1221: One Thread Fits All

Sophronia will. But her player is busy this evening until 8:30 EDT. Or later.

Cygna is still going, also, but her player is fixing to call it a night.

But I got home from work EARLY tonight! (See? The sun's still up!)

Attravere will certainly be in attendance. He'll be dropping by the well a week early to drop off a thing or two in preparation. (Oh no, he be leavin' some buckets!)

Whoever else intends to collect vis, he'll clue them in to his plan to acquire the vis before they would normally set off. It goes something like "I have this bucket. I have this arcane connection to said bucket. This arcane connection to said bucket shall mean vis for us."

He will briefly mention the embarrassment of the previous years' attempt at acquiring vis at the hands of Phessalia of Merinitae. He'll go into greater detail as necessary and comment that Desidarius of Verditius may need the vis for The Contest.

I'm gonna say it's base 5 to teleport a bucket. At AC range, that's level 20.
On the day that the well turns to blood, the aura is 6.
18Re+10Te+10Te (it has a corpus requisite to transport it with the blood in it, but your corpus is higher than your terram)+4int+6au=48.
Roll of 8=more than sufficient to cast a lv25 ReTe.
(We'll store that roll for whatever time you want to cast the spell. Other stuff may happen before you have the chance to gank the vis.)

Unfortunately when the group (Cygna, Sophronia, and Attravere) arrives the day before, they see a stone cottage erected there, obviously a temporary magical effect. Attravere has a pretty good idea who's inside it. "Looks like we got guys camping our spawn point," Sanno grumbles.

You know that the water turns to blood (vis) promptly at dawn, which means that all magi will be without parma the moment the vis is available.

So work out your battle plans beforehand-- timing will be VERY important.

"Well, we can expect Phessalia and Magus Desidarius are inside." Attravere scowls a little while naming HER.

"When the dawn strikes tomorrow I'll rely on our bond while fetching the vis." Attravere nods to Sanno while picking up a blade of grass and tucking it in a pocket. "I'm sure Phessalia will try something close to dawn to prevent us from gathering the vis. Whatever preparations can be made before then which might last through the dawn would be great. If anyone needs something from the covenant, that can be arranged."

Sanno fistbumps Attravere. "I got this."

Cygna inspects the stone cottage as she thinks. [color=red]"So our plan is to, what, scoop up buckets of water at the crack of dawn, watch it turn to blood, and skedaddle? I wonder what they would do if they found out the hard way that they were disturbing a swan's nest?"

((What does Cygna know about Phessalia and Dedisarius?))

"Uhhh... something of the sort, yes." Attravere nods slowly, raising an eyebrow to Cygna curiously before pulling out a small piece of metal and rolling it around in his hand meaningfully.

"Phessalia would probably try to freeze said swan's lake. Desidarius wouldn't disturb such a nest if he didn't have to. He's usually a very decent sort."

These two are the founding magi of Voluntas. Phessalia is a Merinita specializing in Ice, who is quite unpopular, but has an expansive mastery of Lex Hermeticum; she'd be a fantastic Quaesitor if she had any scruples. She gets herself in lots of trouble, but always escapes punishment due to legal technicalities. A few very shrewd magi suspect, however, that she is nowhere near as loose a cannon as she appears to be. Desiderius is a kindly old man with an unfortunate Twilight experience that makes it difficult for him to entertain company; he is an expert with Corpus and is renowned for his healing ability. Their covenant is led by Iulia Jerbitonis, a shrewd politician, and their covenant is mostly Norman. Their covenant also boasts Corvus Bjornaeris, who has a bad reputation for scrying; Valentinus Tremeris, who is known for opposing his mater Goliard; and Roesia Merinitae, known for her mastery of Herbam.

[color=red]"Hmmm...so, going after then, pecking at them and battering them with my wings to drive them off might not work, then.

"I assume that this vis source is no longer registered to us? What if we tried certamen?"

There are many crows in the glade, but Cygna does notice one in particular sitting very still, watching your group very attentively.

Cygna nonchalantly wanders over near where the crow is sitting. [color=red]"Good afternoon, Corvus," she says cheerfully, not looking at him. [color=red]"Beautiful day for a stroll, isn't it? Would you care for anything to eat?"

It tilts its head and squawks, "Corn! Corn! Corn!"

Sophronia snorts derisively.

Cygna shoots a quick glare at Sophronia before she starts rummaging in their food bag for corn. When she finds some, she spreads it on the ground between her and the crow, then sits down and looks at the stone cottage. [color=red]"We're not going to give up our vis source that easily, you know. But perhaps we can come to some kind of accord."

The bird flutters down and starts pecking at whatever Cygna rummages out of her pack. "CORN! CORN!" it shouts raucously, and the nearby birds take up the cry, and descend down on the grain in a flurry of black feathers.

After a minute of this cacophony, a very naked black-eyed man emerges from the stone cottage, and starts shooing the birds away.

[color=red]"Oh, my," Cygna says as she covers/averts her eyes. [color=red]"Ah...good afternoon, Corvus. Care to join us for some lunch?"

He saunters over, his hangin' chad a-swingin', and stares intently at Cygna. "I brought my own meals, little swan," he replies. He turns to the rest of the group, and salutes Sophronia informally from below the waist. "...Though I suppose I could partake of whatever morsels you might have in excess," he appends.

Attravere glances at Sophronia then at Corvus, then down at Corvus' package because he can't help it. Then immediately back to the space between Corvus and Sophronia and wonders if there is anything special going on there. And not just in the naked-man sense of special.