Entry 22: Riloth 19 the 19th

Dear Spellbook,

There were no leads in the library last night on our friend Erstwhile Haven, the Haven clan of halfings it seems hadn't survived the Flood, so any detailed records of their history were lost.

I finally finished my benchmark today. After setting up my minions, I cast Slow Fall in an alley on my way back to the Parlor. With that I can get an accurate account of my abilities.

The other spells I know but didn't directly test are Light, Minor Telekinesis, and Gale. From prior testing, I can estimate the number of times I could cast each of these. Wizards spells retain their relative Will requirements no matter your ability, Mage Armor and Minor Telekinesis use the same Font, as do Slow Fall and Gale. So a benchmark of one will inform the other.

For my wizard spells, Lightning Bolt can be cast eight times, based on that Light can be cast ten if I target a rock, or twenty if I target a person, which is strange for a wizard spell but a function of its design. I expect I could cast Mend four times.

For my sorcery spells, I cast Firebolt nine times, with a little bit left over, enough for a weak one. I almost cast Blink four times at full power, and Slow Fall seven times. From past benchmarks Gale and Slow Fall have always matched in Will usage being of the Font of Air. The last Font of Force has Mage Armor and Minor Telekinesis...

I could have benchmarked using Minor Telekinesis to calculate my Mage Armor benchmark and avoided getting clubbed. Why didn’t my mother ever do this? Did she take pleasure in the test?

More importantly, why didn’t I ever question this before? In the past, I could cast Minor Telekinesis once per four swings of my mother’s club. I will need to test this since I don't know the relative strength of my mother's and Simon’s swings. Assuming they were similar, the thirty deflections of Simon’s blows calculates to seven or eight castings of Minor Telekinesis.

That is some significant improvement. For context, It took me eight years to get from two Firebolts I could cast at learning the spell, to the five I could cast when I last checked shortly before my parent’s death. Why have I progressed so much so quickly? Is it the adventuring life, or something else?

I'm in the dining room now, sipping some coffee and planning out my day. This stuff really grew on me. I thought I would have left it behind when I discovered those potions, but this brew has a magic of its own. The plan for today is to go out and finally start exploring the wilderness around the town.

I reviewed my to do list and basically I have no real leads. I think I need to take a page from my father’s book. After these last weeks of observations, I'm fairly certain that if I'm not the only person aware of these resets, the others are either more circumspect than I, or are not in Crossroads at all. In either case, it doesn’t serve me to stay in my room any longer. I must begin in earnest on the next phase of my plan, and find a way out of the reset.

When my family would get to a new town, and my father gained access to the libraries there-in, he would always start by performing what he called a breadth-first investigation. He would go to each library, peruse the catalogue and make a list of any books of note. Only after he had visited every library would he choose the one in which to begin his study. My inclination was to do what he—jokingly—called a "depth-first investigation," but what he really meant was that I would find a book that looked interesting, read it, and then move onto the next.

I think it would serve my purposes best to take my father's approach here and see the lay of the land before I go sticking my head into any holes. Today I'll go about looking for more leads on strange comings and goings. From my previous observations, I have a few, but they are mostly terrible. After that, I'll rank them by how likely they are to be the source of... a magical field that resets reality? Writing this, it just feels so hopeless. How am I going to stop this? It’s so much bigger than me.

No. I need to stay positive.

I'm heading out now to explore the road south. I'll buy a horse and head as far south as I can make it before it becomes too dark to travel. The next four days I will hit each road, and then I will start exploring the forests. There are a lot of ruins in the area. They are likely to be the best place to start.