Solo Solitary Confinement

[Kamilla]

Kamilla Circe Gordon

21st of Spring 515AV

Darkness seemed to overwhelm light, both literally and figuratively, in the tiny excuse for a room that Kamilla had claimed in The Quarters, The tiny flame upon the candle that burnt in the 'far' corner of the room, which was only about two arm's lengths away, flickered and danced as it struggled to hold off the heavy darkness that surrounded it, a lone soldier surrounded by an army of foes. It was late night, though Kamilla couldn't quite tell how late since the small barred window showed no sign of the moon.

Several chimes had passed since she'd retired to her 'room' after another day amongst the undead and try as she may, Kamilla couldn't seem to fall asleep, though this time she was certain it wasn't because of the unbelievably uncomfortable sleeping mat, nor was it the persistent chill that hung in the room. She was currently sitting on the straw mat with her back against the wall, eyes closed and body still as she attempted to relax herself. The island of Sahova was wildly different from anything else she'd ever known and it's unusual qualities often made her long for something a bit more, ordinary.

Since her arrival on The Undead Isle, Kamilla had given herself a designated 'Me Time' in which she would allow herself to relax, think and enjoy the simplicity of solitude. 'Me Time' had never been necessary before since she'd always been alone more often than in the company of others, or anyone, she had always been content to be on her own but on Sahova she felt the need to make a specific time for it, to make sure that she wouldn't miss it. It wasn't that she was constantly surrounded by people on the island, in fact, she often was alone, even when surrounded by others, it was just that she felt she needed some familiarity now and then, and what was more familiar than her own mind.

[Kamilla]

Kamilla Circe Gordon

A deep intake of air followed by the soft sound of the exhale was all that could be heard within the room, maintained breaths with the purpose of flowing through her body and allowing relaxation to follow. She'd been at it for at least a chime now, eyes remaining shut as she retreated into her own mind, attempting to clear it of any and all distractions. It was surprising how much mental baggage hoarded her mind, most of them insignificant or holding no claim in the real world yet each taking up the precious space within her mind.

Trying to clear her mind had become a lot like cleaning a house for the young mage, she could almost see herself sorting through the warehouse of baggage, slaving away as she attempted to differentiate between which items were important and which were obsolete, then depending on its status, she would store the former and get rid of the latter. It seemed as though no matter how much of the clutter she removed, her mind never seemed to get any clearer, though with each batch of clutter she sorted, she could feel herself growing more perceptive.

The longer she went at it, the more her entire being began to relax and everything around her became slightly more apparent as her mind was able to accommodate more details from her senses. The stale smell of the small room was suddenly more offensive to her nose, giving a slight sting after each deep breath, the lack of sound in the room went from soundless to oppressive silence and the constant chill that hung in the air made itself more noticeable along her exposed skin and spine.

As Kamilla put more and more effort into putting in less effort, she could feel an almost soothing sheet of calm fall over the cluttered warehouse of her mind, coating all of the baggage in its cool embrace and making everything far less hassling and far more notably worth ignoring. The feeling was exhilarating, not only did she feel more relaxed but on top of that her mind felt a bit lighter and her djed seemed to thrive in it's new environment, filling her body as she felt it flowing around casually from within herself, even though she hadn't been calling out to it.

With all this in mind, it seemed to Kamilla that these moments of inner and outer silence that she allowed herself each day, might also have been conducive to her magic since it seemed to make her djed flow more freely and become more responsive. Wrapped within the relative calm of her mind, Kamilla found herself wishing for more of the mental clarity that the silence allowed, the young mage finding the condition most enjoyable.

[Kamilla]

Kamilla Circe Gordon

Time passed, though Kamilla couldn't be sure of how much since she couldn't perceive it in her current state. Chimes? Bells? She had no idea, her eyes were closed and all she saw was the inside of her mind, memories and thoughts drifting peacefully by as she continued on the path of relaxation. But, as much as she wished that she could completely retreat into herself, there were still plenty of things that she couldn't help but be distracted by, distant sounds, the constant chill of the room and most notably, the smell of dust that lingered all around her.

With each deep breath, her nose was annoyed by the scent and she could almost feel the tiny particles as they filled her lungs. She had long since realised, to her dismay, that Sahova had no form of cleaning services whatsoever, that or the intervals between it's services were quite massive. The entire time that she'd been meditating she had tried to ignore it, neither succeeding nor failing but she could attempt no more. A large sigh of frustration escaped Kamilla's lips as she returned to the world of the living, and un-living, brown eyes opening to be greeted with the small dimly lit room, automatically focusing on the struggling candle in the corner.

