((So that makes the Sta + Carouse scores -2 for Tranquillina and 2 for Ulrich.))
[color=green]"Verdammt." Ulrich downs the ale quickly, then reaches for his die and throws another 1. [color=green]"Verdammt," he mutters again.
[color=green]"I love Rose, with all my heart. And she loves me, too. But...her mater is the Exarch for Normandy and the Britannian Tribunals, and I'm in Phoenix, in the Iberian Tribunal. And I still have ten years left before my Gauntlet, and Rose has ((however many years she has, I'm thinking Ulrich would know, even if I don't))[color=green]. I don't know if we'll be able to be together after our Gauntlets, as much as I would love to spend every moment of my life with her. I just miss her so much!" Ulrich looks like he's almost on the verge of tears, but he steels himself and continues.
[color=green]"I've only been under Ra'am for a few months. He's been teaching me how to make my spells more versatile, and the Code of Hermes, and I've been helping him in the laboratory."
((Does this mean he has to make a Sta + Carouse roll to avoid his first -1 penalty?))
Tranquillina holds her die about six inches above the tabletop. [color=magenta]"How would you make this die remain in this spot for a few seconds, again without using Rego magic?"
Her next roll, which she receives with an intense grin, is a 5.
Tranquillina sighs, not derisively. She tips the unused jug of ale slightly so that she can put a finger to the liquid inside, then pauses to consider before casting what looks to be a Muto Imaginem spell. [color=magenta]"There is a different sort of wine, made a few weeks' journey to the east of here," she explains, pouring them each a small drink. [color=magenta]"It sparkles on the tongue and tastes much less of the grape. Of course I'm only mimicking that wine; you'll have to suppress your magic resistance to smell and taste the difference." She toasts with him to the uncertainty of bad feelings ceasing. ((She can spont a level 4 MuIm spell without fatigue; it'll last only four minutes though. Her Finesse roll to get the taste and smell was 13, but of course she's probably somewhat under by this point....))
((PS: Am I right that apprentices still get magic resistance from their Form scores? So they'd be taught how to suppress said resistance pretty early on?))
[color=magenta]"Ah yes, he mentioned that he is conducting research into Longevity Rituals. Is that what you are helping him with? You must have a fair knowledge of Corpus then."
((Oh, right. Carouse roll die is 0; luckily he has a point in Carouse, so he only rolls one botch die, which comes up a 5. So, Sta + Carouse is 2, well on the road to tipsy-ville.))
Ulrich frowns for a moment, then grins. He touches a spot on the table below the die, and sponts a Creo Herbam to create a rose that grows so that the die is resting on the blossom. Base 1, R: Touch (+1), D: Diameter (+1), T: Individual, for a final Target Level of 3. His CT is Sta 2 + Cr 6 + He 12 + Aura 5 = 25 ÷ 5 = 5, enabling him to pull it off without expending Fatigue. Don't know if the Drunken Penalty of -1 applies to the 25 or the 5, but either way, he still pulls it off. Oh, and his Finesse roll to place it correctly is Per 1 + Finesse 0 + die roll 6 = 7 - Drunkenness Modifier 1 = 6.
Ulrich rolls a 6, and grins even broader than Tranquillina. His fast-cast to try to bring Tranquillina's die to him is Qui 0 + Finesse 0 + die roll of 0, with botch dice of 6, 4 and 4. For a grand total of 0. Woohoo.
Ima just assume that Ulrich loses the die-summon bout, and rolls a 2+4 on his Carouse, for total of 6, so he's down to -2 on his stuff.
[color=green]"Aside from the obvious magics to turn a man into a plant of some kind," he says, [color=green]"when would a spell require the Forms of both Herbam and Corpus?"
((I'm thinking that the suppression of resistance is fairly unique to Parma Magica, since the only times I can remember suppressing your MR, whether Parma, Form Bonuses, or innate MR, is with their own Parma. If that's the case, I'm not comfortable with someone putting their Parma over someone else and then being able to suppress their shared Parma and their Form Bonuses. I could be wrong, though. I'm going to pretend I am, for the sake of the narrative, unless we get a ruling otherwise.))
[color=green]"Thank you," Ulrich says, then sips the wine. [color=green]"Not bad." .
[color=green]"Not really," he admits. [color=green]"What I picked up in Corpus, I got from my first master."
((I think the -1 would only be on the pre-division total, like a bad aura would be.))
[color=magenta]"Nicely done," Tranquillina acknowledges. After a moment, when the rose doesn't even recede, she takes the die in hand herself, with a hard look at Ulrich.
(Don't forget the -1! ))
((Okay, I think the thing to do is: Int + Carouse + die = 10, yes she remembers the rule. Qik + Finesse + die = 7, faster than Ulrich.
