Flashback Dirt-Flinger

[Kamilla]

Kamilla Circe Gordon

3rd of Fall, 512AV

Two seasons. Two seasons had passed since the darkest day, two seasons since she'd lost her family, two seasons since she'd fled Sunberth and two seasons since she'd practised magic. It wasn't that the desire was missing, no, she thought about it all the time, it was simply the guilt that was so firmly bonded to the events that transpired those two seasons ago.

Today was different, today Kamilla had awoken determined to resume her practice of magic. After all, the whole reason she had come to Zeltiva as to be able to study magic in a city where it wasn't hazardous to your health, for the wrong reasons. Even still, the young mage found herself wary of open displays of her power and so, around mid noon she had packed her backpack with a simple snack and her filled waterskin and had made for the city exit, the Mirahil Pass.

As usual, Kamilla had painted her lips a deep red and dark eyeliner surrounded her deep brown peepers. She wore her black dress, the front reaching her upper thighs and the thin lace tail reaching just above her ankles, when it wasn't dancing in the wind and finally her usual black thigh-high boots that hid the horrible burn scar that covered most of her lower left leg. She may have been on her way out of the city but she always took pride in her appearance, it was something her mother had taught her.

[Kamilla]

Kamilla Circe Gordon

Several chimes out of the city and along the well travelled dirt road that came from Zeltiva and went to many far away places, Kamilla noticed an area in the surrounding wilderness where the density of the plant life seemed to lessen. In this particular patch of the wildlands the trees grew farther apart allowing far more light to break through the canopy and making the area look far less intimidating.

A quick glance ahead revealed no other areas that appeared more appealing than the current patch of well spaced trees and Kamilla, with a shrug of her shoulders, decided it would have to do. Without another word the young mage ventured off of the road and into the wilderness, making sure to at least try and memorise the path she was taking.

As she walked through the dying patches of grass, Kamilla noticed that the trail of thinning plant life began to curve slightly to the right and although the current space between trees was better than everywhere else, it certainly wasn't spacious enough for her to practice her reimancy...and so she walked on.

[Kamilla]

Kamilla Circe Gordon

Only a few chimes later, when Kamilla's impatience and fear of being lost and eaten had reached their peak, the narrow trail of thinning plant life finally opened up into a large grass-less clearing. The large patch of uninterrupted ground was made up of nothing but dark loose dirt and an abundance of small stones, leading her to believe that it may have been the remains of a large pond.

"Well, this will have to do." the young mage said to herself, following her comment up with a sigh of preparation. Although it may have seemed as if she was only settling for the large patch of loose dirt and stones, Kamilla was actually quite satisfied with the location. Her first, and so far only, reimancy element was earth which made the large, and slightly sunken, clearing a perfect practice area...for the time being.

Eager to begin, Kamilla dumped her backpack against a nearby tree on the edge of the clearing and made her way to it's centre. Once there she gave one last cautious glance at her surroundings to make sure she was alone before closing her eyes and falling into silence. Slowly she tried to make contact with her djed, attempting to sense the living energy that resided inside of her. Feeling the djed wasn't difficult to do and so it took only a few short moments, but it had been a very long time since she'd interacted with it and so the magic within her was quite unresponsive.

For quite some time she stood there, silently searching inside herself as she tried to get a grip on her djed but every time she thought she'd latched onto it the energy seemed to slip out of her grasp and return to it's dormant state. The combination of knowing her djed was there and being unable to manipulate it was proving to be very frustrating as was evident by the several agitated sighs that escaped the young mage's nostrils.

With her current approach of reaching out to her djed clearly not working, Kamilla decided it time for a new tactic, or rather an old approach which she'd learnt a long time ago. Opening her deep brown eyes for the time being, Kamilla took a few deep breaths and exhaled them slowly followed by some minor shaking of her limbs in an attempt to relax body. With her little warm-up complete the young mage's eyes closed once more, though her slow and deliberate breaths continued.

"Don't reach out to it, make it come to you." she whispered to herself, quoting her grandmother's advice, advice that seemed to have been given a lifetime ago, but slowly Kamilla's djed began to stir, her new strategy clearly being more effective. The small spark within her began to grow more and more as it slowly extended it's reach to the surface. She could feel the unusual sensation snaking it's way from her core and towards her now outstretched palm until finally a glistening lavender substance began to emerge.

[Kamilla]

Kamilla Circe Gordon

As she watched the ethereal fluid slowly form in her hand Kamilla was reminded of how little actual practice she'd had with reimancy, because of the absolute phobia of magic possessed by most residents of Sunberth. Excluding the night of her initiation, her grandmother had only deemed it safe to go on a handful of 'excursions' out of the city and as a result, the bulk of her studies were on theory.

