1222.etc 100 Pieces of Mons Electi

Viscaria opens the note, it reads:

[i]To Fiona's Sodales,

Fiona is safe in my hands. She will return anon after she has completed her transformation.

Warm regards,
The Blacksmith of Brandywine
[/i]

She actually has the sanctum marker on the two doors...but she's also been missing for a week, and left her familiar neglected. I think under the circumstances, she would understand that the child might have come across a clue to her disappearance, as long as they don't poke around too much.

To be clear, when I wrote that, I assumed that the entire cottage was her sanctum, but that her garden was not considered part of her sanctum. Viscaria was knowingly and intentionally violating the sanctum. If someone wants to point this out to her, I'll be quite happy to roleplay her response.

I was just thinking that I'd read somewhere that part of her cottage was a receiving area.

Paul doesn't care, too much, as long as he gets his whiskey. He'll snarl and snap a bit if you try and mess with lab notes or equipment.

She has an entryway that has a chair and a couple of coat- or cloak-pegs, but she invited Jormungandr into the cottage.

I had forgotten, as well...but Fiona does have a maidservant who lives in the cottage. Not sure how useful she'll be with a seven- or eight-month old child, but she is there somewhere. Maybe. Should be.

This is why I'm trying to make that grog/location list...


Sometime after the meeting of 1222.2e, Viscaria will set her alchemical processes to simmer for the day, and then gathering Vin and Theraphosa, will follow the path she dreamed of while on the boat. She suspects that she'll be gone for a few days, and has tried to keep her alchemical processes under account for that, as much as she could.

As they step beyond her sanctum, Viscaria reaches her will out to the strange veins of glowing ore that run through the caverns. She's long known that they react to the presence of magic, but it was only somewhat recently that she discovered she could still her mana-beat in a way that caused the light to diminish enough that she didn't need to sleep under a dozen blankets. Though they would fade on their own, it's been her long habit to turn off all the lights that need not stay on as she leaves her lab, and she has no intention of giving up the habit. Viscaria reaches into her Self, through her elemental half, and out to the rocks, drawing their ebbing power to a close, so that she can make sure she's left nothing on.

Again, she absent-mindedly wonders what it would be like to rarefy the glowing ore. Someday, she promises herself once again. Someday I'll start my study of the earth elementals. But after I finish this Tribunal project.

With these thoughts in her mind, she heads down the path of her dreams, barely daring to hope what might be at the end of it.

After about a half day's travel Viscaria begins to realize that while she remembers the entire path vividly, she's not traveled nearly far enough. Calling back the memory of her dream, a rough estimate is at least a week of hard travel to get to the destination based on her memory. Viscaria should also be struck by the vivid details she recalls from her dream.

Ah, well, she has far too many duties right now to disappear for a week or more, especially given the current turmoil. She'll head back to the covenant for now, and plan a lengthier expedition.

(idle drawings of various vivid memories shall shed off her like leaves in autumn until then, too)

That summer (not sure if it matters when, but definitely after Fall of Night, possibly even after Getting the Band Back Together), Ulrich seeks out Theraphosa. Although he'll try not to let it appear that he's sought her out – he's going to play like "Oh, fancy running into you here!"

He starts off with idle banter. "Lovely weather we're having," and "How are you doing," tripe like that.

After a few minutes, he will bring up when they were sitting next to each other at the meeting just after Apollodorus's death, and how much he enjoyed her next to him. "It made a very difficult time a little more bearable."

He smiles at Thera (trying desperately to ignore the fact that he's talking to a spider the size of a child). "You make a very pretty woman, by the way. Anyway, I was thinking...it felt like we were on the verge of something special before...things got crazy again. And I was wondering if you wanted to pick up where we left off, see what happens?"

The day after the council meeting, Fiona gets word that Reynault is asking for her.

While Fiona and Laetitia are away from Mons Electi comes to visit and finds Fiona gone. She leaves a note on Fiona's cottage door, it reads: Maris and I need to talk to you, send us word when you've returned.

