Researching The Residents [Clyde Sullins]

by **Zandelia** on May 28th, 2014, 11:38 am

She bit her tongue at his words, a difficult prospect considering her personality and the fact that he was being so mysteriously churlish. Not so much arrogant anymore, he was concentrating and thus his words were perhaps considerably more truthful than the ones spoken before - when distracted people often said what they truly meant rather than wanted to be heard. The case in point was his reference to the poisoner and the threat of death. She was sure that had he been entirely mentally focused upon conversation he would not have even mentioned it, he had a talent for discussing only what he wished to and this interested her - it was a way of getting more information from him if required, at the right moment.

Though now, I do not think, is the right moment. Not when he is about to possibly rip my arm off. Later, perhaps, with further time she told herself as she watched him work.

It was fascinating, the practice he was revealing. She had seen it before of course, watched him watching it in point of fact but to see it done before her eyes and watch the process was intriguing and raised her curiosity regarding the art further. It was all well and good to see the finished product, even if it was incorrect, anyone could see the end of something. Seeing the beginning, the crafting, was far more interesting. It showed its nature, its essence, in a way she doubted she would have seen before. It seemed such a simple art to her untutored eye - almost childish scribbling, though he was engraving directly into stone and that was in itself impressive.

“So this is how Glyphing is done? Or is this just how you do it? Impressive dexterity, to carve directly into the stone so easily and with such small things. What do they mean, these symbols?” she asked, the desire for knowledge was easily heard in her tone.

It was a intricate little collection, small wave symbols amongst many others that she couldn’t really get a good look at whilst he was working. Mere flashes of the end result could be seen but she did note he did it without tools and assumed that he somehow had control over it all through his magic rather than anything else. A logical conclusion that made some portion of her want to shudder but she pushed that back. She was helping and thus gaining in return and that was a trade worth going through with - just for the knowledge.

It quickly became very convoluted and intricate as he worked, silently tracing his lines and symbols over and over again. There was no chance for boredom though, she tried to memorize what she could instead and piece together what had not been explained. It was an impossible task of course, one which she was not equipped to try to do a tall and that gave a flickering of frustration for a few moments.

“Complex, does the complexity go up with the task you’re trying to achieve? Or is it more that you use whatever you know, or think, will work?” she asked softly, still watching the development of the end product.

She raised an eyebrow at his mention of being able to sense her magic though, that was a very interesting prospect and one she couldn’t let go despite the resolve to not probe him about anything but the work he was setting about doing.

“You could sense me using it? How?” she asked simply, she doubted she would get a straight answer but then he did like to talk magic and perhaps would use it as a way of asserting his superiority further.

Then came the order to try to use her ability, that he was finished for now and suited his words with the ceasing of any motioning of his arms. She brought the bracelet up to her eye and turned her wrist to inspect it for a few moments. It was a work of beauty in its own way, he could have made a business out of making bracelets and nothing else in some parts of the world. Everyone liked to think they were mysterious and such articles would be snapped up but the foolish and the self-important easily enough.

“Pretty” she stated simply before letting it fall to her side and concentrated instead upon her internal self.

She teased her Djed into the pathways, the imagined rivers within and felt it trickle into her head. Iris, eyeball, the connection between there and her mind. Filling her nose and mouth also - she had not figured out yet whether she could focus it to one sense or whether it just happened to all of them. She suspected all of them but had had no training to tell her exactly what happened when she tried to use her powers. It was more…difficult…though now. Before it had been quicker, the easy sliding of ability. As she tried this time, however, there was a resistance - almost as if she were pushing through a barrier within that didn’t want her to get past.

Smells sharpened and once more she could smell Clyde beyond what he physically did, the bracelet was as it was before. His aura flickered like flames around him and she shook her head at him before she realized that they were flames. Before she had just assumed it was a fuzzy glow but looking carefully she could see the teasing outlines as if he were in the middle of a hearth himself. She smiled at noticing it for the first time after being asked to actually focus upon it. She let the magic go then, content that she had learnt something - more experiment would be required but then she was no master. It was an idea, a path.

