1221.4a Comes the Quaesitor

"Oh, you must be Jacques. It is a pleasure to meet you; I am Laetitia scholae Guernici. Viviana asked me to arbitrate some negotiations on your behalf with Mons Electi? I'm afraid I'll need more information."

Jacques has a crow for a familiar which will caw loudly at Laetitia's owl when they first enter.

Jacques looks a bit confused at first " Are you here to renegotiate the terms of vassalage? They are quite generous. I was wondering when our liege would realize it."

Glaukopis glances at the crow's raucous display, and muses, "How undignified."

Laetitia frowns. "Ah, no... She said that it was hoped that you and part of the turb would find a place at Mons Electi, if and when Atsingani disbands. Can you tell me why she would think such an arrangement would require arbitration?"

The reason we were given at the council meeting this spring, was that Mons Electi had expanded too fast to offer membership to the magi of Atsingani so we were to stay as vassals. I am quite willing to accept an offer but it was not given.

"I see. Well, I can't help you if I don't know what the issue is."

She will later ask Fiona to tell her what went on with Atsingani and ME, relate to her Viviana's request, and ask if Fiona will elucidate whatever details Viviana and Jacques are leaving out.

[color=blue]"'twas just a good old-fashioned sheep raid," Fiona says with a smile, sounding either proud, impressed, or both.

[color=blue]"Now, isn't that interesting? The reason we couldn't get a unanimous vote to invite all of Atsingani to become members of Mons Electi was that we had already, during that meeting, accepted three new magi into our number. If we had accepted the four of them, then we would have more than doubled our membership in the span of an hour, and there was concern that that was too many being added in too short a span. And, unfortunately, no one has revisited the issue since, nor broached the subject of adding members from Atsingani singly.

"If Viviana wishes to disband Atsingani and have Jacques and most of their turb join Mons Electi, then I certainly have no problem with that. Once we worked past our initial issues, I found I actually like and respect the lad, and I would be more than willing to invite him into the Covenant. I even said as much during the Spring Council Meeting, but there was no second motion to invite any of the members individually.

"At the next Council meeting, I will move to invite Jacques."

[color=blue]"As far as the terms of the vassalage go...every year, Mons Electi is to give Atsingani one pawn of Vis per active magus, of an Art of their choosing, as long as their choice doesn't deplete more than half of our stores of that Art. In turn, Atsingani would provide a like amount of Vis of a particular art, which to the best of my knowledge hasn't been declared yet, but will be the same Art every year. I'm assuming that the Art in question will be Herbam, but that will likely be made official at the Spring meeting. Aside from that, the terms are what my research show to be what is normal and customary for the Tribunal." (ooc – basically, the same terms described in the insert on page 27 of The Lion and the Lily.)

[color=blue]"Other than that, from what you've said, I can't think of anything."

"Oh-- I hadn't realized speed of expansion was a concern. Actually, I was thinking of requesting a more permanent arrangement here. Moebius is right; I will never again feel that Magvillus is home. And I like it here. Do you think such a request might be well received? Especially with Jacques seeking a home here as well?"

[color=blue]"I know it will be. And, at the moment, I believe that we can handle two new magi, especially seeing as how two of our members haven't been seen in going on two years."

The little Guernicus breathes a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness. If I had to spend another season at Confluensis, I might have found myself in need of an advocate myself. But as to the two who have gone missing... I'd like to help look for them."

At this stage, Fieltarn's been missing probably about a week.

Oh, oops :slight_smile: Who were the two she was referring to, then?

Iosephus and Silviatos.
Silviatos went on a secret journey in Spring of 1220 and hasn't been seen since. Told Ulrich he'd be back soon, never returned. Player never responded to PMs, though they did leave my Outbox.
Iosephus has probably forgotten that he transformed into an elemental state, or in some extended Twilight thing. He's a Criamon, and wrote up a new Path, Path of Transformation. I asked him to post it to the Ars forum, and Timothy Ferguson called it lovely. Could've been a pretty great character... Player just got covered up by work.

OK, I edited my original post. Laetitia is less likely than I am to forget that someone just told her a few days ago, Fieltarn hasn't been gone for that long :stuck_out_tongue:

After Laetitia has visited this site, she forgets all about the tree and its odd shape. She does remember having verified the vis source for Atsingani, though...

Oh shit.

As soon as she notices the gap in her memory, she casts Impression of the Faded Sigil to find out who/what did it and whether there was more excised than just "leave our vis alone." Anything that can penetrate 44 Mentem Resistance is pretty frightening.

So, here's the thing. I want the player to know this, the character doesn't really realize something is missing from her memory. She remembers a tree, remembers verifying the vis source. But the specifics of the tree just don't seem to be all that important. You can write the report, verifying the seisin, by describing the landmarks, describing a tree, and describing the vis source, being acorns from the tree (can't remember that I said that). The character has neither the desire, nor the inclination to describe the tree, other than large tree. She doesn't forget the tree, she forgets the odd shapes.

It would require a lot of Finesse for a maga focused on knowledge and memory, not to notice a gap in her memory, especially when she's sitting down at her desk recalling those specific memories.

It certainly would.

Well, with a 60+ PeMe casting total / Penetration, I guess "Finesse: Obscene" isn't that strange :stuck_out_tongue:

Unless the memories were changed.
A blank (PeMe) is easily noticed.
But if she recalls that the tree was normal, whereas it was not (ReMe, probably), how would she notice?

IMO, this is how it was done. THe penetration is still frightening :open_mouth: