Dear Spellbook,

I showed my experiment results to Dagmar today, asking his opinion. He laughed as he read it.

He held up the page, “This is why you’ve been playing with those rocks? I thought it was some weird Waatin thing. Maybe earth envy? I saw you rubbing that stone and I didn’t want to impose. Bah hah!”

After settling down, he continued, “Sorry, it’s just that, Waatin—I mean—surface folk did not know of this already? Well, I suppose we didn’t know all of this, seeing as this duplication thing is uncharted territory. You know, considering the knowledge you started with, this was pretty good. Almost gnome quality work.”

He continued, "I probably shouldn't be telling you this, but—Oh Fauell—I don't suppose there's any harm. I'm still not convinced you aren't a demon torturing me in Fauell. Exhausting the Will of an object will always make it crumble, that's what we call it. I'm not going to tell you why, but my people have been studying this since before the flood. Honestly, I'm surprised you didn't know about it; it didn't use to be a secret."

That was a pretty typical exchange for us; laughter, swearing, feigned reluctance followed by a near-compliment. I know you don’t know who Dagmar is, I didn’t want to spoil your impression of him, but I will get around to telling you about him today.

After that, he went back to organizing the Dahn. Likely sampling the ales. The kitchen here has the same wards as I'd found in the outpost. They were still working and preserved food by emitting a low-level anti-life field. Dagmar said that imperceptible animals—he called them microorganisms—are what cause food to rot. The most recent cask was dated 534AF, and Dagmar says no self-respecting dwarf would drink anything before it had aged thirty years, so the tower has probably been here near 150 years.

I better introduce you to Dagmar, so you can be as frustrated with him as I am

Riloth 19th the 60-64th

The next morning I had decided the stakeout was too boring to continue; I needed to be doing something or the magnitude of the situation would get to me again. After collecting my winnings and leaving Trish’s note with Simon, I walked out of the Parlor with a plan of picking Ren's brain for some surveillance tips.

When I was a few feet into the market square, I heard a shout in Torcish, "Faust damn you! Leave me to my torment in peace! Why today?"

Stunned at this turn of events, I turned to see the previously-passed-out dwarf yelling at the Parlor security who tried to rouse him.

He continued his tirade to the confused guards, “Can’t you just leave me be? Leave me to my shame!”

Finally, in Rilith he said, “Fine, fine, I know how this goes. You don't have to stab me again. No need to tell me where the ceiling is.” Brushing the dirt off himself, or at least trying to—he was quite dirty—he walked away from the guards towards me.

Dumbstruck, I stood there as he walked right by me, unaware of my stares. Without much thought, I followed him through the crowd in awe. When he came to a sudden stop, my heart leaped, but he wasn’t stopping because of me. Looking at the ground, he carefully positioned himself near a crack in the flagstones and sat there staring at it. We stood there—him watching a crack and me watching him—for almost ten minutes. I started to wonder if the dwarf had lost his mind. Eventually, I saw what he was watching. A shadow from a nearby stall was slowly creeping towards the crack.

When the shadow finally reached the crack, the strange dwarf burst into action. Walking at a brisk pace, he made off through the crowd. Once more I thought he had noticed me, but he seemed very focused. At a vendor selling fruit, without looking he reached out and grabbed an apple from the stall. The vendor was occupied with another sale. He kept walking through the market and pausing seemingly at random, all the while I could see his right hand rhythmically tapping on his hip as if keeping beat with a song.

After each stop, he would run to a stall and steal something, unnoticed; a loaf of bread, a bar of soap, a hammer, a cup. Each time I thought he would be caught, but he timed each snatch perfectly. Finally, he stopped near a stack of kegs, his eyes fixated on another point on the ground. On a cue I could not see, he walked up to the pile of kegs and began to take one from the bottom. As he was working, a commotion broke out in the square.

The goat was loose.

People screamed, and over the panicked crowd I could see the goat heading our way; panic as clear on its eyes as the crowds.

By the time the dwarf had worked the keg free, the goat was upon us. It crashed through the stall of the brewer, knocked over his stack of kegs, and scattered the workers. In all the confusion, the dwarf made off with a full barrel.

He rolled the barrel to an alley, set it on its end, and then left the alley. I followed him all day, and it followed a similar pattern. The dwarf would rush from place to place, waiting for some cue and keeping time on his finger. Each time he moved was efficient and exact. He stole blankets, wine, food, and even snuck into a small private bath. Occasionally he'd return to the alley to unload his booty. After an hour of scampering all over town, he settled in his alley, broke the top of the keg open, and sat down to get completely hammered. I sat watching from a nearby roof. Over the next twelve hours the dwarf did nothing but drink, eat, and stare at the wall.