Kamilla felt as if she could not bare the condition of the room for a moment longer and although she knew there wasn't much she could do, her annoyance wouldn't allow her any peace until she'd at least done something. Since furniture and the overall state of the room couldn't be helped, Kamilla was forced to focus on something else, a much smaller victory. At the very least, she could do something about the dust that lingered both in the air and on every surface of the room, she didn't have a broom or any sort of cleaning equipment but she would find a solution or she might be forced to endure insomnia for the duration of her stay.

[Kamilla]

Kamilla Circe Gordon

Looking around in search of something she could use to sweep or wipe with, her search lasted only a few ticks. The room was almost completely empty and other than the few pieces of furniture, the only other objects in the room were her belongings, which she didn't even consider an option, after all, the only thing worse than living in a dirty room would be being dirty herself and she doubted her sanity would hold out for much longer if she lost her highly hygiene. A small groan filled the room as she ran her finger along the floor and inspected it, finding a significant amount of dirt.

Dusting off her hands before running them through her long hair, Kamilla held them there for several moments longer as she tried to put her recently cleared mind to use. "Come on, you're a powerful mage, you're not incapable of dealing with a bit of dirt." The short motivational talk may have seemed unhelpful but it was the complete opposite. Lowering her hands and allowing her long dark hair to fall around her shoulders and down her back, Kamilla reached for her bag, retrieving a small container of black paint and setting the bag on the sleeping mat beside her, but not before dusting it off.

Having decided to try and use her reimancy to rid the room of at least some of the lingering dust, Kamilla figured she might as well use the small task as a chance to practice her glyphing, something she'd hardly worked on since learning. Sahova was to thank for her sudden interest in the creating of glyphs and sigils, in her short time on The Undead Isle, she had witnessed a multitude of mages using it for an even greater multitude of purposes and had decided that it would be a useful art to learn because of it's many uses.

Opening the small container of black paint, Kamilla dipped the very tip of her left index finger into the thick dark substance until it barely covered her fingerprint. With that she went straight to drawing a simple focus glyph on the palm of her right hand, her face contorted in concentration. As she recalled, a focus glyph was one that enabled djed to travel through it fairly easily, which was exactly what she wanted it to do.

Every mage's glyphs were different in appearance, in the past few days Kamilla had seen plenty of them and although the looked very different to her own, she could always understand their purpose by merely observing them, it was a very curious thing, how one could inherently know the meaning of a glyph. Her own glyphs were very soft looking, swirls and curves with hardly any hard corners or straight lines. For example, the focus glyph which she was currently drawing on her palm consisted of three spirals connecting to a small circle in the center a long with a larger circle that intersected the center of all three spirals. In her mind, the three spirals gathered and directed the djed towards the circle in the center, while the larger circle that intersected the three spirals was meant to ensure that none of the djed caught by them escaped their pull.

Once she'd finally finished the first focus path, which had taken far longer to draw than Kamilla had hoped it would, she moved on to doing the same on her left palm this time, dipping the very tip of her right index finger in the paint this time before beginning. Although she was drawing the exact same focus glyph, it took far longer than the first, much to Kamilla's annoyance, but it could not be helped, she was left handed and therefore it was to be expected that she was far less skilled with her right hand. It may have taken almost double the time of the first, but she eventually finished drawing the glyph and got to her feet, ready to attempt to clean the room with her reimancy.

[Kamilla]

Kamilla Circe Gordon

Her preparations now complete, Kamilla unlocked the door of the small room and swung the door open as wide as was possible, peering out into the eerily silent corridor for a moment before returning to her own dusty room. The plan was simple, she would ATTEMPT to use her newly discovered air reimancy, something she was far from proficient with, to try and rid her 'living' quarters of it's dust coating by blowing it out into the corridor. Unfortunately, the task was easier said than done as she hadn't fine tuned her control of the element of air yet, though she hoped that her general skills of res control would make up for her lack of experience with the free element.

