((Must have missed this))
Brionne shudders at the touch of magic, seeming to breathe in the spell as it's cast upon him, closing his eyes for a moment and then opening them with the glint of a night time predator in his eyes.
"That...that'd be grand m'lady, I thank you truly." he says as he stands up a little unsteadily for a moment and looks about him.
((His eyes, by Fiona's sigil, are completely white, like marbles.))
Fiona reaches out a steadying hand and looks down at Brionne worriedly. [color=blue]"Are ye all right, lad?"
Brionne nods a little slowly as he's still savoring the rush of the magic. "Aye m'lady, just fine and thank you." It's perhaps not so difficult to see the source of his various...afflictions. It must have required quite a lot of magic to do this to him...
"Well, I have a shift on the watch tonight." he points to his eyes. "This will help, I'm sure. If there's anything else I can do for m'lady?"
Fiona shakes her head "no" with a thoughtful look on her face. [color=blue]"No, that will be all," she says as she leads him back to the front door. [color=blue]"Thank you again for your time."
"Indeed, she is intimidating," Tranquillina admits. "At first, Tria did much of the talking - there seemed to be a lot of secrecy at play; or at least a pretense of secrecy - hence Korvin being asked to leave, even though they placed no prohibition on my reporting to him. Let me see...." Tranquillina gathers her memories of the conversation, which was far too long for a casting of By His Works to be useful. "Tria made a big deal of the fact that Maris was Apollodorus's filia. She said that knowing how to talk to Maris, how not to surprise her or make her feel threatened enough to control her surroundings, was a skill she had developed over a very long period of acquaintance. She likened her to Apollodorus in this way, as well as ..." Tranquillina scrunches up her face, slightly unsure. "... as well as Apollodorus's first filius, whom she did not name. But she said Alexei would know this magus. Alexei...?" she queries.
Alexei seemed a bit distracted with the talk of different magi that he hadn't thought of in awhile. At the mention of his name he perks up. "Eh? Who..? Oh...um...Apollodorus's first filius...I met him yes. Bulled his way into the Covenant and tried imposing his will. He was...I...Iaptus? Something like that, a real bastard. The next time I see him...well truthfully there's not much I can do, Maris easily defeated me in Certamen that we had for the love, and Maris is younger than he."
The hint of a story behind Alexei's comment piqued Tranquillina's curiosity, but that will probably have to wait for another time. "Iapetus! - that's it, Tria did say the name later, while talking about Ulrich - " She stops herself suddenly, looking quickly at Rose, but then tries to conceal the fact that she made a connection between the two. ((Prs 2 + Guile 3 + stress die 9 = 14.)) "Let me back up a step, it will make more sense then: Tria was discussing the effect that Apollodorus's mentorship had on these three: Iapetus, then Maris, and then Ulrich, who is currently Ra'am's apprentice at [strike]Le Maison[/strike] Phoenix. Somehow, he managed to ... instill a vast amount of skill with Rego into his pupils ... not in an ordinary way. It created a, a danger within each one: something that could burst up at any moment, impelling them to impose their will upon their surroundings. Apparently Apollodorus managed to lessen the impact of this effect upon Maris; not so, with Iapetus; and with Ulrich...." she shrugs, not finishing the sentence.
"The first day I set foot in Mons Electi ... I transported myself to a traveling group led by Maris and our sodalis Rose here. I spoke of the field Aegis to this council at the time - those who are new," she nods to Roberto, Gerulf, and Stultus in turn, "should ask about it sometime. But I might not have mentioned that when I tried to express my views on it, Maris paralyzed me with a glance." Tranquillina looks around, making sure she has the magi's full attention. "Think about that, sodales. Between the moment I started moving my arm and the moment it would have touched hers, she overwhelmed my Parma Magica with a spell that could have been conveyed only through her gaze. Thinking about the power that implies.... I have spent perhaps half of my time as a maga studying the great Art of Corpus. If I had spent every moment of my life, starting from the day my Arts were opened" (Stultus, if he perks up, might notice her eyes narrowing briefly at this memory) "studying nothing but Corpus, season after season ... it is possible that I might have been able to cast such a spell and penetrate a specialist's resistance. But - without speaking a word?!" She shakes her head. "This is the magnitude of the Rego power Apollodorus's filia commands."
Fiona looks thoughtful as she quietly listens to Tranquillina's tale, missing the glance that she shot at Rose.
Fiona whistles lowly in amazement.
[color=blue]"And, possibly, Ulrich?" Fiona says, as she thinks back to how the apprentice embarrassed himself at the Primi dinner party, and how he had ogled her when she was teaching him some years before.
"And possibly Ulrich," Tranquillina concurs. "Although that much is speculation, perhaps." She smooths her dress reflexively, her eyes up towards the ceiling as she searches her memory. "Iapetus ... Maris spoke further of him, a bit. He had apprentices, a lover - all of them cursed, with lycanthropy. Their hope was to procreate so that their lineage, similarly afflicted, would comprise a powerful force. One that I would not wish present in our Order," she adds nervously.
"The conversation with Maris was odd: it seemed to me that she would not speak of certain matters until Tria brought them up. In troth, more that she could not ... some sort of compulsion, magically enforced?" Tranquillina tilts her head curiously, inviting theories. "She did say that Apollodorus - then called Xenophon of course - experienced a prolonged Twilight episode, several years in length, after attempting to advance his understanding of the Arts using vis. Afterwards, House Tremere saw that he had gained significant power, and employed him correspondingly in their organization; but he did not reveal its true, unfathomable extent."
Shortly after Viscaria leaves (which, I'm assuming, is immediately after the Normandy Tribunal), taking Vin Diesel with her, a red-eyed Wen approaches whoever's in charge of the turb.
"Do you have need of a scout?" she asks. "I know the area, and I'm willing to learn the bow and whatever else I need to."
Deykin breaks ranks and grabs his younger sister by the arm, pulling her aside, and they have a heated discussion in Welsh, during which the name "Vin Diesel" can be heard a few times. Wen finally pulls free and storms over to whomever, glaring up at him and waiting for an answer.