"Alive and not-alive. Opposites. Umm..." Fati frowns a bit and then very quickly gives a detailed description of the state of one's soul as it is embraced by Allah. In Arabic. He then smiles and says, "Master Lannister would explain much better, after he decides if you stay or not." He and his students continue to make sure the newcomers stay on the path to the manor house and not wandering off as he tries to move back to describing the lands.
Your luggage train travels east through the grazing pastures and along the road winding between the grapevine fields. In the distance, you can see the high wall and the religious buildings: the church is to the north by the Guadiana, while the mosque is by the small bay to the south, and the temple is partially shielded by the low hills in the northeast. All three are of equal stature, though the hillside diminishes the architectural presence of the temple somewhat. Amid the grapevines is the village proper, whose outskirts is demarked by a circle road. You see little of the single-story stone buildings inside the village, as Fati guides the train to walk the southern quarter of the circle road to head to the Manorhouse.
Your passage is marked by growing silence, with hushed whispers at your backs. Perhaps those who work the docks had been ordered to put on a pleasant face, but the humiliores of the fields and town have a much harder time hiding their concern at the sight of so many warriors marching past the town. At one point, you see three field workers, each woman's features clearly showing a different religious heritage, stop and hug each other in fear of your passing, their religious differences abandoned in the face of strangers.
Casa de Cijara, the eastern-most and highest point of the walled space, appears to be of the same height as the church and mosque. The two story, crenelated manorhouse sits on a manmade plaza, squaring off the ground immediately around the building. (OOC: For game purposes, we're ignoring potential anarchonism from these pictures, though the eastern face of the building is connected to the wall, and exhibits defensive archtecture) When asked, Fati explains that the secrets of their famous wines are coveted by many, and so an Almohadi noble had given them permission to defend themselves properly from the coming Reconquista armies four generations ago. As the hour-long walk continues, Fati's boisterousness is slowly replaced by false bravado, but he rambles on, forcing himself only somewhat successfully to surpress his growing fear of Hiems.
As the party approaches closer, they see that there is a third level to the manor house, partially underground, which serves as stables and other commonspaces on the southern side. This is the entrance they head to.
They are greeted by two women dressed in undyed abaya, their bodies almost entirely covered. After a brief, almost musical conversation in Arabic between Fati and these women, the luggage is dropped off just inside two of the arches leading underground. Shadows seem to dance and move inside the dark.
Fati introduces the taller woman as "Librarian Sharae," the shorter, diminutive woman as "Claudia amid Lannisters."
Sharae tries to step back, in deference to the shorter cloaked woman, who clutches at her arm. They lock eyes briefly, in silent, pleading disagreement over who should speak. Fati saves them again by introducing the scholars Cygna and Hiems, with the titles they had previously given, and indicating that they have arrived at invitation from Senior Lannister.
Claudia relents to Sharae's fear of the strangers and speaks in perfect Latin. "Greetings, and fair welcome to Casa de Cijara." Her voice reveals her as a pre-pubescent child! "You...you have brought quite a company with you. We were not expecting so many. Please have your servants discuss their needs with Sharae. She will work out temporary accommodations for them all. (Sharae, please include those other guests in this.) If the two of you would accompany me, I will lead you into the regio of the Covenant, which the humiliores refer to as the Left Side of the Casa. First, let me introduce you to another visiting scholar, who has also just arrived."
From her manner, you easily deduce that you may bring a grog with you, as is the custom of the Hermetic Order among strangers first meeting.
She leads you into the third, brightly torch-lit arch. A short way inside, you see another diminutive woman, though her tattered, mud-smeared rags reveal her body to be fully matured, though she is shorter than Claudia. "Travelers, may I introduce you to Viscaria Lynchis Verditii. I will leave you to introduce yourselves as we go."
OOC: Feel free to interject some dialogue here.
