Dear Spellbook!

My dear dear dear sweet Spellbook. Oh, how I missed you! I’m sorry. I hope you can forgive me. Please forgive me. I... I said some things I didn’t mean, but I’ve had a long time to reflect over this last—year? Has it been a year? Longer? I honestly don’t know. Early on, keeping track was important, but it was hard without you there—both because I used you to keep time and because at some point I stopped caring. There were some stretches where nothing felt important.

You are probably so confused, but just know I take it back. All of it. You can just go on not talking, I can wait until you are ready. Do not worry, I won’t push. I’m just so happy to have you back. I’d thought I was alone before, but without you I knew real isolation. Spellbook, I think, maybe, that you might be my best friend. It definitely isn’t Dagmar, and who else is there? Well, I think that will change pretty soon. I'll introduce you to Dagmar later.

Thank you for waiting. Thank you for not giving up on me. Most of all, thank you for not bonding Tilavo.

Oh, Spellbook, you missed so much. Where do I even begin? I’m so excited to tell you all about it. Maybe I’ll just start where we last parted.

Riloth the 19th the 27th

The last time I held you, I was about to go off into the door in the forest. Tentatively, I reached for the pull bar on the door. My body shook with adrenaline and fear and my hand trampled as I extended it. While inches away, I remembered that I could take at least some precautions, and paused to cast Mage Armor. Steadier now, and in a quick movement to get it over with, I grabbed the handle and pulled it with a strong jerk.

The door flew open as if it weren’t a 500 pound block of stone. Through the frame, I saw a grand foyer with walls of brilliant white marble and black onyx accents extending to the ceiling thirty feet high. They were lined with tapestries depicting the creation of the world, the binding of Faust, the birth of the Torcish races, and—what I later learned to be—the binding of the Avatar. Between the tapestries rose great stained-glass windows of geometric patterns, from which came soft light in a myriad of colors. The main source of light was not the window, but the giant, natural, uncut crystal mounted on the ceiling. At its widest it was five feet around and descended to a point ten feet from the ground, like a stalactite made of glowing diamond. In the center of the foyer lay a grand flowing fountain, its water shooting up almost to the tip of the glowing stone. The fountain was made of glass and was covered in what at first appeared to be fractals, but later revealed themselves to be a nest of complicated runes.

On the left side of the grand foyer lay a curved staircase that rose into a recess in the ceiling. The stairs had no railing, alternated between marble and onyx and looked sized for dwarves. Opposite the bottom of the stairs lay another door, of the same size and color as the one I had just opened. Peeking my head in, tentatively and with great caution, I saw that between the two doors the wall was lined with racks of travel equipment; cloaks, boots, rope, water skins, and anything else you could need on the road—all once more sized for dwarves and gnomes.

And all of it shone with the same sky blue aura as the door in my Willsight. Where mundane items in the outside world glowed a faint gray, the walls, fountain, floor and ceiling all radiated this sky blue light. The crystal in the ceiling radiated with intensity on par with Tilavo, and staring too long caused my headache to accelerate.

A few items through the room emitted light of different colors, but they were difficult to make out amidst the blue that flooded all else out. The furniture lacked a powerful enough aura to register in my reduced vision. The blue was so intense that it was only through subsequent visits without my Willsight active that I could make out the features of the room. The smell of chalk accompanied the color, chalk and the slightly fishy odor of ink.

Stepping into the door fully—ducking slightly as I did—I felt my Mage Armor disappear as I passed the threshold. Cautiously, I reactivated the spell and circled the room to get a better view of the side obscured by the fountain. Against the wall where the stairs rose from, lay racks of weapons and more combat-oriented adventuring gear. Amongst these racks towered two massive stone statues, just like the ones I’d seen in various states of completion in the dwarven outpost near Edgewater. They were not life-like in their carving, but consisted of cubic and rectangular blocks. They were joined at odd angles, seemingly glued together to form the semblance of a person. Each golem stood out in the room, for they had their own auras. One a dark brown, and the other a brilliant orange.