“I can still see you, smell you. I don’t think that it worked. It seemed harder though, more of a struggle. If that helps?” she told him simply.

by **Clyde Sullins** on June 1st, 2014, 3:14 pm

“So this is how Glyphing is done? Or is this just how you do it? Impressive dexterity, to carve directly into the stone so easily and with such small things. What do they mean, these symbols?”

Clyde shrugged, and did his best to explain what he had done.

“Glyphing can be done this way, but its not how it is traditionally done. Usually its drawn as ink or paint, possibly as a scroll on a piece of parchment. But it can be carved as runes into a object. So I suppose doing it this way, using Reimancy into the earth and stone, is something I do specifically. As for the symbols, they both mean nothing and everything.”

“Glyphs gain their meaning by the intent and use one instills into them while crafting them. One symbol has no inherent specific meaning. In fact I highly doubt you'll find two Glyphers who use the same Glyphs, or if they do likely they are for different uses. A glypher has a end result, and they draw the Glyphs to fulfill that end result, through a series of glyphs that in general fall into several often used blocks. If you want to examine Glyphing, you should focus less on the exact symbols, and more or the intent and meaning behind their structure. That is why Glyphing is a universal language, and why any decent Glypher could look at a work of Glyphing and know more or less what it does, even if it was written in a foreign tongue.”

Once more Clyde had slipped back into teacher mode, though in this case it was for good reasoning. Clyde had offered to give a lesson in Glyphing to the woman, so he might as well begin now, and explain some of the facets of Glyphing he would invariably need to cover in a basic lesson.

Of course his words would also inform her that what he did here today would be of little help, since there was no reason to memorize his Glyphs, not when she would have her own set of them to use. The specific basic Glyphing blocks would be of use once he covered them, but not the specific symbols that had meaning specifically to Clyde.

“Complex, does the complexity go up with the task you’re trying to achieve? Or is it more that you use whatever you know, or think, will work?”

“I suppose that as you use higher level wards and such, the Glyphing will become more complex and intricate, but it is not always necessary. And once you become decently skilled in it, some of the simpler uses of Glyphing could be done with but a few symbols. This task however is an inherently high level and difficult one to achieve. Even I am having trouble finding the way to achieve it, and I have all but mastered the ways of the magic of Glyphing.”

When it came up to the subject of how Clyde had known of her magic, Clyde simply smiled and looked back at the woman.

“You could sense me using it? How?”

“A wizard must have his secrets. I do have my ways, lets just leave it at that. Suffice to say it has nothing to do with my Glyphing. But magic always leaves its traces and signs for those who know how to look to see them, and for those that keep their "eyes" open.”

“Pretty. I can still see you, smell you. I don’t think that it worked. It seemed harder though, more of a struggle. If that helps?”

Hearing her words, Clyde let out a sigh, knowing it had not worked.

“No, it either worked totally, or it failed. I'll need to rethink it again. But I think I've almost got it.”

Thinking it over, Clyde considered the pathways for the djed, the courses, and the mechanism for the transitions. He had a external spout of sorts for the djed to exit. He had a means for the djed to be carried about along and around and up... Which left... What? A entryway? I siphon of sorts to match the exit for the djed? He supposed he could do that by a series of smaller focus on the inside, ringing the internal side, which would let the djed come up and through and around, to then come out the leak...

Grabbing back the bracelet, Clyde used his djed, and carved in a series of focus identical to the single one on the outer side, but now on the inner side. He drew four equally spaced along the inner side, recarving and tracing the focus just as he had done to the Glyphs earlier, engraving them into the surface.

The four equally spaced focus ran along the inner side, overlaying the single pathway going around the inner side, each one even with one of the sets of pathways connecting the upper and lower side.

“Alright, I think that may have got it... Try some magic again, and then we will know.”

