Entry 21: Riloth 19th the 18th

Dear Spellbook,

The reports came in the same once more last night. Rail and Gill’s counts were off by one each, but I chalked that up to me running late. I need to stop hiding in my room, I know the last time I left it didn’t exactly end well, but if there was someone else around here aware of the resets, I should have seen some evidence by now. I will keep up my minions and try to stay out of town, but I need to start doing something.

My head ached a little more than usual due to my strange vision, but the plan was to fix that today. I got down to Levar’s shop without incident, and purchased two potions of clarity and one of foregone sleep. I considered buying more just in case something came up that required me to push myself, but I didn’t plan on leaving town. Now that I knew the Will poisoning to be temporary and that it would take the overdose more than a few hours to kill me, it makes exceeding my Will capacity a viable option in case of emergency. The only thing that held me back from buying more than two was sympathy for my fellow drunk outside the Parlor. He may not remember it tomorrow, but there's no need to cause unnecessary suffering to these people. They are already trapped, best not to make their situations worse.

I didn’t dally to chat with Levar today. I enjoy talking to him, but already he has started to repeat a lot of the same phrases, make the same jokes, and ask me the same questions. Each time it occurs it serves as a reminder of this situation. It's easy to block out the magnitude of it all while I’m pursuing a project, or working towards a goal, but moments like that bring me back to reality and shake my resolve.

I drank the potions at the counter, giving him back the empty vials, thanked him and left. On my way out I noticed a wide variety of objects in his shop that glowed in my vision, but restrained myself from asking.

Why is there a magical cup? Don’t ask. It isn’t going anywhere and you have things to do today.

Outside I tried to cast Glow. It worked the first try, with no pain, and a brilliant white orb appeared in my hand. Not only did it not hurt, I didn’t sense any difficulty from casting with a compressed bridge.

Finally, I can resume my plans. The first thing I need to do is complete my benchmarking. Well, second. First I need to get some lukewarm revenge against a pubescent child who technically hasn’t done anything to me but in fact, tried to murder me. Third actually, I need to close that stupid door to get rid of this headache, but then I will finish my benchmarking. Probably.

After setting up Rail and Gill, I found Twiggy and his friends in their alley gloating over the great goat caper. Without even speaking I cast Slow Fall, tossing them up into the air, and dismissed the spell when their ascent slowed, allowing them to crash to the ground. They all landed with a series of satisfying thuds preceded by shouts of surprise and followed by cries of pain.

I took a moment to admire and evaluate my handiwork. Had they been warriors prepared for battle, I don't think this spell variant would prove powerful enough to lift them, let alone knock them down.

If I could make it point in another direction, it might have serious combat applications.

I stood there, watching them writhe on the ground. I hadn't really prepared for this—aside from fantasies of causing them physical harm. But I wasn't actually planning on making those a reality. I wanted to though. Badly.

I guess I don’t need to cause them physical harm.

I had a new Font to experiment with. Thanks to them, I’d learned a new spell, which I’d mentally dubbed Message which seemed to be from the Font of Mind. When a sorcerer gains access to a new Font, they instinctively learn a new spell at that same instant, and a sorcerer can cast a cantrip from any Font they have access to.

While spells are complicated, focused channeling of a Font’s power that require a sizable amount of Will to enable, cantrips are the most basic and unfocused manifestation of that Font in the world. A fire cantrip summons a flame in the hand, a light cantrip summons an orb of light, and a mind cantrip would do something I had yet to determine.

I sent my awareness to the Arcane Realm, and while there felt the pressure slowly building. Appearing before the Font of Mind, I touched it and pierced it the slightest bit, tasting its power. Channeling a sliver of that power into the world, I intuited that it needed me to impart it with an emotion, and I sent with it the sense of malice.

In the world, I saw a wave of swirling blue pulse out from me where it quickly dissipated, except for where it found the street gang. Around the boys, the blue pulse darkened, drawing in the blue light from the air to condense on my victims. Their faces paled as the emotion sunk in.