With that, she leads you into the house, down a set of steps into a series of natural caves beneath the manor proper. She pauses in one cave and indicates two possible paths. "That path leads to an underground hot spring, whose natural medicinal properties have been much enhanced by our covenant. If you lower your Parma while standing in the middle of the pool and praise Tyrion Lannister by name, you will find the bath exceedingly refreshing. There is another hot spring on the Left Side, but few find it as agreeable as the Right one. The regio is through this other path. Please link hands and step only where I step. The route is complicated, and requires us to walk backward at certain places, though it is less so if you have a bit of metal to see reflections in."
Viscaria considers this. "Perhaps some mirrors could be permanently installed?
Claudia concedes this possibility has been discussed before, though the conclusion was usually that it required a quantity which is prohibitively expensive. "Pater Salamandrus wished to train some elementals as guides, but it was not to be."
After a complicated series of steps amid stalagmites, which Viscaria thinks might be actually be danced as a jig, the color of the walls shift, and you find yourselves surrounded by ghostly warriors.
OOC: Pausing here to let RP happen. The ghosts will prove to be Warders, and you'll all be invited to join Jaime in the Left Hot Spring.
Cygna remains mostly quiet for the hour that it takes for them to travel from the dock to the manor house. She is gobsmacked by how huge the covenant is – she had been able to walk from one end of the island to the other in some 15-20 minutes back home. She looks around with thinly-veiled curiosity at everything and everyone, making a mental note of where the Christian church is for later. Try as she might, she is unable to keep herself from looking like a Smallville girl on her first trip to Metropolis.
As the train progresses, she starts to become a little uneasy at all the hushed murmuring that marks their passage. This will take some getting used to, she thinks. It was nothing like this at Riversedge. At least, not that I'd ever seen. Is it like this in all the other covenants in the Order? I don't remember this at Crintera, but then again, we didn't see much of the mundanes, either. I wonder if they're like this simply because we're magi, or is it because of the war with the Moors? She resists the urge to wave friendlily at them until she's been there a little longer and gotten a better feel for the covenant dynamics; for all she knows, they may have good reason to fear strangers.
She watches the shadows shifting just beyond the arches with curiosity, wondering if it's a trick of the light, perhaps caused by torches or candles within, or something more.
She feels another jolt of “culture shock” when she sees Sharae and Claudia, both dressed in apparently identical abayas. She wonders to herself if more women wear those things here, and how she's to be expected to tell them apart. She finds herself surprised yet again when Claudia speaks...a child who speaks good Latin.
“Only my shield grog and my maidservant will be staying with me. The others will only stay long enough to recover from their journey before they return to England." Cygna does not see the glance that Maria shoots her at this.
“I am not familiar with the term amid, Claudia. Are you Magus Jaime Lannister's apprentice?”
Cygna arches a brow at the sight of the diminutive Verditius. “Rough journey, I assume?”
“I am Cygna filia Grus, of the Bjornaer House, late of the Covenant at Riversedge in the Stonehenge Tribunal. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Viscaria.” She will ask if she knows Petros, her sodalis from Riversedge and also Verditius.
“How long does this...bathing ritual last?” Cygna asks with a hint of suspicion.
She uses her Art of Memory skill to try to build a locus for the route to the Regio. 1d10+4+1=15 Crap. um...Not magic, so she should only have to roll the one botch die, right? 1d10=2 Okay, not a botch, but close. Dang. That would have been so useful to memorize right off the bat. Ah well.
When they enter the regio, Cygna is once again gobsmacked when she sees all the ghosts surrounding her. "Well, well, well," says an all-too-familiar voice that only she can hear, "isn't this interesting. It seems I may have to compete for your attention now, Katerina."
The lack of facial cues makes her answer all the harder to understand. "I am not...that is, I no longer...the humiliores do not....It is not a term I have asked them to use."
Viscaria grins cheerfully at her. "Oh, no. The journey was fun. The destination was unexpectedly hazardous, though. I'm glad to be rid of the place. Well met, Cygna. Have you lived here long? I confess I have not yet met Petros Verditii. I shall have to send him a letter!" She seems delighted at the thought. "What is his area of interest?"
