Dear Spellbook!

Oh, my dear dear dear sweet Spellbook. I missed you so much! I’m so very sorry. I hope you can forgive me Please forgive me. I... I said some things I didn’t mean but I’ve had a long time to reflect over this last... year. Has it been a year? Longer? I honestly don’t know. Early on, keeping track was important, but... it was hard without you there. There were some stretches where, well, nothing felt important.

You are probably so confused, but just know I take it back. All of it. You can just go on not talking, I can wait until you are ready. Do not worry, I will not push. I’m just so happy to have you back. I had thought I was alone before, but without you... I knew real isolation. Spellbook, I think, maybe, that you might be my best friend. It definitely isn’t Dagmar, and who else is there? Well, I think that will change pretty soon. I'll introduce you to Dagmar later.

Thank you for waiting. Thank you for not giving up on me.

Oh, Spellbook, you missed so much, and I am so excited to tell you all about it. Enough blabbering, I should just tell you.

Riloth 19th the 26th

The last time I held you, I was about to go off into the door in the forest. Tentatively—body shaking with adrenaline and fear—I reached for the pull bar on the door. While inches away, I remembered that I could take at least some precautions, and paused to activate Arcane Armor. Steadier now, in a quick movement to get it over with, I grabbed the handle and ripped the door open.

The door flew open as if it was not a five-hundred-pound block of stone. Inside the door revealed a grand foyer of brilliant white marble with black onyx accents; the ceiling thirty feet above. The walls were lined with tapestries depicting the creation of the world, the binding of Faust, the creation of the Torcish races, and—what I later learned to be—the binding of the Avatar. Between the tapestries rose great stained-glass windows of geometric patterns; from these windows came soft light in a myriad of colors. The main source of light in the room came from the giant natural and uncut crystal mounted on the ceiling. The crystal was five feet around and descended to a point ten feet from the ground, like a stalactite made of glowing diamond. In the center of the foyer lay a beautiful fountain that was still flowing, its water shooting up almost to the tip of the light stone. The fountain was made of glass and covered in, what at first appeared to be fractals later revealed themselves to be, a nest of complicated runes.

On the left side of the grand foyer lay a curved staircase that rose thirty feet, and continued into a hole in the ceiling. The stairs had no railing, were black and white—alternating between marble and onyx—and looked sized for dwarves. Opposite the bottom of the stairs lay another door, of the same size and color as the one I had just opened, but this one was completely covered in a complex web of runes. Peeking my head, tentatively and with great caution, I saw that between the two doors the wall was lined with racks of travel equipment; cloaks, boots, rope, water skins, and anything else you could need on the road—all sized for dwarves and gnomes.

Stepping into the door fully—ducking and turning sideways to fit in completely—I felt my Arcane Armor disappear. Cautiously, I reactivated my spell and I circled the room to get a better view of the side opposite the door I had entered. Against the wall, the stairs rose along from lay racks of weapons and more combat-oriented adventuring gear. Amongst these racks towered two massive stone statues. They were not life-like in their carving but consisted of cubic and rectangular blocks. They were joined at odd angles and seemingly glued together to form the semblance of a person.

I should say, they were not life-like until both rotated their cubic heads to point their smooth featureless faces at me and said in a unified voice, “Intruder detected. You have five seconds to relay the passphrase. Five... Four... Three... Two... One...” The sound of the voice was almost childlike—if a child’s voice could emanate from the very walls of a room and be loud enough to cause physical discomfort.

At one, the crystal in the ceiling went dark, leaving the stained-glass windows as the only dim source of illumination. By their faint prismatic glow, I could just barely see the golems, for they were clearly not statues, move towards me. After last night, I was not in the mood for another life and death struggle, so I cast Blink to bring me to the exit of the room. It didn't work. I teleported, just not to the location I had wished. Instead of appearing in front of the door, I instead appeared before the farther of the two golems; runes on its chest now glowing and visible.

Somehow it had a ward that could redirect Transportation magic. I didn’t have time to reflect on this as it happened. Immediately after I appeared, the golem swung its massive stone arm at me. I had just enough time to raise my Arcane Armor before the impact. My shield absorbed the impact to my body, but I was thrown, sailing across the room. The impact on the wall exhausted the last bit of will I had; the fall to the ground broke my leg.

Frantically I fished a potion out of my bag, but it was too late, the golems were on me...

I don’t want to relive this... Sufficed to say, they showed no remorse but worked quickly.

Riloth 19th the 27th

I woke up in my room, as usual, hungover and exhausted. As had become my usual routine, I pulled you out of my bag where you returned each morning, and opened to a blank page.

All the pages were blank.

As a man possessed, I flipped through all your pages, but not a single one had any ink on them. I wrote in this spellbook, thinking it was you. I apologized, begged, pleaded for you to bring it all back, to work, to do anything. After hours of trying to get this book to do something, anything, I started to doubt myself. Could this last month have all been a dream? A very painful and detailed dream, but still, stranger things have happened. A dream at least would be more believable than the reality of the prior month.

Filled with hope, I ran downstairs and left the Parlor just in time to see the giant goat charge through the market square to its temporary freedom. Standing there,—my brief moment of hope shattered—my mind went blank, and the terror set in. The resets were happening, and now you were gone. I was truly alone.

