Closed Sheet Magic

[Kamilla]

Kamilla was curious as to how the usually neutral and unemotive Keene would react to the sudden connection he felt to the golem once the dust had settled and the activity of the animation process was over. She had long since discovered that using one's soul as a template for the soulcore had a very small side effect, a faint yet tangible connection to the animated object, it was something that began as faint and only weakened further over time yet never faded completely. Even now she could feel the grain of longing she held for Scarlet the animated scarf which she'd taken to wearing far more often than she should have, it annoyed her, even if only just a bit.

Shaking off her curiosity for the time being, Kamilla returned her focus to the workspace of the circles and their contents, each growing clearer the more she focused on them. "Next comes the Persona." she stated, once again in a soft and calm voice. First and foremost, she would create the loyalty directive, which was easily the most important of all. The loyalty directive ensured that the golem only obeyed who it was supposed to and prevented it from being used by those its creator did not wish for it to be used by.

For this particular golem, she'd decided that it would have two masters whom it obeyed, herself and Keene, mostly because she doubted she would need the golem after her judgement, pass or fail, and he would be the one experiencing an involuntary emotional attachment to it. "It's first directive is going to be loyalty. It would be helpful if you concentrated on both the meaning of the word as well as the concept." she could of course simply pluck what was needed from his mind but the mind and knowledge belonging to human beings was far more complex and complicated than the basic concepts held by that of an animal, so instead, she preferred that he offer up a neatly cut piece of information of his own will for her to gift the golem with.

The young mage followed her instruction and Kamilla could see the information being offered within her workspace, it was odd but she could sense the content of his thought and deeming it an accurate concept, she allowed it to travel across the circles and into its new home. "This golem is going to be loyal to the both of us and since it has no means of seeing, you'll need to offer what memories you have of our voices, keeping each separate." just as before, she examined his offering and allowed it to cross the border into the destination circle.

The next directive was Authentication and after telling Keene to offer his definition of the word to her, or their, golem, she instructed him to teach it that it would only respond to their voices if the authentication term 'Sil' was spoken first. She'd decided on the name Sil as a shortened version of silhouette, which was exactly what the golem would resemble if their attempt was successful. Along with the authentication word, Kamilla also addedSince the golem would hardly be dangerous Kamilla felt there was no need to give it directives such as non-violence or a kill phrase and so, the creation of the Persona was complete.

Severing her concentration and link to the circles, Kamilla opened her eyes and got to her feet, a deep breath filling and escaping her lungs as she stretched her limbs out. As simple as the process was, it was far more time consuming than it seemed and the aches in her legs told her that it had been at least a bell since they'd begun. "We're taking a short break. You may exit the circle as long as you're careful not to disrupt it or the golem." she stated, gliding towards her bag to retrieve her waterskin and take a small sip of the cool liquid before offering it to Keene.

The chill of the room had really set in by now, the bell of stillness allowing her body temperature to drop enough for her to be bothered by it, though it was little more than uncomfortable. She made a mental note to keep something warmer on hand the next time she planned on working on something within the Gug Andjak. She stood there, leaning against the table in silence for a chime or two as she flipped to the vocabulary page of her grimoire to refresh her mind on some of the Nader-Canoch words she planned to use, before returning to her place beside the circle and gesturing for Keene to return to his spot inside of it. "This time you will need to do the actions." she stated as she re-pricked her index finger and allowed another drop to bring the circles back to life.

[Keene Ward]

Keene waited for whatever changes might arise as Kamilla continued, though his focus shifted from the djed to his internalized conceptualizations of what she asked of him. Loyalty. He toyed with the concept for about a chime, running through the expansive collection of information he had stored away. He supposed loyalty was, in a sense, a dedication to carry out the desires of the one one was loyal to. It was not slavery, but more of an unspoken desire to appease. Keene concentrated on those thoughts, still conscious of the steady whirl of djed around him. He offered it forward, as much as he could, willing the thoughts to sound louder than the others. The djed around him responded, a strange rippling effect as he felt the momentum shift for a moment as if the thoughts were carried away across the carefully drawn line.