The first and most obvious method would be to simply create a gust of wind to force the dust from the room but Kamilla felt as if she wouldn't be learning anything new by doing it even if it was the easiest way of achieving her goal. Agreeing to save the option in case whatever else she attempted failed, she decided to try something a bit more fancy for her first attempt. Just like her earth reimancy technique she had developed a year ago after drawing inspiration from the way that wind seemed to gather in certain areas by twisting about itself, Kamilla figured she could try the technique with the actual element that inspired it.

Taking a moment to calm her breathing and thoughts, attempting to return to the peaceful state of mind she'd been in only a bell ago, Kamilla stood silently in the center of the dimly lit room for a chime before she felt ready to go. Reaching out to the well of magic that resided within her, the young sorceress guided the mystic waters towards the surface, however, unlike the usual slow and confused movement of her djed that required constant coaxing, this time it flowed more easily, slithering towards the focus glyphs on her palms as if they were cracks in a dam. Kamilla couldn't help but be surprised by how responsive her djed became when she made use of focus glyphs, the decrease in time taken to emit expel res was enough to warrant further study into the mysterious art.

With her djed practically rushing towards the surface, perhaps a bit too easily for her liking, Kamilla allowed the glistening lavender fluid to emerge from her palms, though she had to actually put effort into limiting the amount for once, whereas her energy was usually spent on pushing the res out and a moment later, an apple sized ball of glistening lavender res hovered above her left hand, ready to be put to work. Res ready and plan of action thought out, Kamilla willed the half the magic fluid towards the ground while the rest simply hung in the air above her head.

Focusing on the lower ball of res, Kamilla spread her fingers slightly and watched as it followed suit, dispersing into a small thick cloud of magic before it began to rotate, following the path of her index finger. The movement was slow at first, but soon enough it was a swiftly moving ring of gaseous res about the size of a dinner plate and rotating at about one cycle per tick. Satisfied with the rehearsed path of her res, Kamilla moved onto the second stage, just like her 'Dust-Devil' earth technique, she willed the res to attract the air(but not before taking on the free state of mind that was required to make use of the element).

The result was barely evident at first as the spinning ring of res offered only a gently wisp to indicate that the effect was in action, a few singular grains of dust shying away from the reaction instead of towards it. Seeing that her attempt wasn't working, Kamilla clenched her right hand into a tight fist, strengthening the attraction effect while continuing to gesture with her left index finger in order to maintain the res' path of rotation. Almost immediately, the stronger attraction effect became evident as the gentle wisps of rotating air turned into a soft yet substantial rushing sound, the room suddenly being filled with a gentle but noticeable breeze. Although it was obvious that something was happening, her idea certainly wasn't working, instead of drawing in and trapping the wind in it's rotation, the spell did the complete opposite, sending the dust flying outwards and spreading it across the room, the air, sleeping mat and Kamilla now all coated in it.

[Kamilla]

Kamilla Circe Gordon

Frowning at the failed result of her attempt, Kamilla allowed the spell to cease, what remained of the rotating res disappearing as the air that followed it dispersed with a gentle gust. The young sorceress let out a loud sigh of frustration as she attempted to dust herself off, clearly she didn't know much about air or how it worked, but that didn't mean that she was going to give up on trying to. With only a brief moment of respite, she willed the second ball of res that had been hovering patiently above her, to float towards her hand, it had decayed a bit and was noticeably smaller than before yet there was still enough to be of use.

Giving up on the rotation effect, Kamilla decided on a process that more resembled what she was trying to achieve, she would try a pulling effect to drag the dust from the small room. With her idea already formed, she spread the stone sized ball of res into a small thick cloud as she stepped outside into the corridor dimly lit corridor. It was only now that she'd realised her first attempt had blown out the single candle that lit the room, but that was hardly important, the many torches that lined the hallway provided enough of a glow for her to see into the dark room and just barely make out it's contents.

Getting started, the young sorceress sent her small mist of res into the room and once again willed it to attract the air. The moment the effect was in place she began to pull at the res, gesturing with her hands as if she were physically pulling something then pushing it back and pulling it again. The res responded by jumping towards her then back into the room then back towards her again which created a very confusing effect for the air that was being attracted. Dust was lifted into the air by the generated winds, pulled out of the room(and battering Kamilla), only to be shoved back into the room when the res moved returned.

Frustration now growing stronger, Kamilla released the spell once again, allowing the res to disperse along with the air which had just been moving unceremoniously back and forth. She was stumped, her mind couldn't comprehend what was required to create a constant pulling effect to rip the wind from the room without having to stop and repeat the process after each pull, air was proving to be a far bigger challenge than earth had been, the latter of which she'd had a natural affinity to.