If knowledge was all she needed, then Kamilla would already have been a great reimancer, she knew all about res and it's different forms and functions, though she didn't see the point in attracting an element when it could just be created, nor did she see the purpose of using res as a gas since any worthwhile transmutations would need to be dense. Yes, she knew plenty about reimancy and already had several opinions of her own on the subject, but all that knowledge was futile when not paired with practice and that was what she intended to do today.

Having gathered a small, yet reasonable enough, amount of liquid res in the form of a small ball hovering a few inches above her hand, Kamilla was ready and raring to go. She started off by splitting the apple sized blob of res into two equal parts, enclosing the ball in her hands and separating them as her hands moved apart with each half following a different hand. Satisfied with the division, Kamilla focused her gaze on a tree several meters away, aiming one of her hands at it and firing the ball of res, quickly transmuting the substance into stone as it hurtled towards the tree.

The small projectile slammed into the base of the tree with a dull thud before bouncing off and falling to the ground, leaving a tiny and barely noticeable dent where it had hit. The overall result was completely lacking in spectacle and therefore, a great disappointment to Kamilla. All she'd done was create a small stone and tossed it, the latter being something even a child could do and certainly not the awe inspiring display of power that Kamilla had been hoping for. It was in this moment of discouragement that Kamilla was reminded of one of her grandmother's many impromptu speeches.

"Reimancy is a powerful and versatile art, it is learnt through trial and error and is limited only by willpower and imagination. For this reason, no two reimancers are exactly the same."

The advice, though lacking in any sort of detail, was still quite helpful, perhaps not at the time it was given but coming from the back of her mind right now Kamilla felt as it if were exactly what she needed to hear. The words at face value didn't do much to spur her on, it was the dissection of the short speech that yielded several minor realisations. If no two reimancers were the same, then that implied that there were far more effective methods than the obvious approach of simply flinging transmuted dirt around.

[Kamilla]

Kamilla Circe Gordon

Several chimes passed with Kamilla staring deeply into the remaining ball of res as if it would reveal it's secrets at any moment. Perhaps she had been too quick to decide that dense transmutations were the most effective, too quick to dismiss the substance in all it's other forms.

"Maybe the most direct approach isn't always the best approach."

The words were little more than thoughts, the young mage too absorbed in solving her problem to have noticed that she'd said them out loud. She would have to rethink her entire strategy when it came to reimancy, to go back to basics and find the spot where she'd strayed from the correct path. As she stood there in thought she realised that maintaining the ball of res was becoming bothersome, allowing the liquid to return to her body, seeping into her skin and disappearing.

Once the res was out of sight Kamilla lowered herself into a crouching position with a soft sigh as she absent-mindedly ran her fingertips through the dirt. If she was going to find a new, and better, approach to reimancy she would need to explore previously ignored avenues. Where res was concerned there was form(gel, fluid and gas), there was shape(the options being infinite) and there was function(transmute or attract). If she was going to better herself she would have to explore each of these until she found combinations that worked for her.

"Okay, form first." she said with a hint of determination as she stood up, already focusing on her djed and urging it towards her hand. Once she'd created an apple sized blob of the glistening substance and willed it to hover above her left hand she turned her attention to changing it's form, a task that she deemed relatively easy since she need only will her res into the state of her choosing.

The res was already in the form of a thick gel, barely changing shape as it awaited instruction, silently suspended in mid air. With a small amount of concentration she shifted the firm ball into a liquid, the change hardly noticeable other than the small deviations in it's shape. Satisfied with her unremarkable accomplishment Kamilla spread her fingers further apart, opening her hand wider to illustrate the dispersal of the fluid ball of res into a gaseous form and once again the res responded, exploding into countless tiny particles resembling a glittery lavender mist. From there the res was shifted back into a gel form, then a liquid once again and so on for a few more cycles.

Barely two chimes passed and Kamilla had grown bored of the little exercise, she was clearly accomplished in shifting her res into different forms. Next came shape, a category that contained a limitless amount of options, she'd have to think harder about her choices. It took her only a chime to decide on a spear like shape for obvious reasons, her element was earth after all. With the new shape in mind Kamilla emitted more res from her palm, feeding the hovering ball until it was twice it's original size. She willed the blob to float between both her open palms, pushing her hands closer together as if squeezing some unseen object. The gesture served to assist in shaping the blob of res into a longer, thinner and sharper spike like shape that was about half a meter in length.

Satisfied with the shape her res had taken, Kamilla allowed the res spike to float higher into the air with both palms pointing upwards, aiming the point toward a nearby tree. She allowed herself a deep breath of preparation before transmuting the outer layer of the spike into solid stone and firing the spike in the direction of the tree. As the spike shot forth, Kamilla clenched both her hands into the fists, transmuting the rest of the res into stone. Instantly, the stone spike went from flying towards the tree to falling towards it's base and landing with a loud thud in the ground a few feet from the tree earning a frustrated growl from the young mage.