If his attempt had worked, then she would find that she could not use her magic at all, her djed would fail to build to usable levels, that her connection to her magic would be totally cut. That was after all the effect that was desired of anti-magic.

by **Zandelia** on July 6th, 2014, 6:18 pm

He was certainly a capable tutor, even if what he stated was difficult for her to wrap her head around at first. She had time of course, until whatever he had in mind was done she was at his mercy and that meant she could move nowhere. She had agreed to it but the restriction still wriggled under her skin, she valued her freedom of self perhaps more than most Sunberthian’s did - she had seen places that didn’t possess true freedom anymore after all. It was always easier to appreciate what you had when you could see how other people laced it. She frowned at his words, puzzling them out and trying to understand. From what he stated she knew it was now meaningless to keep committing his symbols to memory and that - at least - was a small mercy for they were becoming far too complicated for her to truly follow them.

“So there are no half-measures then when you Glyph? It either works or it fails? Or is that just with what you are doing? You either stop me using it or it can be used fully?” she pondered that, it had seemed more difficult for her still. Was that just because she thought it would be? Or was it something else? Were her abilities being stretched perhaps?

She thought back to his words upon how the art was accomplished. He made it seem so simple and yet difficult at the same time. It could have been the fact that he was trying to explain both simplicity of his craft alongside the more intricate nature of what he was currently carving. She could see his mind working, puzzling it out as he frowned and took to carving a new series of patterning upon what he had already created. Perhaps he was distracted, too distracted to teach? Or, more likely, she such wasn’t thinking about it correctly. She decided upon a simpler question or two perhaps.

“You make it sound so easy, as if anyone with parchment and a brush could do what they wanted to do. Yet at the same time you say it’s about how these…glyphs…are imbued? Or charged? So you just think them into being that way?” she asked, seeking basic principles with which to build something further and perhaps add to her repertoire of abilities.

“Because if everyone knew how to do this the world would be damn sight more dangerous I think. Magic blocking shackles, what else can be done? Anything? Everything? What’s the eventual limit, or is it down purely to the inventiveness of the one crafting the art?” she wondered aloud, the questions were more philosophical than she liked but then she spent her life thinking within some form of philosophy.

Intelligence, for example, is just philosophy. When you break it down to its core. A way of thinking, a mental framework to use. It just uses more physical triggers in reality when outside of the mind she mused to herself.

There was little time to follow that line of thought further, however, as he declared the work done. Or she presumed that he hoped it was now done. The proof would only be attained if she produced her end of the bargain. She wondered if she could lie to him over it, goad him into trying as many times as she liked to keep him there. She considered it, for a fraction of time, before assuming that he would know and that there would be…consequences. She was not willing to test such a hypothesis when her wrist was in a stone chain. She nodded simply then and tried to summon up her ability. She frowned as she puleld at it within, tried to tease it as before but…nothing.

“I think…” she grimaced as she tried again. Three, four, five times she tried. Eventually she managed to get something to feel within as if she were practicing Auristics but there was no reaction to her senses. It was as if she were going through the mental motions but getting nothing but frustration and lethargy from it.

“Yes…nothing. Well done, I hope that Sahova is ready for this because I’m not sure it will like the idea of such a device” she whispered softly to herself.

Only then did she realize that she might be involved with something that could get her executed…or worse. To be able to shackle mages, in a mage controlled city. It was indeed a dangerously subversive notion. Yet still she gave a dark smile, she liked the idea. It had…weight.

“So you have what you wanted then and you have been a gentleman about it. I hope I don’t have to wear this forever now?” she added the last question with a grin that she didn’t truly feel, “what now?”

by **Clyde Sullins** on July 16th, 2014, 8:52 pm

Often Clyde found that instruction could be snuck into normal discourse, somewhat surreptitiously. He had been explaining the basics of Glyphing, of what it did and didn't, since they began talking.

However the meat of the lesson had yet to be discussed, of the glyphs and runes themselves, of the sum of the sigil, and of what made up said sigils, the groupings of glyphs called blocks.

“So there are no half-measures then when you Glyph? It either works or it fails? Or is that just with what you are doing? You either stop me using it or it can be used fully?”

Clyde shrugged, not having an exact answer.

“Usually. Particularly so in the higher level cases. Sometimes erosion over time is a factor, and sometimes with a ill conceived or poorly crafted set of Glyphs, it is just a matter of time till it fails, though thats more often the case with containment. Usually with the longer they are used the more likely they are to fail.”