There is a pause again. "Why, for the length of a bath, I presume. The humiliores all bath quite regularly, some as often as every week. Senior Tyrion enchanted the waters for the good of the soldiers, I am told, but never confided his methods to me. I am curious to know how he did it though, for the water does not seem to naturally fall into any of the Eight Verditian Forms, and..." Claudia digresses into a nuanced discussion of magical theory.
Hiems remains as expressionless as ever 
He'll say little much later, though, going into brood-mode.
As such, he barely noticed the covenfolk's reactions, nor does he cares about them. He's lost so much already, having held so little, that being an outcast is just natural, falling into old habits.
His servants, however, react accordingly, all in occitan (gerard speaks it with a defaut).
Marie wonders out loud "why do they act like this? What's their problem?", to which Damien replies "I don't know, and I don't care. Like us or not, they'll have to live with us". Gerard, being both kinder and more experimented with life at large, explains his ideas: "Well, look at them. Mostly women, children and elders, some of them arab and jew. They mustn't be sure of our reason to be here, but to see such a large number of christian soldiers, they have every reason to be afraid, perhaps thinking us to be part of the reconquista".
Cecilia, otoh, has another explanation. Discreetly pointing out at Hiems, she whispers "Or maybe they fear him. Which I can surely understand. How can you be fine with this guy? He has always been nice to us, but, well, he looks barely human. Have you touched him? I have, and... I wouldn't recommand it to either of you[. They have every right to be afraid, and I'm not sure we shouldn't"]
Seeing shara and claudia shakes hiems (thus having him bringing up even more his icelike composure), reminding him of another cloistered lady, although of a different sort. He almost feels rage against religion and god for keeping women appart.
To Viscaria, hiems:
Good evening, lady viscaria. I am Hiems ex Miscellanea, from the provencal tribunal.
Hiems is surprised and doesn't like this, although he displays nothing. Seeing Claudia's lack of surprise, though, he assumes this to be normal, which calms him somewhat.
Otherwise, he'll mostly keep silent and icelike, partly lost in the past, partly displaying nothing as a mask versus his emotions.
After a brief moment of tension, the ethereal guards relax their stance, and Claudia leads Cygna, Hiems and Viscaria to the Council Bath Chambers without another word.
Shortly after turning at the fork, the stone has been smoothed into a proper corridor. The bath chamber itself is as large as a noble's dining room, with the hot spring at the far end. Only the first third of the room has been smoothed out, and the ceiling is still full of stalactites. Stonemason tools are scattered about, some growing dusty. A large pile of rubble sits to one side, overflowing and engulfing a rickety wheelbarrow.
The smoothed portion of the room contains an ornate stone table made of the same materials as the caverns, and five chairs. Three of the chairs are occupied by Serrano, Servus and Amos. A badly scarred and bandaged Jamie Lannister is standing in the bath, fully dressed, and haranguing two elderly Jewish maidservants.
"I'm depressed, not daft, you ungrateful heathens! he screams at the maids. "Get off me! Our visitors are sure to be....oh. Hello, Claudia." He deflates quite a bit. "And our guests, I see. Um, yes. Well. Good, then. Shall we....Shall we have a meeting, then?"
The two dripping maidservants scurry out of the room, dripping wet and feeling much put-upon.
Amos was doing his best to make polite small talk with Servus and Serrano and failing miserably at it. He is sitting in the chair to be furthest away from both of the magi already at the table and can be seen visibly cringing while Jamie yells at the maids. Taking note of the new arrivals and doing a quick inventory of the chairs, he gives Cygna and Viscaria a quick smile with a head-ducking nod while standing, and pulls his chair out and gestures for one to sit.