More instructions followed with further meditations. Keene found the creation of the persona an odd act, less of a creation and more of a meticulous selection of traits with paired information. In spite of his musings, Keene drew into focus his own voice as well as Kamilla's, not needing to form a distinction between the two as it was already clearly present. Kamilla's voice was, more or less, a direct copy of the steady tones used to direct him. His own was the same soft, cool tone that he usually employed, though it was a bit quieter than he usually was. He found the exact volume and timbre difficult to focus on as, while he often thought in what he considered his own voice, he didn't hear it incredibly often. Once more, the flow seemed to shift for a chime as the information was relayed to the golem's circle.

He found the tasks simple enough, though the definition of "authentication" took him a few chimes to find a more suitable definition. He imagined it as a key to a lock: a requirement for a specific phrase, word, meaning, or any other action that could be observed by any of the sense in which one would recognize the one who possessed the authentication. The phrase chosen, while arbitrary, was relayed as well. He wasn't sure what "sil" had to do with anything, but he did as he was told, further elaborating the point of "loyalty" in a way.

Keene felt the whirl of djed die down long before Kamilla spoke again, and he let his own eyes flutter open to stare impassively back at the still lifeless mess of fabric before him. While Kamilla had been correct in her assumption that Keene would not see much, he had learned quite a bit about the animation process from just the few bells already. Gingerly rising to begin to combat the stiffness that had sunk its way into his body, Keene stepped over the line with care, making sure not to smudge the circle in any way. He absently swung his arms side to side, twisting slightly as he did so to help limber up the stiffened muscles. As he did so, he kept an eye on the dark haired woman, watching as she drank from the flask before offering it to him. He had learned to practice a bit more care when it came to what he drank on the island, and the reassurance that whatever was in the flask was suitable for the woman was enough validation that it would be fine for him.

Taking the water from her with a careful movement of hand and fingers to keep himself from brushing against her exposed skin, Keene took a refreshing swig of the chilled drink. Offering it back with the same near delicacy, Keene eased himself back onto the ground, though this time he pressed his hands into the stone before him and began a few sets of push ups, alternating between them with sit ups to revitalize the lowered flow of blood that had settled under the oppressive chill of the quarters. Kammila flipped through her tome as he did so, and the took worked in silence for a few chimes before she stated it was time to begin once more.

Heart rate elevated stave off some of the cold that had begun to seep into the tips of his fingers, Keene nodded, carefully stepping back into the animation circle as Kamilla once more pricked her finger. This time, he remained standing, knees bent and hands drawn in the stance that Atziri had drilled into him: preparation to defend and attack as the situation saw fit.

[Kamilla]

Re-entering her workspace, Keene's pale blue glow and the lavender glow of the circles and golem coming back into view, Kamilla immediately began creating the astral body. It was on odd process, one that she felt resembled working with dough as she created a small ball of energy around the soucore and began to carefully stretch and knead it until it was large enough to fill the entirety of the ethereal husk representing the golem's physical form. The process took a few chimes to complete, but Kamilla didn't dare rush it lest she make a mistake and end up with a creation that could not carry out the commands that it knew how to do.
She had gotten the idea from a doll she'd had as a child which had literally been made out of a small rag that was simply banded at certain points in order to give it protruding clumps that resembled limbs, the golem however, would have to use its own strength to hold its limbs together.

Once the astral body had been created and set within the confines of the physical, Kamilla making sure that its influence reached all the way up to its edges and filled its corners, she spoke to Keene, ready for his actions. "The first position is going to be a neutral stance, neat but not too formal." she began, watching as his perceived form took the stance and copying it over to the destination circle. The first command function was by far the most important one, as it involved the shaping of the golem into its seen form, and so it would take quite a bit of work to create. Using the copied shape of Keene's form, Kamilla brought it up from beneath the spread out astral body of the golem, slowly raising the image of the sheet as f there was someone beneath it. As Keene's shape rose from beneath the astral body giving it a veiled form, Kamilla carefully rotated his rising form so that the golem would be able to gather most of the mass used for its one thick leg together with the motion.

Once Keene's shape had risen beneath the golem's form to its knees, which would only be a thick stump on the golem, Kamilla began to tightly twist and gather the golem's torso and arms so that they filled the hollow spaces caused by Keene's shape beneath it until it had both mass and shape. The process of teaching it how to rise and take the rough form, step by step and mentally creating its awakened form herself, had taken quite a bit of time and effort but finally as she observed the perceived wrapped and gathered one legged astral body of the golem's form, she was ready to teach the acquired shape how to do each action. "To this stance we'll attach the command, 'Ala'. You'll need to offer the sound of the word as well." she added, taking the information from Keene's circle and linking it to the neutral stance within the golem.


