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Skarn Separation - Research into Unconventional Alchemy VIII

Journal of Conrad Azohi - Day 565 after embarking

Time seems to slow to a crawl in this place. When I first arrived here, I was preoccupied with the things in the cave. The bizarre fungus, the sustaining elixir that my host gives me, and my host himself. However, after a few weeks, these wonders lessened. I had explored the entire depths of this tunnel, recorded all information that I could on the fungus and the rock formations here, and plied my host for all the information he was willing to give. Now I am left with little to do. I have preoccupied myself mainly with going back through my journal and making small edits. Though, that hasn't been enough to give me a real sense of purpose.

It doesn't help that the elixir we've been surviving by suppresses biological functions. I believe that I've begun to feel it's effects. I've grown lethargic and slow to react. It's like a massive weight is pushing down on me. Yet, at the same time, the elixir gives that low-level strength that I mentioned before, which gives me the ability to bear that weight. The end result is a sensation of being slowed down.

I don't know how my host deals with the exhaustion and the loneliness. He must have already spent decades out here, surviving almost exclusively on his elixir. Yet, most days all he does is sit at the entrance to the cave and stare out, across the scalding sands. Other days he works at gathering more material to transmute into fertilizer for the fungus. I've joined him a few times, and we either sit and watch the sands in silence, or work at mining the ore in silence. I've found that I greatly prefer the hard work. It gives me something to focus on. A task to break down and examine. A problem to solve. I've also spent time separating the ore into constituent elements.

It's an unusual experience, working with raw ore like this. It's not one that the modern alchemist encounters very often. There is also the added oddity that we are working with it as isolated as we are, and with none of the normal implements used in ore separation. It is a tedious and mundane process, but one that can be, at times, fairly difficult. As such, I have decided to record the process in this journal.