"Salvete. Umm... I don't mind standing - I mean, I prefer standing. Yes, would one of you like a seat? Hopefully it's a pleasure meeting me as much as it will be meeting you." His face freezes as you see him mentally wince at his runaway tongue and sighs. "Anyways, I am Constantine Amos filius Martreau scholae Flambeau Scutum ab Constantinople, from Spineus Roseus in the Provencal Tribunal. Please just call me Amos. Servus and Serrano and I were umm... trying to discuss being here and I guess... I mean, please, sit. I'm sure we're all eagerly awaiting to hear Jamie's full offer besides what we learned in the letters." He looks like he's ready to help one of the ladies to the seat, but since he can't really move the chair anyways his help is really just gestures. He will quickly retreat to the closest wall and lean against it, or stand at parade rest behind the table and chairs--farthest from Jamie and closest to the doors.
He makes a point of avoiding getting close to any of the shield grogs, though he will give a quick perfunctory smile to any female ones.
Viscaria's smile blossoms. "A hot spring!"
She charges forward, leaps and cannonballs into the water. When the splash subsides, she surfaces lazily, and lets her body drift in the water, her mud-smeared white linen dress clinging provocatively to her body.
Remember Spock? That expression he made when perplexed? You see how T'ealc (from stargate: sg1) did? Well, hiems is doing something very like a mix between the two right now o_O
Claudia's answer makes little to no sense to Cygna, but she is able to glean that this is an...awkward subject for their guide.
“The destination was hazardous? You refer to Cijara?”
“I have actually just arrived myself, so no, I've not lived here any time at all. And if I'm understanding Fati correctly, our stay is not nearly as certain as I had understood it to be.”
“He works with stone and metal. Primarily making automata of one kind or another, often for security or comfort”
Cygna scowls as she watches the heavily bandaged man berate the maids, the scene having an all-too-familiar feel to it. She draws a breath, ready to tear into the man for his unconscionable actions, when he suddenly turns and changes from an angry, petty tyrant to...someone who seems almost reasonable. She feels more than a bit of sympathy for the maids as they scurry away.
As Amos gallantly tries to offer his seat to the magae, Cygna smiles a smile that could be construed as condescending. Within moments, her smile turns into another scowl before she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath with fists clenched at her side. When she opens her eyes a moment later, her expression is as clear as though nothing had happened. “Thank you, Amos,” she says politely as she moves to the seat, Terrence taking up a post behind her.
She's just about to take her seat, smoothing her robe around her, when Viscaria cannonballs into the pool. She smiles again, then says to her shield grog in quiet English, “Behave yourself, Terrence.”
Terrence merely blushes, but does not avert his gaze from Viscaria.
Having finished the presentations, Hiems will just sit in a corner (which'll soon become the coldest corner of the room) and wait patiently.
Jaime pauses for a beat before truly reacting to Viscaria's impetuousness. He lets out a short burst of laughter.
"Glad to see that bastard didn't take your spirit in exchange for your lessons, girl. Have you talked to the old codger lately?"
Without waiting for a reply, he climbs up the steps chiseled into one end of the natural spring and, dripping wet, proceeds to a spot halfway between the spring and the assembled magi. His gaze slowly travels across each one of the magi, and his face clearly displays the opinion he has formed of each of you.
"Well, alright then. Fine. It is...fine" He loses himself in thought for a second before repeating himself. "Fine....we should..." He shakes his head to clear his thoughts, and then cleans himself off with a unformulated "Perdo Aquam!" before laying out the facts of your future here like they were stones weighing down his shoulders.
"I need your votes, see. My peers and siblings died at the hands of that bastard. The last fifty years of my life! My dreams wiped out in a day. But you have to carry on, right? So...fine. Winter and ash and the damnably prophetic name of this place, and I'm supposed to just keep on going, though the cause has been lost. Half the continent has been lost. So, fine. Phoenix Covenant must have its Spring, and you lot will be it, along with anyone else who'll give me their sigil before May.
