Sunday, June 03, 2018, 07:30 AM, Norfolk, Virginia, United States of America

Rex and I awoke with the sunrise again. This was a pattern that I was used to and didn’t see a good reason to stop the practice while we were here. I didn’t know when or even if we would make it back to Magnimar, but it wouldn’t do to get back there and have to readjust. I got up, showered, got breakfast, and gave Rex a good scratch and pat while I pondered what to do today. Maybe today it will just be an easy day with more driving around and maybe I’ll find out where I can offload this jewelry.

I started with my morning activities after deciding that I would hold off on selling the items, just to make sure that I can find sufficient places for them. With this new-found wealth that I can confiscated from the burglars, I decided that I had a bit more spending power before I would be dipping in to my own resources. I started writing a list of all the items that I might need to acquire sooner rather than waiting for any paychecks to come through to acquire. I went forward with listing items until I realized that this first list had been based on the things that I could get in Magnimar. I still had little idea about what I could acquire here in Norfolk.

The best thing would be to go do an in-depth walk around the various stores in the area and see what is even available to purchase. Also, maybe I can find something to increase the capability to move more materials from the store to the safehouse. I asked Rex if he wanted to go along, and he smiled his toothy smile before saying that, yes, he would like to go to Walmart again, but this time he would hang out on the top of the building, a good distance away from the bikes, but able to respond in time if needed. We got everything ready and ensured that the building was all locked up before heading out. We decided that Rex would be hanging out in the front basket for the ride there, until we got close, where he would fly up to the top of the building.

*****

Sunday, June 03, 2018, 12:30 PM, Norfolk, Virginia, United States of America

I managed to spend over three hours walking around through the store while observing what all was sold at this “Walmart” store. There is a large amount of clothing options in this store, with a fair number of tools and other items. A large variety of diversions for children, many of them separated by ages, a lot more in the way of spices and different foods, and even a section for “automobiles” which is the catch-all term for vehicles here. As I walked though everything, looking for things that would be useful for me in my endeavors.

I ended up finding a trailer that hooked up to bikes that is usually used for children, by can easily hold one hundred pounds worth of items, a set of tools that I can use to work on the bike, a set of household tools for work there, a hammer, an axe, a hatchet, a set of bolt cutters, a lot more in the way of spices, and in food prep, specifically meat and fresh produce, also, a LOT of salt. Almost one hundred pounds of salt, just enough to max out the trailer. The cashier working behind the counter looked at me oddly, and I noted that I was going to try my hand at salt curing the meat that I was purchasing. The cashier looked like they were accepting that, as I moved the shopping cart out to my bicycle, to build up the bicycle trailer and then load up the salt into it.

Rex came down after everything was loaded up, and flew back with a load of materials, after increasing his size to help carry more bags of items. I rode my bicycle back to the safehouse and brought it back into the garage. I loaded up everything into the house and locked the garage with the bicycle and trailer in it. After I let Rex into the safehouse, and giving him another whole Tilapia as a snack, before loading everything into the safehouse. I realized that I wasn’t about to increase the quantity of electronic devices in this house until I could get a firmer handle on how they work.

With everything back home, I got things sorted and put into their respective areas. All of the salt was put in the crafting room, along with the tools that I had just purchased. I decided to slowly work on getting everything that I owned up to masterwork level of craftsmanship, if I would never be able to get anything magical anymore. Every little bit of advantage I can wring out of an item or tool was required for me going forward. Maybe I will have to eventually look into technological items to fill the void that magic creates, but for now, all I can do is increase quality of stuff as Rex and I go, with the items that I have full access to.

Since I had just gotten back and didn’t want to expend all of my magical energy early in the day, in case a repeat of yesterday happens, I decided that I was going to do some rereading on the different things I needed to know about this time from the different manuals and books that I had been given and acquired since getting here. It was going to be a few hours, and I had enough to drink and eat for the next seven days anyway, so I didn’t see an issue with spending some time reinforcing my panicked surge studying when I first got here. Rex was already set up and relaxing on his makeshift warming bed, the bicycle was already in good condition for tomorrow, and my work outfit was ready as well. Also, it just started to rain a little so all the more reason to relax and rest before getting hung up on anything too busy or complicated. I got my workshop operating with the tools starting up and got everything going before heading to the living room and starting reading.

*****

Sunday, June 03, 2018, 5:30 PM, Norfolk, Virginia, United States of America

I had spent a few hours reading while the rain came down. After it stopped, I figured that I would not need to stay up late tonight, so I decided that I would work on the studying aspect of what I could do. I decided to utilize my standard method of activating my copying cantrip and set up the four journals on the table in the workshop and thought for a few moments about what three subjects I would need to look in to, to prepare me for going forward in this world. Looking around, I figured that I would have to get a good amount of information on the different histories of Alchemy, Spell-craft, and Enchanted Items in this realm. I had decided that since this was a crucial topic, that I would have to use every possible chance of getting the information that I could.

Alchemy:

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

This world has had a few different forms of Alchemy, including both internal and external, external being the one that I was used to the most. There are several treatises that are available throughout the world, which should be able to be accessed by further uses of the spell that I can use, if I can focus in on the specifics. There is a large emphasis on something called the “Philosopher’s Stone”, but then again, others apparently call it the “Sorcerer’s Stone”, at least in some countries. There were some substances that were available i.e. Stibnium, Wismuth, Cuprum, Aurum, Ferrum, Plumbum, Hydragyrum, Argentum, Stannum, Blue Vitriol, Tuttia, Calamine, Calomel, Calx, Cinnabar, and several others. Some are easier to access than others. At least I have a list of different alchemical items that this world has that I can use in my current studies. I will end up making some items, but it will take a good period of time before I can adjust enough to be able to access those items.