“As a new user of Glyphing, I would not expect something you make to last more than a day, and even that might be pushing it depending upon how you use it. However once they have done their work, they will vanish in general. I on the other hand could reasonably expect a work to last years, if not longer, without any chance of problems. Assuming it isn't a specific set effect I am making, like with a scroll.”

As he did his work the female mage continued on with questions. Most were pretty straightforward, ones more or less easily predicted, but he let her ask them, and took them in turn, instead of answering them all before she got a chance to ask them.

“You make it sound so easy, as if anyone with parchment and a brush could do what they wanted to do. Yet at the same time you say it’s about how these…glyphs…are imbued? Or charged? So you just think them into being that way?”

“Because if everyone knew how to do this the world would be damn sight more dangerous I think. Magic blocking shackles, what else can be done? Anything? Everything? What’s the eventual limit, or is it down purely to the inventiveness of the one crafting the art?”

“Bear in mind what I am doing now, this is brushing the edge of the limits of what Glyphing can do. Most users of Glyphing never fully master it, and most never get to the level were they can create such things as this. Only the best of Glyphers could even attempt this, and fewer still could achieve it.”

“The simpler aspects of it are easy, more or less, and could be done by anyone initiated into the craft. But the more complex and dangerous and active usages take ever more skill. Particularly when you are working with foreign magics, or actively hostile forces. What Glyphing can do is set, influencing and effecting magic and djed, but the ways in which that can be done have many variations. It all comes down to the skill of the user, and their abilities to push the limits of the domain of Glyphing.”

This of course were things became a bit fuzzier, and were there was less of a exact answer. For instance what Clyde did now, was breaking quite a few rules of normal Glyphing. But then, as he had said himself, often such boundaries got a bit fuzzed near the edges and limits of a craft.

Clyde watched as she attempted to use her magic, to pull it forth, and nothing happened.

“I think…”

“Yes…nothing. Well done, I hope that Sahova is ready for this because I’m not sure it will like the idea of such a device.”

Clyde shook his head, and simply stared back at her, a small grin on his face.

“Good, it worked... And don't think I'm inventing something new. While it is new to me, and not something commonly done, Anti-magic in and of itself is a tested practice by high level Glyphers. In practice, if not in specifics. It's not going to fundamentally chance anything, not on this isle of magic. Particularly considering the work it takes.”

“So you have what you wanted then and you have been a gentleman about it. I hope I don’t have to wear this forever now?”

Still grinning, Clyde glanced at the stone bracelet, at his work, and mulled over her words.

“What now?”

Clyde put a finger to his lips, and made a puzzling face.

“You know... I hadn't quite thought through to the part where it comes off... I mean I can't use my Reimancy to break it or take it off, since its now immune to most magic... I guess it will just have to stay on forever, until your arm wilts off.”

With a shrug Clyde turned and began to walk off. However he did not keep going, and reached into his bag to extract a hammer. It was a light hammer with a metal sledge for a head. Holding it up he walked back to the woman.

“Don't worry. It should break easily enough with a careful whack or two. Or considering I made it loose, and not form fitting, you can probably just slide it off.”

Reaching out Clyde would grab the bracelet with his free hand, and slide it off her wrist, unless of course she protested or did not allow him to.

It would come off easily enough, as Clyde had purposely made it loose. He did not like the idea of his creation slipping off to some use he did not intend, and so once he took it off of her, he would use his hammer to smash it into rock fragments on a metal lab table.

Turning back to the mage, he grinned for a moment, before speaking.

“Right... So what was your name again? I seem to have forgotten... Anyways, your magic should work fine now with the bracelet removed. Try it if you like. As for the lesson, I think next to discuss is glyphs and runes in and of themself, along with a sigil in whole, and the common blocks of glyphs that commonly make up a sigil.”

by **Zandelia** on August 16th, 2014, 7:24 pm

So…the true factor beyond skill is time. Time defeats all things indeed, even the magically created. Skill can be improved, worked on and developed. Time cannot be controlled. So to truly reach the peaks…repetition…experimentation. I wouldn’t use it like him, not like others perhaps but…I have some requirements she mused to herself as the words seeped into her mind and she turned them over.