In the ancient tongue, Ala meant 'up, above, sky, heavens, that which is unreachable' though in this particular case it would refer to the first. Once she was sure that the golem had established a link between the sound of the word and the neutral stance she moved on to the next, there was no need for it to understand the meaning since it was only to react to hearing it. Using the same process she instructed Keene to bow, perhaps over dramatically, attaching the simple command 'bow' to it.

With that done, now was the time for his stance and attacks, first she would instruct him to take his readied stance linking it within the golem's mind as 'Ready' and then, finally, "Okay, its time. Same process. A single well executed punch though try and keep your lower body as still as possible.". The golem, being made of cloth and not particularly strong, would not be able to withstand much more than its own weight, it was a disappointing limit but one that she couldn't avoid at her current level of skill. Using the action provided by Keene, Kamilla 'taught' it to the golem, adding the command 'Strike' with the help of the initiate. "Next is a series of punches, perhaps an equal mixture of effective and flashy though your lower body should remain as still as possible." she paused for a moment to allow him to carry out the task so that she could copy it over, "To this we will attach the command, 'Attack'." and once she had done so, there was only one command left.

"And finally, for its final command...You need only offer the ability to recognise the word 'Ruwe', the same as you've done for all the previous ones."

Once Keene had done so, Kamilla simply used the information and linked it to the golem, using her own influence to link it to nothing at all. Ruwe was the ancient word for 'down' or 'move downwards' and by connecting it to nothing she had taught the golem to return to its lifeless form. Teaching it about the concept of lifelessness and then using it as knowledge for the command was pointless, so, by linking it to no concept at all she was forcing it to recognise the command, drop its previous commands in order to follow the word to its respective meaning, only to be lead to emptiness and without the capacity to actually think it would effectively be turning the golem 'off'.

A large sigh escaped Kamilla's lips as they neared the final stretch, to any onlookers the animation process may have looked to be nothing more than sitting beside a circle for several bells but to those involved it was mentally taxing, the amount of focus required to effectively manipulate the circles and their contents would leave anyone's mind exhausted. "The second last step is to teach the golem how to perceive sound." she stated, though as she did she focused on the vibrations her words caused against the construct's thin leather membrane, effectively teaching it to recognise the subtle movements as sound and therefore to hear.

Finally, now that the golem's Soulcore, Persona and Astral Body had been completed, Kamilla turned all of her focus to the destination circle where the creature patiently waited to be awakened, but before she would do so she would sift through the information it contained, making sure that everything seemed to be in working order. This process of checking, double checking and triple checking all of the information contained in the golem took far longer than she anticipated, although the creature was still relatively simple, it contained a bit more information than she had previously worked with and assessing all of it took her almost an entire bell alone.

Now, finally satisfied with what the golem would be, Kamilla moved on to the final step, the awakening. Using her connection to the circles and its energies, Kamilla willed the surrounding djed to flow into her creation, gifting it with the gentle breath of life and once the dim lively glow of the golem's soulcore grew into the bright light of something very much alive, the process was complete.

Kamilla severed her link to the animation circles, allowing the surrounding energies to dissipate in one final gust of djed before her warm brown eyes fluttered open and she got to her feet once again. "It's done." she said, a hint of excitement evident in her voice as she went to retrieve the large black sheet from its circle, the focus glyph she'd drawn long since gone, and spread it neatly out on the unmarked ground before her.

Turning her attention to Keene with an eager smile, "Ready to see if it works?" the question was rhetorical, but voicing it filled her with an odd mixture of excitement and nervousness, she doubted she'd be able to survive the embarrassment of failure, not in front of a mage who had already witnessed it once before. Focusing her gaze on the dark cloth that lay lifeless on the ground in front of them, she spoke the authentication phrase followed by the command and held her breath.

"Sil... Ala"

There was a brief moment, no longer than two ticks, when the golem remained still and Kamilla felt dread fill her entire body and then, just as quickly as it had arrived it was gone, replaced by new emotions, relief and pride. After taking a brief tick to receive the first command of its waking life, the golem, Sil, responded.

