This was modified from version 1, based on DM comments.
It has been twenty four years since my last entry, and as I have just yesterday learned how to reopen the tattoo which contained the journal, now seemed a good time to end it.
It took me weeks to figure things out after I passed through the Source. I was in a new plane of existence; one where magic, for a time, was powerless. My journal was gone, locked into the tattoo under my left arm which would no longer function. It is fortunate that I was trained so well by Sensei. Otherwise, the first person who had tried to rob me would have succeeded, and I would have no hope of completing the daunting task before me.
In this world, man-made objects have taken the place of magic. The post office has replaced the feather token. The telephone has replaced communication magics. Instead of teleportation, there are flying jets and high-speed rail. Television, a wasteful invention whose falsehoods are trivial to penetrate, has replaced illusion, an equally wasteful and transparent school of magic. And the computer proves a reasonable substitute for more spells by the year. It is unfortunate that my own transformation magics have not yet found a substitute in this world. It would benefit greatly from them.
As I said, my first weeks were spent in confusion and distress. Then I learned more and more about this world, and realized that there may yet be a chance of return. My confusion is most apparent in the fact that it took me a year of taking odd jobs at low wages before I realized that I had brought incredible wealth with me through the Source. The gemstone – the fist-sized ruby that I had acquired to use against the Enemy – was still in my possession.
Throughout that first year, I had kept close to the computer lab where I had arrived, hoping that I might find a way to return through the Source. Now that I was wealthy, I began a process that would eventually transfer the building's ownership to myself. First, I acquired a legal identity from illegal sources. I had already spent enough time in libraries to learn the basics of science, mathematics and history. Now, I used that knowledge to acquire a legitimate high school diploma, which, along with a good deal of money, allowed me entrance into the university that owned the building. While learning all I could about this new world, and searching for some way it could be used to get me home, I spent as much time as possible in that laboratory.
I will forever be grateful to the Infiltrator for forcing me to learn the laws of commerce. It turns out that it is quite easy in this world to increase your wealth if you start out with a good amount of it and have a superior intelligence. By investing in stocks and real estate, I quickly became very wealthy, and was able to buy the building. I had to agree to quite a few conditions, including the funding of a new construction project and guaranteed employment of a large number of graduate students, but I now had a base of operations. It was in that building that I began my company, Hammer and Anchor Innovations, Inc. I have a staff of several hundred scientists and engineers working on everything from satellites to the new field of Planar Theory, based on my own writings. A small group experiments on the various magical artifacts that came with me through the Source, and one by one, they have learned how to activate them.
An unexpected event occurred during the second year. I was reviewing a research paper on Planar Theory written by one of my employees, when the room brightened and all shadows disappeared. I switched the lights off and the room was still bright. Then I realized what had happened. I had been muttering to myself while reading the paper – I often find it difficult to think about only one thing at a time – and I had cast a spell. The least powerful of my magics had returned.
I dropped everything, and for months, was neither seen nor heard from by my employees or teachers. I tried everything I could to cast more powerful spells, even extending them into lengthy, draining rituals, but to no avail. When I emerged, I could do nothing more powerful than clean my office from a distance. Another strange thing happened shortly thereafter. I saw what I thought to be a kobold in the street at night, robbing a woman of her purse. I chased the creature down and caught it, and my suspicions were confirmed. It was shocked to find a human who understood its language – apparently, it had been alone in this world for three months – since I had regained a connection with my magic. I took the creature to my office and interviewed it, but it knew nothing of what was going on. Since then, it has become a loyal servant, accepting as payment food, clothing and language lessons, and eventually, money.
These were not the last strange things to happen. While I continued my research into Planar Theory and made my contributions to space technology, more creatures appeared. Kobolds increased in number, though they looked like common street thugs to everyone else. A wraith appeared outside my building, which I had to kill myself before it caused any trouble. I've seen guns whose bullets explode into fire, acid or ice, and strange sigils on doors of houses that look remarkably like magical traps. I have seen events and people from my own past that have appeared in unusual ways. A volcano erupted in the East, and the shadowy form of a ship was observed sailing out from under it, dragging along a series of wooden boards. A creature with a skeletal visage is said to haunt a library a few thousand miles from here. An unusually colored storm appeared over the Atlantic and remained for more than a month. The captain of a ship sailing nearby claimed to have seen a castle on the water, out of which the storm spread. Additionally, my abilities have slowly come back to me, though they stopped short of planar travel. This no longer seems to be an issue. I can now assume my form of air at will, and I can transform myself into any creature of this world, including those that have appeared from my own.
I believe that my appearance in this world has opened a rift – not in a specific location, but over the entire surface of the planet, that has drawn elements of the World of Man into this plane. I charted the advancement of my spells, and the increasing frequency of stories of the supernatural. Ten years after my arrival, I came to a disastrous conclusion. Within another fifteen years, the rift would be great enough to emit creatures as powerful as the Enemy. With the limited nature of magic in this world, the powerful wish I used to destroy him might be overcome, and even if he himself did not appear, there were many creatures that could lay waste to this vulnerable land.
There was only one thing I could do. Isolated police reports began to appear, speaking of perfectly performed kidnappings. Children were taken from their beds at night despite locked windows and doors. These were children of great people – scientists, marksmen, athletes – children whose breeding, carefully researched, almost guaranteed their superiority over other humans. In one place, a terrible accident caused a building to burn to the ground, and no one knew that there was one survivor. A hunting party in a great jungle disappeared, killed by wild animals, no doubt. Whatever happened to them, neither they nor the five-year-old they had brought along to watch was ever seen again.
At around the same time that these mysterious events occurred, a school of martial arts was opened on a run-down street corner – a school that was strangely exclusive, and, had anyone bothered to inspect it, strangely well protected, impenetrable, even from nuclear attack. Stranger still was the large basement of the school, which had neither entrance nor exit. The eight students boarded there, and each had an unusual tattoo on his chest. Their teacher was a man of advancing years but surprising agility, who looked like one from the far east but who had an accent that was difficult to place; a man to whom these eight students had intense loyalty and looked to as a father.
Two years ago, I heard rumors of a man who has resisted all attempts at assassination, and who has risen to the very top of a rapidly growing criminal organization. A man with with remarkable skill with guns of all forms. A man said never to age. I had no doubt that this person was the Archer. He alone would not have concerned me, but he was said to associate with a person called “the Dragon.” I infiltrated the Archer's organization to find out more about his associate, and while I learned nothing about the Dragon, I learned two other things. First, my magic cannot affect the Archer. He resists my enchantments and incantations with a strength unmatched in the World of Man, or perhaps, my magic is just weaker than it used to be. I also learned that bullets cannot harm me. When they approach, I instinctively transform into a creature of air, and they pass through before I reform. So my greatest weapon is useless against Archer, and his are useless against me.
Now I spend all my time training the Talons, and watching the high- resolution cameras I have hidden in the designs of each satellite my company has produced for the space program. I fear this “Dragon” and the Archer, and what they might do to a strange world which, until recently, was totally devoid of magic. I have sought out the best, the most intelligent, the most skilled people in this world and trained them as best I know how. I have equipped them with magical tattoos that should prevent them from being detected. These are far less powerful than my own, but it may be enough in this world of limited magic. When I teach them, I take a different form, so that they don't associate me with the billionaire who owns Hammer and Anchor Innovations. My students call me their Sensei, and for now, at least, they seem to trust me completely. However, I have gone to great lengths to keep this secret. I can only hope they can destroy the Archer and the Dragon before they learn too much.