I should say, they havn’t been life-like. Once I stepped fully into the room, both rotated their cubic heads to point their smooth featureless faces at me and said in a unified Torcish voice, "Intruder detected. You have five seconds to relay the passphrase. Five... Four... Three... Two... One..." The sound of the voice was almost childlike—if a child’s voice could emanate from the very walls of a room and be loud enough to cause physical discomfort.

At one, the crystal in the ceiling went dark, leaving the stained-glass windows as the only dim source of illumination. By their faint prismatic glow, I wouldn’t have been able to see the golems if not for their auras.

Well, this is useful.

After last night, I wasn’t in the mood for another life and death struggle, so I cast Blink to bring me to the exit of the room.

It didn't work.

I teleported, just not to the location I had desired. Instead of appearing in front of the door, I appeared before the farther of the two golems; the runes on its chest now glowing a pure white and visible in my Willsight.

Somehow, the golem or its runes could redirect spatial magic, but I didn’t have time to reflect on this as it happened. Immediately after I appeared, the golem swung its massive stone arm at me. The arm’s movement seemed impossible, the boxy rectangular limb bending despite the absence of a joint. My magical armor reduced the attack from a crushing blow to a toss that threw me across the room. The subsequent impact on the wall exhausted the last bit of will I had and the fall to the ground broke my leg.

Frantically I fished a potion out of my bag, but it was too late, the golems were on me.

I don’t want to relive this... Suffice to say, they showed no remorse but worked quickly.

Riloth the 19th the 28th

I woke up in my room, as usual, hungover and exhausted. As had become my standard routine, I pulled you out of my bag where you returned each morning, and opened in search of a blank page.

All the pages were blank.

I flipped through your pages with growing urgency, but not a single one had any ink on it. I wrote in this spellbook, thinking it was you. I apologized, begged, pleaded for you to bring it all back, to work, to do anything. After hours of trying to get this book to do something, anything, I started to doubt myself. Could this last month have all been a dream? A very painful and detailed dream for certain, but still as likely as the reality of the prior month.

Filled with hope, I ran downstairs and left the Parlor just in time to see the giant goat charge through the market square to its temporary freedom. Standing there, —my brief moment of hope shattered—my mind went blank and the terror set in. The resets were happening, and now you were gone.

I was truly alone.

Collapsing in a heap at the top of the steps, I wept. I laid there until someone lifted me up and carried me to my room. It had been Daulf, someone must have fetched him. I spent the whole day in my room, alternating between bouts of anger and tears, with intermittent frantic studies of a spellbook that would not respond.

Nothing worked, and that reset was one of the darkest days of my life. Faced with the loss of you, my mind drifted back to all the things I had lost but had been avoiding dwelling on. Everything from my past was gone, my family, my name, and now even my future seemed stolen. Stuck in this eternal present, I couldn’t even continue to build this new life I had started to grow with newfound friends. All of it was gone, and now so were you.

Finally, late that night, my appetite began to return. I reached for the room service bell, and for the first time I realized that my Willsight was still active. The bell glowed with its yellow golden aura. Doing a double take, I looked at the spellbook before me. Your telltale swirling blue aura was gone.

Were you mad at me? Had I broken our bond? Had I broken you?

The questions raced through my mind the rest of the night. I still didn’t understand the significance of my new ability, and it only added more questions.

Riloth the 19th the 29th

Like a harpy’s slave, I went through the motions of gathering the funds and potions from Levar, talking to no one more than necessary to get what I needed before returning to my room where I sat staring at the spellbook. I wrote in it as if it was that first night on the road, but after hours of making no progress, my anger and anguish overcame me and I lit it on fire with my magic. To my horror it burst into flames. Frantically I beat them out as quickly as I could, but it was too late.

The book in front of me was hardly identifiable as a book at all. The only distinctive feature remaining was the metalwork on its cover of the three rings surrounding its stone. I touched the book gingerly, ashamed of what I’d done, but as soon as my fingers grazed the cover, it disintegrated into a cloud of black particles that rose into the air and then faded from existence.

Sitting there, staring at the empty and burned desktop where the spellbook had once rested, my brain started to spin.

That fire should not have been able to destroy a soul stone, let alone make all evidence of the book disappear. How could I have destroyed Spellbook's stone so easily?