The next morning I only withdrew enough coin to buy my daily allotment of whale excrement. After buying the potions, I climbed atop a building lining the market square and set in for a long day of surveillance. Without the Parlor security to wake him, I wondered how the dwarf would begin his day. Shortly after I had gotten settled, an over-laden donkey answered that question. The donkey’s owner, not paying attention to his surroundings, narrowly missed being clipped by a passing cart. The cart clipped a pot off of the side of the donkey’s load, and it hit the ground with a loud tong. At the noise, the dwarf jumped up out of his slumber and raced to the same spot in the square he had watched the today before. This time only standing still for less than a minute, he raced once more through the market repeating his timed heists of the day before. From my vantage point, his passage was quite visible, as he made no effort to navigate through the crowd.

After his mad dash caper, I relocated to the same roof as the today before and set up camp to watch him.

I had picked up a fiction book from Levar's called Another World. The book was about a wizard who died and woke up in a world where magic was unknown. The protagonist taught everyone magic and ushered in an era of peace and prosperity. The author had a very limited understanding of magic, and half the feats the protagonist performed would not have been possible without some combinations of Blessings, sorcery, wizardry, and druidic magic. Despite that, it all would have been much more believable if every woman the protagonist met hadn’t tried to immediately seduce him. It was very bad. I tried to branch out, but maybe I should have stuck with romances. The only reason I made it through the book was that the dwarf did the same thing as the day before and just stared at the wall.

The next three days were much the same. The dwarf stared at the wall, and I watched him from afar while reading and eating Simon's alphabet meals. Hidden in Levar's shelves, I discovered a whole genre of stories like Another World. These were all much better reads, their author's having a better understanding of how magic actually worked. One, Clockwork King, was about a gnome who was trapped in a world without magic and developed a world-spanning empire through the use of his inventions. Aside from the typical, excessive, gnomish cursing, it was pretty good.

Between books, I had time to think. Who was this dwarf? What was he doing? Was he involved in the resets? The more I watched him, the less likely it seemed. The rats, which had continued to behave erratically, could not be caused by this vagabond. His actions looked like those of a man broken by the resets, not the plotting of some magical mastermind.

Riloth 19th the 65th

The morning of the 65th reset, I decided to treat this as I would an experiment. I'd not performed many experiments in my studies, focusing mostly on history, but I had done a few and read the reports of hundreds.

If my subject wasn't changing, I needed to add a stimulus.

That day, I stood in the square where the donkey was to sideswipe the cart. As the donkey's owner approached I yelled, "Hey! Watch out!"

Shocked out of his daze he looked up in time to avoid the cart, narrowly pulling his donkey out of the way.

Without a wake-up clank, the dwarf slept on. And on. And on. It wasn't until well past noon that he awoke. Rising slowly, he looked around in wonder. He ran into the square, excitement evident on his face, retracing his path from the previous resets, but not stopping to count or steal. When he reached the spot where the stack of kegs had collapsed, he could see the wreckage as the brewer still labored to clear the mess.

At the site, the dwarf collapsed on the floor and began to sob, all his previous hope and joy robbed from him. After a few minutes of crying he began to scream at the sky in Torcish. Even from my perch I could make out his pleas, "Why!? Why?! Why?? Let me die! Stop this torment!"

In that moment, this man’s pain was something I could almost feel. I'd been there before, and was even then just barely keeping that same sentiment at bay with the illusion of a goal. The cycle of hope and crushing disappointment that chipped away at your sanity was one I knew all too well. This dwarf was not some agent of the gods or a demon in disguise. He was a victim of this situation, just as I was. Only he didn't have the fortune of a spellbook to let him know he was not losing his mind.

I watched him from afar for the rest of the day. It felt like cruel torture, but I had to see it through. He sat off the edge of the square for hours. At first, he cried, but eventually, he lay still. Closer to sunset, he rose and started making his way through the clearing market square. Gone was his purpose and eager stride, replaced now with a defeated shuffle on small steps. The brewer from before was loading his cart, and when his back was turned, the dwarf grabbed two bottles of clear liquor from the back of his cart. Taking his smaller bounty back to his alley, he resumed his vigil until the reset.

Riloth 19th the 66th

All the next morning as I made my preparations I was filled with doubt, second-guessing all my decisions. Tilavo, though I hadn’t known him well, had shaken my notions of safety. He showed me that death was not permanent, but gave me a glimpse of how fragile my awareness of these resets really was. This dwarf looked like a kindred—if further gone—spirit, but what if I was wrong?

I know that if I’d found him earlier I’d have approached him without hesitation. Was this newfound caution wisdom or fear?

What would Daulf say? That’s obvious, he’d help. Bearskin would probably say his honor bound him to aid or something along those lines. Trish probably would too if you forced her to a decision. Roland is not someone I really care to take life advice from.

This dwarf needed help, like Gerald, but this time I’d have lasting aid to offer. I couldn’t let my fear rule me, or change me.

I was still debating these ideas as I left the Parlor with my security escorts. As they noticed the dwarf, I waved them away, “Please leave him be, I will take care of him.”

