When the Final Seal Breaks

5th Entry

You never really know just how dirty things are until you clean them... getting back my own clothes, apparently now enchanted with magic to help them stay clean longer, was such a blessing. But, when I put them back on, I layered Orleris' cloak on top again and checked my reflection. Together it looked much less like I was some kind of fashion pioneer in this world. When in Rome, as they say. Well, they don't say that in this world so that's another wasted reference.

Whoever is reading this is probably thinking I'm obsessed with fashion. But it's just so odd to me that this is how clothes developed here. Listen, I really like the ornate clasp details on these ostensibly simple garments, and it has detailed stitching on the hems. It was this morning that I noticed that the details in the monotone stitching of Orleris' black cloak were the same pattern that had been sewn into the lapel of the King from fifteen years ago as well. It was an ivy-like chain of plants with interesting little flowers. I figure it's some kind of sign of the royalty, and I thought that maybe this was a special cloak made just for the King.

As it turned out, I was somewhat right. I tried to fasten the clasps, only to find that they wouldn't close. When I left my room and found Orleris in the hall, this time he laughed at me for trying to wear it again, before explaining how the clasps could only be fastened by the owner. While I was busy finding that to be absurd, he clipped them up and said I could keep wearing it until we ordered some more clothing if I felt too uncomfortable to wear my world's clothes.

Fasteners that respond to personal magic, inconvenient lack of sleeves, flowing ends... and we can't just buy some clothes here, we have to teleport them in? And no one thinks that is weird?

I guess if you don't want to read about clothes you can skip to here and keep reading.

Anyway, we spent most of the day going over ancient books. Needless to say, not 800-year-old books, but it was pretty clear why they weren't teleporting them anywhere without needing to ask anyone as soon as I saw them. The tradition of the region formerly known as Easton was for each steward of the land to copy out a new tome of the details left behind by their predecessor. As a result, there was a single line of books, each one about thirty years older than the last, each with supposedly the same content.

This spoke volumes about the government representatives, but Lilium assured me that this wasn't against the will of the people. They just sincerely had, in the last few hundred years, really liked their representatives every time and kept them voted into power over and over, until each retired.

Sure. I'll believe that when I see evidence.

Only the newest five copies of the history books could be handled safely in the open, so I had grabbed the oldest I could hold with bare hands, while Orleris grabbed the next.

It looks like this is how all the information got lost. Even just comparing five generations ago to four, they were playing a game of telephone. Whether it was specificity being lost because the next writer summarized something more, or details being added by inferences, basically only the broad strokes could be considered factual.

One thing I did find out though, was the reason why the number of sealing stones had become confused. The truth was that in the final battle, I had protected one of the fighters at a key moment, and she had chosen to hand over her sealing crystal to me after the battle was won. The history of where the stones went got murky, and somehow it was recorded that I didn't have a crystal at all in the fight, and both of the ones handed to me were from other participants. At least, that was the story in the book from 5 generations back.

Historical revisionism aside, I wonder why Navar sent us here. He said he had info about the sealing stones, but there's nothing new here for me. We could have had some people start working on finding seal stones while we stayed in central. Was he trying to make a point about how writing things down doesn't make those things impervious to the flow of time? Well, buddy, if you're reading this, I have news for you. If you guys had a history of copying the exact text every time, maybe your silly reinterpretations wouldn't have messed up the history. You were the one who suggested I write this anyway.