Materia Prima|Book of Alchemy [Destroyed]

[EloHim]

This book served as a guide and recipe book for generations of alchemists. The name of its original author is known to the bearers of the Book only. The Book itself - a container of knowledge passed on through the ages, written in different languages and translated.

It was also used as a diary by its many owners. Last known owner: Elorit Himarius.
Here will be shown few pieces of its contents in order to provide reader with some enlightenment about the person carrying the book, his story and lineage.

[EloHim]

A small paragraph from the Materia Prima, page 895
Written in green ink on a small list attached to the page.

The time has come.
Sophia is gone, and with her - my will to continue this existence. My son was the only thing that kept me going, my last debt before my dear wife and my ancestors. Elorit was a good student. He is already a capable alchemist, and has a knack for selling his creations to those willing and able to buy them. My shop was a good training ground for him, so was my lab.
But the confines of this shop...this house...this city...will only harm his growing talent. He needs to get away, to remove all anchors that hold him down, to spread his wings and fly. He was born to do great things, he was named to do great things.
In few days i will pass the book of our ancestors to him and that same day will silently pass away in sleep. With a calm heart and clear mind, might i add. The poison is prepared and so am I.
I hope that he will heed my warnings and will not go to that forsaken city… but in my heart i know that his road of fate and his own curiosity will eventually lead him there. That would be his main challenge that will either shape his future, or will take that future away from him with his life. 

I wish i could do more for him but alas, the Materia Prima now holds everything he needs. Maybe he will be the one to discover secrets that Great Zol’Thai and his descendants hidden in it. And maybe, those secrets will save him from the evil that will meet him on his Path.

Now...the only thing I could do is pray and prepare. Ancestors await.

In conclusion of his ownership of the Book, with wishes of well-being to its next owner

Simeon Himarius

[EloHim]

Scroll of fine paper, attached to the page 790. Written in black ink by a scientist that was allowed to briefly observe the book and talk with its owner.


Those letters of well-wishes from fathers and mothers to their children, continuing on the ancient path of their Lineage...They appear on many pages… Too many. This manuscript passed through so many hand it is basically become legendary.
Which gives me some idea as to why early owners of the Book started traveling.
When I told Alarik about my theory he said that i’m allowed to write it down and attach it to the book.

So here it goes:

In my understanding that book first wasn't even a book - it was a collection of recipes, fifty or more pages, no cover, nothing fancy. Those pages belonged to and were written by a person which in the most earliest English descriptions was named as “The Great Zol’Thai”. He was (supposedly) the father of Alchemy on the Eastern side of the world.
The truth of that statement remains to be seen, but it can be theorised that he was such a person. If you claim power and control over the mater of the world - you might earn many rich friends, but also many jealous enemies. As told to me by Alarik - The Great Zol’Thai was teaching anyone who was willing to learn but never passed on his notes to any of the students, keeping them in the family. Then, his children were also teaching the craft but Zol’Thai went missing,or died, i can only theorise about such things since Alarik doesn't know that either.
The point is - the knowledge that Zol’Thai placed in those notes, and knowledge that his descendants added to it was so important or valuable...It was worth killing for. And, as I imagine, jealous enemies, using absence of the Great Teacher as an excuse, decided to claim it for themselves. That moment is “the why” of it all. For knowledge they kept, for power they were not willing to share, they got banished out of their ancestral home and started traveling from place to place, as far away from enemies as possible. They decided to keep the knowledge in the family for good this time and the teaching of the book's content is prohibited to anyone who is not willing to become part of the family.
The book was getting bigger with each passing generation, which can be noticed not only by changing of the language and the hand which wrote it but even by changing of the material on which it is written. Knowledge, discoveries, notes - book became large and legend surrounding it even larger, going as far as claiming that anyone outside the family trying to learn from the Book will be cursed by blindness and insanity, and anyone who dares to even try to harm the Book will be forced to become a slave to the owner and all his descendants will be serving the owners of the Book till the owner decides to free the slave.

Alarik disputed the precision of those legends but warned me not to look at the first pages of the Book and i think it would be a good idea to listen. As i traverse the pages, i feel history weighing down on me. Hundreds of years, many countries, towns and villages - all in one place. With each passing page i found information that even for my mind of a scientist is hard to understand. My hands shaking as i get closer to the beginning. I feel dread, uncanny and bygone...filling me when i even touch the edge of those pages with tips of my fingers. Those pages made of finest pergament there is. Alarik thinks it’s the treated human skin… he smiled when he said that, so i thought it was a joke but...it didn't felt like it...

I conclude my short observation of Materia Prima with hope that this book will never come to my hands again.

Professor of History in the Royal Academy
Alister Crow


To the scroll attached a red seal that confirms that this scroll was written by the person working in the Royal Academy of a certain north-western country.

[EloHim]

A small note attached to yet unnumbered page of the Book

My first Impressions of the Hamlet were a mixed bag. I arrived by the Old Road, just like everyone else would. On foot though, by luck and skill avoiding brigants and all other unsavory folks that prey upon those who travel through this land. Only to find out that the Hamlet was full of such people and then some.
In a local tavern I encountered first in a line of very peculiar human specimens.
His attire and accent gave away the French upbringing. He was forthcoming and a little bit overbearing but under circumstances - tolerable.
He was strange. But that note isn't really about him. When i recalled this meeting the next morning i remembered a certain phrase that i heard from my grandfather ages ago, which that certain human told, even though differently from how my grandfather put it. Looking through my grandfather’s portion of the book i noticed that he never bothered to record it, so just to honor his memory i will put it here.

“The impediments of flesh are weak. The air we breathe knows no such boundaries. I exhale and you inhale, and inexorably we inch towards oneness”.

[EloHim]

The lines are hastily written on the top of the 1000 page.

“He came again. A year passed and he came again! In the dream, just like the first time! It seems that Mark was right: You survived trough one thing, someday you will enter another, and there is no option of backing out. The Play is well underway, even though it is my first day here. People died here for a long while. But that's the thing about Humans. Where one goes, another two come. Need to find the sender of the letter, or his grave. Why the hell the fate hates me so much? Running away is not an option. He knows it, but lies about it. Need to remember the advices:

1. Live long enough.
Obviously. But what did he meant by "sharing more than a Scene"? Riddles again.

2. Find another bearer of the Blood Ruby.
I had no doubt that there is more than one, but unless they wear it on the outside as some bauble, its going to be hard.”

[EloHim]