This spellbook is the least helpful thing you have ever read.
DO. NOT. GIVE. UP. |
You haven’t given up yet. But, you’re also not exactly making much headway.
You understand the concept. As the book has repeatedly gone out of its way to emphasize, healing magic is very simple. You’re supposed to hold onto a mental picture of how things were, and then regurgitate it onto how things are. The scant few pages on actual theory described it as “moving little bits of time”, which definitely sounds pretty neat on paper.
The problem is that it’s not leaving the paper. According to the book, pulling the memory into reality is the part of the spell that expends magicka, but storing the memory beforehand is the part that beginners mess up. If the healing spell does not work, it means your imaginary snake did not properly eat the comic panel or whatever, so you have to start over with something new to heal. This time, “believing in yourself harder”.
That… isn’t what the metaphor meant.
The author foresaw this confusion, though, and had an entire page explaining that you weren’t supposed to literally eat the book.
Well, your coffee turned out okay at least. You were kind of hoping it would turn the milk brown, but it still tastes like coffee.
As for Asotil, you’ve been glancing down at the road practically every page (which is frequently, considering each page has maybe five sentences). So far, you haven’t even seen so much as a courier. Imperials are notoriously regimented, though, so if Asotil said he’d request a six hour shift in his schedule, there’s a good chance he’ll show up exactly six hours from the original time.
Not so good of a chance that you’re willing to wait inside, though. Six hundred septims and a successful cup of coffee isn’t enough to make you start trusting your luck again.
“Good girl” would usually feel a bit demeaning, but you think Scleepy has lowered your standards enough to appreciate it. Thanks.
And you already tried wearing the cloak and robe together; it was a little cumbersome for your tastes. Remember that you basically have a full-body fur coat under everything you wear, and that it’s the middle of summer.
You are carrying three complete outfits at this point, though, each with lots of interchangable parts. If you wanted to make the invisibility cloak or even armor part of your normal wear, you could probably find some fancy and aesthetic way to combine the different pieces. It could be a nice little break from declawing yourself at the behest of a cartoon snake.
Plus, you’re pretty sure Asotil will suddenly show up right when you’re changing. That seems like the sort of thing that would happen to you, and you’re willing to capitalize on it if it means meeting up with him and getting back to Quill-Weave’s.
Additional resource credits:
Squiggles – Asclepius