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Sustaining Elixir - Research into Unconventional Alchemy VI

Journal of Conrad Azohi - Day 496 after embarking

It has been some time since my last journal entry. My makeshift magnet did not work as intended. We traveled for several days before the winds dropped enough for us to see the sky and thus realize the situation, and by then we were so far off course that we couldn't manage to make it back to where the first storm had turned us around. The group began to cast blame towards me. Their reasoning was that they would have never come out this way of their own accord and that it was my quest for knowledge that would result in their deaths. We course corrected and attempted to begin travelling north, but there was a very real possibility that we might die of dehydration before we ever reached civilization, or, even worse, we might pass through the nation without ever seeing anyone. So, it was apparently considered a good choice to let some members of the group go to conserve supplies and ensure that the group could travel longer.

Naturally, this was decided without my input, and it was decided that I would be the one to be left behind. They left me as I slept, putting my clothes, journal, and a generous two filled waterskins beside me as I slept.

I continued north for some time, but it was much rougher going than on the back of a wagon being drawn by horses. I doubt I would have ever made it to Kuthus with the distance that remained and the speed with which I moved. I stopped even bothering to aim north after hunger and stress drove me somewhat mad. I wandered without direction, meandering past giant rock formations and across swaths of sandy desert. I had never known a hunger as fierce as what I felt in those days. It reached the point where I believe I was hallucinating objects in the distance.

At some point, my memories grow indistinct. I am unsure what I did for some days, or where I went. Next thing I can clearly recall was waking up in a dark, cold room. There was a stranger in the room with me. A wizened man with rough skin. He had apparently found me in the desert and brought me back to his home. To my great surprise, he spoke the Imperial tongue of my homeland. Yet, he has been guarded with information, refusing to even tell me his name. Though I have been able to discover from him that, somehow, I am farther from Kuthus than I expected. The rest of my group are likely doomed to the fate that my host saved me from. I sincerely hope they find a savior as I have.

This place, his home, is a tunnel diving far underground from it's entrance in the face of a rock formation standing in the middle of the sands. There is water here, which my host uses to create a strange type of brew. It is a sharp, pungent drink, but it seems to give me strength. A solid, low-level kind of strength. It even quiets the pain of hunger, though not entirely. I am unsure how my host creates it, but some rudimentary experimentation has let me uncover the basic structure of the chemical. I find it odd that so many entries in this journal must make use of animismus, but I now add another. Hopefully I can take a closer look at the brew and perhaps ascertain exactly how it works, and why a fluid containing mors seems to be safe for consumption.