“What do you want from us?” Twiggy croaked from his position on the ground.

Perfect.

After sorting the miscreants out—and taking no small pleasure at their moans of pain and fear—I got my remaining minions sorted and went to the Parlor for lunch. I’d grown tired of the singular room service meal of “burger” on repeat these past weeks. As good as it was, eating the same thing day in and day out is not something I will endure if I have any say in it. Unfortunately, the lunch served in the dining hall that day was the same as the room service option, which I’d forgotten in my planning for the afternoon.

Head mostly clear, and belly full and slightly uneasy, it was time to close that gate and clear my vision. I returned to my room to meditate. Meditation is possible anywhere, just harder; I’d just done it the other day on the gaming floor, but that was a mistake. Unlike entering the Arcane Realm as a sorcerer, entering your mental vault removes your awareness of your surroundings. I was pretty sure there's no one around trying to kill me, but it doesn’t pay to be reckless. Who knows what that Tower wizard would do if he happened upon me semi-unconscious. That guy was a prick and I wouldn’t want to be near him without Daulf as a shield.

Inside my vault, the door remained unchanged from my last visit. Just as before, I approached it, took hold of the frame, and pulled it shut, putting all my Will into the effort.

With a large drain of Will, the doorway narrowed, the trim expanding inward to fill the opening while its outer edges receded at a slower rate. When I was done, I judged I’d expended half my remaining Will, and was left with a solid slab of... something. It was wood colored, but had no texture to it, just like the frame that it had once been.

I returned to the world and found my headache gone and the world having lost its gray hue. In the Arcane Realm as well, the pressure had disappeared. As a final test, I built the cantrip construct for Glow and sent it through my bridge into the Arcane Realm, or at least I tried to. Nothing happened.

Flood, I thought this might happen.

I returned to my vault and sat before the sealed bridge to think.

When it's an open doorway, I’m blind and in pain. When it's a closed slab, I can’t do magic. Anywhere in between is manageable, but I am quite tired of headaches, thank you very much. If only I could make it so that it is adjustable, like—well, a door. Can I put in a door? Why not, let's give it a shot. The worst it could do is blind me. Or maybe trap my mind in the Arcane Realm for eternity? Don’t be paranoid, that almost never happens.

When I had shrunk the door frame into a slab, I’d only focused on closing it, nothing more, but while working I sensed that I could shape it in more ways if only I knew what I wanted. When I’d built the bridge to begin with, it became a door, because what else would you place into a wall of a house? My mother’s bridge manifested in her undersea cave vault as a pocket of air trapped in the ceiling. If I could add a door to my empty door frame, maybe I could close it?

I set to work, hands on the slab, and picturing a door, complete with a knob and hinges. Pressing my Will into the slab, I felt it leave me. When I opened my eyes, the slab before me had turned into a door. When transforming from open doorway to slab, the bridge had shrunk to a two foot square slab, now that slab had a one inch frame and a miniature door set inside of it.

I can’t step through it anymore, but this is definitely progress. I think I will need to dump my spare Will into this thing to make it large enough for me to fit through—not that I have found a reason to step through it.

I pulled the door open the barest crack, and stepped out of my vault. Back in the world, I cast the Light cantrip Glow and was satisfied to see a ball of white light appear in my hand, a hand that had a faint swirling blue tint to it.

Well, I guess magic and weird sight are just a package deal now.

I looked around the room and found the bell and the window both had very faint glows to them, faint enough that I might have missed them had I not known to look. You on the other hand glowed as bright as my hand.

I stared at you, trying to look past the blue, and somehow—I still don’t know how—the blue disappeared, but I still knew that you were blue. As if the knowledge of the color bypassed my eyes. At the thought of undoing what I’d just done, the blue returned to my sight, and just as easily I sent it away.

That's handy.

