Riloth 19th the 12th

Dear Spellbook,

I thought that maybe the mornings would be better knowing respite was at hand. I was wrong. After knowing comfort, the pain is so much worse.

Some good news: I found the time of the reset. Staring at the clock until 3:13, I was beginning to think about what areas of town are most likely to have dark magical secrets when I felt the briefest instant of pain. Then nothing. No senses except a sense of self. I don’t know how long I was in this state. No sight, no smell, no sound. I had an awareness of existing and time passing, but nobody. And as suddenly as it happened, I was in my bed, sleeping. What's weird is I did not wake up when the reset occurred, but I remember no longer being in that void space. How is this possible? This needs more study, I need to learn what you can do. Maybe I can use you to better remember that state.

This morning I woke up, miserable, but did not immediately run downstairs. Instead, I washed up in my room, dressed in my travel gear before heading down. With shoes. I made it to the floor with a good minute to spare to place my bet. I did not need to clock anymore, after living the bet twice and recounting it here, timing it was not a problem. Even with the hangover and exhaustion.

I got my potions and came back here to finally plan with a functioning brain. I’ve been going about this all wrong, but I've had a great idea, no time to explain, but I'll need to borrow some pages. Thanks! Be back soon.

It's around noon, I just returned from executing Operation Minions. Last night, staring at the clock, I came to a realization. Why was I repeating the same actions every day when there's a whole town full of people out there doing just that? So I took some of your pages, bought some charcoal writing sticks and acquired some minions.

For some of my items on leads list, and assigned watchers to the ones of interest to count or observe them. If I give them your pages to write on, I can put them back in at the end of the day and compare them all.

I tracked down the urchin girl who stole the purse first. She bolted when she noticed me following her but I learned that an Updraft able to save me from a fifty-foot fall will throw a starving child ten feet in the air. Once she calmed down and I was able to convince her I didn’t want to murder her, I explained to her what I needed. I offered to pay her to sit in an alley and mark tallies every time someone left or entered the Crystal Dragon. She agreed under threat of being turned in to the guard. I left her some food and promised some coin when I picked up the list. At the food and coin she became much more willing and told me her name, Rail. I asked Rail if she had any friends I could trust to do a similar job, and she introduced me to her friend Gill. I set them both up with paper and told them to count. Gill was set up on the roof across the street from the Dragon’s Den with the same instructions I gave Rail, count the people who enter and exit

Twiggy kid and his friends from the goat incident, were tougher sells. They didn't cow to my threats of turning them into the guards and one of them even drew a club on me. I used my Minor Telekinesis to pull the club from his hand and into Twiggy’s face. That move would never work on an actual warrior but what can I say, I excel at using my forbidden magic to intimidate and coerce children. Maybe Daulf is right and I am a menace. Three of the four goons could write so I assigned them to different parts of the square with instructions to write down any notable events.

To set a watch on the guard tent, I found Daulf once more where he was teaching a class to some students.

“Hi Daulf, do you have a student I could borrow for today for an important project. I’ll pay him for his time and there's no danger involved.” I asked him.

He watched me for a moment, I could almost feel the weight of his Blessing testing the truth of what I had said. Nothing I had said was a lie so I was fairly confident he’d say yes.

“Sure, I think I have a student or two who could use the coin.” He replied and gestured for a small boy to come over. “Sam, this is my good friend Theral, he has a job for you, are you interested?

At the mention of work he perked up, “Yes sir, Master Daulf, anything!”

I brought Sam to a barrel near the command tent, set him up with some charcoal—checked the time on the clock I took from Simon—and got him to begin tallying people entering and leaving the command tent. I told him to leave the sheet with Daulf when he had to return to his family.

After that, I came back to my room and slept. When I awoke Sam’s tally had been slid under my door.

Now I am back in my room after collecting the rest of my minion’s reports, no anomalies so far. Maybe I should look into getting a minion to manage my minions. I plan to lie low for a few more days. Once I have gone over every day with your memory enhancements I will reassess my plan and decide where to investigate first. You’ve already helped me remember a lot I had forgotten. Let's get back to it.

The last minion was easiest. I found a refugee looking for work and told him I'd give him a day’s wages and pay for his food all day if he sat in the Crystal Dragon's Saloon and recorded any notable comings or goings.

Leads:

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

Assets:

Julian - Refugee Monitors game floor Literate Twiggy and Company- Bully kids Monitor market Semi-literate Rail - Urchin girl Counts people entering the Parlor Illiterate Hard worker Gill - Urchin boy Counts people entering the Dragon’s Den Sam - Refugee Counts people entering the command tent Simon - Concierge Traitor Brings coffee

Show my Asset list when I write -Update-

With a clear head, I went over the plan in my head once more. I have been operating under the assumption that these resets are something I could stop. It's possible, likely honestly, that I am just a fly caught in the web of forces beyond my ability to comprehend, let alone thwart, and all my sleuthing will result in nothing but frustration.

With that in mind the three most important tasks are:

Find others aware of the resets Learn the capabilities of this book Identify why I am aware of the resets

Find others aware of the resets

Number one is sorted for the time being. I will task my minions every day while I work on numbers two and three.

Learn the capabilities of this book

The best way to learn your capabilities is to keep using you. Most things I've learned so far were accidental or intuitive so I expect to pick things up as we go but I do have some experiments I want to try.

Identify why I am aware of the resets

I went through all the days leading up to here already. Anything that stood out will need to be investigated.

Leads:

Giant north of the town Outlaws out in forest ruins. Investigate runes Giant goat Dwarven caravan

My amended leads list, now with watchers set up, these are the ones left to me. I'm off to bed, need to get a lot of rest to wake up exhausted and tired in the morning. It is about time I resumed my mother’s training.