(No problem at all.)
Regulus seems a bit conflicted before commiting to an answer.
"You won't die... but if you do, I'll take care so that you reach home again."
"If I should meet your father, or your family, what do I tell them of you?"
"Thank you... than you..."
As Regulus looks at Varius, a strange henomena begins. Varius stops moving and seems to become smaller, as if drying out. His skin takes on a grey tinges, small cracks start to appear on his face and body. Then, he starts crumbling away into ashes.
In less than a minute, all that is left is a small heap of ashes with a few objects. Sandals, their leather cracked and old. A knife in its sheath, the leather cracked and the bronze handle green with age. A small belt purse, its leather also cracked.
And here I am left, wihout an answer... Not that I will be happening upon any of them, I believe.
"Don't worry, Varius. You rest here. You deserve it. I will bring help."
Regulus pats his vest and goes ahead, looking for the exit to the tunnels. He grabs none of the items left behind, nor the ashes. He goes slowly, mulling over the entire encounter.
After exiting the tunnels Regulus returns to his tower for a change of clothes befoere finding Simon Le Blanc and ordering him to grab a clay pot ("one with a tight lid, Simon") and a few clean pieces of cloth. Remembering how easy it is for Simon to get lost he also orders him to find a grog more used to navigating the tunnels.
Returning to were he left Varius they collects the ashes in the pot and use the pieces of cloth to wrap the sandals, knife and purse, carefully so that they do not break. Regulus intends to bring this items to his lab and spont a few InVi spells to discern if there is any magic worth investigating.
Unless interrupted by someone or something he does as above and then goes to sleep, reporting the issue to the other magi on the following day.
The ashes and sandals together contain one pawn of Vim vis. The knife another. The purse contains eleven tarnished silver coins of Roman mint, which together contain a third pawn.
(You can add 3 xp of story xp to the season, in addition to the 2 xp of exposure you were already getting.)
(This concludes the short story. If Regulus intends to travel to Sardinia in order to honor his promise, let me know. This would lead to a follow-up story.)
(Did you like this story? Comments are welcome.)
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Whoa. A lot of vis. Wasn't expecting anything to be honest.
Next actions:
Regulus keeps to his promisses, so he is going to Sardinia, but not right now. His priority at the moment is still the incoming Rhine Tribunal. At the moment he will:
- ask Julius for help, both with locating the place described by Varius and on how to properly keep his ashes, according to what would be acceptable for a roman soldier;
- if Julius can't help with either of these he will write to people he knows (he did spend part of his apprenticeship in Magvillus) and inquire, without mentioning the reason he wants the information;
- in the mean time he will move the vis out of the objects and store them in his lab as safely as he can.
- he will also record his dream and his experiences and request for it to be included in Tugurium annals (if we have nothing of sorts this will be the first entry), since it can provide a bit of insight on the mysteries behind (and below) the covenant.
Regulus will plan for the travel to take place between 1208 and 1210, depending on how things go after the Tribunal.
- Julius indicates that, with the information Varius provided during his talk with Regulus, he will probably be able to locate which town in Sardinia he was from. Whether you are able to locate the house is probably a different challenge.
- Magic Theory allows Regulus to know that, if there is the remnants of a spirit linked to the ashes, and perheps the other items, then extracting it would destroy the spirit. This is more likely to be the case with the ashes.
(EDIT: Note that this is purposefully meant to present Regulus with a price for his decision to honor his promise -- the sacrifice of a part of the vis -- in addition to the time and efforts it will take him to travel to Sardinia.)
A promise is a promise.
Not much to do about the vis then. Regulus will set all items aside for now, as they are, stored in a respectful way. There will be time later to check which (if any) holds a link to Varius' spirit.
(Even if the answer happened to be none, he would still honor the promise.)
I liked the story. It puts a bit of detail in the story of the covenant grounds, which I always appreciate. It also helped me pinpoint a few shortcomings of Regulus. He does need an extra set of spells and a bit of dedication to the Arts.
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A couple more things that Regulus asks:
- Did anything like that happened before in the covenant?
- Is there any other corpse or remais of roman soldiers in the trireme?
- Do Leonardus notes mention anything else of interest regarding the ship or the serpent?
- Do we have an estimate on how big the complex of caves is?
After his season of spell inventing ends:
- What (if anything) is detected after using Sense the Feet that Thread the Earth towards/within the caves? Is there anything worth noticing within 1 mile of the entrance? And actually, would the spell reach further, since it actually targets a sheet of earth 1mm thick with an area of roughly 8 km^2?
Regulus is likely to, someday, invent a spell to map out the caves. But he will need a few more years before that, and probably a familiar or apprentice (or both) helping him.
Not that Clusius is aware of.
OOC: Of course, a number of the original magi who joined the covenant are now missing, so maybe one of them notice something and didn't report it. 
(Just a joke!)
No one has investigated the inside of the ship, as far as you know. Its position and state are precatious. The wood is at least several centuries old, and the ship lies at an angle within the coils of the petrified serpent.
Since it is also one of the covenant's important vis source, no one seems willing to risk it.
Nothing aside from describing it as a vis source.
No. To complicate things, the network of caves seems to change over time, much like the covenant itself.
By the time Regulus goes back, he cannot find the way to the cave where he woke up.
The spell doesn't work within the cave network under the covenant.
Good luck with that! You may need to find another apprentice if you send him/her alone in the caves.
What about trying to use the rock he cast the light on as an AC to that specific cave?
The apprentice is to boost his lab total and invent a better spell. He can't advocate for apprentice rights and then do something like that. XD
But I'm sure we have our quota of adventurous grogs willing to explore... =9
Ok, I think both I and Regulus know everything we wanted for now. =]
Does he know a spell for that? If he goes spontaneous, I'll need parameters and a die roll (with the risk of botch inherent to spontaneous magic).
There's a reason the entrance to the cave network is behind a barred door. 
Regulus would use The Ear for Distant Voices just to see if the spell goes through, expecting the spell to fail if the rock is not a valid AC, and to hear nothing if it succeeds (assuming the cave is empty...).
If it works he will keep the rock in his lab for now (it should last "years"). The key point here for him is to figure out if that room can be located or not. Not because he wants to reach that room again (albeit he might someday), but because he or someone else might need to locate a particular cave within the complex later, and having an AC would be useful.
The spell fails. There is a number of reasons why this would happen.
Can a Magic Theory roll provide clues? If so, Regulus Int is +1 and MT 4. Rolled a 4, for a total of 9.
Anyway, Regulus registers everything and shares the information with Clusius and the others.
Here's a few ones:
- The rock wasn't an arcane connection to anything
- Whatever the rock is an arcane connection to, is protected by magic resistance beyond your ability to penetrate
- Whatever the rock is an arcane connection to, is in a regio
- Whatever the rock is an arcane connection to, no longer exists
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