It was a subtle movement at first, barely noticeable, the dark square of cloth began to tremble slightly as it crawled to life, slowly the edges of the sheet would start moving inwards as if it were growing smaller, though a gaze at its center would reveal that it was simply gathering its mass in order to grow upwards, tightening and twisting in places until, finally, it had taken the dark shape of a man, Keene. Of course, the lack of details made it impossible to tell that it was the warden initiate's form, the only feature the otherwise uniform golem contained was the ring of thicker cloth and brown leather membrane that appeared where its face would be, but the two of them knew and that was enough.

Kamilla could hardly contain her excitement, although she did give it a good try, bouncing slightly up and down on her heels as she beamed at her creation. The material had gathered to form what seemed like the silhouette of a man, though it was probably only three quarters of Keene's actual height since she'd apparently used to small a cloth, but it was of little concern. Not daring to take her eyes off of Sil, entranced by the golem and the neutral stance it stood in, the one she'd taken from Keene, Kamilla opened her mouth to speak the next command but stopped herself, deciding it better to let the initiate have a turn at exercising his power as one of its masters. More importantly, she needed to make sure that its loyalty directive was functioning correctly. "Why don't you try the next few." she said, assuming Keene understood how to give the golem each command. She had taken his advice and created something she knew(for the most part) that she could do to present for her judgement, and although she had certainly pushed her limits slightly, the golem was only a more elaborate version of her scarf Scarlet, using the knowledge of scarf's mistakes to improve the sheet.

[Keene Ward]

When the circle once more filled with life, Keene kept himself steady, slowing his breath and letting his eyes close once more to feel the fluctuations in flow and strength as Kamilla began her work again. Unlike before, Keene couldn't feel or tell exactly was she was doing, but he did notice that the flow of djed shifted every now and then as she made adjustments to what he assumed to be the next step in the process. While it took her awhile to complete whatever it was she worked on, Keene found time to pass relatively quickly. Having never experienced such powerful djed flow before that was not focused within him, Keene found the whir of energies to be infinitely interesting. It was not unlike a controlled wind that followed a very set path, only instead of the currents buffeting his physical self, he could feel the ripples shiver against his own djed. It was both exhilarating and disconcerting, making the chimes that passed seem like ticks until Kamilla spoke again to reign in his consciousness some.

Nodding at her instruction, Keene rolled his shoulders before centering his mind on what it was he was supposed to be doing. His feet were parallel, knees slightly bent, to provide himself with a solid base from which he could move in any direction. It was an odd sort of reassignment of values, and it took him a few chimes to properly match the sound of the word with that of the stance, stripping it of its previous Nader Canoch definition. Initially, Keene wondered why Kamilla had used the "ala" the noun rather than "alat" as the command "to rise". Those thoughts, paired with a brief resurgence of language centered memories, took him the longest to sort through, but by the time he offered up the command along with the desired result, it was as if "ala" had always been the name and sound of the neutral stance in which he stood. Again, he felt the djed around him shift, slow, and speed back once more into its steady whir as Kamilla transfered the information to the golem.

The bow was next, and it was far simpler and much faster as the command was what was typically paired with the action. It took him only a few ticks to sort through the motions before they too were offered up and swept into the gale of energy. The "ready" stance went as quickly as the bow, and as it was assimilated into the automaton, Kamilla took a moment to better elaborate the sort of strike she desired him to perform. While in combat, it would have been dangerous to leave one's lower half immobile for any reason other than necessity, Keene nodded his understanding. The golem, he assumed, wasn't meant to fight. Whatever its purpose, the material she had chosen to craft it from was far too flimsy to be of much use in a dangerous situation.

Keeping his legs bent and weight centered, Keene focused on the way the word "strike" sounded, choosing to thrust his left hand forward in a quick jab during the pronunciation's emphasis, making sure to keep his legs as solid and steady as was possible. He was becoming accustomed to the manner in which Kamilla accepted his mental offerings: a slight slow as they were examined before the circles regained their humming force once more. Kamilla's next set of instructions were more confusing than most of the ones she had given previously. He wasn't sure what "flashy" was supposed to mean in the context of what they were doing, and for the sake of efficiency, Keene simply ignored it. Instead, he focused on the word "attack", pairing it with a series of jabs finishing with an upper cut. The motions were fluid as the memories of what it was he was performing were clear, and his mind fully focused upon them. He had spent many mornings solidifying those memories into more than just his mind, and his muscles remembered them.

