Riloth the 19th the 459th

That brings us up to now. I will admit to tearing up upon finding you. Dagmar did me the kindness of not bringing it up.

We have spent the last forty-seven days exploring the Dahn and learning its ins and outs. We knew the Dahn to be an ensouled artifact, gifted to the Hardune by a dragon, and with that knowledge and my Willsight we identified the giant crystal in the foyer and the top floor to be the soulstone in question. Whether the stone grew so large after forming, or was always so large, we couldn’t tell.

I read through a journal and some correspondence while exploring. The Dahn had been Bonded to Hardune Ken Tiach Findle, which was information Dagmar had already told me. Findle was a gnome wizard tasked with finding more Primordials and training others in his art. The Dahn was effectively a roving school on an extended research assignment. The staff included Findle, and two others, a gnome named Gabber, and a dwarf named Morkin. The gnome specialized in alchemy and the dwarf in enchanting, while dabbling in runecrafting. They’d been gone on an excursion to recover reagents when the incident occurred. The plan had been for them to rendezvous with the Dahn at a Hardune outpost, but Findle had not returned after making the last entry in his journal.

He had found the Primordial of Time, or so he claimed. But he never came back after setting out alone to search for it. His students had been sent on a mission back to the Torac as a punishment for a prank. In return for that prank, he’d locked the door behind them, barring them from accessing the Dahn. When he never returned, they couldn’t get back in—we assume.

The Dahn has the ability to have two entrances, though we found no information on how that would work. Magical pocket realms don’t come with instruction manuals, it seems. It was probably an ability granted through its Bond.

I’d finally discovered the mechanism for your disappearance. Books left out overnight were carried back by some unseen servant to their proper place in the library. You, for some reason, were brought to the top floor of the Dahn, and placed in the private collection of Findle. This had been discovered when the seven books I’d been pouring over had returned the next morning when I’d intended to continue my study. At first, I’d thought Dagmar had done so as a really lame prank, but when she denied it, I feared the Dahn too was subject to resets. The next night I stayed up late and saw the servant in action. With my Willsight turned down as low as possible, I could faintly make out the outline of a diminutive figure carrying the books away.

The passphrase for the golems was found written on a scrap of paper used as a bookmark in Findle’s journal.

“No jiggery pockery”

“Bild’s steely balls!” Dagmar had exclaimed in anger when I’d told her. “Who the flood would pick such a stupid code phrase? That is not regulation, or even sensible. Flooding gnomes.”

We’d long since thrown the remnants of the golems out of the Dahn, letting the resets erase them from existence. We did not feel like leaving the possibility of them returning, even if we knew it to be impossible.

The last forty odd days have been trying. We had not brought provisions with us, and the lettuce and mushrooms had not lasted long. We had a brief three-hour window from the reset until the forest fire reached us, in which I would go out to hunt and gather. It wasn’t so hard once I found the right places to look each morning, but that first week was lean.

We spent much of the time training. Now that our bodies were not resetting each morning, I could finally improve my body along with my mind. Dagmar had a backbreaking regime she forced me through each morning, and I soon longed for the days I woke up hungover and miserable. I’d forgotten what it was like to be sore.

The books here are a wealth of knowledge. Spellforms had only just been discovered when the ill-fated mission had set out, and only the young apprentice wizards had known the art. There were a few spells here recorded as such, but both the spells themselves and the spellforms were crude. I tested some of them, but stopped once the first two were weaker than I expected. The legends of wizards of the past’s grand and superior powers were slightly exaggerated, it seemed.

The magical texts on the other hand were very useful. The spellbooks of old walked wizards through the process of building a spell from scratch.. The nuance they lent to my knowledge of magical theory advanced my ability to create spells greatly in the time to come.

From them I learned that the original wizards often didn’t use gates. They found the Fonts closest to their bridge, and specialized in those areas of magic, creating spells with personal paths from there. Sound familiar? Only, I got the sense that their paths were similar in complexity to modern gate spells. They weren't more efficient, but tailor-made for each wizard. Once the Primordials were discovered along with the concept of gates, standardized spells were possible. My own Force spells are still an oddity for how near my bridge is to the Fonts of Air and Force. I hope with Levar's help we can get to the bottom of this.

Dagmar even began some studying of her own. There is a wealth of information on rune crafting here, and when I suggested she start to study.

Instead of the brisk refusal I'd expected, she nodded and said, "Good idea."

The recent run in with the slavers only further bolstered her hopes of finding her son. She tortured those men very thoroughly, and they didn't know any details about the contract, but its existence lent credence to the hope that had begun to blossom in her mind when I recounted the events at Edgewater. We planned to take Daulf down there once he is brought into the Dahn, but there is not much we will be able to discover trapped here.

What else? The dwarven ale is actually an acquired taste. I don't mind it now, but can't have more than a glass without getting ill—a small gnome glass. That protection from poison spell may help if I cast it before drinking.

The beds are all way too small. Even the grand bed on the top level is a foot too short for me when I lay at an angle. I gave up trying to sleep on a few pushed together and instead piled all the mattresses into a single dormitory and made a nest.

We also found a small stash of coffee hidden in one of the students rooms, which has long since been used up. I thought coffee was just an acquired taste before, but now that my body isn't resetting, I wake up each morning craving it. I'll say, though, multiple-hundred year old coffee is not good, even in desperate times.

This fire needs to end. I've contemplated killing myself a few times to get back to the Parlor, but I think that would be a little dramatic. I can wait. How long is a demon's attention span?