Would moving an animal-bone die be base 1, from the ReAn guidelines, or base 2 in analogy with ReTe? Either way Tranquillina can spont a R: Voice, D: Mom spell without fatigue - for now....))
((Int + MT + gratuitous exploder = 31! Snarky answer:)) [color=magenta]"When tracing the origins of a tattoo made from oak gall ink."
Tranquillina raises an eyebrow, which at this late point in the drinking game accidentally looks salacious rather than sarcastic. [color=magenta]"Your first master? I had more than one master as well, may we raise a toast to them all. Who opened your Arts? How did you come to switch?"
Ulrich just looks back with a snarky smirk on his face.
((That's how I did it.))
Ulrich shifts uncomfortably in his seat at Tranquillina's "salacious" look. He tries to look away, only to find his gaze resting on her cleavage again, but is still able to not look like he's leering. ((Com 1 + Guile (to women) 3 + die roll of 9 – drunkenness modifier of, oh, say 3 = 10))
[color=green]"My first master was Silviatos ex Miscellanea, he's the one who found me when he was at Durenmar's chapter house and opened my arts. We moved to Mons Electi about three years ago, but we'd only been there a few weeks when he said he had to take care of some personal business and left me to study until he got back. It was only supposed to be a few weeks, but...he never came back. Apollodorus put me to work, and then Tria claimed me and left me at Mons Electi to continue my apprenticeship while she...did whatever she does. Then, last summer, she moved me to Le Maison de Levrier after Apollodorus..."
He pauses for a moment, then continues. [color=green]"I was only there a few months before Tria sold me to Ra'am, and I moved to Phoenix."
Tranquillina wonders for a moment whether Ulrich was checking her body out, but shakes her head and decides it must be the ale talking instead. ((Her total was 1 below yours.))
For the next round, Tranquillina rolls a 6. ((Her Int + Carouse + die total is 13, large enough to remember which way the die is supposed to go. Her Qik + Finesse + die total is 9.))
((I'm happy to keep going with the drinking game mechanics or to stop, whichever you wish.))
[color=magenta]"That's really interesting. Maybe you know that I'll be moving to Mons Electi in a few weeks," Tranquillina muses optimistically with half-focused eyes. [color=magenta]"I'd be very interested to hear your impressions of your life there, the way the place looked, the quality of the library and all that. Are the magi who are still there friendly? What can you tell me about them?"
She leans back in her chair, drink in one hand, massaging her temple with the other. [color=magenta]"So. I meet a long lost brother," she quips wryly. [color=magenta]"Or non-brother, perhaps. I too was apprenticed to Tria, but only for a short time. She rescued me from my first mater in, let's see, '89. And by '91 she had given me off to Maximianus, my actual pater. Who taught me all kinds of things ... but couldn't repair what was already broken."
((Well, he is 15, tall, blond, and has Venus's Blessing.))
Ulrich throws a 3. He then tries to throw Tranquillina's die ((Fast-cast 0 + die roll 1,1,4 – buzzed 2 = 14)) at her. Aiming is Per 1 + Finesse 0 + die roll 8 – buzzed 2 = 7.
[color=green]"No, I didn't," Ulrich says, genuinely surprised.
He thinks for a minute. [color=green]"Well, Mons Electi is, obviously, on a mountain. There are two sides, the mundane and the regio. The regio is more...extreme. The mountain is bigger, higher, steeper, but neither side is very green. I think most of the magi live in the regio. I think the magi are friendly enough; I didn't deal with them much, outside of my studies. Fiona is a good teacher, and nice. Kind of quiet, sometimes. She took me to Valnastium to study the Gardens." He pauses for a minute, looking a little embarrassed. [color=green]"I don't think I learned as much as I should have, I was kind of thinking about other things a lot of times."
He smiles self-consciously, then continues. [color=green]"Alexei is a Milite, and I think is in charge of the defences.
[color=green]"The library seemed to be pretty good, and from what I heard the magi saying, they seemed to be pretty rich for a covenant. At least, I never heard anyone say they couldn't afford something or should put something off until they could afford it or anything."
Ulrich looks surprised again, as he realizes that Tranquillina isn't as young as he had thought. [color=green]"You look very good, for..." he starts to say before he he realizes that he's too buzzed to finish the compliment without offending her. [color=green]"You look very good," he finally says, lamely.
[color=green]"How did you handle being traded around like that? And what do you mean by 'broken'?"
Tranquillina barely completes her gesture before her own die bounces off her upper arm. Her own successful throw irrelevant, she salutes Ulrich with her cup as she takes her first drink of the game (it is unclear whether it is her first drink of the night). ((Sta + Carouse + die = only 4; she's Buzzed -1.))
[color=magenta]"What is the Cow and Calf Oath?" she asks quickly, to put Ulrich back on the defensive.
Her next die roll will be a 5.