Finally, they came to another Nader term, though Kamilla did not seek to alter its meaning. "Ruwe". "The end". Keene nodded, his mind bringing the word to mind, pairing with it both his pronunciation and Kamilla's, though he did not add the word's meaning as Kamilla had requested. Once that was done, she explained that the golem needed to understand how to hear, something that Keene raised a brow at. Fortunately, Kamilla did not ask him how one was supposed to listen, as he wasn't sure how the sense translated to what was effectively a table cloth. It took her a fair amount of time, and Keene spent the time pondering over different hypotheses, rummaging through old memories in a relatively casual search for some kind of enlightenment. While books about people had been common, books about how people worked had been much more rare, and he found his information on how the body functioned was relatively lacking outside of personal experience.

When the process neared its end, Keene didn't even have to focus to feel the shift in the energies as they were transferred from the circles and into the inert recipient. It felt similar to being swept away by a wave, only the water only affected the soul rather than the physical body. He felt a slight shiver run down his spine as the djed was finally released with Kamilla's severing of her connection to the circles, and he let his eyes settle on the dark pile of fabric before him. After everything they had done to it, it still seemed wholly unremarkable. Keene reasoned, however, that the majority of the golems in the citadel were hardly impressive things to look at. The magic of animation wasn't a gaudy practice, rather a practical one that was expressed through function over form. With a nod, Keene mutely responded to Kamilla's question, wholly unaware that it had not been truly directed at anyone in particular.

At her command, the golem moved, and within a half chime, the dark fabric had taken on a contoured representation of Keene's likeness. He stared blankly at the leather circle where the face should have been, eyes scanning to check for any irregularities. Keene wasn't entirely sure what exactly he was looking for, but something in the back of his mind seemed to think it was a good idea. Not finding anything - though mostly due to not knowing what to look for -, Keene turned his attention to the giddy women beside him. From the way she reacted, he doubted she had made many golems, though he supposed it was entirely likely she was simply an excitable individual when it came to the animation of automata. She seemed to gather her wits in spite of herself before turning to address him instead.

The words, while a question in syntax, were offered as more of a command, and Keene had no reason not to test the duality of the golem's "loyalty directive". Turning back to face his shadow of cloth and leather, Kenee's quiet, cool voice sounded in the stillness of the workshop's walls. "Sil, strike." The left "hand" was thrust forward before settling back into its neutral stance, the the speed of the motion sent several uneasy ripples through the fabric. Keene repeated the command several times, testing how quickly it could respond and how much the act when carried out in quick succession would affect the golem's stability. It seemed to hold well enough, and when Keene calmly stated, "Sil, attack." The flurry of strikes saw movement nearly exclusively in the upper regions of the sheet, though there were a few points in which the legs faltered some. It seemed the creation was a success, and there was a very small part of him that felt a sort of warmth at the pit of his stomach. He ignored the feeling, instead turning to address the young animator.

"That was very interesting." There was no emotion in the words nor the gaze, but Keene spoke earnestly whether it translated or not. "I was not aware animation was so introspective."

[Kamilla]

Having passed the torch to the golem, Sil's second 'master' Keene, Kamilla was left with nothing to do but patiently wait for the young mage to begin calling out commands. Getting right to it without a single question or even a hint of uncertainty, he spoke the first command in his usual cool tone and to Kamilla's relief, the golem responded accordingly, quickly extending its arm in what was clearly a punch. Keene tried the directive out several more times in quick succession and her gut twisted slightly, unsure whether her creation would be able to endure such use, but it made her proud by continuing to function perfectly while the cloth that made up its 'legs' managed to maintain its integrity.

"So, far so good."

Her words held both amusement and a hint of nervousness, the golem had carried out its first few functions accurately, the cloth proving strong enough to hold itself in place as it performed each action though she doubted it would be able to withstand any additional weight. Next came the 'Attack' command and just like before, the golem responded to Keene's command with the appropriate action, a series of well executed strikes and most importantly it continued to stay upright even with a few minor yet undesirable movements in its lower half. "Excellent." There was nothing else to say, the golem was a success and she felt relief wash over her.

Turning her warm brown gaze to the initiate as he spoke, Kamilla reached both hands upwards to free her mass of hair of its restraints allowing the long locks to fall, swiping a few stray strands from her face and enjoying the light tickling sensation of it against her exposed skin, all the way down her back and near her waist. She thought on her words for a moment before she responded, as usual his expression did not match his words but that was hardly surprising. "It is for the source, I on the other hand had the opposite experience, having to sift through the information offered." she added, glad that there was at least some sort of a discussion occurring.

