[Gug Andjak] Down in the commons. [Clyde Sullins]

[Abel Rayne]

47th of Winter, 513 AV

Surviving Sahova for just about half of a season, that was an achievement in Abel's book. He had been informed that there is always the select group that scurries back home within a few days period. The first and second night of his stay lingered a tad longer than the norm but nothing excruciating. He was accustom to being forsaken. Doubtless that was a reason he had left Nyka. He had never been the social butterfly and had always been awful at making acquaintances. None of that had significance in his life anymore, anyways; Nyka was dust in the wind.

Sahova was his contemporary and home, now. That was the way he liked it. Truthfully, he couldn't think of any other way that could be better for the time being. What a mad way to think. Maybe he was mad. Even if he was, he didn't know. The way he saw it was that he had all the time in the world to cast magic and better his proficiencies to his standards. Subtract the undead and it essentially was his dream once he composed that first ounce of Djed a few years back. Yet to see much of the contrary, though. Of course he noticed a few pulsers as himself had been a tad on the skinny side. Not taking into account that they were virtually on the brink of starvation. Or maybe the fact that if the nuit's didn't rid of him, taking a few wrong turns into a poison cellar might.

Whether the island really was good, bad, or terrible - that wouldn't ruin his day for practice. He had unpacked his robes for the first time since he arrived. He ambled down the desolate corridors and wore the one piece garb with pride. Even though wearing it with pride consisted of his lanky steps and his shoulders hanging a smidgen too low. This was his first trip to the commons lab, Gug Andjak and the hallways gave him a bit of difficulties finding his destination. Although, after a wrong turn or two, he eventually found his way.

Abel wandered around the considerably large space for a bit, analyzing the area in search of decent spot to settle. A bit of exploring never hurt either, that was unless he found himself in a restricted area in which it was quite evident where those rooms were. Once he found himself in a suitable common laboratory, he stopped. Glancing down the halls to the left and right, there had no one to be seen other than someone who had been packing up as Abel entered. Unsure if this was common or not, he shrugged it off and began to prepare.

Behind him was an expansive stone slab counter where he set the empty journal that he had under his arm. "I'm curious to find how long this shall take to fill" he questioned himself, something he would normally never do unless convinced he was alone. He nonchalantly brushed off the top of the book, setting a vial of ink and a quill atop it that he had pulled from the pocket of his waist. Lastly, pulling an untouched piece of chalk from the opposite pocket.

He knelt down on one knee, pulling his robes up so his bare knee would feel the stone cold floor. Deciding to strategically place the summoning circle where the two walls met, in the corner just in case something were to go awry. He had not been summoning long enough to open portals from other worlds and not take extreme precautions. "Best to go with a minimal circle" he spoke aloud, again "it would look quite bad on my memoir to let some wild beast loose in Sahova." His face was solid as the stone his knee was supported by.

The piece of chalk met the stone and Abel ran it across gently. He was not a premium artist but this is something that came in time. Creating a circle around himself, his arm was extended almost to it's full reach as he used one knee to twist the other, making his body do a perfect 360 degree roundabout. Onyx strands of hair shielded his face as his head hung towards the floor. Then again with the circle, except this time he made a smaller ring only an inch inwards from the first. The drawing now looked like a large circle with a border around it. He quickly stood to study any imperfections, only to notice a few minor blemishes. He began again, this time at the top of the inner circle. He created a straight line down the center, extending all the way to the bottom. He did this again, except this time he started 90 degrees to the left of the first line to make a symmetrical cross in the center. Around the center of the cross where the two horizontal lines crossed, he swept the chalk across the ground to create the last circle for the initial entering and exiting stage of the portal. This last rounded shape was placed in the very center, it was the smallest. Less than a finger length in diameter.

OOCI would have made the portal appear but I felt like I got a bit carried away with the length. I got a bit engrossed.

[Clyde Sullins]

Clyde had not been on Sahova long, nor had he done too much since arriving. Going about the facilities, the ones he was allowed into, speaking to the occasional person, mainly pulsers like him who would talk to other pulsers... It had not been a overly eventful few days, but neither had it been boring. Today though, he wanted to investigate the labs further, perhaps try and pick up on something, or find a good place to work, or find someone who could help him get what he needed to work his craft for his judgement. That was one of the must petching stupid things he had ever heard of. You could not requisition the resources to do things unless you were an apprentice, and yet until you proved yourself under this new system of a "judgement", you could not become an apprentice. He had already missed the first one of the season, which meant he would have to wait until the one on the 80th to attempt becoming a apprentice. Until then, he had to do everything himself. It was not so odd for him, he was kind of used to it, kind of used to having to fend for himself, having grown up as a mage in a city where being a mage was nearly blasphemy, and grounds for all sorts of discriminatory treatment. Here at least on Sahova the discriminatory treatment was by in large logic bound, since it mainly affected those with little skill or who had nothing useful to do... Except for the bit about actually proving your abilities. That bit was foolish, and needed to be reworked. Particularly for one such as he, who needed more than just ink and parchment and some bones to scratch. So instead of working his craft, Clyde found himself on this day wandering the labs, in search of... Something. He headed into one lab, empty, checked another, found a nuit working in it doing something with a bone, checked another and found a nuit furiously scribbling notes in a book as he stared at a odd ornate hunk of metal... Perhaps working on his auristics? Hard to say. Finally he walked into another lab, and actually found a living person in it, working on something on the floor. The circles, two paired with a pair of lines forming a cross, and a circle in the middle where the lines met and crossed... It took Clyde a moment to recall where he had seen it before. Summoning. "Ah, a summoner?" Clyde paused for a moment, and looked to the periphery of the circle, the one just inside of the out most line, and noted no coordinates, nor even circles in which to put said coordinates in. So he was not yet done making the summoning gateway, and perhaps had not chosen yet where it would lead. "You are a summoner are you not, preparing to open a gateway... Where are you making it to?"