[Kamilla]

Kamilla Circe Gordon

Dusting herself off for a second time, Kamilla wandered into the room, waving her hand about as she battled to breath in the now even more dust filled air, sputtering after every few breaths as she retrieved her bag and stepped back into the corridor, slumping down onto the floor across from the door to her room and beneath one of the wall sconces. She took a moment to retrieve her waterskin from the bag and took a big swig of the cool refreshing liquid, quenching her thirst and wetting her throat before placing the waterskin back in the bag.

Next she moved on to grab her grimoire, curiously skimming through its pages in the light of the above torch while she waited for the dust to settle(literally), or for a better idea. There was always the obvious and simple gust which would surely work, but Kamilla was feeling a bit down about her time on the island and needed a victory, no matter how small, to replenish her spirit or at least to lift it a bit.

Grabbing one of the many loose pieces of parchment that were hidden between the pages of her journal, as well as a quill, Kamilla began to draw simple diagrams of her failed attempts, hoping to perhaps find a solution. Her first attempt had been nothing more than a circular motion, so to illustrate it she drew a rough circle and added three simple arrows for the rotation. The second had been a back and forth motion, so she drew two parallel straight lines with an arrow on the opposite end of each.

Concentrating on the pair of drawings, Kamilla closed her eyes trying to imagine the movement of air caused by each, but before she could get started she was distracted by the sound of a door opening, followed by a loud yawn. Her deep brown eyes fluttered open to see a (living)man shuffling hurriedly out of the room and towards her. The man still looked exhausted, even though he'd clearly just awoken, dark rings circled his bloodshot eyes and he swayed drowsily from side to side as he walked towards her and the stairs. Upon reaching her, his steps stopped as he glanced curiously at Kamilla's small form, sitting on the floor of the hallway, then peered into the darkness of the room across from her and then back to her yet again. Kamilla returned his gaze, narrowing her eyes sceptically as she waited for the man to say something, but he simply shook his head, apparently not wanting to address with whatever problem the young woman was having, and continued on towards the stairs.

As the drowsy man who had just awoken as if it was early morning, when in fact she was almost certain it was around midnight, shuffled on past her, Kamilla fought back a small laugh, successfully. The man must have thought that the young woman was terrified of the dark or something, since it appeared as if she didn't wish to enter the darkness of her room... needless to say, Kamilla found this quite amusing, but just as she was about to return to her drawings her attention was drawn by his croaky voice.

"The voiding nightmares make it hard to sleep, but you'll get used to them."

Those few words were all the man offered before disappearing as he descended the stairs, his footsteps echoing as he got further and further away. Kamilla sat there silently, waiting until his footsteps became inaudible before finally allowing a loud girlish laugh to escape her lips. While the idea of constant nightmares about 'voiding' were in no way funny, she couldn't help but laugh at the fact that he'd thought she was afraid of the dark.

[Kamilla]

Kamilla Circe Gordon

Having had a good laugh at the man's assumption, Kamilla turned her attention back to the task at hand, air reimancy. Her brown gaze went back to the page in front of her, though after a few chimes of staring at it and trying to force a solution out of them, she sighed, instead turning her attention to the remaining focus glyph on her right hand. Her eyes followed the spirals around the way she assumed the djed did as well and she turned to draw the same focus glyph on the page, three spirals, each connected to a small circle in the center and one large circle intersecting all three spirals. Even with the glyph in plain sight(on her right hand), it still took her a while to recreate the image on the page, though she liked to think that her amateur drawing skills helped a bit.

It wasn't until she finished her little art piece on the piece of parchment that an idea formed in her mind. "Of course!" she whispered silently to herself, though excitement could be heard, even through the soft wisps of air. The first idea hadn't worked because the air had had nowhere to go, just spinning in a continuous circle until more and more of it strayed from the res' path, while the second attempt had been two separate movements which counteracted the efforts of the other, pulling the air from the room only to shove it back.

Putting her quill to the parchment once more, Kamilla attempted to draw what she thought would be a solution, a combination of her two failed attempts to produce a, hopefully, successful third attempt. This time she drew two separate lines, like her second attempt, only that they formed a rough yet broken oval shape, maintaining the cyclic form of her first attempt. Adding arrows to indicate the direction of movement, which would be counter-clockwise, Kamilla placed her quill down to inspect the new diagram and mentally convert the simple lines and arrows into a real process.