Turning her attention to the, still standing, dark cloth form of the initiate, Kamilla spoke the words "Sil, Ruwe." and with that, the material returned to its unremarkable and naturally lifeless form, falling into an unassuming pile on the ground. In her usual glide like stride, Kamilla moved to gather the magic cloth and neatly fold it into a small manageable square of material before stepping over to the table and placing it beside the rest of her belongings. "So..." she said, turning from the table to look at the initiate once more, "I have a request of my own to make." she began, taking a few steps towards the young man.

She had been thinking about it since the day they'd met and figured that now was as good a time as any, if not the only time that she would be able to make the request. "I would like to ask that you teach me what you know of Shielding..." she began, stating the request as bluntly as possible, there was no need to beat around the bush when business was involved, "...Since you obviously have no need for my knowledge of reimancy, I am willing to offer you lessons in Animation if you'd like, or perhaps we could find something else worth trading." she paused once again to allow him to process her request, "I find the concept of Shielding to be both intriguing and useful." She left it at that, there was nothing more she needed to say, minor details like date and location would have to wait until after he accepted her request, if he even agreed to it.

[Keene Ward]

Kamilla's reply suggested that what Keene had experienced had only been a very small part of the animation process, something he found interesting enough to raise a brow for. From the way the woman held herself and the slight twinge in her words, it was evident the magic had taken its toll on her. Mental fatigue was something Keene had been well associated with as a child, however since he'd begun his training it had become a familiar sibling with its physical counterpart. While he hadn't forgotten that the mind could becoming weary independent of the body, it was something he hadn't considered in a while. "So it would seem."

He turned to watch the fabric tumble back to the ground, a slight twinge in his chest a whispered reminder of his own mortality. It was a strange thought to have as his gaze held steady as Kamilla carefully folded up the golem. It had a familiarity about it that he would have found unnerving had he been able to place it. Instead, he disregarded it, attributing it to nothing in particular, letting his eyes settle on the deactivated golem as his thoughts shifted towards everything he'd learned and experienced in the past few bells.

The process itself was straight forward, step by step. The creation of the soulcore had certainly felt odd, but it had seemed the quickest of all the steps. The persona had been a much more lengthy process, one which Keene assumed to grow in both time required and complexity if the golem's desired end state was to be as sophisticated as some he'd seen. The teaching of the artificial creature was quite different from what Keene had first thought it might be, but it was not wholly alien. Conceptual understanding required both the student and teacher to fully comprehend the premises and innate properities of what was being taught. Animation merely eliminated the extra step of verbalizing those thoughts. The creation of the astral body and, subsequently, the condition of that body was something that he hadn't quite been able to fully understand. He imagined had he been the one to sift through and consolidate the various information during both the creation of the persona as well as police the physical information sent to the golem's body things might have been a bit clearer.

Still, the golem had seemed to function well enough, though the practicality of it was lost on the young initiate who didn't see the point of a creature of cloth who had only enough support to throw punches - literally soft punches at that. He would have thought it more useful to take the time to construct something that, if the point of it was to deliver physical strikes, might double as a training dummy of sorts. The creature that was "Sil" was more of a cosmetic golem than anything else, and that, in and of itself, seemed relatively pointless. Still, Kamilla seemed pleased, and Keene was fully aware that there was still more than plenty he didn't know about animation. There was little reason to voice his concerns, as according to the woman, the process had resulted in a success.

The words and request did not come as a surprise. Knowledge was the currency of the island, and Kamilla had already proven herself to hold plenty of value more as far as Keene was concerned. Her approach to the mutual exchange was succinct, logical, and entirely acceptable to Keene, who nodded in return to her opinion on shielding. He shared in her views, finding that shielding was indeed a worthy magic to pursue. Animation was, for different reasons more or less, equally as intriguing, and Keene found the trade to be relatively equal in hypothetical weight. "Practical and theoretical lessons, or one or the other?" While he had a passable working knowledge on the theories of shielding, he wasn't sure how many things he could exchange before he would run out of information to trade. He supposed, in a sense, it was just another reason to continue his exploration into the defensive magic all the more.

