With a surprised look on her face, Velma says, "Really? You are going to go to the beach to put seagulls asleep? Why seagulls? Why not rats? ... Or pigeons? You could go to the pigeon coop here on the grounds—or even the hen house—if you specifically want to use birds."

"I like going to the beach. Besides I hadn't thought about those other things. It might be useful to try on a moving target as well. But I might start with pigeons first and work my way up."

Velma shrugs and says, "Well it is up to you, but if I were going to try to cast a spell on something as fast as a bird, I would start with caged ones."

She then pushes back her finished platter and adds, "Well, I suspect I should head back to the Library now. But, if you do try the pigeons, let me know how you went before you go... Otherwise, I will see you after I finish work—yes?"

[OOC: Although he didn't think of using them, Guilliame would know where the School's pigeon coop is: round near the back entrance to the refectory where they are tended to by the kitchen staff. Please let me know what you want Guilliame to do next.]

"Yes. That would be nice. I'll come up to the library with you if you don't mind. Just in case." 

[OOC: Sorry Andrew, roleplaying tonight, will answer in full tomorrow.]

Velma waits until Guilliame finishes his meal and then the two of them head back to the Library. The building has the quietude of an empty building as Velma let them into building.

"Looks like I am going to have a very quiet afternoon," she says looking up the stairs to the second floor. "Please come and tell me what happens when you try your spell."

She then turns and gives Guilliame a quick kiss on the lips.

[OOC: What does Guilliame do now?]

Head down to the pigeon coop. Check out the situation. In particular make sure there is noone at all close to the coop. If the coast is clear then try a Sleep spell on a a solitary looking pigeon.

After leaving Velma to her lonely vigil, Guilliame then heads towards the rear of refectory. Here he finds along with a small herb garden, a hen house, and a small pen—in which a couple of goats are already chewing on the larger vegetable leftovers from lunch—a small, neglected looking, pigeon coop in which there appear to be no pigeons.

"Can I help you?" a male voice behind him says.

Guilliame turns to see an older male staff member, whose name he believes is Wilfred, exiting the back of the refectory carrying a wooden crate.

"Hello Wilfred. I am practising a new Sleep spell I just learnt and wanted to find something harmless to practise on. I was hoping for some pigeons but there aren't any there."

"No," replies Wilfred, continuing on his way to the chicken run. "We used to use pigeons a lot for carrying messages, but the masters worked out magickal ways to do that and so we no longer use them. The last pigeon got used in a pigeon pie last year some time... But if you want to practice a Sleep spell, you can put the chickens to sleep for a while. You would not be the first student to do so and it would make it easier for me to collect the eggs."

"Sounds good. I'll try to make sure I don't include you in the spell field but I am still learning."

Look for some chickens.

[OOC: There are a few chickens strutting around the little courtyard at the back of the refectory and a few actually in the hen house.

Please describe how you want to have Guilliame cast the spell.]

Go to the courtyard. Sketch out a circle with a radius of 20 feet that is entirely visible, away from doors or corners that people might pop out from unexpectedly, but where chickens walk in. Make sure there is no-one currently in the area. If there is such an area then wait until there are a few chickens inside and cast the spell.

With Wilfred watching on, Guilliame is able to find a large enough area in the kitchen courtyard for him to roughly scratch out a 40' diameter circle on the packed ground; it is a surprisingly large space—something he will need to be aware of if he were ever wanting to cast this spell quickly.

He then takes up Wilfred's offer of providing food for the chickens from the crate he is carrying, which contains kitchen scraps. After putting down some of the scraps, Wilfred then retreats back outside of the circle.

When the food is placed on the ground, chickens come scurrying from all over the place, including one large and impressive rooster who emerges from the hen house and claims the most prized scraps from the hens. Then, with well over a dozen chickens in his target area, Guilliame casts his spell.

[Please roll 5d8.]

28

[OOC: LOL. There were actually 18 chickens and 1 rooster pecking at the food.]

As Guilliame finishes his spell, all the chickens collapse to the ground, asleep. The rooster, staggers for a moment, looks around in confusion for a moment, and then commences picking at the food.

"Ha!" says Wilfred, staring at the rooster. "I always knew that rooster was a devil in disguise. He be too strong for your spell."

"I just hope I only have to deal with chickens in the future. Roosters are too tough."

Go across and try to wake up a chicken.

The rooster eyes Guilliame cautiously as he approaches one of the sleeping chickens.

"Keep an eye on that brute while I look for eggs," calls Wilfred, putting his crate down and quickly heading off in the direction of the hen house. "He always tries to bail me up when I go in there."

With one eye on the suspicious rooster, Guilliame gently touches the chicken he has chosen to check for signs of life.

At first it doesn't respond, but with a harder poke, it suddenly jerks awake, looks up in terror at Guilliame and then gets up and scurries away clucking in alarm.

[OOC: I have marked off one of Guilliame's spell slots as having been used on his character sheet. He can recover the spell slot using the Arcane Recovery ability that the wizard class has in the 5th edition rules, which means sitting with his books for an hour. However, that doesn't fit with my magical meditation mechanic that I have used previously for this world, so I will work out a homebrew rule that we will use in the future. For now, unless he uses more major magick before tonight, I will say that he will have recovered the lost spell slot before he goes to work for the guard.

P.S. I have also given Guilliame some experience points for this experiment.]

Go back to library and do the study (if that is what it takes). Otherwise see if Velma is busy.

[OOC: I have put together the rules for sorcerous meditation (see here). In Guilliame's case, because his Intelligence Bonus is +2, he can recover 2 levels of spell slots per Short Rest (i.e., one hour). This could be either 2 1st level slots or 1 2nd level slot. In this case, where he only wants to recover 1 1st level spell slot, this would take 1/2 an hour.

The School of Occult Studies has many quiet places for meditation in the gardens and a special rooms with fireplaces in most buildings, though there are no rooms with fireplaces in the Library because of the risk to the books of fire.

On the other hand, as a Wizard, Guilliame also has access to the Arcane Recovery mechanic (see here), so he can recover his missing spell slot in the calm and quiet of the Library while reading the books there.]