"With your six sigils, I have a handful of rocks with which to start my little avalanche. I'll stay for the rest of the season, help you get settled in, while I wait for my letters, wait to see if any of the ghosts of my men find their way back here. Never understood why they took so long to get back, anyway. Maybe I should have spent more time studying the...but nevermind. A season here, then I'll be off to see if I have any allies left. No idea how long it'll take. Redcaps'll know how to find me if you need something.
The scribes can show you the charter, damnable thing hasn't been touched nor looked at since we made the deal. We've got no Aegis, that'll need to be fixed. Never used more than a quarter of the manor. I can't even remember what's on the second floor. You can use whatever unoccupied rooms you want. The regio is full of ruins, and Cersei tells me the Aegis is plenty big enough to include a few blocks, if you wanted to perch out there.
We got no Vis stores, nor a safe place to start one -- we usually just split the vis as we found it, and held each responsible for their part. The vines need to be pruned back, probably give us two or three rooks of Mentem Vis. Salamandrus had half a queen of Vim Vis in his tower when it blew, some of that might still be around. If it does, it belongs to Claudia, as his apprentice, along with anything else you might find in there.
Any questions?"
Edit: Corrected the number of magi in the room.
Hiems doesn't care much. This is so... trivial, and unimportant. She is gone, and won't come back, a fleeting illusion of hapiness in a world that is nothing but a cold and lonely place.
Still, he must try, and hide things. This is nothing, but it's all he has. And maybe he'll be able to make some friends with his new sodales. Chances are slim, yet... Well, parma protects them from his gift, and, maybe, they can understand him, at least in part. This'd be little, but, well, little is still better than nothing, he guesses.
Mustering what little will to live he has left, hiems thus adresses Jaime
I thank you for your generous offer. There are few magi that would offer us such a chance, and I am grateful for that.
Now, although this is the deal, I'd like to know on which matters you'd like us to lend you our support at tribunal.
Another matter of interest, of course, are politics. What allies can we rely on? Who can we expect to come after us? Are there supernatural creatures nearby that could cause trouble?
Amos remembers his conversations with his pater and is torn between fully investigating the Covenant and regio for clues of possible involvement, and the realization that the star suspect is laying out plans to leave.
"Excuse me sir, but as you speak of gathering your allies and traveling compounded with your already substantial loss, is not magi better than just a magus? Perhaps I can help show the cause is not dead, that more are coming and... well, I guess I'm trying to ask if I can come too." Then Amos frowns for a moment and adds, "it would help if we knew which cause you spoke of and how you plan to use our sigils to start your avalanche, as our sodale asked. The Good Lord may have sent here for more than just upholding your Covenant standing. You never know how much more we could contribute - or accidently mess up since we were not informed, Mary forbid."
Cygna's reactions are in the first part, her questions are after, when Jaime has asked for them.
Cygna feels somewhat lost. It's not that she thinks Jaime Lannister is rambling (much), but more that he's talking about things that she knows nothing about. She suspects that she should have paid more attention to what happened outside of Stonehenge, both hermetically and mundanely, and wonders if the library (or the people) here has information that could help her understand him better. She also wishes, not for the first time, that her mater hadn't been such a strong believer in self-sufficiency.
Cygna's brow furrows, first in irritation, then in thoughtfulness. Hmmm...that is an interesting question, one I've not seen properly addressed in the texts I've studied so far. What is it that draws a ghost to his haunting place? This place certainly seems to have a few shades that she can study, analyze, talk to, whatever. Perhaps she can learn something from them that can help her with her own haunting.
Meanwhile, her shield grog looks very perturbed as he leans forward from his post. “Cygna, if your 'host' is going to abandon his covenant and his sodales like this...we should leave right away,” he whispers in her ear in English. She turns her head.
“We are going nowhere, Terrence, not until we heard them out and get a better feel for the situation,” she whispers back in the same tongue.
“Maga...please!”
