Soon after Lasutro awakened late the next morning, she made their way out of the Sour Desk and was just able to catch Fyair’s caravan, as she had named it in their head, as it made its way out of the town. Having skipped breakfast in order to catch up to the caravan, Lasutro nibbled on bits of their rations while she strolled alongside one of the less filled carts. The day’s travel passed with little issue for both Lasutro and the caravan, part of which she attributed to the small increase of guards, the other part she assumed to be luck. An assumption she held largely due to their own lack of experience in long form travel.
While the caravan settled itself for the night Lasutro began sharpening their new hatchet as she meditated on their experience the previous night. The action helped them maintain their focus, the thoughts coming to them less chaotically than they usually did as they reflected on the past events, the creatures, the gray wisps and chains. The clarity allowed them to reach several conclusions in rapid succession as the sun set and the rest of the caravan finished their dinner. The first of which was that the creatures she had seen in the tavern were connected in some form to emotion and likely ethereal. This vague description didn’t strike them in its entirety until she reflected upon their experience seeing the creatures, but now a word stuck out in their mind: spirits.
The second revelation came after pulling their mind from the distracting thoughts that asked why the spirits had appeared, why they felt incomplete, and what the shimmer they created in the air was, its purpose. It was a partial understanding of why the gray motes of energy that gathered as wisps and flickers to form chains as she approached to observe them closely. Lasutro came to the realization that they were somehow manifestations of connections, and the more powerful the connection the more obvious it was.
It was with that realization that she arrived at their final conclusion; the red tome, titled as “The Life’s Work Of Paydaego Freesill” was magical in nature and now held a stronger bond than the average object. The idea came following the perception that the gray flickers and wisps were representative of connections. Lasutro recalled the gray upon the mercenaries weapons, the thought shifting from a vague notion to a near certainty, as she remembered the unique forms of the weapons. Excitement came over them in a wave, the very possibility that she was in possession of a magical item, or more precisely a magical book.
However by the time she had realized, the moons were high in the sky and Lasutro made the choice that sleep would make their coming study of the tome less fallible. So she ignored its silent call and instead laid themselves down to a dreamless sleep.
The next morning Lasutro got up with a slight pep in their step which remained so as she moved alongside one of the less packed carts. She made casual conversation with the driver, doing their best to keep the exchange somewhat one sided, that is to say letting the older halfling man ramble about life in his hometown and his own travels across the continent with similar caravans. Though parts of his stories bored Lasutro slightly, she found them rather informative about what long term travel can be like and not long after the halfling’s most well crafted stories ended, she asked if he wouldn’t mind them just sitting on the back of the cart. He gave his approval with a fairly typical warning about watching for the goods and not falling off the cart, before the two of them returned to a comfortable silence.
It was in that silence that Lasutro began their study of their book .She quickly skimmed over the first pages finding them containing the same story she had read when she first opened the book back in the Sour Desk. On the page she had spilled their blood on, Lasutro found that it was absent of any stain and even the unfamiliar elven words. Turning to the page revealed a sea of letters, waves of words crashing into each other forming sentences, and paragraphs. Lasutro watched as it continued to do so until the page appeared as if someone had written a story on a single piece of parchment, layering the sentences and paragraphs on top of each other, making it near impossible to read. As the words stabilized on yellowing paper of the tome Lasutro didn’t even notice the compulsion she had to decipher the mess of ink and see the story it formed. Then, as if it had always been so, it became another title page though it was formatted smaller, almost like the chapter of a novel. It read: Freesill’s Method of the Core:The Mind Nourishing Core.
Though the story’s chapter or rather title implied an almost academic style of writing the pages beyond were stylized in a different manner, less like the story of Paydaego Freesill,more modern in its structure. As Lasutro began reading the freshly revealed story, they found their senses dulling, their focus fixated upon the pages. Each word, sentence, pushing the outside world away until only the book remained in their senses.
The story described a similar wizard to the first story Lasutro had read only wiser and having hit a wall in their growth. Though the story was a bit vague on what that wall was, it described the many attempts at a solution the wizard took to surpass it. They endeavored, refining their experiments and the like until they took in their first apprentice.
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The apprentice was described much like the wizard that Lasutro had now concluded was some sort of silhouette of Paydaego Freesill; a description of their personality as opposed to the physical. The story followed Freesill teaching their young apprentice all they could without stunting their future growth as wizard. As they progressed as master and apprentice, Freesill began putting together the pieces of research they needed to overcome their wall.
When they completed their research, Freesill shared it with their apprentice hoping to help them avoid the wall that they had to face. So the two of them worked together to form a new method of the core, as it was referred to in the story, and after several years of perfecting the product of what had become the pair’s research they completed the new method. While the story was previously vague about the description of the various methods of the core, it suddenly became very precise in its descriptions, especially so about the newly created method.