Clearly the weight of a solid stone spike was something she'd need to take into consideration, the solutions being to either stand closer to the target, aim higher or fire the res with more force, all simple enough solutions but the thin layer of sweat that covered her brow had drawn the young mage's attention to a more immediate problem, over exertion.

Kamilla could feel that each time she transmuted res into stone it took a noticeable amount of effort and considering that stone was only as strong as it was thick, transmuting large amounts of res could easily become a problem in situations that required prolonged use. It was at this moment that she first truly considered using her res to attract an element, it made sense, making use of already existing earth would decrease her need to create it herself and, taking a glance at her surroundings, Kamilla realised she had more than enough resources.

Deciding she still had a few spells worth of djed in her, Kamilla began to generate some more res, creating another apple sized ball of the substance. Eager to make some progress she wasted no time in willing the ball to float about a meter in front of her with a similar distance between the res and the ground. Once again, Kamilla made a fist, this time instructing the glistening ball to attract earth.

Waiting expectantly for something to happen, an uneventful tick or two passed and Kamilla's mind immediately jumped to the conclusion that she had been unsuccessful in her attempt at magnetism, but that assumption quickly disappeared as the dirt beneath the ball of res began to stir, a few particles of dust jumping up into the air and towards the ball. A moment passed and Kamilla watched curiously as more and more dirt began to float towards the res, it was working but far too slowly. Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, she began to focus on the res once again, this time concentrating on increasing the force of the attraction. Once again Kamilla opened her palms and clenched them shut tightly as she willed the effect into existence. The hiss of moving sand was the first thing she noticed and as soon as she opened her eyes Kamilla was greeted with an amazing sight. Dirt and stone were literally jumping from the ground and flying toward her ball of res which was quickly becoming a lump of combined dirt and stones.

It was working, the res was attracting earth and it had required far less effort on her part in comparison to forming the earth spike. Sure, it wouldn't be as solid and destructive but the heap of compact earth looked as if it could cause some damage.

"This is far more effici..."

Her words were cut short by the loud girlish yelp that escaped her lips as a sudden stinging sensation shot through her head, her hand quickly shooting to the source and finnding a small stone. The surprise attack caused the young mage to lose her concentration and the ball of gathered earth fell to the ground with a dull thud.

Upon further investigation, it appeared that the earth attraction had caused a small stone to jump towards her res and hit Kamilla in the back of the head with enough force to leave a swollen bump and a bad mood in it's wake. "That's enough for today." she mumbled, still holding her head. Her anger at being injured by her own spell was evident in her voice, clearly attracting an element wasn't as simple as she'd assumed it would be.

Upset about the throbbing bump at the back of her head, Kamilla's eagerness to practice reimancy had seemingly fled for the day and she wasted no time in stomping over to her backpack, slinging it over her shoulder and making her way back into the forest in search of the dirt road that led to Zeltiva. However, her sudden departure wasn't completely due to the slight injury she'd sustained, several bells had passed since she'd arrived at the clearing and she'd only just realised that it would soon be dark.

To Kamilla's great annoyance it took her about half a bell to find her way back to the dirt road, the hike made longer by her decision to stop every dozen meters to create small two foot high stone beacons with her reimancy so that she could find her way back to the clearing the following day, several whispered profanities accompanying her through the wilderness. The lack of progress was also adding to her frustration, she'd come to the clearing with the naïve expectation of emerging not only re-acquainted with reimancy, but far more skilled at it as well. She realised now that it was going to take far more than a few bells of practice to become a powerful reimancer and now that she was a bit more knowledgeable about the pace, her determination, though slightly lessened, had returned.

[Perplexity]

You have played well, but the game is at an end.

You have been bested. Beaten. Checkmate!

However, here is a consolation prize: a wealth of Experience and Lores! If you have any questions or concerns regarding this grade, please do not hesitate to send me a PM. I'll be more than happy to assist you!

 

Kamilla

XP

• Meditation | +1 EXP
  Reimancy | +3 EXP
  Research | +2 EXP
  Planning | +1 EXP

LORES

• Meditation: Touching One's Inner Djed
  Reimancy Theory: Requires Trial And Error
  The Forms of Res: Gas, Solid, Liquid
  The Shape of Res: Anything One Can Imagine
  Reimancy Principle: The Law of Attraction

MISCELLANEOUS

I always enjoy reading trial and error threads involving reimancy. It's fun to witness how creative people can get. Well done!

Until Our Next Match,
-Perplexity, DS of Zeltiva
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