“Terrence,” she almost shouts as she turns in her seat and glares at him. “We. Are. Going. Nowhere. Now, return to your post and keep to your place!”
“No Aegis?” Cygna mouths in disbelief. These magi of Phoenix must be unbelievable powerful, naïve, or daft. She also wants to examine the charter before she commits to anything, to ensure that any rights and privileges that Jaime promises are agreed to in writing, lest she accidentally find herself chattel to the established magi of Phoenix.
Cygna won't interrupt Jaime Lannister...I just broke his monologue down to reference the parts she has specific questions about.
“Which bastard are you referring to, Magus? The Order certainly has no shortage of them,” she says with a quick glance over her shoulder at, apparently, nothing.
“I take it that May is when the next Tribunal has been called? And what issues may we expect to deal with at Tribunal?”
“And what of the others?” Cygna asks.
“When we do erect an Aegis, will we be having to do two Aegis, one for each side? Or having to protect one side or the other? Or will the Aegis extend across the Regio boundary?”
and “Cersei is, I assume, one of the other magi here?”
“Excuse me...did you say two or three rooks?” Cygna tries very hard not to drool.
“I thought Claudia said she was not an apprentice. If something had happened to Salamandrus, was no-one able to pick up her training?”
The old, scarred archmagus blinks and the weight of the world seems to press down upon him and you all realize that it has been decades since he has had to share council with anyone who did not know him well enough to finish his thoughts, that he is still deep in the grip of some profound loss which has almost completely unmade him. Small moments from the short journey from the pier to this room fall into place: the children working the docks, the fearful and sad women farmers, the ghosts, certain turns of phrase he's used, the looks of the maids as Jaime harangued them: he is grieving the death of his True Love and the villagers, the humiliores who died with her. He is grieving, and the entirety of this overpopulated covenant grieves with him.
As an afterthought, Cygna and Hiems also realize that whatever the terms of the Charter are, the magi of Phoenix are used to working in such perfect harmony of intention and goodwill that they doubt Jaime or his sodales have called a vote, a council meeting or any other such official thing in an unfathomably long time. But if such is the case, why would they risk such harmony by bringing in so many new magi at once?
OOC: For simplicity of narration, I choose to apply the single die roll to everyone’s Folk Ken scores for this bit. If your character seeks other information, you may roll individually.
”What cause? Which bastard? This is Phoenix Covenant! There is only one cause here: the defense of Islamic culture against those who would blaspheme Our Lord’s Name for their own gain! We have countered the ploys of Rafas and his sacrilegious Reconquistas for over forty years!”
His words, once so clearly full of passion, feel almost mechanical. He catches himself, catches up to the present and once more deflates.
”But no more. We lost too much at Las Navas de Tolosa, when Rafas revealed once and for all that his piety was just a tool for his power hungry madness, for he, along with his cohorts at Jaferiya are in league with the Devil. They summoned demons to fight alongside the Christian armies. Rafas....transformed...” (He shudders and grows pale at the memory) ”into an unholy beast with wings, horns, and a terrible shadow that sucked the life from all it touched. Cersei took to the skies to fight him, but...”
His words melt into a terrible squeal of anguish, his eyes brim with tears. He turns away from you, only to see Viscaria, who is still floating lazily in the pool.
”No, I will not ask you to fight an infernal archmagus twice my age, nor even his minions. I seek only your votes, so that I might call a Wizard’s March upon him and the rest of his shadow-cloaked demonspawn Flambeau. The next tribunal is two summers hence.
“Estancia Es Karida is Roman, but are slow to pick up a sword. Sader will stand by our side. The Neutrals will need proof, or favors, God help them see mercy. I need to confer with Analsek. He was the first to say Rafas had turned Infernal, but we did not believe him. Perhaps if I beg his forgiveness for my disbelief, we might compare notes. With his help, I might turn all of Plateau....”
OOC: It is the 1st of Spring, 1213 AD. The next Iberian Tribunal is June (Summer), 1214 AD.