The idea would be to create two separate clouds of res and move them in a counter-clockwise cycle, throwing the res into the room to gather the air(and dust) and then pulling it up, over and out of the room to unload the dust before repeating the process. With her new plan of action formed and ready for trial, Kamilla placed her belongings back into her bag and got to her feet, plopping the bag down on the wall besides her room door so that it wouldn't be covered in dust, assuming the idea would work.

Closing her eyes once more while taking a deep and hopeful breath, Kamilla concentrated on her inner djed and coaxed it towards her right palm where the focus glyph she'd drawn upon it lured the res towards and through the rune with relative ease. Forming another apple sized ball of glistening lavender res, Kamilla wasted no time in splitting the ball into two equal parts and willing the second to hover over her left palm, before converting both into small thick clouds of gaseous res.

From there she separated her feet so that they were about two feet apart and began to rehearse the res' path, sending one cloud in, over and out with the second following after the first had made it halfway through its cycle. The gestures that accompanied her actions were very important, each hand representing one of the clouds as each of her arms moved in a slow counter-clockwise circular motion.

[Kamilla]

Kamilla Circe Gordon

Kamilla continued the gestures until she felt that the path had been rehearsed enough and with one last deep breath of preparation she willed her res to attract the air around it. Slowly but surely the air began to follow the two clouds of res continued their cycle and with the air came the dust, though in far smaller amounts. The sound of wind filled the room and the hallway as it's cycle grew stronger, res flying in, pulling air and dust along with it as it flew up and out of the room to scatter the dust in the hallway while it's brother followed behind it, doing the same.

The process continued for only a few chimes longer before Kamilla's head felt lighter and her eyes felt heavier. She was satisfied with the results, having felt the air and dust exiting the room and still coating her body, though less than during her previous attempts, she doubted the effect had removed every bit of dust from the room, but considering she had taken on the task as more of a challenge to improve her air reimancy than to clean the room, she felt quite relieved that it hadn't been a third failed attempt.

It seemed the entire situation had been a win/win, on the one hand she had achieved what she had set out to accomplish(sort of) and on the other, the exertion now overpowered her insomnia and she wanted nothing more than to turn in for the night, but there was still one thing left to do. With each hand still controlling one of the smaller, decayed clouds of res, Kamilla joined them together and squeezed it back into a ball of liquid res. With the much smaller orb of lavender res hovering above her palms, she sent it into the room and willed it to attract the earth, an element she was far more familiar with.

Tightly clenching both hands into fists, she increased the magnitude of the attraction effect and within ticks she could see the remaining dust particles gathering around the small ball of res and forming a clump. The idea to use her earth reimancy to clean the room had always been an option, she just hadn't felt that it would help her improve her skill or understanding of air reimancy, so she had saved it for the end. The clump of hovering dust grew larger and larger until it was about the size of a pebble and it seemed as if it wouldn't grow any more when Kamilla led the ball out into the corridor and allowed it to fall to the floor, along with the decayed remains of her res.

As much as she wanted to smile at her relative success, Kamilla felt far too exhausted for even that, and not bothering to light the small candle in the room she dropped her bag onto the cold floor inside the room, shut and locked the door laid down. She was so tired from her little experiment that even the extremely uncomfortable sleeping matt posed no threat to her slumber, as finally the young sorceress fell into a deep and much needed sleep.

[Keene Ward]

Grades

“For there is nothing lost, that may be found, if sought.”
-Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene

Kamilla

Skills

Reimancy +4
Glyphing +2
Drawing +3
Meditation +3
Research +2
Planning +3
Observation +4
Organization +1
Tactics +3
Investigation +1
Cleaning +4
Intimidation +1

Lores

Glyphing: The Focus
Glyphing: Universality of Meaning
Glyphing: Res Production Focus
Cleaning: Magical Dusting

Rewards/Consequences
Overgiving: For the next six days, due to her extensive experimentation with air, Kamilla will have regular sneezing fits. These are more of a nuisance than a violent disruption.



Notes
I'm assuming you should have glyphing lores, but if not, be careful about writing things you don't have the lores for.

Oh man. Cleaning with reimancy. Such a domestic. ;) Very good progression of struggle, with a satisfying conclusion! Also, good flow with that little comedic break in the middle!

If you have any questions or concerns, please send me a PM!