Dear Spellbook,

Why am I still writing in you? I thought I'd stop once I was no longer alone in these resets, but my companion was Dagmar, so I continued.

Now I have Trish, Daulf, Levar, Dagmar, and even Roland, yet here I am, sitting at a tiny gnome desk, writing in you as my companions sleep.

I don't know if you understand what I am writing. I reread my entries while trapped with Dagmar in the Dahn. I think the idea that you could understand me started as a joke that first day, but once the Etney began, I latched onto it like a life raft. I don't do well alone, and you helped me pretend that I wasn't.

Gods, Trish is going to make so much fun of me when I let her read these entries.

I don't care. I think I need this time to process all the insanity that my life has become. I killed a Balor by teleporting into its grasp and blowing myself up with a death spell. I've died hundreds of times, I've been blinded, and had to live in the Dahn with Dagmar for months before we found the bathroom.

That's a lot to process.

Besides, if we ever escape this whole crazy situation, I think my father would be proud if I wrote a book about it all. I think by now I've written at least two books in you, but I'm definitely going to remove all the embarrassing mistakes I made before I let anyone outside the Etney read it.

On second thought, maybe I rewrite the events entirely once I get free.

So, that being said, let me tell you about what I've been up to the last couple of days.

Riloth 19th the 647th

I woke up after the battle, shaken from the death spell. I could still feel the magic ripping me apart from the inside.

Outside my window, the skies were blue, free from the smoke of a burning world.

That's a good start.

I dressed and went downstairs. Outside the Parlor, Dagmar's soulless not-corpse lay in her usual spot, breathing but unresponsive.

She's either in the Dahn, or the demon destroyed her soul.

I poked the body again.

Flood, that's creepy.

Next I went to Levar's shop, watching the skies with entirely rational paranoia as I went. I cast Blink through the pounding headache and appeared behind the counter, already reaching for the needed potions the moment I appeared.

One of the perks of the restarts is that everything is always where you expect it to be—so long as a grumpy dwarf or sadistic demon doesn't show up.

After getting my head right, I moved to the back of the shop to check if Levar was in the same state as Dagmar. Levar lived above his store, but I had never been up there. A small workroom lay beyond his storefront, filled with workstations. One desk was devoted to bookbinding and repairs, while the rest were covered in glassware, large brass-tubed monstrosities, and other unidentifiable tools that I assumed to be additional alchemical instruments.

A stairwell led up along one wall, and I Blinked to the top, for fear I would topple one of Levar’s in-progress potions and suffer another painful death. The workstations were very organized, that only meant he could cram more into a small area. I didn’t trust myself to navigate it safely.

A landing topped the stairs, and a sturdy iron-banded door blocked my path. The door was locked when I tried to enter. I began casting Teleport to bring me to the other side of the door when I stopped myself.

This is a very sturdy door. What are the odds that Levar, who has time travel contingency passwords, doesn’t have a deadly trap set to spring on the other side of this door?

I stopped myself and turned to my Willsight. The door appeared mundane, but when I walked back down the steps to peer under it, I saw the glow of an unfamiliar red aura.

Warded!

Dispelling the ward was a simple and familiar task, and I Teleported through the door. The room beyond was densely packed with books and oddities. The wall was covered in non-magical weapons of strange and exotic makes. Shelves lined the walls filled with books and other artifacts. Strange spoons, candlesticks that looked like strangely elongated dragons, a weird bust of a strange eyeball creature covered in tentacles, every room brought new surprises.

My father would have loved this place.

I found Levar in his bed, but a poke to the hand with my dagger proved him to be something other than asleep. Next, I tried sending Messages to Daulf, Trish, and Roland. None of them were within range.

I think that's a good sign.

Lastly, I cast Sending, targeting Dagmar. The spell found a connection, which meant she was waiting outside for me.

"I'm okay. Coming soon. Go back inside."

I kept the message short. I'd considered asking Dagmar to send Trish out, so I could confirm her survival with another Sending, but I couldn't handle spending the remainder of the day worrying in case that failed.

On my way out of Levar's, I stuffed my satchel with potions and then headed back to the Parlor to grab a nice breakfast before resigning myself back to the meager gathered meals of the Dahn. The breakfast was perfect, as usual.

Over the resets, I'd discovered the juiciest cuts of meat, the softest pastries, and the ripest pieces of fruit, so after a little uncouth digging through the serving platters, I could construct the perfect breakfast.

As I sat, ignoring the stares of my fellow diners, I reflected on the previous today's battle.

How did I cast Shield? I don't have it prepared. Did I cast it from you?

I let my eyes unfocus, and went into my mental vault. Once there, I walked over to your mental avatar and flipped through your pages, willing Shield to appear. The pages flipped of their own accord, opening up to the page on which I'd drawn the spellform.

It felt just like the spellforms I stored in my mind.

I channeled my Will, forcing it to take the shape of the spell template before me, and it did, just as if the structure had been stored in my vault.