He sighs heavily, weary like a man who must describe addition in order to finish his thoughts about geometry.
”As for other supernatural threats nearby, Senior Hiems, I am an archmagus. Little threatens me. Lesser courts of Winter and Summer choose the seasons in the forests north of here. I suppose you will find the ants and the spiders a bit taxing to deal with. Oh, and the undead. The regio is crawling with undead, though I usually leave those to the Vintners -- the magical talking grapevines which reside in the Regio, and seem to somehow compel some of our citizens into working alongside them after death. We give those ghostly allies the surname Warder. The Vintners and Warders are considered residents of the covenant, and should not be killed. Though we do prune the Vintners to harvest Mentem, we are careful not to kill individual personalities. They...they will probably balk at having a new face do the pruning.”
He seems much more concerned that you understand the nature of the covenant’s agreement with these creatures than with conveying the potential hazards of the area.
OOC: I assume Cygna does not ask about Cersei after his burst of tears in the earlier speech
"Si, seniorita. It went down a week or two ago. I haven't the Arts to raise it myself, nor the Vis. That was....that was Cersei's job, and I....I am the only living creature to return to Phoenix from Las Navas de Tolosa. They have all....there is only one occupied sanctum at this time.”
Click. And now Hiems knows who it was that he loved, and lost.
OOC: Later, when anyone looks at the Aegis scroll, they will find a map of Cijara and Phoenix Casa-Palacio, demarking a path which allows a single casting to cover both sides of the covenant. The regio-side boundary can either be the manor estate or up to 3 blocks surrounding it. The size of the boundary seems proportional to the level of the spell (40). A lesser copy would cover a smaller amount, and the path would need to be worked out.
”Oh, it is just a guess. But it has been a while since we collected them, and they have grown much since then. Were you interested in genocide, you could probably harvest a queen. But then we would have to deal with the undead by ourselves, and probably the Warders and citizens as well. They would be rather upset.”
”Claudia is to be accorded the full rights and privileges of a hermetic apprentice. Anyone, and I mean anyone who accords her with less respect will face my displeasure. Beyond that, I will say no more. It is her story to tell. She may choose to share it with you at her discretion.”
"Oh, not at all. I sought a greater understanding of certain murky elements of my own history, which led to an unexpectedly long visit to a clan of dwarves and goblins who live just north of here. I...negotiated my freedom, at some length. The bargain required that I come here. I had no idea Phoenix was seeking new magi. All I really know about this covenant is that my pater considers them political rivals."
Viscaria brightens considerably. "I must write to him at once, then! I am extremely interested in the applications of magic for defense. What is an automata? Are they like the Jews' Golems?"
She pronounces the word "Jews" as if it were spelled "Juice."
Throughout the meeting with Jaime thus far, she has been attentive but silent.
“I'm afraid I'm not familiar with the Jews' Golems, so I couldn't say. Perhaps after the meeting we can discuss the matter more fully?”
Cygna snorts derisively at Jaime's crack about ants and spiders. But as he talks about the grapevines and the ghostly warders, her face becomes more intense. She finds herself thinking about the opportunities, what could be gleaned from studying and working with...intelligent talking grapevines and trying to discern the power they have to attract and hold shades. Very interesting.
“What magnitude of Aegis are we talking, here?” Cygna asks (and I'm assuming that Jaime will tell her).
“Do you know Wizard's Communion and the Aegis spell at all? Or, for that matter, do any of us?And do you not have the eight pawns of vis it would require to cast? If I were to move here, I would very much prefer that we have an Aegis erected as soon as possible, without having to wait a season for someone to learn the Aegis spell and someone else to learn the Wizard's Communion.
“We had rights and privileges?” she mutters under her breath. Then, more openly: “I understand. I will treat her as well as my mater treated me. Don't you dare finish that sentence, or so help me!”