His tone was as cool and soft as ever, eyes betraying no sign that he was any more interested in what was being said than he had been in anything else, but the fact that questions were being asked was evidence enough that Kamilla had captured his attention for whatever it was worth. Whatever her response, his pale grey-green gaze held her own in a steady study. He certainly wanted to know more of animation and the other world magics, but if Kamilla was not to be the avenue through which he might gain that knowledge, he had little attachment to the idea of her tutorship. There were hundreds of wizards on the island, far more than he had ever thought to imagine might have existed, and among them plenty more opportunities to be had. Kamilla was the best option as it were, but she was not the only one.

[Kamilla]

It took the Warden Initiate only a few short moments to respond and by the sound of it, he seemed inclined to accept her offer, although she could not be completely certain, in her few exchanges with the young reimancer she had learnt that he was not the type to entertain anything without purpose. Her brows raised slightly at the realization that this may well be her chance to learn the magic that had intrigued her most since her discovery of it upon her arrival at the citadel and naturally, her smile grew slightly wider at the thought. Shielding as far as she knew, was a magic that did exactly what it's name made it sound like, it shielded things, protecting them from spells and elements as she'd seen and who knew what else, she couldn't help but wonder if knowing the defensive discipline might have changed the outcome of The Worst Night a few years ago, a morbid thought which she quickly discarded in favor of the promising question she had just been asked.

"Both.

Kamilla had learnt to keep her answers short and to the point when conversing with the island's inhabitants and had quickly taken to what was clearly to be her new social 'norm'. Fiddling absent-mindedly with a stray strand of her hair she went ‎on to add to her original answer, "Of course, it depends entirely on whether or not I pass The Judgement. In three days time." her gaze wondered to the neatly folded sheet of material behind her for a brief moment as she spoke before returning to the icy gaze of her acquaintance in time for the last few words. Although she was not overconfident in her chances, nor was she the opposite, her voice managed to maintain a matter-of-fact tone throughout. 

Shrugging at the thought of her uncertain future, the young sorceress casually returned to the nearby table and began to pack her belongings back into her bag, saving Sil, the golem, for last as she carefully placed it on top before closing the bag and picking it up. Turning back to the Initiate with a warm smile painted on her face she began speaking once more, "Since there's no guarantee of me passing I will leave you with my offer and if I'm an apprentice the next time we meet I will expect your answer. Fair enough?" she paused for a brief moment before speaking again, "I will leave you with that. Thank you for your assistance, you were very helpful and hopefully we will meet again in the near future."

With that Kamilla turned on her heel and strode out of the workshop, heading towards her room in The Quarters for some much needed rest. The animation process had taken several bells to complete as well as a toll on her mind and body as a whole from the extended periods of concentration. With fatigue settling in she wanted nothing more than to turn in for the night and put an end to the exhaustion, although it had been well worth it. She had completed her golem, with the help of the ever odd Keene, and now all that was left was to wait for her judgement and hope that it went well, her future on the island and hunger for enlightenment depended on it.‎
‎

‎

[Caesarion]

Grades, my darling, grades

Keene :

Experience

Skill	XP Earned
Unarmed Combat	+4 XP
Socialization	+4 XP
Meditation	+2 XP
Animation	+5 XP
Research	+3 XP

Lores

Lore Earned

Animation: The Golem Must Learn From a Source

Animation: The Source Must Not Leave the Circle

Drawing the Animation Circle

Animation Process: Mostly in the Mind

Animation: Creation of the Soulcore

Animation: Creation of the Persona

Kamilla: Preparing for Judgement

Command: Ala, Neutral Stance

Command: Attack, Aggressive Stance

Command: Ruwe, Finish

Golem: Sil

The Golem is Complete

Loots

Kamilla :

Experience

Skill	XP Earned
Animation	+5 XP
Glyphing	+3 XP
Drawing	+2 XP
Socialization	+4 XP
Observation	+3 XP
Teaching	+4 XP

Lores

Lore Earned

Keene: Martial Combat Proficiency

Keene: Can't Dance Very Well

Command: Ala, Neutral Stance

Command: Attack, Aggressive Stance

Command: Ruwe, Finish

Golem: Sil

The Golem is Complete

Loots

Sil, a successful golem!

Notes :

I'm bad at understanding animation, so I apologize ahead of time. Still, it was an informative and very interesting thread.
Since Keene was mostly the observer here, I gave him what I could but mostly just focused on giving him a bajillion lores.

If you have concerns, questions or praise (inmydreams;_;) for your grade, drop me a PM and we'll do a number!