24th Harpstring Moon, 1892 C.E.
Finally I arrived at my destination. Cheve bustled with merchants selling their wares, streams of workers crossing each other on their way around town, shopkeepers opening their shutters and setting displays outside. I lost no time finding my way through this maze to the wizard's home. A stroll towards the town centre, then a bus trip winding through the narrow cobbled streets. During the ride, I gazed vacantly at the street, seeing nothing but thin golden threads that my mind drew, connecting a top hat to a flower pot, to the wheel of a carriage, to a bump in the ground, and so on. An enormous imaginary spiderweb was just beginning to come together and attach itself to the edge of town, when suddenly the driver shouted from the front at me.
"Oi you!" I looked around and saw I was the last passenger. The driver waved at me again.
"Unless you wanna pay for an entire tour around Cheve," he announced, "you best get off!"
The sunlight was dazzling as I stepped out. I walked a little further down the lane leading further away from the city's centre until finally, I stopped in front of a stately cottage at the edge of town. A two storied, handsome house of red brick and white-framed windows, in front of it a spacious garden, prettily daubed with colourful clusters of roses, lilies and forget-me-nots, and a smooth, stone path that curved leisurely to the front porch. As I approached it, a middle-aged gentleman in a vest and cane greeted me at the door.
"That merchant!" He laughed, one hand on his enormous waist as the other struck the cane onto the porch. "She really did make an errand boy out of a wizard!"
So, he already knew. In that case I could cut to the chase. It was all I could do to keep the acid out of my voice.
"Of course. How much will you take for the Movement Ring?"
"My boy!" He let out another prolonged laugh, while I tapped my foot quietly on the porch. "Come inside! Don't be a stranger. You and I are brethren in mind and spirit! Sit sir, and tell me about your work. I did hear they'd found someone for the Arunfell Tower."
In a quarter of an hour, I'd updated him on my work on the glyphs. Meanwhile, he took me on a journey that wound laboriously through his entire life, beginning with his time as a student mage, when the first artificial glyph was created, causing outrage in cleric and druid circles and curiosity among fellow mages and the non-magical forces.
"You know-," he paused to laugh generously at himself, "I was once apprentice of the great sage, Lord Pent himself!" He lectured me then about his travels through Ostia, historical sites in Sacae, Hoshido and Bern (oh, he was a fine wyvern rider back in his day!), and a series of his public debates which he'd gotten transcribed into a book. Then, warmed by the cosy familiarity of his hearth and the rare chance to talk about his work to someone who could follow, he began probing me instead.
"And of course, in the end we all hope our work will further humanity. Where is all this glyph-seeking leading to, my boy?" I resisted the urge to remind him that I, in fact, had a fully fledged wizard's name.
"To immortality, I hope," I answered shortly, my foot tapping the ground as I noticed the red sun bloating on the horizon.
"What's that?" His laugh was really getting tiresome. He reached over and put a hand on my shoulder, a searching look on his face. "Don't pull my leg!" With his other hand he tapped his walking cane and winked, but I cringed inwardly.
"I am not."
"Some would say that to play gods is the highest affront to nature! Come on, man, you lot are the future! What legacy will you leave that will make us old ones proud?"
"Immortality is the pinnacle of human achievement. We can be as masterful as gods, if we wish to be."
Instantly I regretted speaking my mind. An uneasy smile distorted his face. Gradually the smile sank from it altogether, and in the mass of wrinkles that formed, his looming age suddenly became more apparent. He drew back from me, his laugh noticeably weaker now.
"My boy…" He shook his head and stood up. Looking at his magnificent grandfather clock, he cleared his throat several times. He slowly paced the room until I realised he was waiting for me to also rise from my chair. "You know. There is a lesson I learned long before, but in doing so, I realized that there is no point in telling it. It can only be discovered through experience, and then it is too late." He seemed to enjoy talking in riddles, I thought, growing almost unbearably irritated. Glancing at the clock, I realized about four hours had passed since I'd stepped foot inside. I met his expectant gaze with a cold stare. He smiled sadly.
"Well, you've kept me well-entertained, you have. Thank you, Solamur. I see you don't intend to leave without this, do you?"
He passed me a small box, and together we confirmed that its contents were indeed the Movement Ring.
Taking it, I was puzzled by his whim, but by this point, I was more irritated at what I felt had been an immense waste of my time and energy.
(In the margins, written with a more recent ink, but a shakier, spidery hand: How was I to understand, back then, why a lone, elderly wizard would trade apparently nothing, for an item whose worth anyone would jump at?)