Looking from me—dressed in my traveling gear with my sword at my hip—to him, they said, “Sure, just don’t kill him,” and headed back inside. At Levar’s, I bought an extra dose of foregone sleep, and picked up two coffees from a cart selling it in the market. I had spotted this particular cart during the previous days’ surveillance. Having only ordered what Simon would bring me, I discovered there was a world of variety, each called a “roast.” Simon, it seems, had only been giving me the dark kind, but there were milder roasts as well. People also added cream and sugar to it. I did not have time that day to experiment, but it went high on my mental to do list.

Coffees and potions in hand, I walked up to the sleeping dwarf ready to brighten his temporal prison. Clearing my throat to wake him, I let out a “Ahem.”

Nothing.

I coughed loudly to get his attention. Still nothing.

Finally, I yelled, “Wake up!” and moved to tap him lightly with my foot, when the pot fell off the donkey and let out a tong. The dwarf jumped to his feet and—upon seeing me looming over him—screamed, “Bah! Get back demon!” and pushed me over onto my butt, whereupon I spilled the coffees all over myself. Continuing past me, he ran to his marker in the market.

“Agh!” I screamed as the hot coffee burned my face. Climbing up from the ground I chased him yelling, “I’m trying to help you, you idiot!”

Without even looking up he said, “I’m not falling for your flooding demon tricks. Leave me alone and go rip the skin of a unicorn or something.”

“I am not a demon. I am trapped in these resets just like you! I wanted to help. I have potions that will cure your hangover and wake you up. I have—had—coffee.”

“Save it for your next victim. I know where I am, and I know what you are,” at that he must have seen his cue, for he raced off through the crowd.

Following him, slower and more carefully trying to avoid decking random farm wives, I caught up to him at his next stop, where he was eating an apple while marking time.

“Stop running!”—I panted between breaths—“We need to figure out a way to escape this together!”

He threw his apple core in my face and said, “We can end this whenever you decide to let me go,” and ran off to his next minor crime.

At the next stop, I said, “I am not a demon.”

“Exactly what a cankerous fungal sprout of a demon would say,” he said before running off with a loaf of bread.

We continued like this for each of his small heists. Me beseeching him to listen to reason, and him calling me assorted dwarven insults and insisting that I was a demon.

At the brewer stall, I decided to stop playing nice. As he readied himself to snatch the keg I yelled to the brewer, “Hey, this dwarf is stealing your ale!”

Roused by my call, the brewer approached the dwarf, completely ignoring the commotion breaking out around him. “Hey, get you gone! Scram!”

The dwarf turned to me, rage evident on his face. “Why. Did. You. Do. That.” punctuating each word with a step closer to me. Backing up into the now panicking crowd, the dwarf did not even flinch when the goat toppled the tower of barrels. Murder in his eyes, he picked up a newly formed piece of wood debris and charged me.

I drew my sword and activated Arcane Armor as I tried to explain, “I’m only trying to help!”

His small statue and disheveled appearance disguised his strength and speed. He closed the distance quickly and batted my rapier out of the way. Had it not been for my armor, he would have broken my jaw with his follow-up swing. Instead, I took advantage of his surprise to hit him with a Lightning Bolt, dropping my shield.

He fell twitching to the ground and I tried once more to explain, “I am not a demon!”

Recovering faster than I expected, he leaped to his feet, and swung at my knee with the improvised weapon, shattering it on impact and bringing me to the ground. The pain was worse than anything I'd suffered at the hands of the golems, for their blows ended in death.

While I was in shock from the pain, the dwarf leaped atop me, pulling a knife from his belt. As he brought the knife down onto my chest, I Blinked away, causing him to stab the empty ground.

He scanned the crowd and quickly found me. Picking up my dropped rapier, he marched towards me once more. With my broken knee, my only hope was to kill or somehow disable him. I fired a Firebolt from prone, which he batted to the side with his—no my—rapier. I didn't know it could do that! Switching to Lightning Bolt I tried again, this time the dwarf brought the rapier between himself and the lightning and the lightning went into the tip of the blade and traveled down its length until disappearing in the hilt.

"Huh, this is a wonderful blade," he remarked, clearly not expecting his deflections to have worked.

He continued to approach, slower now as he marveled at my sword, "Not dwarven made, but the quality speaks for itself. Who'd you kill for it, demon? Or is this just another illusion?"

Taking the opportunity, I cast Gust on him, and he flew back through the chaotic market square. Anyone who hadn't fled from the goat was now scrambling to escape our battle. The dwarf toppled end over end, the spell following him until he lay prone. I looked through my pockets for a clarity potion, but only found them wet with shards of glass inside.

I could not escape. I tried to crawl away, but once he regained his feet, he was on me in seconds. The last thing I heard before he plunged my blade into my heart was, "For the Wardens' sake, just leave me be."

So Spellbook, as you can see, Dagmar and I did not get off to the best start. But fear not, we tolerate each other now. In fact, he just called for me so let's stop here.