Spell-Craft:

Spell-Craft, or forms of Magic, in this world can actually vary greatly from the ones that I am used to back in Magnimar. These include Sorcery, a Light-based magic that can be shaped into constructs and forms, and apparently Yellow/Orange in color. Chaos Magic, or Hex-craft, is a mist like red energy mixed with red and black hues, is more of a reality transformation effect. Witchcraft itself is different than the witches I knew back in Magnimar, where it is a luminescent mist of singular color, like blue, yellow, purple, green, or others, and is usually hereditary. Dark magic is apparently very rare, and uses rituals to work, that transforms other magic to add a vapor that looks like black smoke.

Dark Dimension Magic is something similar to a Witch’s pact, but where the patron is much more insidious. It increases lifespan and provides some measure of supernatural resistance to the wielders but marks them similar to a summoner. Divine magic is not completely dissimilar to divine magic from back where I was from, but of course is focused on those entities associated with this world. Necromancy is a term I recognized, as it was almost always the same everywhere. Bringing back the dead, communicating with the dead, or animating the dead. Mirror Dimension magic is the ability to access another dimension, the Mirror Dimension, an alternative plane where the things that are done have no effect on the regular plane but starts off representing it before one exits it. Finally, there is Ta Lo magic, from the Ta Lo dimension, but not much is written about that, aside from it just working to increase one’s abilities and possibly having an effect on air manipulation.

I will have to do more research to see if I can tack own any specific abilities to know what I might be dealing with when I encounter any of these magic wielders as criminals, if any end up my way that is. There are a lot more fields of magic here, but they also seem to be a lot more focused on what they can each individually do. That is a positive and a negative, as in a person who focused almost entirely on Evocation is the reason why Rex and I are on this planet right now. A good thing to remember anyway.

Enchanted Items:

There are quite a few items of power here, on this world, but they seem to be much rarer, with many of them being world-shakingly powerful while others being within the realm of reasonability for upper-level magical items where I am from. The Bow and Arrows of Apollon – a bow that enhances the arrows with magical energy, the Brazier of Bom Galiath – a way to destroy spirits through the flame it creates, the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak which seem to be very similar to the Iron Bands item that I remembered hearing about, a cloak of levitation which seems to be an intelligent version of the boots of levitation from my home world, the Dark Scepter – which seems to be a magical staff that creates areas of darkness over large buildings, Sling Rings – which seem to be something that is in somewhat large supply to focus to create portals, and the Vaulting Boots of Valtorr – which seem to be able to create temporary platforms and help with impacts form high landings. There were also a number of magical books, from the Book of Cagliostro to the Book of Vishanti, to the evil counter, the Darkhold. These had spells and secret information for those who had the ability to use the local magic types. Not a lot here to facilitate me getting better at things here, so I guess I will be going in to work on magic items as soon as I can figure it out.

That’s a lot of information to absorb, everything that was discovered about the various types of magic in this realm. Just to confirm, I decided to get a bit of information for the surrounding area, to see if there is anything in the city of Norfolk that pings as one of those categories right now. I prepared a batch of the special mead via spell and took a drink. I then started up my arcane spell to increase my awareness, to maximize what I was going to learn. The spells had gotten me so much useful information yesterday when I was looking for rumors on the other subjects.

Alchemy:

Not much in this area for rumors about Alchemy. There is some kind of game called Alchemy where you combine elements to make other elements, and there were rumors of something called a dance club in another city called Alchemy. There were some rumors of someone who had created something they called an “Alchemy Gun” which changed the target’s material composition. There is some shadowy company called “Alchemax”, but nothing more than the name was brought up. There is a rumor that most practitioners of alchemy here are witches. All in all, a big bust for the lack of information in this city.

Spell-Craft:

Here’s where some interesting information came forward from rumors. There were apparently five or six metaphysical supply stores, that seemed to focus on “Witch” Supplies. There are some rumors of drumming circles that go on at one of them, that there used to be a twice yearly event where a bunch of those practitioners go into the woods somewhere to do something, and that there is a large undercurrent of people here who seem to have access to odd temperaments and maybe even abilities, if some sudden storms and weather phenomena show. There were not any current practitioners that were causing problems, at least as long as anyone knew, but there could be a problem at any time. Other than that, there were not a lot more rumors about local practitioners of any kind of magic.

Enchanted Items:

Unfortunately, there is nothing local. That isn’t the extent of what I had gotten from the rumors I picked up, but there is nothing that I could even possibly purchase or acquire in this city, just confirming more of my suspicions for this realm not having a lot of magical support. Maybe there is a niche there for someone to fill if they can find the time and resources. There was one rumor that troubled me. That was that there was a book here that seemed to show up from one of the military personnel who had apparently stolen it from a printer at the base where it just so happened to be printing off, late at night. I didn’t have any more information about that particular item, but it didn’t seem like a magical item, but I had heard of stranger item histories. I will have to keep an ear out for it.

Well, not a lot to go off of, but if the rumors have any basis in truth, then I should not have to worry about any other serious issues with more mystical opponents on the streets currently. With everything ready, I decided to just catch a final meal, get my clothes ready for tomorrow, and head to sleep. Tomorrow is another day, and I’ll have to figure out what to worry about then. My phone buzzed at me that it was on low battery, and I checked back through the manual to remember how to plug it in to the receptacle on the wall. Another thing learned today.