OOC: Trouble is fun! =D
Regarding the clothes, Alba is capable enough to spont them without fatigue (even at Sun duration, if my math doesn't fail me), and a failed finesse will only cause trouble on a botch, so you only need to roll if you think Alba is the kind of person to really care for fancy clothes.
Anabella does not really seem like talking too much, but she engages in a light conversation.
"Not a long time. Since I was 20 so... about 9 years. 10, next Spring."
Anabella gets a little bashful with the comment regarding her voice, and declines any attempt to make her sing.
Later, while you are outside, Stella manages to find a couple of field mouses, enough to quell her hunger for now, but nothing in comparison to the sausages from Tugurium.
Jacinta leads you from your room towards the tower, and you soon are met with a stone wall with a painted sanctum marking. Jacinta touches the stone wall and it simply corrodes, opening a passage large enough for both of you. On the other side, a spiral staircase leads upwards.
You both walk step by step. Jacinta goes slowly, clearly due to old age. When you reach the top floor and enter the lab, the first word that comes to your mind is messy. You see books, papers, quills and inkpots scattered around in tables, bookcases, on the ground. Lab instruments abound, well mainteined, but well used, distributed all over the lab without rhyme or reason. Ingredients are stacked in several places, and you really can't get a sense if there's any order behind this or if she just puts things wherever there is an open space. Trying to find anything in this room seems impossible.
The second word that comes to mind is unhinged. You see several things that strike you as safety issues, accidents just waiting to happen, and realize that there was really some chance of Jacinta dying during the night, victim of an experiment gone wrong.
The only open space is a magic circle drawn with a silvery ink on the ground, and you see scorching marks on the floor and ceiling where the circle is, and signs of rust in a few inscriptions. Alba is no neophyte to Magic Theory. This seems like an incredible lab to experiment on spells, and one not very safe at that.
Jacinta gestures for you to sit on a wooden crate.
"Make yourself comfortable. I will keep standing a bit, or my knees will burn like brimstone and fire later in the day. Let's get back to our conversation, shall we?"
She listens once again to your explanation regarding Tugurium, and how you received a letter from Phillipus Niger asking to talk to her. If you offer, she declines to read the letter ("I can imagine what it says").
"Well, I can say Phillipus didn't change. I know very well why he wants my spell. It's not called Stormbreaker, by the way, but whatever. I have not named it yet, anyway."
"Phillipus... he is a bit blunt, and giving him a copy will be roughly the same as giving a sharp sword to a kid, but I do own him for a favor. It's not quite the worth of my spell, however. And what is that about trouble with flowers? I have no trouble! I just made a small comment about it to you, you brat!"
She loses patience, just a little.
"Aham... This shouldn't be important enough to cover for it, really... but given the situation, I guess maybe I will accept his suggestion and have you take care of it for me. My 'flower trouble' " - she says, making air quotes.
"I need an edelweiss flower, child. It's simple as that. But I'm old. Too old to go about walking the mountains, searching for one, and that's an errand I can't send Anabella on either."
"There are other magi from my covenant, of course, and other covenfolk, but they all live far away. This tower here is just a chapter house. And to be honest, I don't like most of them very much anyway. Actually, I'm very excited to know how they and the rest of the Alps will react when they discover you are founding a covenant here on the border! Hahaha!"
"Aham... I digress. So, bring me an edelweiss. In exchange I will let you take a copy of my spell to Phillipus. How does that sound?"
Now, Alba has no particular knowledge about the Alps, which will surely make it hard for her to properly assess the challenge, but she has heard before about the edelweiss. To be more precise, she has heard before several legends and stories about plants and flowers, and between them, about the edelweiss, a pure white, strong an noble flower which blooms on the alpine mountains (excellent Faerie Lore roll!! 8+ 3 + 2). Has the legend that the Faerie Queen once fell in love with a mortal. When he died, thrown from the mountain by her servants, she shed tears for the first time, and each tear became an edelweiss.
Another tale says about how the faeries of the spring fought back against the ice giants, pushing away the winter. Upon dying the fairies became flowers, and one of them, one of those who fought the bravest, was edelweiss. Some say that the fight still goes on, and the faeries keep the ice at bay.
Either way, one thing is sure. Alba will need to walk through the mountains again to get this flower.
OOC: ended up being a long post, sorry!