My mind now fully occupied with this riddle, I didn’t have room in my thoughts for despair. I'd found a lifeboat in the flood that my world had become. Finally, after endless toils, I had encountered a problem I could solve with research.

Black smoke...

Still in my sleeping robe, I bolted out of my room and across town to the library. As I entered, Jarreth started his typical greeting, but cut himself off when he saw my state of focused chaos. I found Deckard’s on the shelf and flipped through it until I had found the passage tickling the edge of my mind.

... Grand Midlothian Empire Soul Stone Experiment #58

The researchers attempted to create duplicates of soul stones through the use of the Fonts of Symmetry, Earth, and Creation. They were able to create physically identical copies, but they were not soul stones, lacking any magical attributes. These copies turned to black dust after a few hours, the black dust briefly floating into the air before vanishing.

The researchers then attempted to create a second soul stone from individuals who had already created a stone. These attempts failed to manifest anything in every instance. Later, they had willing citizens who had created their own soul stones attempt to create another. This time the second stone formed successfully. These new stones appeared physically identical to the originals in every way, but after they were created, the original stones lost any magical attributes. The old stones would soon fade, and after eight to twenty hours of the new stone’s existence, the old one would be destroyed by the barest touch—the remnant dust quickly fading out of existence as the Font-made copies did. See Appendix LVIII for a table on the rate of breakdown over...

Elated, I exclaimed, "That’s it! It’s a copy! It’s out there!"—startling the already nervous Jarreth who was hovering in the stacks nearby. Now that I knew the spellbook I had was a copy, it all fell into place. Had I not been so distraught, I might have pieced it together sooner. That door I had found in the woods must have opened to an extra-dimensional space. A pocket realm. Theoretically, these should be able to exist, and I’d read about that theory in my studies. Since the gods created our realm through the application of the Fonts, it stood to reason that we could in turn create a realm of our own using those same Fonts. As far as I knew though, no one had ever succeeded. Well, as far as I knew until that day. The Torcish folk seemed to be holding back quite a bit from the surface races.

If this door opened to a pocket realm—and that realm was immune to whatever effect is causing the resets—when the reset occurred the soul stone created in the spellbook would be a copy and fade like the Empire’s experiments showed.

Could I test this?

I closed my eyes and entered my vault. You sat there on your shelf, just as you had the last time I’d been here—almost. Relief flooded me at the sight of you in my vault.

You hadn’t abandoned me.

When I got closer, I saw that you were translucent. I’d never been far from you before, but our connection felt distant and weak. I lifted you up, and tried to access my memories through this avatar as I had before, but I found only the hazy recollections of my own mind.

You were still out there, trapped in an extra-dimensional space waiting for me to come and save you. Once more, I was filled with purpose. Hope. I could push aside the darkness for a time if I had something to apply my mind to. Running back to my room, I shouted at Simon as I passed him, "Get me Ian... er a horse and have it outside the Parlor in ten minutes!"

As an afterthought, I added, "And pack a meal!" and ran on to my room.

Once there, I changed out of my sleepwear and into my travel clothes. Belting my sword, I had second thoughts. If I failed again, I’d have lost two ensouled artifacts in three days to the same misstep. Those golems were massive and shockingly fast. If I got close enough to hit them with this rapier, I would already be dead.

Simon, punctual as always, was waiting outside the Parlor—if a little winded—with Knot and a satchel. I handed him my entire coin purse and took the northern road for a half-hour; trying to estimate the distance I had gone on foot the day before was difficult. When I judged I’d gone far enough, I dismounted, shooed the horse back to town, and set off into the woods. I searched for hours—well into the night—but I was not able to find the door.

I sat against a tree, exhausted, lost in my thoughts and worries once more. What would happen if you stayed lost in this realm? Would our bond fade? Or would you one day grow tired of waiting for me, and break the bond yourself? In either case, would I be doomed to an eternity in these resets with no recollection; each day waking up hungover and confused as to why my spellbook had become blank? My mind raced along these paths until the reset.

Spellbook, I know I said this a lot, but I'm sorry. I won't take you for granted again and I have so much more to tell you. I don't know where to start, so I think I will just continue from here tomorrow. I'm beat, I'm off to my severely undersized bed.