[color=magenta]"Hmm, Fiona, she's Ex Miscellanea," she recalls from somewhere. [color=magenta]"That's too bad ... we probably won't have anything in common. Alexei sure looks the part of a Milite, so that's good to know."
[color=magenta]"Also good to know, and matches with what I've heard from them directly. So sick of having to wait years to make tiny improvements to my lab ... hopefully a thing of the past now." Tranquillina's grammar seems to be a bit less than perfectly formal by this time of the night.
Tranquillina makes a show of looking Ulrich quickly up and down. [color=magenta]"You look pretty good yourself, young man," she comes back, with an indeterminate level of seriousness.
[color=magenta]"Well, I ended up finally with a magus who would let me follow my own inclinations, so that's very good. And, I learned more about political scheming in two years than the rest of my life put together; that's got to come in handy sometime. I've heard a lot about the oh so great Tytalus training techniques, but I tell you, it seemed like garbage from my perspective. Far from building up assurance like they always say, in reality that cursed - demanding - mulish hag...."
The sound stops coming from Tranquillina mouth quite a while before she closes it. The hand that holds her cup halfway between table and face is perfectly still, although her other arm is trembling disquietingly. After a lingering, awkward pause, she swallows, looks at each of her hands in turn, then lets her cup drop back to the table. Squaring her jaw, she turns finally to Ulrich. [color=magenta]"Don't ever let someone else be the judge of what you have and haven't achieved," says a husky voice that could not, possibly, come from someone as young as Tranquillina looks. [color=magenta]"Don't ever let your identity rest inside the judgments of others. For, I tell you ... you will never retrieve it."
[color=green]"That's the understanding that a copy of a given book will not be copied without the permission of the original author." He then throws a 6. Fast-cast to summon Tranquillina's die is 0 + 7 – 2 = 5; aiming roll is 1 + 6 – 2 = 5.
[color=green]"She is pretty smart for ex Misc, though. Seems to know a lot about how magic works."
Ulrich shifts in his chair again. [color=green]"Thank you," he says, a little embarrassed.
Ulrich watches Tranquillina intently, a little concerned. [color=green]"Very good advice, maga, I'll try to heed it."
After a moment of looking worriedly at her, he continues. [color=green]"Are you all right, Tranquillina? Do you want to go to bed?"
Tranquillina has Ulrich beat on both the speed and the accuracy ((Fast Cast 1 + 8 - 1 = 8; Aiming 6 + 5 = 11)) and cheerfully pours him a drink while waiting for his question.
((I so much wanted to misinterpret this as a sexual proposition ... unfortunately Tranquillina exploded her Folk Ken roll into a 17 - boozebonus ))
Tranquillina shakes her head a little vigorously, eliciting a demure hiccup. [color=magenta]"Almost, problly. I think this game hss done its damage." She sweeps up both dice with a hand and slides them across the table to Ulrich. [color=magenta]"One more question for each of us. Any, um, any, topic."
[color=magenta]"Here's mine frr you. What are you going to do as a magus in howevvr many years? I mean, yes, whatrr you going to be good at, but really, what's yrr big, overhanging, purpose?" she gets out while gesturing hugely with both arms.
OOC: Technically incorrect. Cow and Calf means that any copy you make of a book belongs to the guy who sold you your copy, not to you. You don't need permission to make copies. You just don't have the right to sell the copies you make.
Ulrich thinks for a good while before he finally answers. [color=green]"I honestly don't know. I know that I'm at my best when dealing with Herbam, and I'm more than fair with Rego. Being Ra'am's apprentice, I'm probably expected to work on some kind of breakthrough or other, do a lot of research. But as to what kind..." He shrugs.
[color=green]"What I want most is for some way to be with Rose, but that's not what you meant, I don't think." He sits in silence for a couple of minutes.
He finally snaps out of his reverie, and speak without raising his eyes. [color=green]"Last question for you: why are you going to Mons Electi?"
[color=magenta]"Don't ngglect to vigrrously examine your goals for beyond yrr Gauntlet. Aftrr all, why go through thsse fifteen years if you don't know why?" Tranquillina seems to be fading fast. [color=magenta]"And also don't discount yrr feelings for this Rose girl so quickly. There's a lot worse to live for nn life."
After Ulrich's question, Tranquillina's voice grows pensive. [color=magenta]"It's easy to be satisfied with too little, I think. Surely it was getting that way back at Nigrasaxa frr me. I mean, our Tribunal was meetnng again, that was a success already done. And there were obstccles to doing some of the Hermetic dvvelopment nnd invention that I wanned to do. So, maybe, it's sometimes just time to go to a new place ... far from yrr pater ... and really see where you cnn get to when the sky's the limit. And show them and make thmm see how fine a pssition you can get to. Bccause if you never show them, you'll nevrr, they'll never believe or accept it."