It was harder to notice when bypassing my sight, and I needed to ask myself if there's a color to know it, but the knowledge I wasn’t doomed to a strange color blindness lifted a burden I hadn’t known I was carrying. Finally, my mind and body were whole and I could get back to work.

Bridge fixed, I had to go benchmark one of my remaining two spells. Mage Armor was next, but I hated testing that spell.

Mage Armor, at least my own personal sorcerous version, did nothing when cast—it hardly even took any Will. Only when it acted to deflect an attack did it draw upon the Font of Force, sapping my Will in the process. I hate testing it because to do so I need to find something to hit me. My mother used to oblige with her "standardized beater," which was a club she carried through all our journeys for that purpose. She hit me with the club until she felt the barrier weaken, but sometimes it would give out completely mid swing and I'd get clubbed in the side, head, ankle... honestly I can't think of a place she hadn't hit me with that club over the years.

The last time we did this she was able to hit me twenty times. What I needed was someone to hit me.

I’d always gotten the sense that, given the opportunity, Simon would quite enjoy hitting me. I rang the room service bell and waited.

Simon arrived shortly after and greeted me when I opened the door to his polite knock. “Good afternoon Mage Theral. How can I be of assistance?”

“Please, come in, and close the door behind you.”

His face became flat and expressionless.

“I’m sorry Mage Theral, if I may be so forward, closed door services are not something we offer here but I can direct you to someone who can assist.“

“Oh, no! Nothing like that!” I hurried to explain. “I have a very important magical task I need your assistance with—”I reached for a club I’d made out of my bedside table as I spoke “—I need you to hit me with the club.”

“Oh no, Mage Theral, I could never do that,” he said, with false reluctance in his tone but excitement in his eyes.

“I insist, but don’t worry, we are testing a protective spell.” I said as I handed him the club and he walked in. “But, it's important you swing with the same strength each time. Don’t go all out on the first swing or you will be too tired by the end. Pace yourself.”

He didn’t take any further convincing, and began to swing the club through the air, finding a comfortable motion that he could maintain. He abandoned the attempts to hide his grin.

Why does this man hate me?

I cast Mage Armor, and said, “Alright, I’m ready. Aim for the ribs.”

Simon swung, and in quick succession I felt my Will drain, the spell give out, and the club impact my ribs. Lying on the ground with a terrified Simon standing above me, I remembered that I’d forgotten to take the clarity potion. I’d grown so accustomed to the constant low grade headache that I hadn’t noticed I was out of Will. I had enough Will to cast the spell, but not enough for it to do anything.

Drinking the potion, I sat on the ground for a while recovering my wits, for which the potion helped significantly.

Will topped off, I stood back up and spoke to Simon, “Sorry about that. That was my fault, please continue.”

With less certainty, Simon swung again, and this time when his club got close, the spell deflected the swing downward into the ground.

“Great job! Keep it up, but don’t get too excited and start swinging harder,” I warned.

He reset, and swung again, and again, and again. Each swing his smile grew, until it looked manic with glee. I got the sense that he was unleashing a lot of pent up furry, and not all of it was aimed at me.

On the thirty first swing, the spell gave out after partially deflecting the blow, and the club struck me in the hip, once more causing me to collapse.

“Thank you, again, not your fault,” I said from the ground.

“Is there any further service I can provide?” he asked, looking around the room, as if searching for more weapons.

“No that is all, thank you.”

“It was my pleasure,” he said as we left.

I’m sure it was.

My benchmarks should be done tomorrow after I test Slow Fall. Despite all the distractions, I finished much faster than usual. Potions are amazing—in moderation.

I’m going to head to the library now and see if I can find anything about my sight. There has to be something, maybe a record of that halfing the alchemist guild didn’t find. I have a hunch, but I need evidence. I think I am seeing Will, but the implications of that are large. If I am seeing Will, why is the world gray? Is that Will, or something else? Hopefully I can find something, but as much as I want to know, I can’t dedicate too much time pursuing this.