[center]1236-1237: Silver Years[/center]
Alfonso remembers hearing about the research goals of a Jerbiton from the last party they attended, Aurulentus and his progress toward a longevity ritual that overcomes the limitations of fertility. She heads over to his covenant, and after a couple days and a couple layers of deal-brokering...she provides half a dozen pawns of vis to Gotvinus to teach Aurulentus a huge pile of spells he knows for a season, who then writes a Magic Theory tractatus (under Cow & Calf) that details his breakthrough, which she gives to the Redcap's longevity specialist to read and perform upon her (thus replacing the turbulence-caused one). The Gifted Redcap's services, aside from cost of materials, is also promised of first pick of her current batch of Gifted children as their apprentice.
By this point, Alfonso gains her first minor flaw from the Warp, Secretive. All of her children pick up their first flaw, Monstrous (bird feet). All of the Black Cloaks pick up Afflicted Tongue. The villagers and covenfolk gain either Warped Senses (Sensitivity to Extreme Cold) or Essential Flaw (Avariciousness), in roughly even mixes.
Nearly halfway through the year 1237, Gotvinus is out on business for general Guernicus work, Alfonso is out on Redcap work, and two grogs (Dobbins & Eustace) are out of town for salt deliveries. Urban isn't really an option any more due to the salt volume being drastically reduced after the Rhine's Silver Consensus, and the covenant wanted to not have quite so large a cut taken from their sales. Alfonso stops in Verdun to check on the grogs' in Verdun, who are on their way back to Andresina with the silver from the salt sales. As Eustace is about to pay his tab before heading out, he realizes he has no money, and the silver from the back is completely missing.
The three do their best to retrace their steps, look around for clues, etc. Not a hint of where the silver disappeared is in sight. They head out and start searching the city proper for leads, to which Dobbins notices a child handing a large sum of money to three of the bishop's soldiers. Following the two, Dobbins sees that they go to a crappy building in the tanning district. There is some smashing sounds, followed by a soldier chasing out a couple from an adjacent room/building (wall broken down for expansion). Locating Alfonso and Eustace to catch them up on the potential issues happening, Alfonso flies in to spy on the goings-on.
The child is cleaning up some of the rubble, one of the guards is evidently also learned and is taking notes at the command of a tanner with a plump white woman hanging on his arm. The tanner details a rather nice house and hands the guard three pounds of silver to give to the carpenter he's tasked to find. As the guard heads out, Alfonso follows and gathers Dobbins & Eustace to join in stopping the man in an alley before reaching the carpenter. Distracting him long enough, Alfonso transforms from a moorish-man into an asp while Dobbins and Eustace jump out of hiding for the ambush. They take the money (confirmed to be from Eustace's bag) from the guard's corpse, then Alfonso flies as swiftly as possible to Andresina to tell the magi of the predicament.
Sanagos and Prokui don't think it's worth their time. Scolarus and Joseph take some flying carpets and reach Verdun by morning. Alfonso spies on the tanner that morning, at which point the Bishop of Verdun walks in and begins negotiations. The tanner offers a regular and sizeable rent for the guards and enough land for him to live in private and with enough protection to maintain this privacy for him, his child, and his woman. The bishop accepts ten pounds as an upfront initial pay after being assured that the money is from entirely legit means that will cause no consequence, then leaves.
Alfonso flags down the bishop in human form, and subsequently throws down some damn impressive Presence+Intrigue numbers to both convince the bishop that the money is indeed stolen and for them to reacquire the stolen goods under certain restrictions: no more than one of the bishop's men can die, no public display of force such as an invading army or similar maneuver, and no casualties beyond the tanner and his two dependents. Thanking the bishop, and leaving him the ten pounds of silver as a gesture of good will, Alfonso leaves to discuss with the other magi their plan.
The following night, while the tanner sleeps with a dozen guards keeping watch, the three magi plan on a nearby roof. Joseph sends a nearby bolt of wood to go through some stuff, distracting the guards that have a view of the street, permitting Scolarus to float silently downward to get a view of the window where the tanner is sleeping. Then, he teleports the man out of bed and onto the top of a building in front of Alfonso and the grogs. The interrogation yields results, but Alfonso doesn't believe his story of "hot new girlfriend gave it" and eventually gets a panicked admission of "nobody was watching, so I just ran in and grapped the silver I could."
Scolarus attempts to teleport the woman, but gets a -5 on his penetration and fails to actually affect her. Concerned, he flies in to tell Alfonso and Joseph. They keep the tanner under wraps and Alfonso spies upon the house itself to check on the house guards, finding the woman having woken up to eat some food and yell at one of the guards to find her man. Joseph attempts to invisibly slap her with Demons' Eternal Oblivion, but nothing happens. Out of concern for their safety, the magi head back home, the tanner and his son (the latter picked up later) forcibly 'enlisted' to join their covenant.
Thinking the troubles to be handled, the magi go about their business for the rest of the season. Iovhar notes some irregularities in the records, specifically that £90 are missing from their coffers. This galvanizes the magi into investigation; Gotvinus spontaneously casts a counting spell on the current coffers and Owlowiscious uses its scrying power on the room. Five weeks go by, and it's revealed one Saturday evening each month, £30 disappear from the coffers completely inexplicably. Gotvinus uses another spell of sensing silver by smell, and gets a huge whiff from Karl's old lab, which is where he'd been storing his extra salt sales before leaving to be the Queen Beneath the Dandelions (all one tonne of it).
