Her bright idea hit her when one of the other children came down with an illness. A girl named Amy came down with a fever and a rash that covered a large portion of her body. The doctors ordered her quarantined in a classroom by herself until the rash cleared up and she was feeling better. Violet was not sure how she could fake a fever but she could easily give herself a rash with her Disguise Self aspect.

After allowing a week to pass after Amy was allowed out of quarantine, Violet made her move. She had no access to hot water or heating pads to make her seem warmer than she truthfully was. In the end, having a rash she hoped was good enough along with acting sick.

In the morning when it was time to get up for their shift of research, Violet stayed in bed. When her father came to check on her, she weakly moaned out that she didn’t feel good. He took one look at the rash all over her face and hands and went to get a doctor. Her mother poked her head in next and sat down on her bed with her.

[Skill increase: Acting +1 (31)]

She felt slightly bad for causing the worried look on her mother’s face. Not that she was any stranger to faking illness to avoid school in her past life. Every child has faked illness at some point to get out of doing something. Having the mentality of an adult caused Violet to act more mature than other children did even when she was trying to act like a child.

It was a little confusing when neither of her parents touched her forehead to check for a fever. They had both made a point to not touch her at all when they noticed the rash on her face. She was just wondering if this was a good idea when the doctor arrived in a huff.

“Move. Did you touch her?” a man in red said as he walked up. When my mother shook her head he said “That is good, I don't want to have to quarantine you too. Keep your distance while I examine your daughter.”

The doctor was cool and clinical as he examined her. “Strip” he ordered. She slowly sat up to comply. Apparently, she was not quick enough because he wrenched her dress off as she was trying to work it over her head. He touched her as little as possible as he looked at the rash she had designed for herself. She did not get a good look at Amy before she was quarantined so she decided to give herself a rash that looked like poison ivy.

“You will be quarantined until this rash goes away.” To my parents, he said, “Burn her sheets and clothing after the room is prepared. Wash your hands often and avoid touching others for a few days.”

When the quarantine room was prepared, the doctor returned to oversee her movement. “Follow that guy, don't touch anything, do not get anywhere near anybody. You are to maintain at least six feet of distance between yourself and others. When we arrive at the room, he will open the door and you are to enter before the door closes.” There was no compassion given from the doctor at all. He acted like it was her fault for getting sick. Technically it was, but he didn’t know that!

She was told that under no uncertain terms was she allowed to touch anything except her bed. Nothing was provided for her entertainment while she was in quarantine. With nothing to do and the possibility of someone coming in to check on her randomly, she sat cross-legged on the bed and sank into Meditation. She had a theory that she could use Meditation to help her remember things from her old life. Today’s goal was to remember as many song lyrics as possible.

Her library of partially remembered lyrics was growing as she tried to hang on to pieces of her past life. Unfortunately, she had quite a few songs with “something something dum dum” instead of words. Writing sounds is very difficult to do, she never realized how many ways she could sing “dum dun and bum be bum” Sadly, many of the songs she remembered the majority of the words for were oldies or the twangy country music her father used to insist on listening to on long car rides. Having tears in beers was just too catchy to not get stuck in her head no matter how much she tried to block it out.

Some of the “modern-day” lyrics she knew the full words for were songs like “Around the world” (yeah those are the full lyrics for the whole song) as well as songs talking about who run da world. She found those songs both sad and amusing when she thought of them.

She also had a small library of books she had read in the past. Granted those “books” were the watered-down plots that she could remember but she wanted to keep those memories. Movies were another bigger section of watered-down plots. When she got bored and wanted a break from her magic practice, she would go through and fill in any blanks she remembered.

The first person to visit her was wearing gloves and holding a tray of food. He did not even acknowledge her as he set the food tray down on the floor and left the room. Was she in prison or quarantine? She was quite happy to see food as she had missed breakfast with her illness shenanigans. Under the lid on the tray was cold porridge that looked like it had sat around all morning. She decided to wait for lunch and hope for a better result.

To occupy herself, she made up an alphabet game. She decided to keep a Mental Note of her better tries. Though “better” was a relative thing. This exercise challenged her mind and often gained her points in intellect or wisdom.

‘A is for apple that grows off a Branch.’

‘B is for a branch that can be Cut.’

‘C is for a cut that she found on her Dress.’

She wasn’t very good at it, but it kept her mind occupied and off of her rumbling stomach. There was nothing wrong with her appetite and the longer she waited the more that cold porridge started to look edible. She was starting to slightly regret using being sick as an excuse to be left alone. The idea of getting another school of magic kept her going through the long boring hours.

Lunch never came. She was left staring at the cold porridge all day. After several hours, her mother was escorted into the room. Thankfully she was holding a tray of hopefully warm food. “How are you feeling?”

“My tummy hurts and I’m itchy everywhere,” Violet whined in answer.

“Oh honey, get your rest tonight and if you are feeling worse in the morning we will call the doctor back to check on you.” She looked like she wanted to hug her sick little girl but held herself back after a glance at her chaperone.

“The doctor gave strict orders that nobody is allowed to open that door unless it is for breakfast or dinner. I will try to come back when it is time for breakfast to see you.” With those parting words, Violet was once again left alone.

This was extremely good news for Violet. She was worried she was going to have to worry about people checking on her at all hours. With this bit of news, she made plans to wait a few hours and then use the secret door in her room to make her way down to the mural room. She was sad that Sky would not be accompanying her this time.

While she waited for enough time to pass, she went over the decisions she had made about the aspects and magic she would be choosing. For her Illusion aspects, she decided that she would be excavating Fear, Hypnotize, and Enchant. She knew she would eventually get the Contracts aspect so she didn’t mind waiting on getting that one.

For which magic to take, that took many long nights of chatting with Sky before they were moved to decide on. As soon as she realized that she would be able to get another school of magic she spent many days daydreaming about what she would pick. It was still a common thing to debate with Sky when no one was close enough to overhear them.

There were some choices that they discounted right from the start. Fire, nature, and water would be next to impossible to level up while she was stuck inside a building and rarely left unsupervised. Fire would cause smoke and be flashy when she accidentally set her bed on fire while trying to practice.

For nature, she didn’t have access to the outdoors at all anymore. Even back when she was discussing it with Sky in the barracks, they were only allowed outside to run laps around the building. There were also zero animals in a very large radius of this area for her to interact with.

While she drank water every day, finding an unsupervised water faucet would be a difficulty. She was not on kitchen duty and only had an excuse to use the faucet when she washed her hands. If she could create water, what would she do with it after she conjured it?

Sky argued for earth magic because they were surrounded by tons of stone that she could manipulate. She was not against that idea but she countered back that air is easier to hide and everywhere around them as well. For convenience, she felt that earth was the better choice of the two. She could create or shape her own objects to use for enchanting.

Healing was brought up but quickly shot down after they thought about it a little longer. If she went around healing people it would be noticed right away. She did not want to harm herself to practice healing magic. Sky said he was not going to be her test subject either.

When she brought up spatial magic, Sky was confused about why she would want that. To him, spatial magic was what stargazers used to tell the future. There were several children’s tales in this world making fun of “false prophets” who told the future in the stars. She felt that was more propaganda than anything else but ultimately not worth arguing about. There wasn’t very much information available to her on what a spatial mage could do. If information about that type of magic was being stifled, that means the dominion was afraid of that type of magic for one reason or another. She planned to pick this one up after the most practical magic that she knew of.

The decision ultimately came down to earth or air. Being able to manipulate stone to make enchanting easier sealed the deal for her. All of the enchanted items that the adults were studying were made of colored stone. She knew they were beginner pieces but she had to start somewhere.