Darkwing holds Marie at arm's length while getting the knife-blade in.
(OOC: I rolled a 7 and have brawl 2, so make the 9 without needing to spend confidence! For once things are going my way!)
Nothing spectacular happens, but between Marie's cries and tears as she grabs for the now-seperated pieces of her doll, Borealis feels a cold breeze brushing up against his hands.
"I hate you!" She yells, still crying, before leaving the room at a run.
Borealis felt a breeze....was the wind finally freed? He looks up at the sky, seeing if the cloud patterns are about to move.
He then realises there's a crying girl and he's not too popular with her father - he goes to find the others, hand them some money to give to the girl's father to buy her a new doll, and prepare to leave town in a hurry.
Borealis doesn't see much change to the weather, at least at first. But when the group hits the road, the snow has stopped and the sky seems to be clearing. A ray of sunlight pierces the clouds by the time they have crossed the river, and the snow-covered road is quickly turning to mud.
(10 xp to Borealis, 5 xp to the grogs)
OOC: Thoughts and feelings about the story?
The story was a good match for Borealis' interests, however like most starting magi he is badly handicapped trying to investigate things in a dominion aura. I'm not sure if there were any straightforward magical shortcuts to get you to the main story, so really it relied a lot on mundane interaction in a sensitive setting. I think if played with another person as a companion/grog we could have bounced ideas off each other and done it much more quickly.
Agreed on the implication of another player. I should have invited RSC (Red-Shadow-Claws) to take control of one of the grogs, that might have helped.
There were a few shortcuts that Borealis could have taken to advance the story more quickly, but which could have been riskier. Flying into the snow cloud could have been done much sooner -- I was kinda thinking it would have been his first move. When that didn't happen immediately, I had to devise some other way for him to gather information.
There were several ways he could have resolved the story. Not sure if you want to know: Even just getting Marie's father to sit down with her and explain that her mother was dead would have let her let go of the "she's be back for Christmas, along with the snow" fixation she had. The cloud elemental could have been destroyed using magic, as it wasn't that strong. The binding effect projected by the doll could have been dispelled in any number of ways, or the raw vis it contained simply drained out.
Anyway, I was thinking that with the rejuvenation project, maybe we can advance Borealis a few seasons or years, putting him in a more secure control of the new covenant. This could be done while the new players build their magi. That will allow him to be more rounded and effective in different areas. I think the story was successful in pointing out some of these areas. 