The door bursts open, "I thought I heard Ulrich's voice with another's I couldn't recognize. Ra'am says somewhat tersely. "So, you did learn a thing or two from Tria." He turns to Ulrich, "Off to bed. I'll be there in a moment, and we'll discuss what you talked about." If Tranquillina attempts to cast a spell to sober up Ulrich before he leaves, Ra'am won't let her do it.
After Ulrich is gone, "Tranquillina, sober yourself up so we can talk, first."
((Is this Ulrich's first time getting drunk? Or did I read this incorrectly that he's drunk?))
[color=green]"Yes, sir," Ulrich says meekly and slinks out with a quick glance at Tranquillina. When he gets to where he's sleeping, however, he doesn't go to bed, but rather sits down somewhere and thinks.
((Depends on your definition of "drunk." He's had a little too much to drink, since I'm assuming that the contest went in for a good while. But he's got a decent Stamina, so I'm thinking he's got a good buzz going, but isn't full-blown drunk. But, yes, I think it is his first time overindulging.))
(( O ho, didn't expect this! The plot thickens.... ))
Tranquillina blinks several times as Ra'am comes in and Ulrich leaves. Finally, she creates a spell to move her mental faculties back into a sober state. ((Having a little trouble figuring out what this spell would be. Optimistically a ReMe 4 spell would be enough, at Dur: Mom, since I think the change of mental state would persist past the momentary duration. And if "transforming herself" is relevant to this spell, then she can do it with a non-fatiguing spont, even though she probably has some fatigue penalties going right now. Anyway, if she needs to to a fatiguing spont, so be it: her total would be Re 9 + Me 10 + Sta -3 + aura 5 + stress die 3 - Fatigue penalty at most 3 probably = 22/2 = 11, good enough for a Dur: Sun version of the ReMe spell.))
She tries to figure out whether Ra'am is angry with her and how much. ((Folk Ken roll: Per 2 + Folk Ken (their opinions of her) 4 + stress die 3 = 9.)) Once her spell is cast, she looks at Ra'am, waiting for him to speak first.
MuCo, but Tranquillina can pull it off easily enough even being drunk, just do a botch check.
"You should have spoken to me before squirreling yourself away with Ulrich to pick his brain about whatever it is you wanted. I would like a clear accounting of what you spoke about. Keep in mind, I'll contact Aurelius and have him do a thorough scan of Ulrich's recollection of events. If we detect any destruction of memories, I'll have you brought up on charges of interfering, damn the consequnces!"
((Botch check: we cool.))
((Aurelius is a magus at Le Maison?))
[color=magenta]"I think you have allowed your assumptions to race ahead of reality," Tranquillina retorts sharply. [color=magenta]"The boy was despondent over the departure of his love, and I found myself in a mood to commiserate with him. There was no coercion of any kind for him to divulge information, nor did I cast any spell upon him."
Seeing, or suspecting, that this response would not fully satisfy Ra'am, she sighs. [color=magenta]"We indulged in a drinking game, one that apprentices would use while studying with each other; various generic questions were asked about Hermetic magic and society. We spoke about Ulrich's magical interests - Herbam, and Rego, if I recall correctly - and discovered that he and I shared the past event of having been Tria's apprentice for a short time, before settling with more stable paters. And," she adds, a bit tartly, [color=magenta]"we mused upon life and longing and other emotional topics well removed from magical secrets."
"And I was Tria's apprentice as well. Listen, somethings been done to Ulrich, and you're damn lucky you didn't accidentally unlock whatever it was. That's all I'm going to say about it now, and you certainly don't go mentioning it to him, either. This is from Tria. I have tread carefully around him, because when it manifests, it's not going to be pretty. He needs to discipline his mind so that his Arts don't end up controlling him. You ought not go messing around with other magi's apprentices, unless you're going to invoke your Hermetic right under the Code and take one over. Of course, you cannot do that to me. Good evening, Tranquillina." Ra'am leaves without any further discussion.
[color=magenta]"Done to him? By whom?!" Tranquillina calls out, in vain, to Ra'am's retreating form. She, too, sits in her borrowed home and thinks for a while before sleep comes. The words That's all I'm going to say about it now echo in her mind as she drifts off: [color=magenta]Maybe I'll bring it up later ... by letter if not in person....
((If something else happens at Le Maison in the interim, we'll go with that. If not: ))
Over the next few weeks, Tranquillina will procure the best map she can that shows the location of Mons Electi. On the 20th day after Maris's departure, she will spend time with the map privately*, casting The Inexorable Search to determine the location of the grog whose hair she was given. ((She can do this automatically, with typical Penetration of around 30 if it matters.)) Assuming no surprises, she'll do the same on the 25th day, and then on the 30th day and every day thereafter. Her goal is to figure out, as best she can, when the grog is as close to Mons Electi as he's going to get.
))
))
and I guess me too....))
The plot thickens.... ))