[Sanctuary Beach] A Dreamer's Birthday

[Kavala]

Timestamp: 21st of Winter, 511 AV (lasting all winter)
Location: Sanctuary Beach - Island Making
Purpose: Practicing Reimancy

Sama'el had initiated her well. Lars had showed her the finer points of crafting with stone. Kavala, for all that she had never thought of herself as a mage, had taken to the art like a fish took to the water. And she dreamed big. For most of her adult life, Kavala had wanted nothing more than security. She'd wanted a plan. And so she made them, plan after plan, until they overwhelmed her and demanded they be started.

Reverie Isle was no different.

The dream was conceived by gazing off her balcony at the rocks below The Sanctuary well out into the Suvan Sea. They aligned in an interesting pattern. One day she'd taken her watercolors out onto the balcony and had started drawing carefully. She'd linked the rocks together as if they were in fact an island instead of a series of broken tide-worn pillars just barely above the level of the sea. She'd then drawn in curves, stairways, in a series of graceful landings that were swept up above the sea. Her charcoal flew across the paper as her dream took shape. A watery retreat. A private isle that only Konti or Akontak could easily get too. Later she'd added an easy place to dock a small sailboat, either a Casinor or a something a bit more sizable.

Then, after she'd got the drawing just right, she'd pulled out her watercolors and began to paint in the details, noting distances and acreage... to in fact. Land created, reclaimed, repurposed... Kavala was excited by the idea. When she was done, she laid the sketch aside, started off the balcony for a few more days, and on her birthday decided to get started.

What a better present to herself than a long term project that would end in such a lasting thing?

With the sketch complete, she made a copy - one better suited to the field - and went down to the site. Setting up on the beach, she left all her gear there and swam out to the first set of rocks. Perching on them, she wondered suddenly if it wasn't wiser to build from beneath the waves up until the Island had a solid base.

Kavala had no idea how much stone a reimancer could make in a day, but she was bound and determined to find out.. and she'd do it using auristics as well. So as she floated in the waves she calmed her mind, adjusted her sight and slowly fell into an auristic stare. Looking downward, into the water from the surface, she carefully mapped where she wanted the island with her eyes, reviewing the stone with her almost musical sight, then decided the place was suitable after all.

Determinedly, she dove down and got started.

[Kavala]

The Island.

Kavala was half crazy for thinking she could create one all on her own and yet her determination was strong. Kavala had so many routines that others were now following from her early morning runs on the beach to her need to train afterwards that she felt penned in and crowded. She liked footprints across the sand to be light and delicate, not overlaced by others especially so early in the morning. She had a fierce need for independence and to be doing her own thing, even if it was insane, that working on Reverie was just the thing she needed to call her own.

The Konti was pleased to have a new routine for a new phase in her life.

Now that the plans were all drawn up and she knew what she wanted, it only made sense that she set out from the seafloor up and build it. The key was reimancy, but there was so much more about her that enabled her to be able to at least start this project, even if it was insane. Swimming daily in the surf would toughen her muscles just as much as running along the sand would. She’d learn greater control in the sea. All Konti were natural born swimmers but Kavala had been bred on the Sea of Grass away from the salty haven of The Suvan. And in many ways she loved it more than most Konti might because she never took it for granted and never considered it an entitlement, this mastery in the water. Instead she took it as a gift, a precious one at that, and cherished it because she’d known thirty years without it. And she planned, in her heart of hearts to never be without it ever again.

Her planning had been careful. There were assorted remnant rocks that caused the surf to boil that would make great foundation stones for the magic she was about to do. Kavala had arrived on the second day of her plan, stripped her things, and left them in a careful pile stowed safely behind a large grouping of logs that had washed ashore during a recent blow. She slipped into the water naked, expanded her gills and took a deep cleansing breath of sea water, and began to swim. She let the outgoing tide carry her beyond the breakers to the still water that was riddled with rocks. There, she circled, looking for the place and grouping the day before she’d decided her Island would be. Surfacing once or twice to get her bearings, Kavala could see Sanctuary perched proudly on the headlands overlooking the coast and knew the Island would be within view of her topside home. Smiling she found the formation, dove deep again, and settled to the bottom.

She carefully relaxed her mind, expanded her awareness and invoked her auristic sight to see where best she should start. Scanning the scattering of rocks, she identified a few that looked solid, made of bedrock instead of vulnerable shale or sandstone. And that's where she went, getting started. She settled in to begin to generate Res.

[Kavala]

Island building would not be an easy process. In fact, she expected it to take several seasons with this first one just laying the foundations. Closing her eyes, silencing her mind, Kavala began to focus. She was not in the breakers, but beyond them where the tide was calm and the sea was welcoming. Fish swam about her, jewel tones on deep blue velvet. Her island would have deep foundations, nested on the core of the remnants of an ancient headland.

Kavala slowly opened her eyes, her meditation complete after she’d sat calmly and quietly for ten minutes, visualizing what she needed to do. It was simple really, turn sand to stone, transmuting the earth that was already around her and merging it with the rocks that already lay bare in places. Kavala dipped her hands into the sea floor, moving along it, fluid like one of the fish that schooled about her. She felt the texture under her hands and the sand parting around her wrists digging her limbs in deeper until she found stone. Yes, just kissed with sand, she thought, not actually buried too deeply beneath it.

The Konti started forming res.

It spread out of her like sweat oozing out of a runners pores. Silvery white at first, the unpurposed product flowed from her manufactured at a slow steady rate that was appropriate for her novice level. It flowed from her hands, its source, and spread across the loose sand slowly sculpting it and forming it into stone that matched what was beneath and beside it all around. When she ran out of sand, she simply changed the res to stone all on her own, not transmuting sand to firm younger rock but making the thick res lay on the stone already present at the bottom of the sea. It was a lot like frosting a cake.