Collapsing in a heap at the top of the steps, I wept. I laid there until someone lifted me up and carried me to my room. It had been Daulf, someone must have fetched him. I spent the whole day in my room, alternating between bouts of anger and tears, with intermittent frantic studies of the spellbook that would not respond.

Were you mad at me? Had I broken our bond? Had I broken you? Nothing worked, and that reset was one of the darkest days of my life. Faced with the loss of you, my mind drifted back to all the things I had lost but had been avoiding dwelling on. Everything from my past was gone—my family and my name—and now even my future seemed stolen as well. Stuck in the eternal present, I could not even continue to build this new life I had started to grow with my friends. All of it was gone and now so were you.

Riloth 19th the 28th

Like a harpy’s slave, I went through the motions of getting funds and potions from Levar, talking to no one more than necessary to get what I needed. Returning to my room, I stared at the spellbook. I wrote in it as if it were that first night on the road, but after hours of making no progress, my anger and anguish overcame me and I lit it on fire with my magic, and to my horror, it burst into flames. Frantically I beat them out as quickly as I could, but it was too late.

The book in front of me was hardly identifiable as a book at all. The only distinctive feature remaining was the metalwork on its cover of the three rings surrounding its stone. Touching the book, it disintegrated into a cloud of black particles that rose into the air and then faded from existence.

Sitting there, staring at the empty and burned desktop that the spellbook had once sat, my brain started to spin. That fire should not have been able to destroy a soul stone, let alone make all evidence of the book disappear. How could your stone have been destroyed so easily? My mind now fully occupied with this riddle, I didn’t have room in my thoughts for despair. Something was tugging at my thoughts, something from my studies the day before. Finally, after endless toils, I had encountered a problem I could solve with research.

Still in my sleeping robe, I bolted out of my room and across town to the library. As I entered, Jarreth started his typical greeting but cut himself off when he saw my state of focused chaos. I found Deckard’s on the shelf and flipped through it until I had found the passage tickling the edge of my mind.

... Grand Midlothian Empire Soul Stone Experiment #58

The researchers attempted to create duplicates of soul stones by creating them use of the Fonts of Symetry, Earth, and Creation. They were able to create physically identical copies, but they were not soul stones, lacking magical attributes. These copies turned to black dust after a few hours, the black dust breifly floating into the air before vanishing.

The researchers then attempted to create a second soul stone from individuals who had already created a stone. These attempts failed to manifest anything in every instance. Later, they had willing citizens who had created their own soul stones attempt to create another. This time the second stone formed succesfully. These new stones appeared physically identical to the originals in every way, but after they were created, the original stones lost any magical attributes. The old stones would soon fade, and after eight to twenty hours of the new stones existence, the old one would be destroyed by the barest touch—the remnant dust quickly fading out of existence as the Font made copies did. See Appendix LVIII for a table on the rate of breakdown over...

Elated, I exclaimed, “That’s it! It’s a copy! It’s out there!”—startling the already nervous Jarreth who was hovering in the stacks nearby. Now that I knew the spellbook I had was a copy, it all fell into place. Had I not been so distraught, I might have pieced it together sooner. That door I had found in the woods must have opened to an extra-dimensional space. A pocket realm. Theoretically, these should be able to exist, and I’d read about that theory in my studies. Since the gods created our realm through the application of the Fonts, it stood to reason that we could in turn create a realm of our own using those same Fonts. As far as I knew though, no one had ever succeeded. Well, as far as I knew until that day. The Torcish folk seemed to be holding back quite a bit from the surface races.

So, if this door opened to a pocket realm—and that realm is immune to whatever effect is causing the resets—when the reset occurred the soul stone created in the spellbook would be a copy and fade like the Empire’s experiments showed.

You were still out there, trapped in an extra-dimensional space waiting for me to come and save you. Once more, I was filled with purpose. Hope. I could push aside the darkness for a time if I had something to apply my mind to. Running back to my room, I threw a handful of coins at Simon as I passed him, “Get me Ian... er a horse and have it outside the Parlor in ten minutes!”

As an afterthought, I added, “And pack a meal!” and ran on to my room.

In my room, I changed out of my sleepwear and into my travel clothes. Belting my father’s sword, I had second thoughts. If I failed again, I’d have lost two ensouled artifacts in three days to the same misstep. Those golems were massive and shockingly fast. If I got close enough to even hit them with this rapier, I would already be dead.

Simon, punctual as always, was waiting outside the Parlor—if a little winded—with a horse and a satchel. The horse was most certainly not Ian, it was a rather ordinary-looking riding horse that must be from the Parlor’s own stables... or Simon stole it. I didn’t care and mounted, galloping off in the general direction of the door. I took the northern road for a half-hour; trying to estimate the distance I had gone on foot the day before was difficult. When I judged I’d gone far enough, I dismounted, shooed the horse back to town, and set off into the woods. I searched for hours—well into the night—but I was not able to find the door.

Eventually, I sat in against a tree and became lost in my thoughts and worries once more. What would happen if you stayed lost in this realm? Would our bond fade? Or would you one day grow tired of waiting for me, and break the bond yourself? In either case, would I be doomed to an eternity in these resets with no recollection; each day waking up hungover and confused as to why my spellbook had become blank? My mind raced along these paths until the reset.

Spellbook, I know I said this a lot, but I'm sorry. I won't take you for granted again and I have so much more to tell you. I don't know where to start, so I think I will just continue from here tomorrow. I'm beat, I'm off to my severely undersized bed.