Travel to Venice is without incident, except for a few bouts of sea sickness and what not. After arriving into port, Carmine, partially recovered from exchanging Fatigue levels from Viscaria leads everyone to a small townhouse in the city. She knocks on the door someone opens a peephole and their eyes go wide. The door is quickly opened. "We will be using the portal to return to Valnastium, we won't be in your way than it takes us to pass through. You need not summon your magus, merely report that I brought a group of magi through." Everyone is escorted up to a room on the second floor. Carmine approaches a door opens it and is confronted with a brick wall, but she walks right through it. The servant indicates that everyone else should proceed at their leisure.
well, Isen would try to bring along as many of the survivors as possible, if only to make sure they will survive the vampires. It shouldn't be difficult to drop them to a village nearby their home.
Aside from this, no problem. He's just eager to come back to Mons Electi and discover what happened and how did the covenant fare. Who was the attacker, too.
Survivors? As in the people you let free of the macabre ritual slaughter portion of the cave? Remember, Carmine fired the room after the people went out the main entrance. The entrance that Viscaria created goes to the location where Aeolus moved his ship to, along a cliff face that drops directly into the ocean. It's fairly obvious that the vampires on the island are using the human population on the island as cattle. So, rescuing them would entail rescuing all of them, or destroying the vampire nest outright.
All that is beyond the scope of the mission, and were Apollodorus here, he might even endorse such a course of action, but he's not. I'll point out that when you emerge from the cave system that you are effectively a man down, with Carmine being unconscious.
Aaargh!
Okay. This is hard to swallow for Isen, but he understand priorities. He'll need to come back, though.
Once at Valnastium the party can be transported (incurring an additional warping point), or they can make their way back to Mons Electi overland, fully provisioned by House Jerbiton. The overland route will take about 30-40 days, effectively killing any labwork/advancement.
Players can choose the method of travel individually, it's not all or nothing.
Once I'm clear on how players wish to return, I'll award XP.
Claude is walking. Something is not right when you get discombobulated too many times a month. I heard it makes you lose your hair.
LOL. And Brionne is probably begging for the spell to be cast upon him...
Viscaria will opt for the speedier method. Vin, not understanding the risks, goes with her.
Including the botched roll, I believe that's a total of 3 warping points for her, and 2 for Vin?
(OOC: Feeling a little expository, and then dug up the RAW on Carmine. This came out...)
Viscaria pauses before getting on the boat, just long enough to grab several chunks of rock from the side of the mountain (call it "several" Arcane Connections).
Once on the boat, she makes sure that Carmine is resting comfortably, and falls asleep tending to the woman.
Viscaria dreams....
A horde of undead approach the strange city she calls her home. Safe behind a writhing mass of green and purple tendrils, she watches the unceasing battle. An enemy somehow breaks through the defensive line, and Viscaria tears a thin strip of her Self off her arm, and flings it at foe. The strip of flesh becomes an arrow made of gleaming silver, and strikes true. It does little to damage the foe, but the attack brings the attention of the inhuman army at her command, and the foul undead thing is caught up by tentacles and consumed.
She sees another enemy break through, rips off another part of her Self, and fires again. And again. Each attack costs her some part of herself that is not truly her Self, but is woven into the very fabric of her being.
Viscaria tears herself apart defending her home, and does so gladly.
"Mother," she whispers. "Where are you, Mother? Who are you?"
She turns away from the battle, and sees Carmine standing before her. Carmine embraces her, and pours herself into Viscaria's wounds, filling them with molten silver.
Her body gleams silver in the first rays of dawn, and she feels an unnatural peace settle within her body. Unnatural and yet so very right, she feels....human. Human, in a way that she has not felt since before her apprenticeship began.
She dreams of memories not her own. She dreams of being Carmine. Of hugging her children tight to her breast, as a dull empty place within her struggles against such embraces. No one has ever hugged her like this!
Grandchildren listening to stories told before a fire. Tiny hands held in hers as they walk down marble hallways. Tiny, silver hands, grasping hers.