She mapped out the dimensions of her island slowly, mostly using rock that was already there, and built a base for it slowly, carefully, all but flush with the sand. Res flowed freely, carefully produced slowly and surely as Kavala rearranged the structure of the sea floor using djed and reimancy. She wished she could raise her hands, thrusting them to the sky, and call forth the island out of thin air, but she could not. Kavala knew mages needed steadiness and time. If they did not do it slow and steady, overgiving affected them, made them crazy, and Kavala would not risk her health or her sanity.

And as she worked she switched on her auristics, looking with her djed filled eyes at the sound and color in the water that made up the stone she formed. The auristics made it easy for her to see the flaws as she laid the stone, places it was too thin or brittle and she was able to go back over it, repeatedly, strengthening the work she was carefully doing.

[Kavala]

Painting the rock with res was a lot like anything else Kavala had done that took time and repetition. She found it didn’t go quickly at all. But in a way it was incredibly healthy for her, generating res over and over again at a pace her body could sustain and spreading it across the slowly flattening and expanding surface of her island base. It gave her time to think. Inhale seawater, contemplate the world, exhale seawater, contemplate faith, inhale seawater, contemplate love, exhale seawater. She found a meditative rhythum, a softness of breathing, and a smoothness to the sweep of her arms that allowed her to continue even though the work was mind numbing and repetitive. She should have hated it in the way a child handed a pail of paint and a thick bulky paintbrush would have hated spending all day painting a fence.

Instead she loved it. There was a freedom below the sea that she hadn’t experienced for a long time. It was one that was lost to her when she left the sea of grass. Life teamed all around her, a thousand variations of color, shape and size roaming freely. While she continued working she sensed a pattern to the life around her. Small fish grazed – on the stones, her arms, even on the newly formed res that transformed into stone. Larger fish came buy and ate the smaller ones. Eels with predatory eyes swam by but left her otherwise unmolested. A shark of significant size even made a casual passing, more curious than hungry as it studied the slowly expanding darkness of rock beneath Kavala’s hands.

When she was done for the day she rested, drifting, letting her auristics pool and wash over her eyes checking for flaws or lazy spots, and seeing the island take shape for the first time and coming to the realization it would take her the rest of the season, working every day she wasn't using Reimancy for other things to get the island's base done. By the season change, she figured, she'd have the base all the way up to the surface and from there she could start building solid surface above the waves.

She quit when she was tired and swam ashore. It was an effort, for certain, walking aback onto the land letting the seawater flow from her gills and taking in a large lungful of air. Compared to the sea, the land was less free. Sure things blew in the wind, but there was no life covering every square inch of surface. There was no floating columns of shrimp or krill. The trees on land stood tall and firm, not swaying as if artfully dancing like the kelp trees did beneath the surface.

[Kavala]

Kavala hated stepping onto the shore again, but Kavala knew she belonged there. The island would get worked on daily. She knew that with a certainty because like she’d been feeling before, her privacy on the beach with her early morning runs had vanished. But here, working on Reverie, she could be truly alone and get the project done. Kavala stretched as she shook the seawater off her, glanced up at The Sanctuary high on the cliff and smiled. She gathered her things, dressed, and then made the short walk to the sea cave and took the tunnels upwards.

Like an addict craving sugar, she was back to her sweet spot the next day floating naked in the sea, admiring the length and width of the base she’d gotten done. It was a nice shape, but only about a tenth of the way completed in the standard she felt was necessary for a true base. There was lots of work to do and it was indeed work that would have to be done daily, seasonally, and yearly before Reverie was done. So she called forth the res, grinned when her djed answered and began producing her desire, and spread out the glowing silvery gel along the rock. She started where she left off the day before, knowing her place easily by the X she’d formed in the new stone before she’d left.

One thin layer at a time the island took shape.

Each day she came, spreading res and adding layers upon layers to her work, day in and day out until ninety days had passed. As she slowly worked, she got closer and closer to the sunlight. It got harder and harder as she had more and more of the island built as well. The reason was simple. Higher into the water column the waves of the Suvan affected her ability to hold still and concentrate. Her work slowed down, became more meticulous, and her layers grew thinner as she had to fight to hold herself in the water in one place as she generated the res. Sometimes she did too much, eager to get done, wanting to rush. But when the blood from her nose filled the water drawing predators then she knew she'd done too much and had to stop.

Nose bleeds weren't the extent of her injuries either from overgiving. Pounding headaches, fatigue, and late night dreams of making stone filled her mind. She learned to take every other day and instead of going in the morning, she'd go at night sometimes giving herself a longer break. On the days she worked at night, she made thicker layers than morning layers were because afterwards she could sleep.

And sometimes she brought Tasival because he enjoyed roaming in the sea with his mother close at hand, playing with the fish and sometimes dolphins that frequented the shallows. All in all it was a great experience though, and as the season change neared, she was ready to begin work above the waterline.

[Sojourn]

Kavala's Rewards Skill XP Award Reimancy +5 Swimming +4 Auristics +3 Planning +3 Drawing +2 Architecture +1 Lore Award Drawing Dreams to Life, Turning Reverie into Reality, Daughter of the Sea, Coaxing Rock from Sand, Limitations of a Reimancing Novice, Finding Solace Under the Waves Items or Consequences: N/A Notes: That was some intense Reimancy work—Kavala is so driven and focused. Loved this a lot. Can't wait for the seasons to keep turning and see this place a finished hideaway. It'll be lovely.