Wine of Reason
-Inscribed by Zaia of Alexandria
One might perhaps count this as a petty subject upon which to start by revelation into the great unknown, perhaps a world-weary reader might take it as a jest of sort, a test of your fortitude after which this tome shall reveal its secrets. Rest assured that it is none of these things and I shall speak of the substance I name Magian Wine at length and through it perhaps reveal insights into the workings of... magic. I admit it feels strange to write the word even as I use the Anwari pronunciation, one which for the fist four and a half decades of my life I have heard upon the lips of charlatans seeking to obfuscate their tricks or at the very best in tales told and retold across enough turnings of the year as to grind the truth into dust on the wind. Yet here I am trying to explain the distillation of empowering spirits and to understand it thou will have to read the first parts of this journal, the account of my home, its peoples and provinces.
Perhaps it is a bit of a test at that, of what you have read so far, but only for the purpose of understanding in the matter at hand.
In the lands of the Levant, on the shores of the Mediterranean which is and is not the Blue Sea thou might more commonly know there is a wine most prized which is drawn from the grape in the lands of Persia, or to give it the name of its own people, Iran. Now most of the people of Persia are Muslims who are by holy law forbidden the intoxication of wine, but not all. There abides in those rugged hills and plateaus the faith of Zoroaster, whom some call Prophet and some call Patriarch, many there were once and few there are now, if one is permitted to use the present tense for a world now gone from sight. Their lords and kings have long since sworn themselves to the faith of their conquerors, or else they are lords and kings no more, as it was for the Levantine Christians and for my own folk. Yet the common folk, having less to lose from stubborn piety, kept to the faith of their fathers, and many of those soon discovered new ways to make their living among their new lords. Being unbound from the interdiction against dealing in the blood of the grape many of the Zoroastrians, or as they were called in Persia, magi took up the trade of the tavern keeper and in that much was said of their skill.
Not without merit was the praise for once in the court of the Emir of Damascus I drank Magian Wine and I confess it was among the best that I have ever drunk, in no small part because I did not have the chance to drink to excess and thus dull the memory. On the very next day I was tasked with the removal of a kidney stone from the Emir and had I failed in that and he had perished under the knife or from wound rot I would not have long survived him.
The surgery was a success and I left Damascus three days later with my pouch filled with silver atop a white donkey. I did not ask for the donkey, but it felt unwise to argue.
On that fateful day my surety of hand and sharpness of mind was the difference between prosperity and death so in honor of it from that day forth I only drank Persian Wine, Magian wine, in moderation, I kept a bit of it on me for luck. It is that belief that is brewed into the wine that I have learned to make to sharpen the eye and it is that habit that was as a ritual upon my soul that allowed me to do so. According to the Lady Esha, whom I have no reason to doubt, another wizard seeking to replicate the brewing step by step will not succeed and must instead adapt it to the resonance of their own mind which is why learning this art by any means other than living voice is such an arduous task.
OOC: The bits about Zoroastrians serving as vintners and tavern keepers in medieval Persia and about people of the time being able to remove kidney stones, albeit at great risk, is all true. Hope you guys enjoy the bit of history and magical world building woven into it. Not yet edited. 