In the end, the spell construct sat in my mind, a constant and familiar pressure, waiting to be used. I sent it through my bridge, into the Arcane Realm, and felt the power return. The spell failed to manifest from the lack of verbal and somatic components, but it failed exactly as I expected.

Whoa. Spellbook, this is huge.

I flipped through the pages, marveling at all the spells available and reflecting on how far my wizardry had come from my meager Lightning, Mend, and Light spells.

I brought my awareness back to the Material Realm... to discover that my eyes stared right at the lady companion of the portly noble from my rematch against the pack rats.

Normally a jaunt to the mental vault to cast a spell is near instantaneous, but in that instance I'd dithered, pouring through your pages. It was hard to say how long I'd been staring, but from the looks on the noble and his companion, it had been too long.

Oh no.

The large man stood up violently, pushing the copious pile of plates to the floor with a loud clatter.

"Take your eyes off my wife, sea scum!" he shouted.

Time to go.

I grabbed my bag and raised my hands above my head as I sent my mind to the Arcane Realm.

Before the angered man had taken a step, I disappeared, reappearing in an alley outside the Parlor.

"Did you see that!?" an excited and familiar voice shouted. "That guy just appeared out of nowhere!”

“Is he a wizard?” asked a second familiar voice, “He doesn’t look like one."

Above me sat Rail and Gil, legs dangling over the edge of a roof.

I gave them a wave and continued on, but something caught my eye. Behind them in the sky, a figure soared high above, but before my mind could process the sight, panic set in, and I jumped back, casting Mage Armor and beginning to summon my Shadow Blade.

The rapier of darkness formed in my hand, and my brain caught up to my reaction. The winged figure was not a demon, but a hawk, soaring lazily on an updraft.

Maybe heading out of town right now isn’t the best idea. What if he is watching and waiting for me to leave town? Could he be watching me now?

“Whoa! Look at that sword!” Rail’s voice shouted in the background.

I dismissed the blade, letting it fade into a cloud of darkness which quickly dispersed. Then, I leaped to the roof next to them with the aid of Air magic. The two children yelped surprise and ran off, but I threw my coin purse down after them in repayment for the fright.

With a Wind Run active angled to enhance jumping over speed, I ran across the rooftops until I found myself on the highest non-Parlor building, which happened to be the Dragon’s Den Hotel. Once there, I turned on my Willsight and focused to set the sensitivity to the lowest possible value. If the demon was around, nothing could hide his aura from my sight. Then, I Teleported to my maximum range straight up.

With a whoosh of air lost to the winds 500 feet up, I appeared in the air above the city. As soon as I'd completed the Teleportation spell, I sidestepped to the Font of Air and cast Slow Fall. While casting the spell, I drew extra power from the Font to allow for a slower descent.

The uprush of wind roared from below me before my descent even picked up speed. Slow as a feather, I descended to the ground. I scanned the limits of my vision for the telltale sign of the demon's aura, my vision extended far into the woods before the gray set in, and with a slight angling of my arms I was able to induce a slow rotation allowing for a view all around the town.

If the demon is around, he's hiding very well. Maybe I won't head out today.

My descent took over two minutes, but as I neared the ground, I saw that a crowd had begun to form. While still a dozen yards aloft, I Teleported to a nearby room I knew to be vacant at that hour. The baths.

I walked into the steamy room with Vortex active to banish the hot humid air while I thought, taking a potion of clarity for good measure.

I can cast spells that have spellforms stored in Spellbook, but what about others?

I went back into my vault and went to the memory of my mother’s “Lightning Bolt” spell I’d used to recreate the construct in my mind. While the memory was detailed enough to copy over to my vault with time and effort, it required I review it as I painstakingly copied the construct, and casting through it was not possible.

How does this affect timing?

“Bo”, I shouted, placing my palm in front of me as a Shield sprung up. Even with Vortex active, the spell seemed to cast as fast as it ever did.

I suppose this makes me a real Journeyman Stormcaller now.I don’t actually need to enter my vault to cast these spells.

Shield seemed to cast at the same speed, but it was hard to gauge such a quick spell if this unprepared casting had a proportional time increase. To test this, I cast Tiny Hut, which normally took fifty-six seconds to cast when prepared, and found there to be no extra delay.

For the next test, I sent you to the far side of the bath, and walked away beyond the distance from which I could Conjure you, about thirty feet. I then tried to cast Shield, but my mind could not find the spell in my vault. Back inside my vault, I looked through your avatar there, and saw the spellform for shield drawn out, but I was unable to access the imbued Will within it. I also found that I could read the words I’d written in you, but could not vividly relive them.

Taking a few steps towards you, I Conjured you back to my hand, and tested Shield again. The barrier manifested just as before.

So as long as I have Spellbook near me, I can cast any spell I have a spellform for. That means, I can ditch all the spells I stole, and retain only the ones I created myself or learned from my mother. I just need to make extra sure I never lose Spellbook again.