It was comforting that, as a discipline, it was being told as an easy enough one to begin discerning and practicing. She had no illusions that it would be a long road, any mastery was, but that it was a puzzle that revealed its layers as you progressed was comforting. She needed something to occupy her mind, she too often had to deal with people and their darker sides as the ultimate puzzle. Perhaps Glyphing, over time, would provide just as challenging a dynamic and without the moral or ethical considerations of humanity in general and its activities. She said nothing at first but was considering his explanation as his answer to releasing herself from the stone band was dropped with very precise, succinct bewilderment. Or feigned bewilderment. Her gaze flicked up to meet his, fire burning within as a wash of anger coursed through her in reaction.

“What?” she simply asked, tone pointed and dark. Demanding a different answer perhaps to the casual observer.

She had barely managed to open her mouth for a follow up before he had turned on his heel to begin walking away. She stepped after him with her shackled wrist raising and finger pointing at his back - about to utter an oath so laced with vulgarity that she normally would have been shocked by hat formed within her mind. She didn’t notice the bangle shift slightly down her forearm and give her the answer to the problem, she was too lost in the growing anger at what he had just claimed to steal from her. Her magic, not her most coveted of arts but still her…by right. She had earned it, had learned it. He had no right to take it and offer up some…some…Glyphing as an exchange! So last was she that she didn’t expect him to turn and return, all the time smiling that smile she really wanted to wipe from his face. The hammer was the last straw and her other hand clenched into a visible fist.

“You hit me with that thing and I’m not the only thing getting,” she started but she was brought up short by the next words and the casual tugging at the construction, slipping off of her wrist with a little working and a slight scraping left behind as remembrance, “oh…well…my apologies. I just…never do that again joker” she breathed as she shuddered as if her skin were crawling.

The idea that she would have been cut off from her Auristics had proved uncomfortable indeed, insidiously penetrating her consciousness, who she was, and taking over with the only thing she could have done - retaliated. She closed her eye briefly and took a deep breath before focusing further, it was easy enough to summon her Djed now, calling it forth and opening her eyes as a smile broker across her lips - relief as she looked upon him and saw the swirls of color and the heightened sense of smell that gave her the individual tags of others. She was not familiar with his smell, could not place it, but it was there and that was what mattered. She let it all go, it was a small test to see if he was telling the truth.

“Well…I’m sorry. I was just, it was like…having it stolen. I should’ve known that you’d have thought of that before beginning. Was just shocked” she sighed as calmness began to re-assert itself as the flames of anger were drenched by her own stupidity.

“My name is Dasoma,” she stated simply, not sure if he was really absent minded or believed she was lying, “and you didn’t tell me yours either so I suppose we were even. Even so, now you are re-told. Care to illuminate me as to your name?”

“And I bow to your teaching decision, I know nothing after all. Glyphs? Runes? Sigil? Tell me of these things and I will commit them to memory” she stated, still slightly shaken by the practical joke at her expense.

She tried to focus on what was to be revealed, she doubted she would get a better chance to learn, or a better teacher given his ability he had shown her.

by **Clyde Sullins** on August 17th, 2014, 2:03 am

Clyde barely even registered her answer to his statement, more dwelling on the spur of the moment joke as it came to him. He certainly hadn't fully planned it out, or planned out how she might react.

But then, he hadn't really fully planned out any of it, even how it would be taken off, until he thought about it upon her asking for it to be removed. But then he did such things all the time, trusting his instincts to do things right, and not dwelling on the unimportant details until they were relevant. Of course it would be a thing to consider for the next time.

Still though, when she did react, it was all Clyde could do not to crack a grin at her sudden indignation.

“What?”

“You hit me with that thing and I’m not the only thing getting...”

Clyde brought up one eyebrow, as she froze in mid tirade, understanding what he said and had pointed out, that it would simply slide off.

“Oh…well…my apologies. I just…never do that again joker.”

At this Clyde allowed his grin to fully break across his face, looking back at the woman. Her changing of emotions was hilarious, her sudden feeling of being betrayed, anger surging up, about to take vengeance, only to learn the entire thing was a joke. It just made the entire thing all the more funny. He only just kept from audibly laughing, as he grinned at her.