[Abel Rayne]

By now Abel had immersed himself into the base of this other worldly portal. Everything else back in Sahova was being blocked out. He had yet to realize that the meditation he'd been taking part in recently was truly opening sections to his mind that he had never known to exist. The long periods of concentration were now aiding his focal point in a useful situation. Now it was like the chalk was an extension of his arm as it flowed more naturally than his previous sketch.

Abel shuttered and his drawing arm tensed up, provoking him to scribble on the etching. Hurriedly licking his finger to moisten it, he shoved his thumb into the scribble in attempt to erase the defect. All that could be heard was the man's voice behind Abel asking about his proficiency. While responding to the inquiry, Abel kept his vision engaged on the drawing - "perhaps" he said.

Swiftly, Abel vaulted from inside of the drawn circle from his toes, landing outside of it. When grounding himself, he caught his balance with one foot, teetering back and forth until he planted the other foot. Without word, he trudged around the edge of his creation and drew a total of 16 new circles in between the two outermost circles. Up to this point, the entire thing took him almost an hour to draw. He made sure that the lines were straight as possible, without having to modify any a second time.

He backed away and gazed at what was soon to be a portal to an alternate world. His index finger was atop his ghastly lips and the other fingertips on his cheek. Abel's head shifted to the stranger and the fingers slid from his face. "Anywhere I want" he responded to the second question with a solemn expression "that's the fascinating thing about it." One of the worst mistakes to be made for one wizard is to trust another. Abel knew this and typically lived by this rule but when he deeply dove into a project, it was a hard rule to abide. No matter that he was a novice hypnotist. There are even very few men and women who've mastered hypnosis who do not have flaws in their social prowess's.

Abel's sullen eye's bounced between the visitor's face and hand's. He made no effort to hide the examinations he made of the man. Abel was blunt and rational. Being a hypnotist, he had to put rationality before his emotions. His inquiry was the ideal example; "you have no ring, you have no rank?" Recalling the first pulser Abel met had noticed his ringless finger, also.

[Clyde Sullins]

The human summoner's response to Clyde's question was a bit less than inviting. He himself had given such guarded answers before, and so it did not really bother him. Clearly though he was going to need to take a different tack, if he was going to question him. It was funny, Clyde thought to himself, how often the skills of a interrogator came up when dealing with mages, every fact having to be pulled out like the most valuable of secrets. It was one of the reasons he was glad he had spent as much time in Ravok as he had on working on that ability, and on his techniques within it. "Perhaps." As the man jumped out of the circle, he began to draw in the coordinate circles. The portal was big, far bigger than one Clyde had made, though he was uncertain exactly what effect a larger circle had on a summoning gateway. He supposed the bigger the gateway, the larger the thing that could cross over... But then, what did he plan on bringing through that was big enough to need such a large circle? It meant either the man was a very strong summoner, who was able to pull across and control even large possibly dangerous things... Or that he had made a large circle for absolutely no reason at all. Clyde was unsure which one being true would be the worse outcome... Although Clyde could tell by his drawing technique, that drawing was not his main skill... He could see some chalk residue from where he had to erase and redraw things. Clyde might be better at drawing than this summoner... Which seemed odd if he was in fact the first option, a high level summoner. "Anywhere I want, that's the fascinating thing about it." Clyde was unsure about this, his next words after all seemed rather boastful and full of hot air... It seemed the more he learned and observed of the man, the more he was sure the second option was true, that he was a lower level Summoner who had made a overly large circle for no real purpose. Deciding to test him, Clyde grinned, and asked his next question. "Really, so if you wanted to, you could make this gateway lead to say... Zaiden? Surely you have summoned from there before, and could do so now, if you are so skilled?" "You have no ring, you have no rank?" Clyde continued to grin at the man, and looked down at his own fingers. "No, I have no ring. You know, until recently that was not a issue, but then until recently they did not let people onto Sahova until they had already been approved as a apprentice. We would not be having this conversation if we where both as we are now, in the old time. I have been here before, been a apprentice before, back when it was all automated, none of this judgement stuff. But that was a few years back..." Clyde paused for a moment, letting his words sink in, passing the time looking at the newly added to summoning circle. "Summoning has always interested me, since the first time I did it. Though I will admit, I am not so great a summoner as you to have opened a gateway to Zaiden..." This other summoner had not actually said that this gateway was to Zaiden, nor had he said that he had opened one there... But Clyde decided the best method here was to pressure him a bit, perhaps force him into a admittance of some sort. Or perhaps the first option was true, and he would dazzle him by truly opening a portal to Zaiden.