayed in a place as nice as the Crystal Dragon, my father would have shared Roland’s sentiment of the rates, but his idea of luxurious relaxation was discovering a new edition of a book he’d previously read and trying to identify the differences. From memory. Without reading the footnotes. How he won my mother I never knew. We’d stay in the larger cities for longer, sometimes over a year, but when we did either my mother or father would disappear for weeks at a time without giving a very convincing reason why. My father was always looking for any scrap of pre-Flood history, and my mother was torturing me to unlock my sorcerous powers. And when I say torture, I do mean torture. A sorcerer doesn't learn new spells through study and patience. They manifest spells when faced with a life-or-death situation. To “teach” me, my mother would create situations where I believed my life to be in danger. Manufactured life or death situations are less effective than real ones because part of your mind knows what's happening, but all that means is that it takes longer—and you need to try more often.

To learn to manifest fire, I was soaked in water and left in a pit during the winter with a pile of rags and paper. Most nights ended with me succumbing to hypothermia and being rescued. Finally, one night shortly before my scheduled unconsciousness, I willed fire into being and ignited the pile of combustibles. My mother was impressed that it only took me two weeks to learn, she told me it had taken her three—and that had been a record for her clan. At that, I started to suspect that maybe my mother ran away from home instead of being cast out.

In similar fashions, my mother stranded me in a small sailboat in a barracuda-infested lake, so I could learn to manifest wind. I learned mage hand early in that week while trying to catch something to eat and finally got the hang of gust when my boat started to take on water and I started to panic.

She tried to teach me Arcane Armor by throwing stones at me while I was tied to a tree, but instead, I teleported away. She saw that as a failure on my part and tied me back up, this time blindfolded.

On top of those, I learned a spell or two the old-fashioned way. Real, un-manufactured, peril. When our donkey got spooked and dragged our cart off a cliff, I saved us by slowing our fall with a focused upward blast of wind. Unfortunately, I could only save my parents and me, the donkey did not make it.

When a pack of wolves attacked our camp, my small flame-producing skill grew into a genuine Firebolt to drive them away.

I don’t want you to think that my mother was sadistic. Can you think? I suspect you must have some level of cognition. She was not cruel, she was preparing me for the world. Without being able to replicate the standard repertoire of any Tower or Stormcaller Wizard apprentice, there is no way I would survive on my own in the continent. Not if I wanted to make use of my abilities that is.

A huge red flag that a “wizard” is actually a sorcerer in disguise is a lack of variety in the abilities they display. If all it took to fool a Seeker was to lug around a book of doodles, there would be a lot more sorcerers running around. A sorcerer’s power manifests as a spell that best solves the immediate problem, but if you can already do something that will almost solve the problem, the spell you manifest is likely to be a growth from that.

For example, when the wolves attacked, I was able to cast Firebolt because I could already create fire. When all you have is a hammer, everything is a nail. When all you can cast is Firebolt, most of your problems get solved by being lit on fire. Once a sorcerer learns one element, they rarely learn to manifest a second; narrowly focused elementalists are on the Seekers short list of suspects. Being able to cast Firebolt and Lightning Bolt is often enough to deter suspicion.

I wasn’t clear yesterday on the wizardry aspect of my training. I wrote of constructs, but I have never explained them. I meant to but got distracted by that spellform. A mental construct is what a wizard must use to harness the fonts to an intended effect. When casting, wizards do not simply build these on the fly, but instead build them from the images of them they store in their minds, exerting will in the effort. I refer to them as templates, though I am sure they have some official name amongst the classically trained.

The first step in learning wizardry is to learn to build a place in your mind to store these templates. From this mental vault, you can then learn to access the arcane realm, and this vault governs the shape that realm takes in your mind. My mother’s vault takes the form of a ship at sea, and to her, the arcane realm is an ocean floor. Mine is a small apartment and when I exit a door to the arcane realm it appears as an endless city.

To cast a spell a wizard must have these templates stored in their mind. Without them, the complexity of a spell is too much to create in a moment. The more of these a wizard maintains, the more spells they have access to at any moment, but holding more in your mind reduces the amount of will you have available when fully rested. I have heard of ritual casting but never seen it. I suspect that is a method of casting to bypass the need for templates, but it requires ward-like runes as well.

When my mother taught me spells, it was these templates that she taught me to shape in my mind. Each night I must check the integrity of them to make sure they do not decay. If I catch the decay, I can repair it, but if they are lost I doubt I would be able to rebuild them.

This is the magic, if you will, of spellforms. A wizard can copy a template from their spellbook in a relatively short time, even if the one in their mind is completely gone.