Banishing Vortex, I went to the changing room to dress more appropriately for the room. A few moments later, I stepped out into the baths, clad in a towel and holding you. I got comfortable at the edge of the pool, with you on the ledge, and began to reform the construct for the Lightning spell my mother taught me. I quickly found that my capacity for spells had increased from ten to eleven, for when I began the process, I didn’t feel the resistance I had felt just a few weeks prior when trying to fit an extra spell in my vault.

The process took an hour, but in the end I was able to cast my mother’s tier one Lightning spell. Doing so in a bath is not advised, but could come in handy if I’m ever engaged in an underwater battle. The man who had just entered the pool from the far side did not appreciate my experiment, but from his small yelp of surprise, I doubt he received a measurable fraction of the spell's power before he ran off into the dressing room.

“Sorry!” I shouted, too late as he ran.

After recovering Lightning, I went on to replace my memorized spells with those that would be most critical in the case we got separated, in addition to those which I had no spellforms for. My decided layout was Lightning, Light, and Mend, as taught by my mother, Magic Missile and Catapult which I'd developed myself, and Shield, Counter Spell, Shadow Blade, Mind Spike, Lightning Bolt, and Clean

I will never be without that last one again.

While I had decided a course of action while in the baths, I didn't actually get the opportunity to finish. The whole time I'd been working, guests had come and gone, giving me dirty looks as I practiced my magic in the steamy room. I'd begun to ignore them, and it was for this reason I missed it when Tilavo entered.

"Who are you?" His voice broke through my concentration.

Tilavo had entered the baths.

Oh no. This is new. I must have disturbed the guests.

"Excuse me?" I asked, both playing dumb and genuinely confused.

"You look like 'Apprentice' Stormcaller Theral Elmheart, but you are not the young man I met a few days back. This is the second time I’ve seen you, but last time ‘you’ had a stronger presence. That ended poorly for them. So I ask again, who are you and—" he paused, his eyes noticing you for the first time.

He pointed to you and finished, "—where did you get that?"

Second time? Flood. Wait... can he read my mind.

The smirk on his face grew, but then he tilted his head questioningly.

Flood.

Levar's paranoia with his code word to himself inspired me to prepare myself for similar situations. He had preparations for everything, some more elaborate than others, but mind reading was easy.

There once was a dwarf named Dagmar

Who I met just outside a bazaar.

She smelled like a sewer

Stole booze from a brewer

And laughs at my grimoire memoir

The smile on Tilavo’s face grew as I recited the limerick in my mind. Dimly, I sensed his presence at the edge of my thoughts but had no means to block him or otherwise interact. He began to walk towards me slowly, and I looked to my side, out one of the windows set high in the wall. When he was still a dozen yards away, I cast Blink and reappeared in midair, just outside the wind.

The instant I appeared, I cast Wind Run, accelerating me away from the Parlor and softening my fall, allowing me to hit the ground running. I ran across the street behind the baths and hid in an alley.

Once safely hidden, I began to cast Teleport to send me to the hidden tunnels beneath the town. Before I could complete my casting, Tilavo appeared next to me.

“That was quite rude,” he said with heavy disapproval.“We were having a conversation.”

I completed my casting and felt the familiar sensation of the power of the Fonts being denied me.

Counter Spell. Flood.

“Now that I have your attention,” he began, but I cast Wind Run and leaped away from him before he could react..

I met Daulf amidst a small battle

He came perched up on a saddle.

When astride on a horse

He's an unstoppable force

But with me, he can only ride cattle

I ran from the alley and back out into the street, repeating the limerick in my mind. The last time he read my mind, he made contact. I didn’t know if that was necessary, but I did not wish to find out.

In the market square, people fled out of my way, the howling wind of my spell giving people ample warning to flee. On the opposite side of the crowd, I leaped to the roof of a building, only to find Tilavo waiting.

“This is entertaining, but I think it’s time we have a chat.”

Before I could react, he lunged at me, grabbing me once more by the neck.

“Who are you?” he asked, holding my face close to his.

I met Trish while riding a cart

And since then we've not been apart

A master of guises

She loves butts of all sizes

And thinks Daulf's is a work of art

I felt the pressure building in my mind as he ripped through my surface thoughts, trying to get deeper. It was not as sudden or intrusive as before, and I could sense him sifting through my thoughts, not looking for a specific answer.

I pushed my surface thoughts into his path, more a distraction than a defense.

I have a new friend named Levar

Who makes wonders that fit in a jar

His minds quite erratic

For an academic

And his potions taste worse than hot tar

With each verse the pressure built.. Bits and pieces of memories began to spring to mind as Tilavo got his claws into me.

Before he could get anything of substance, I fled to the Arcane Realm. Once there, I could still feel the pressure, but it was a distant thing that I was powerless to defend against. The strange timeless of the Realm was the only thing saving me from succumbing to the mental assault.

I found myself next to the Font of Air, and without hesitation I reached in and drew all the power I could handle, and then more and more until it flowed freely into the Material Realm using my body as a conduit.

And then, I died.