"Albrecht, could you follow this thing to make sure it leaves the covenant rather than popping up somewhere again?"
It flees away from both the muse and either the center of the sanctum- simply choosing to move outwards, or from Silas' lab, it is hard to distinguish which might motivate it in the moment. In either case while it does not head directly directly at the magi it does exit through a wall which leaves it within range of both voice or sight for spellcasting purposes.
Zarkut shouts, "It's fleeing!" for the benefit of those who can't see the spirit.
He attempts a spontaneous PeVi to destroy Magic Might, aiming at a level 10 effect (voice/mom/ind -10 might), and using LLSM to commit to getting at least a 25 casting total. His base roll is d10+12, with booming voice and exaggerated gestures.
"Huh. What hunger spirit?" he asks, moving up next to Argentius and leaning past to look at the scene inside. His eyes widen briefly, but he only gets a brief glimpse of the pair before their magical combat starts. He blinks, confused briefly, but when the muse remanifests, he gives her a polite smile and bows his had in greeting.
"Good showing, that," he compliments, before turning to watch the creature flee away. He briefly reviews in his mind the spells he knows, and frowns. "I'm afraid, sodales, that I do not know any spells to ward off or control wild desert spirits."
Lares waits for Zarkut's spell to go off, reasoning that it is best that at least one of them remain functional.
"Did you get it?" he asks after.
(OOC: I think a level 10 PeVi destroys 14 might: 10 + 4 for the levels [10 - 2 magnitudes for voice])
Roll of 4, 18/2=9, 4 fatigue for levels, 5 total- Zarkut collapses.
level 10 effect, -2 for voice range means level 4 guideline, might reduced by 14- anyone capable of seeing the spirit watches it disintegrate into what your psyche percieves as sand despite having no physical presence.
Aetherius will try and prevent his sodales from hurting himself as he falls from the spell.
Apparently still catching up to what the entire situation is, Plasmatoris lifts a hand and starts to speak to ask a question, and he pauses. No, he stops. He stares, eyes open, mouth pursed in a frown. That was pretty impressive, he thinks. He also thinks, that was rather embaressing to end. Save the covenant, collapse like someone kicked a pile of cabbages. I can definitely make that look better. Take the reality of what the situation is and make it obvious, instead of just going by the banal obviousness of what people can see.
Then he shakes it off as Aetherius moves to catch Zarkut and help him. Oh, I should have thought of that. Plasmatoris walks forwards, crouching down to examine the sand and dirt of the covenant ground, studying the pattern made by wind and foot traffic and other forces, as if trying to glean wisdom from the aether. "Hmm, are-" then he pauses. He was going to ask Zarkut a question, but the other magus is collapsed unconscious, ten feet away, and Plasmatoris is getting distracted again.
He clears his throat. "I missed a few things. First, is anyone hurt? Magus Aetherius seems worn out, but I assume that is because of spellcasting?" And that done, he will finally begin asking questions to catch up on what had been going on.
Lares lets out a cheerful yelp.
"He got it!"
His expression turns grave when he remembers something.
"But it got a bunch of children first. I'll go see if I could help them."
He sighs.
"After that, I'll try to ward everything. We'll have to limp along for a whole season before we can cast a proper Aegis. This is not going to be great."
He looks at the others.
"Try to see what the damage is. Do we risk starvation? Did it get our vis?"
Lares heads out to find all the afflicted children to see how badly they have been hurt.
Aetherius will help Zarkut return to his sanctum.
Argentius heads over to the vis stores to see what condition they're in.
The damage is mostly to the food stores, which you can replace from the oasis but it will be expensive. The children are sick, a simple spell to aid in recovery will likely see them through and it only fed off 5 children when you finish asking around. It did not find the vis stores.
The adventure is worth 9 xp.
Participants confidence rewards:
Zarkut: 3
Aetherius: 1
Lares: 3
Plasmatoris 1
Argentius: 4
Tastheus: 1
Lares first sees to the children, and unless some of the other magi announce they know a suitable formulaic spell, he lifelink sponts ceremonial recovery spells on them in his lab - he will assume +6 to be enough, so level CrCo level 15. This means 5x the following spell:
CrCo for recovering children: : 3 sta + 5 cr + 4 co + 8 aura +2 gestures + 4 ceremonial = 26, /2 is 13
So he will usually make it with 1 fatigue.
After that, he will make sure the leaders of the commoner groups know what happened, and apologizes.
"I consider this a dereliction of our duties to protect you, for which I sincerely apologize. It is evident we are having some trouble adjusting to the new situation in this dangerous environment. I and my sodales will try harder in the future."
Then he runs around the covenant, casting formulaic Rings of Warding Against Spirits (ReMe 15) on anything of importance - vis stores, library, sancta, food stores, etc. He uses Life Boost to get penetration up to 15 and rests in between.
Edit: He will also speak to all the others, emphasizing the importance of everyone learning the Vigil. In particular, Aetherius, Tastheus, and Silas hadn't been talking about learning it, so he will try to pester them to do it. "We need to be prepared for members being unavailable due to trips or hardship. Everyone has to be able to cast this so we don't get hunger spirits running around."
"I thought that could be waiting a couple of seasons, to be honest. I needed to be able to move outside the covenant because of my previous function of Quaestar. But, yes, put this on my to-do list."
With this issue resolved, Argentius smiles, thanking his colleagues and starts to head back to his sanctum. He pauses outside Silas's sanctum for a moment, hesitating as if he's going to knock on the door. But the handsome artificer takes a deep breath and then walks off.
He does a walk about the covenant, continuing to keep his eyes peeled for interlopers, but also continuing his hunt for a creature that might serve as a familiar.
(OOC: Not opposed to burning a confidence point or two to improve any chances to find the familiar.)
He's looking for a familiar on covenant ground, hoping to randomly find an animal with Might that stumbled through the aegis?
Right now he's trying to get a feel for what animals are in the desert but I suppose it's not an impossibility that one might stumble through. See previous adventure. But point made.
As the winter draws to an end, Aetherius suggests to his sodales that they get together for an evening dinner to discuss plans for the coming year.
Lares trots in early, in a good mood. He is just finishing up his long-time dream of learning a moon-duration spell for maintaining spells. All the things he could do with that! And nothing else had attacked the covenant - how lucky! He sits down to wait for the others, greeting each arrival cheerily in turn.
Zarkut enjoys a well-earned nap, and will check around the covenant periodically for the rest of the season to look for any signs of more subtle spirits.
He shows up at the meeting at the end of winter, expecting to discuss a trip to Provence, for which he is willing but not entirely ready.