“Well…I’m sorry. I was just, it was like…having it stolen. I should’ve known that you’d have thought of that before beginning. Was just shocked.”

Clyde froze hearing her words, and turned to her, the grin sliding off his face. In fact he hadn't thought it out beforehand, hadn't fully considered his own actions, more focused on his experiment. But that wasn't why his mood had shifted. Instead he was recalling back to a fireside in Syliras, a vague piece of a memory, muddled within another memory. Of a older man speaking to him, and then a blank emptiness in his mind. As Clyde spoke, he gained a far off look in his eyes, as he relived the memory, staring through the woman at a point behind her, and not truly seeing her or looking at her.

“And what do you truly know of having ones magic stolen? Let me tell you, that would be much better than other fates. Better to have ones magic locked away, with the ability and knowledge to have yourself freed from such a prison, to work towards regaining what you'd lost than... Than to have it taken away, and not even recall that you'd lost something. To instead scrabble along for years, knowing something was missing, but not what, and unable to work towards a release.”

His eyes refocusing on the woman, and breaking from his interlude into his own memories, a forced grin came over Clyde's face, clearly false and with none of the humor of moments ago.

“You should consider yourself lucky if only such a thing should happen, and not much worse fates, Dasoma.”

Breaking into a deep breathing excercise he'd long been practicing in his meditation, Clyde took in a deep breath, and held it, breathing in slow, holding, and back out just as slowly. After a few measured breathes he had calmed himself to an extent.

“I am Clyde. Clyde Sullins.”

Pausing for a few moments, Clyde looked at Dasoma, taking another moment to collect himself. Then recalling his train of thought, and his current task, Clyde launched himself into an explanation on glyphing, on the finer points of its actual physical structure. Teaching was something he could do easily even in a distracted state.

“Glyphing is a crafted magic, something you make, draw, etch, carve, or in some way mark. We've spoken of the abilities of those glyphs, but at its base you must still make those symbols for their needed effect.”

“There are different names and forms. Glyphing can be done in words, symbols, images, pictures, letters, whatever you can bear your intent upon, with meaning. At its smallest point, a single such unit of glyphing is a glyph, or as some call a rune. It is a single one of these things, a single piece of your work. If your full work is a page filled with words, think of a single glyph as a single letter or word. Combined together they form a greater whole, which is called a complete sigil, but individually it is a single glyph.”

“Any completed work of glyphing for whatever intent, with all of the individual glyphs worked into a whole, is a complete sigil. These can do various things depending upon the parts that make it up. Just as different words and letter can be used to tell a different story, different glyphs can be used to cause varying effects through a sigil.”

Clyde would pause for a moment, pacing for a bit, and giving Dasoma a moment to take it in, and mull it over. But he would not pause long, instead delving into the important bit she would need to know most.

“Now, within a sigil, there are various glyph blocks which are commonly used, each with a specified use and ability. In the most common usage of glyphing, one only uses three of these blocks of glyphs, a focus, a barrier, and a trigger. Often enough these are the only ones used, and I suppose some never find any need for the other two more rarely used glyph blocks. That is of the path, and the switch. If a glyph is a letter, think of a block as a commonly used word, which shifts the meaning of those about it, or which does a specified thing to change those about it.”

“A focus, unlike the other blocks for the most part, is a single glyph, one glyph of varying size depending upon what is to go in or come out. In some usages the focus is as big as a person, big enough to be stood upon. For other usages, it is tiny, as small as my fingernail. Regardless, the use of a focus glyph, is to draw in, and hold magic and magical effects. Any magic that flows into it directly, or through other glyphs which it has traveled along, will be held inside of the focus and stored, assuming it has no way of getting out. That is where some of the other groupings of glyphs, or blocks, come in. Also magic is naturally drawn to a focus, and so it is easier to have a magical effect occur upon said focus, to draw djed to a location that is glyphed with a focus.”