Lasutro assumed the description of the method was that of the one referred to in the story's title. As the method was described the story gave an explanation on its function compared to more traditional methods of the time, which tended to be various forms of extended meditation, that were similarly traditional in their formation. It was as Lasutro began to read the detailed description of the method only to find the driver of the cart shaking them from their focus, making them suddenly aware of the rest of the caravan; stopped and preparing for the night, people all about managing fires, others laying down bedrolls.
A tinge of resentment of both the sun and the caravan entered Lasutro’s mind, but quickly faded when a rush of drowsiness came over them accompanied by an increasingly pounding headache. Begrudgingly setting aside their book, Lasutro thanked the driver before heading off to find a spot for their bedroll not far from the center of the caravan's camp. After eating a fast and simple dinner, Lasutro found themselves laying down early for sleep, mostly to get rid of the sudden exhaustion, but partially to ease the growing pain in their temples.
By noon the following day the headache had faded completely, reviving the temptation to continue reading the story that she knew to be the cause of the now dissolved pain. In an effort to avoid said temptation Lasutro continued along with the caravan shifting their focus upon the sprawling grasslands, and the warmth of the sun upon their skin. Eventually, Lasutro found themselves asking some of the older drivers and even some of the friendlier looking guards about the various plant life the caravan passed,at least those plants she didn’t recognize, unable to keep their curiosity bottled up.
When the caravan started to slow, preparing to make camp for the night, Lasutro put a stop to their questions, hoping to avoid being perceived as a nuisance with their insistent inquiries. She kept to themselves the rest of evening, and into the night, watching the various fires maintained by the caravan’s guard.
The fires dimmed becoming embers before the guard fed them, reviving them from the brink. As they did so the sky darkened, cloaking the spaces between the pyres, and the creatures of the night awakened, playing their parts in the Moonlit symphony. The sound of the natural orchestra called Lasutro to sleep, but their mind refused, filled with an obsession to read the story it had left unfinished, keeping them up far past midnight, leaving them with another layer of exhaustion when they returned to the road following breakfast among most of the caravan.
That day’s travel was far tougher on Lasutro than she hoped, finding themselves far too tired to make conversation with anybody of the caravan let alone ask for a ride from one of the cart drivers. She pushed on, nibbling their dried meats in an effort to keep themselves awake enough to make it through the day, using each step to remind them that they were over half way to their destination. However despite their efforts, the hours seemed to drag on and on, so by the time the caravan stopped for the night Lasutro was half asleep in a similarly made bedroll.
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When she awoke the next day, she did so to the rest of the caravan readying itself for the day's journey. Though their exhaustion had largely faded, Lasutro found that it had eroded more of their stamina than she expected it would.
It wasn’t long till noon when Lasutro started to look for a cart driver that would be willing to let them hitch a ride. When she found one among one of the younger drivers on shift and convinced them to let them on, she sat somewhat precariously on the back of the cart. Shortly after Lasutro realized she had absentmindedly moved to continue reading their book and though she half wanted to, she restrained themselves, thinking better of it she returned it to its place in their pack knowing that if they did give in to their curiosity, she’d likely fall off the cart. So she resolved to sit watching the road as the cart moved onwards to its destination.
The rest of the day passed without issue in much the same way as the other days of travel, and with their focus removed from their thoughts, instead just watching the rest of the caravan. As evening approached Lasutro felt tension rise in the guards and in the older merchants including Fyair. When the caravan finally made camp for the night, Lasutro could feel some of the anxiety spread to some of the travelers who had joined the caravan for the company, with its rise she saw that even those guards resting were getting as jumpy as the active guard. The fear crept into their mind unable to dismiss the growing unease that had clearly filled those meant to protect the caravan from beasts or bandits.
Despite the tension in the air, part of which had partially settled in Lasutro’s own body, she couldn’t help approach one of the more commanding guards, and ask why they were so tense. A question that got them a glare told them to leave, but as she moved to do so she was pulled back by the gauntlet hand of the guard she had approached. Lasutro found themselves face to face with the guard, their breath hot on Lasutro’s face as they whispered the answer.
“We should’ve met some travelers by now…” their words harsh and rough on the ear as they continued “These past few nights been too quiet, should’ve beat off some bandits but none is strange.” They paused once more, their concentration clearly split between the lack of battle and Lasutro “Strange is unexpected and unexpected is almost always bad.”
The guard released their hold on Lasutro, before moving among the other guards lightly kicking the few clearly less experienced guards awake and resuming their duties. Lasutro moved as close to the center of camp as she reasonably could, the quieted remains of their paranoia seeping its way back to the forefront of their mind. When Lasutro laid down to sleep after their dinner, she barely registered that she had removed their dagger from its sheath, gripping it tightly against their chest as she drifted into an uneasy sleep.