Fiona drops whatever she's working on and hurries to him. She knocks on the door, waits to be admitted, then kneels next to his bed (I'm assuming that he's sick in bed).

[color=blue]"I'm here, Reynault," she says gently as she looks him over and wishes there was something she could do.

"Fiona, I wished to inform you, there are certain details of my relationship with Apollodorus that will become clear as our journals are read. I'm not sure anyone will understand, but I wanted someone to know, and not judge us too harshly." Reynault looks very weak, and he has a fever.

Fiona nods. [color=blue]"I suspected there was more to your relationship than met the eye, the way you've been fading since his death. Can I get you some water?"

Fiona's going to try a Spontaneous CrCo to soothe his fever. I'm guessing that it would be base 3 (same as "Prevent all of a target's wounds from getting any worse" and +6 to Recovery rolls). R: Voice (+2), D: Sun (+2), T: Individual, makes the target level 15. Sta 3 + Cr 6 + Co 14 + Aura 5 = 28 + die roll of 5 = 33 ÷2 = 16. Pretty much spot on.

[color=blue]"You can tell me anything, Reynault, and you have my word that I'll not judge you, nor repeat what you've told me unless you want me to."

"I've laid all my secrets bare in my journals. As has Apollodorus, or Xenophon, as I knew him longest. We had to be separated for a long time. I don't wish for you to do anything. I wish for the end to come to me quickly, as the light of my world has gone. You should know this, though. Valerian's interest in Apollodorus was beyond what happened that night.

"You see, Valerian fancied Apollodorus. Many gifts were sent here to Apollodorus, and all were returned. Valerian will be much more dangerous than you can imagine, now. He had to destroy that which he desired most. That which he desired most was also that which was most dangerous to his House. I'm not she he can reconcile his feelings, and will instead act to bury them, likely unsuccessfully. I've had my writings collected in that armarius over there. They should be removed to Apollodorus sanctum."
A coughing fit is the last noise Reynault makes, after giving up his final burden.

Fiona will take a few minutes to cry it out and gather her composure after he passes.

Once she does, she goes to pick up the armarius (I'm thinking it's about the size of a good-size briefcase or something, and Google's not being very helpful here) and carry it to Apollodorius's sanctum.

If she sees anyone on the way, she will simply say, [color=blue]"He's gone."

She then calls for whomever to do whatever they need to with his body.

"It did feel quite....unusual to spend the night in that body, although it had far too few limbs for my taste. I prefer to be able to still have a pair of hands free while holding someone down..." Theraphosa responds sensually, trying not to salivate at the prospect of ensnaring this young magus into her schemes. (Just as soon as she figures out what her schemes will be, anyway.)

"I have much work to do in the laboratory this season, but you are always welcome to find me whenever you feel the need for....company.

(Spending a season romancing Theraphosa might count as Training in Folk Ken, Guile or Intrigue, as Theraphosa spends her free time analyzing the Hermetic Order and looking for ways to influence it. Think "Dangerous Liasons.")

(Tangent: With Intrigue 3(plotting), I think Theraphosa is actually better able to coordinate all this anti-Valerian stuff than anyone else in the covenant. )

She runs into Viscaria, who appeared to be heading towards Reynault's chambers with a list in her hand. "Oh, that's right, he was sick.... she mumbles absentmindedly.

Viscaria stares somewhat numbly at the wax tablet in her hand, her thoughts full of mortality and the never-ceasing tides of time.

"How about tonight, after dinner?" Ulrich says, as his mind starts to wander into the field of bawdy fantasy. [color=green]"I have a place of my own, we won't be disturbed, we can get to know each other rather well." (He still, afaik, doesn't know that it was Fiona who gave Thera the human form, and may well assume that it's a power that Thera has, as is not uncommon amongst magical animals and familiars.)

She chitters loudly, revealing a mouth full of fangs. "Ah, for the eagerness of youth. Nae, my child, such an obvious move will never yield your goal. Tell me, are you familiar with chess? There is purported to be a magnificent board nearby, all the better to show you some more effective moves..."

(OOC: Dammit, I really am going to have to watch Dangerous Liasons, as research.)