I won't bother with the details of my trip back. Anna kept her end of the deal, and I now have the funds I need to continue on my work with the Ley Lines.
2nd Garland Moon, 1892 C.E.
As I mentioned, I seek what few others dare to hope for: immortality. Now is hardly the time to waste on why and how I stumbled on this path, but I believe I was always drawn to it from the beginning. This time, I set my sights on the elusive constellation Grima. Because of its distance, its lights are harder to pick up, especially with the Cyrkensia Opera House festivities in full swing below for the Garland Moon Harvest Festival. How childish. Thousands of years on, still dancing before imaginary gods.
The sound reaches all the way to the top of Arunfell Tower. Do they call this music? Decoding the message of the Ley Lines, whispered in the sweet Celestial tongue (our only commonality with the clerical mages), the riddle this glyph presented was that my new spell needed "a thing that holds its maker's soul." Hm. An artisan's shop might be a good start.
Heading down to the festivities, I heard the sound of flutes, strumming lutes and choirs as dancers weaved their way across the water boats. The lights reflecting on the dark riverside, I have to admit, weren't a bad sight.
I chose an artisan's stall, one that had apparently attended every year. Run by an old woman whose sight was fading, she somehow still embroidered, tailored, and made all manner of sewn handicrafts. I knew she was devout, because Aunt Forrest always insisted that I pay this elderly lady the occasional visit with her. The artisan smiled at what must have been my blurred image floating towards her before she took off her spectacles.
"If it isn't the new stargazer in Arunfell Tower." Her voice was croaked and with aged, wrinkling hands she rearranged and patted some handkerchiefs at the front of her stall.
I deliberated for a while, but they all looked like they had taken incredible patience to make.
Thinking back to my own work in the observatory, I felt a strange kinship to her. Perhaps it would best to entrust the matter to her own judgement. I waved a hand over the table of her wares.
"Which one means the most to you?"
She smiled, and from behind the counter, pulled out a silk square handkerchief.
A white one, with rich crimson thread in a geometrical squarish tribal pattern. At the centre was a deer, arranged in front of a circle of leaves. She sighed and her misty youthful eyes glazed.
"This one's not for sale, young man, but I made this many years ago for someone who was dear to me. I come from a village called the Kutolah tribe, in Sacae, a very, very long way from here. Everyone was skilled in horseriding, and the bow." She seemed to stop and listen for the sound of returning horses. Then she looked at the handkerchief again.
"They are gone now, of course, but my memories of them go into these…" She sighed again. I wondered what images flashed before her eyes, but I shifted my weight and said nothing, instead glancing at the price tags to see how much I should offer for that work.
She broke my thoughts first in her old, hoarse whisper.
"It's for a spell, isn't it?"
Thrown, I stammered something incomprehensible. Wizardry was not, strictly speaking, a secret, but to go around telling people that one practiced an art that sometimes involved seeking animal entrails and monster remnants…
She smiled.
"It's alright. He'll find a new life this way." Folding the white kerchief carefully, she placed the silk in my hand. I barely felt it; it was so light. "Make good use of it, young man." Then she looked vacantly over at the festivities. The distant sounds of laughing and music sounded harsh to me. I wondered if her memories took her fading sense of hearing to somewhere more melodious, wild, uninterrupted by crowds and people and desires, like my celestial kin in the sky. I left and withdrew back to my haven, the top room of Arunfell Tower.
Almost as if it had sensed the old woman's will, the glyph revealed its name in a burst of dazzling light. My translation of the celestial tongue is as clumsy as always, but the closest I got was the "Protective Lights." Of course, hoping for a spell that could be used to attack, I was a little disappointed. But as the silk square faded, disappearing in the blazing brilliance of the spell's light, I felt for a moment the gentle pull of a young girl smiling as she worked earnestly away at a gift for someone who would never return.
13th Verdant Rain Moon, 1892 C.E.
For the last two moons, I have been deep in work, crossing the rainy streets to visit the archives of the Cyrkensia State Library for manuscripts on immortality. A great many texts have been penned by clerics, monks and druids, but there are very few scientific works of reason.
Today, I came across an excerpt in an encyclopedia of magical artefacts. It notes that there are certain ones full of potent magical energies that can reverse wounds. Well, it's not quite the same thing, but still, a step in the right direction. One item it mentions, the Deep Azure Armour, appears to have last been sighted somewhere in Southern Nohr.
I check a local map of my destination, and the distance makes me sigh. Verdant Rain Moon, with its stormy and unpredictable weather, is hardly the time of year for a pleasure trip. But I am growing frustrated with my lack of progress. It is time to head out on another quest.