“A barrier is a series of glyphs that holds back and blocks the passage of magic. If it were say to surround a focus, then so long as the barrier should hold, then the magic would stay within. That is how a simple scroll is done, a focus in the middle, with a barrier surrounding it so that whatever magical effect stored within does not escape. ”

“And finally of the common ones, the last one needed to make a simple scroll for storing magic, is a trigger. It does just as the name says, and triggers an effect. This can be activating another part of the sigil, or deactivating a part. When the trigger is activated by whatever trigger condition has been added, it will then do said effect, and turn off or on whatever piece of the sigil it is connected to. So in the case of a scroll, the connected trigger deactivates the barrier, thus releasing the magic in the focus, upon whatever trigger condition occurring. A certain phrase, or a certain event occurring, or a certain circumstance. The better you are at glyphing, the more and more specific and difficult of a trigger one can manage. Just beware making a trigger condition that is too specific that is beyond your ability, else it might fail to work.”

by **Zandelia** on February 5th, 2015, 8:36 pm

“I apologize, Clyde Sullins, you speak true. I know nothing of having it taken beyond what I felt today,” she stated as calmly as was possible given he diatribe that had bene unwittingly unleashed, “I know less of magic than yourself clearly. Perhaps it should be considered a student’s statement of error” she finished with a small inclination of the head.

There was little else to be said regarding the matter, she knew nothing of what he was intimating by proxy – that he had had his magic taken from him. Stolen perhaps given his wrathful tone of voice. Though the fact that it seemed impossible, given her minor knowledge base, proved to be a great curiosity to her she knew better than to press anything further. Hostility was one thing when it was verbal in nature, however, she felt that words could quickly turn to actions – magical actions – and accidents were common in Sahova. Apparently common enough that if she were to become a pile of ash it wouldn’t be noticed, and she liked living.

Not to mention that I am unclear as to what magic’s and how many Clyde – if that is his name – possesses. Better to just leave it for now. Should the opportunity arrive in future it would be illuminating to hear the tale in full, no doubt she noted to herself as she felt the tension pass as quickly as it had flashed.

She busied herself with committing the lesson Clyde now imparted to her memory as fully as she could. No doubt she would require much time to fully absorb and appreciate what he was saying but the words themselves would be remembered – if not their fullest meanings. Thinking of glyphs as letters was simple enough, she could deal with that and perhaps make up her own alphabet with which to implement them when she was ready to practise the art – if she so chose to. It simply required perseverance and a somewhat creative mind, she possessed those qualities she liked to think. As to the combination into sigils, she presumed that meant it was akin to writing sentences. If sentences were capable of functioning magic that was.

“So, glyphs are letters so to speak. Sigils are combinations of glyphs, like a sentence perhaps. Five types of sigil – trigger, barrier, focus, path and switch. Alright, think I’ve got that” she stated as he moved on to the next portion of knowledge – he was quick teacher and expected a student to keep up she noted.

The focus as a storage device…glyph…that was simple enough. Focus suggested as much in the word at any rate. Barrier, again, was self-explanatory in regards to keeping out, or in, magical energies. The mention of a scroll was curious to her, she had heard of such things in passing and to learn that she was being taught how to make one was – in her mind – a very beneficial notation for Clyde to make. She had uses for such things, ideas that could be implemented with the right assistance. Such an ability, if perfected, could very well turn the tables in her favour going forwards. The trigger though, that sounded trickier to her and cautioned her as to why prudence was always best with the magical arts.

“So, what you are saying, is that whilst you could make one of these…scrolls…for example, with limited talents, it would only serve you to do so when you had the ability to refine their specific properties. Otherwise, instead of making something secure to use you’re courting disaster. It is, however, quite thrilling to know that it could be done by myself with the right application and perseverance” she noted aloud as she tilted her head and thought through the lesson to make sure she had grasped the points.

“Thank you Clyde, for the enlightening lesson. And for the two to come in the future. After I have perfected the basics, perhaps. I have kept you from your great works for too long, however, so for now I bid you good day. May this city not snuff out your light. You’re one of the more interesting…Pulsers” she gave a faint smile before making her exit as hastily as she dared.

She had much to muse upon, not to mention recover from.