Tiny silver hands, reaching for her, reaching into her, struggling against a sea made of blood and flesh and bone. Fighting not to drown, not to die out. A part of her which is not her claws her way into herself, burrows deeper, pouring itself through her silver body in molten veins.
"Don't let me drown. Help me, Mother!"
Weak, exhausted, yet rejuvenated and full of natural human vitality, some part of her is suffocating under the weight of her humanity.
Confused, she turns in search of her True Love, and finds him there, reaching out to her. His eyes gleam silver in the firelight, and they embrace, passionate. They kiss, and her love pours his Self into her mouth, turning liquid silver and she begins to choke, to gag.
Somewhere beyond the iron bars, her pater hisses, [color=grey]"Yes, good! Eat it, child! Eat it!"
She is drowning in love, drowning in the union of two souls. One part of her can finally breath easy, and another part is suffocating, being buried alive by the memories of someone else's life.
Falling, falling deep within herself...
Only to land safely upon a spider's web. The web turns silver around her, silken strands turned to molten metal, an intricate network connecting every part of her Self to herself.
Viscaria sits up and sees the flat plane of the spider web reaching out into the lonely void, and suddenly she can breathe again. "Mother!" she cries out.
"Why did you leave me? Mother!"
"Mother!" she cries aloud, suddenly waking aboard the ship.
Yes, she has three warping points now. He has two.
Those who wish to travel mundanely will be going with a Jerbiton Itinerarium making their way to Paris via mundane means. There are two groups, one for Gently Gifted apprentices and one for apprentices with a less gentle Gift. Each group will be passing by Mons Electi on their way to Paris from Valnastium.
Those traveling by magic means may take part in Getting the Band Back Together once I indicate that the time has caught up in that thread. Players in this thread are about a day and a half ahead of that thread.
Isen, too, although he dislikes the warping. There are pressing issues at home, and enough time has been lost already.
Alright, those being transported all gain another warping point, and upon arrival at Mons Electi learn that Apollodorus fell in an attack upon Mons Electi by three magi in black, one of whom was identified as Valerian of Guernicus.
So those of us who took the warping are now in 1222.b or e?
1222.2e 1222.2b is still behind this thread.
Isen is quite dismayed at this new, and he'll be even more once he learns the truth.
For most of his life, he's strived for justice, trying to get away from his pater's shadow, seeing the quaesitores as the guardians of peace and stability in the order. He trusted them to to right, so he'll be quite angry once he recovers.
The next night at sea Viscaria has another dream. In her dream she sees a figure that Viscaria knows is her mother and she beckons Viscaria to follow.
As Viscaria is following she notices she’s on the path leading from Mons Electi’s manor house. It’s a path that she’s familiar with from her recent exploration of the covenant. The path leads to the north and west, but mostly to the west. Viscaria tries with all her might to catch up to her mother. Her mother glides effortlessly inches above the path, while Viscaria trudges along. The figure of her mother never seems to come closer, or draw further.
The journey is timeless, like all travel in dreams, but the path seems to etch itself into Viscaria’s mind. Viscaria’s mother leads her to a small village, and enters a shack that appears to be cut in half. The door closes behind her mother, but Viscaria soon follows. Upon entering the shack no trace of her mother is visible, in fact the only thing within the shack is an exquisite silver mirror that beckons Viscaria. As she walks towards it, instead of Viscaria’s reflection she sees the image of her mother reaching out for her, but not able to touch her.
By the way, Marcus chooses to travel with the normally Gifted Itinerarium. "I have some items remaining in Apollodorus' villa and it will take me some time to pack them up."
Viscaria gets 8 xp
Isen gets 7 xp
Grogs get 5 xp.
Missing anyone?
[strike]I'm thinking that I should spend that on Finesse, Burrowfingers Mastery, Magic Lore, and/or Terram (listed in order of preference). Cap'd at 5xp to any one place?[/strike]
Finesse 5xp
Terram 3*1.5(round up) = 5xp