Morrigan also proceeds to lean on the wall.
Borealis and Morrigan lean back against the wall, feeling its cool and dry surface. After a moment, Morrigan remembers to close her eyes as well.
A minute passes, then another. Slowly, both notice a strange feeling of detachement, of things slowing down. The sound of birds, of the wind in the leaves of trees, start fading away. Their own heartbeat become gradually louder in their ears, but strangely slow, like the beating of a drum. Doum. Doum. Doum. Each crack and grain of stone under their hands can be felt. Doum. Doum. Doum. The smell of moss and earth, of dry stone and leaves. Doum. Doum. Doum.
A flash of heat, and suddenly there is no longer a stone wall behind their back. They stumble back, almost falling in the dark.
Those not leaning back against the wall, but who were also standing in the cave, also feel the flash of heat and find themselves in the dark. It is warm here.
With a word of magic, Tandaline summons a flame, lighting their surroundings. The group is in a cave tunnel, about eight feet wide and high, vaguely circular.
Morrigan casts Eye of the cat at personal range with soft voice and no movement no botch.
(apparently I suck at using rolz : https://rolz.org/dr?room=Morrigan)
The light from Tandaline should allow her to see just fine now.
She looks at the tunnel and tries to remember the layout Tandaline described earlier.
Morrigan light a regular candle and proceeds to explore the covenant with Tandaline, she's interested in the old labs, the virtus source the new buildings and anything from the old covenant.
Can you show us around Tandaline ?
"Of course," the maga says, "that is why we are here, after all."
Tandaline leads the way into the tunnel. After perhaps fifty paces, you come to the intersection, with another tunnel angling down to the left, and stairs spiraling down tightly to the right. Straight away the original tunnel continues -- and so doesn Tandaline.
A short distance later, you enter the central cavern. It is much as the maga described it. The pond, with the blue glowing water and a stream flowing up from it.
Led by Tandaline, the group approaches the pond, careful with their footing on the uneven floor of the cavern. After examining the surface of the water, Tandaline suddenly points to a spot close to where the water trickles up, "Look! One of the bones has floated up! That is concentrated vis right there." She smiles, "Your first harvest right there. An auspicious beginning. But you better retrieve it before it flows up with the water to the ceiling. When it does, it quickly... well kind of sink to the ceiling and disolves."
OOC Up to the magi present to decide how to recover the floating bone. Based of the speed of its movement towards the trickle, you probably have a minute or two before it goes up.
Borealis says "is anyone particularly skilled at rego magic or fishing things out with a pole? The only method I have is blasting it with wind until it goes to one side."
Hum, I'll try something. I'm not sure if this is an animalem target or a corporem target. I'll try the easier first.
Morrigan first spontaneously casts a ReAn spell move the bone in her direction
OOC : Can I use the base 1 ReAn guideline "manipulate items made from animal products" with target voice +2 (using the tunnel) and duration concentration (+1) in which case I can cast It spontaneously without fatigue ((Re9+An10+aura)/5>4)) If that's Another guideline like extrapolate from ReCo 4"move a target slowly in any direction you please, then I'll use my Evil Eye tunnel first...
The first spell works. The bone moves away from the center of the pond and closer to you, floating in the water until it is in arm's reach.
Morrigan catches the bone.
Interesting, animal magic seems to work on this one. We're fortunate to be here just in time, the odds were against us.
Turning to the magi
Do you happen to have a spell to measure the art and the quantity of virtus there are in this bone ?
She examines the bone she just picked to see if it looks like an animal bone and compares it to the bones on the wall.
Maybe we could install a simple net while we're here If we can acquire one and If we're lucky we could have more bones next time we come back.
The bone is about a foot long and curved like a rib. Probably from an animal the size of a large dog or a sheep.
Borealis says "I am no student of Vim, I prefer studying the winds and mists. The net idea sounds a good one. Let's keep exploring these caves."
Sure thing, I'd like to test other bones still attached to the structure to see if some of them are aligned with corporem but that can wait for after the full exploration.
I shall keep the bone in my bag until we can transfer the vis into a more convenient object.
"Let us move on to the rest of the covenant, then," says Tandaline.
She leads you back to the entrance of the central caversn, then turns right to the sloping passage. Your sources of light reveal that the texture of the walls are different here, striated in a circular pattern around the passage, though the surface under your feet is flat enough. So the tunnel is not quite circular, with perhaps the bottom fourth of the circumference flat and more granular. That gives you decent footing.
You walk about fifty paces before you see a side entrance to the corridor, which wuickly reveals a wooden door. "This was one of the original sancta of the magi living here," explains Tandaline before opening the door, which has no lock. Inside is a short corridor, only four paces long, opening into a fairly large room. The room is circular -- an hemisphere, in fact -- about 20 paces in diameter. Much like the corridor, the surface of the wall is striated, but here the striations are hirozontal, like a succession of rings piled up on each other, gradually getting smaller as they rise to the ceiling. It is pretty much empty.
humm do you think they used circle spells to create the covenant, that would be an interesting approach or maybe he used those striation to cast circle spell with ring duration that might work...
Turning to Tandaline
Do you know the name of the magus who used to own this lab, od maybe his House ? Or his specialty.
Morrigan looks at the striation closely to see If they're continuous and could be used to cast spell of if this is a spiral.
She also search for any indication on how the lab was organised, traces of a fireplace, shelves and such.
Tandaline shrugs, "I was not able to identify the magi who lived here at all, let alone who used which spaces. All of the crafted rooms show the same striations, so that may be linked to the sigil of the magus who created the rooms."
Upon closer examination, you notice that the line are not unbroken. It looks more like an intricate maze of circular lines. The ridges and ripples are curved, more like small waves than something sharply carved, and smooth. (OOC Like the children mazes where you trace the route from one side to the other. Not necessarily a real maze, this is more to illustrate what it looks like.)
No sign of a fireplace, though in a few spots looks it like the ceiling is darker. Perhaps they used braziers or something like that. Anyway, it is quite warm underground (over 73 °F / 21 °C). Uncomfortably warm for thick robes. A bit stuffy as well.
Borealis ponders a moment and says "So we will need lighting, something to freshen the air and considerations of how we are going to eat. We will also need to look at security. Still, this seems a reasonable start."
The darker marks on the wall might indicate that using braziers is possible, but we will need something to freshen the air.
If the entrance we used when we arrived is the only one, security should not be very difficult to set up.
Shall we examine the next room ?
As Tandaline leads you back to the corridor, she says, "The next three rooms are pretty much the same as this one. They form a first circuit around the central cavern, each one a bit deeper underground. I think the last one was their library," she adds as the make their way along the sloping corridor. "It has no scorch marks like the others, and there is some wooden debris piled up on one side. Looked like broken shelves."
Borealis smiles and says "Well, this will make a good set of laboratories. I'm still not sure how we will manage to house servants and keep everyone fed, but this seems reasonable.
Is there much more to see, or should we go visit the nearby town?"