“So, to be sure I understand fully: you are offering us full and equal membership in the Covenant of the Phoenix, in exchange for our vote at Tribunal next summer for declaring a Wizard's March on this...Rafas bastard?”
The young Flambeau doubts Jamie is that good of an actor to show such anguish and emotion as a ploy to trick people, and realize he and his pater had made assumptions because they had never met the man. Still, that did not mean there might not be survivors here still hiding out in or around the Covenant. He must stay at Phoenix to complete his mission. His conflict resolved, he spends the rest of the time analyzing Jamie's responses to the other magi and tries to figure out if Jamie is truly a Christian protecting Muslims. This concept is entirely foreign to Amos and it intrigues him.
"Then you have my vote Archmagus!" Amos exclaims. Then, much more quietly, in almost a mumble,"I mean... you know, after we see and sign the Charter and all."
"
"Unfortunately, I am in knowledge of neither spell. Sodales?" Amos pauses to let others chime in. "Also, in things that make us uncomfortable, I noted a multitude of languages being spoken on way to the manor house. Nicholas could only catch some of the Catalan, and I recognized the sounds of Arabic from my own past-"Amos pauses for a moment and shudders. It's hard to tell whether its in fear, anticipation, or anger-"what will we need to learn to communicate with everyone here?"
Viscaria: "Of course!" She practically leaps onto Cygna in delight.
Jaime: "I know Wizard's Communion, and we still have the Lab Text that we memorized, I believe. And no, I used the last of the vis I had while escaping the terrors of Las Navas de Tolosa. I have spent some time thinking on this matter, naturally. Cersei knew of a bountiful source of Vim vis, but I could not tell you where....nor, I suppose, should I until you sign the charter. Perhaps she has left some clue in her sanctum? Or we could wait until she returns with the other fallen souls from the battle. And then, as I said, Salamandrus had a large surplus before he entered Twilight two or three years ago. Should he return, I am sure he will not mind if we borrowed some. It really is time someone did something about that rubble anyway.
"There is, I believe, an opportunity to collect some Rego vis soon.. Oh, and Creo, too. And Salamandrus once commented that there was another source of vis which he did not have the musical skills to collect, but I do not know the details. I fear that after the events of Las Navas de Tolosa, few would be willing to barter for the necessary ingredients, even if I had anything to offer him.
OOC: It is a trivial use of many possible skills (Ease Factor 3) to realize that what he ought to say is, few would be willing to barter with Jaime Lannister. OoH Lore will tell you that new magi, especially non-Iberians, would have better luck, and it is rare that the RedCaps can't work something out. Folk Ken would suggest that Jaime has not been the most politic or polite person to ask for things. Bargain, suitable Craft Skills, and many possible other options to easily see a way around this dilemma that has plagued him for months. Archmagus he may be, but the man is still old and extremely set in his ways.
Jaime: "As they are fond of saying on the coast, the two things you never want to see made are laws and chorizo. I require the use of your sigils for the entirety of the Tribunal of 1214, so that I may broker enough deals to sway votes to the side of True Compassion. Since you all seem eager to step in harm's way, it might be more appropriate to say the offer is full membership in the covenant to any magi who pledges their sigil before June 1st, 1213 AD, to be used by Phoenix Covenant as part of a single vote block for the duration of the Iberian Tribunal of 1214 AD."
OOC: It's late and I'm not a lawyer, so I didn't do that last paragraph justice. Jaime whips out the legalese upon Cygna's request with a flair and penchant that you'd be hard pressed to find in anyone who hadn't made politics their passion for half a century. It is clear from his off-handed suggestion for legal phrasing that he is perfectly capable of understanding or creating extremely specific and detailed legal jargon. Just as clearly, he doesn't believe in the value of such things, at least not in this case. He wants you to agree to the spirit of his proposal, not the wording.
It is also clear from his tightly-conceived legal phrasing that the spirit of his proposal is, "Help me avenge the death of my covenant, and you can have it after I die trying."