[center]1242: Roll Call[/center]
Summer rolls around and the magi head for Durenmar for the Rhine Tribunal, except for Prokui, Sanagos, and Scolarus. The first two because they don't care, and Scolarus because he's already there. Several points of order are made concerning legal matters of conflict, namely between Bjornaer. Another one is discussing what should be done concerning the encroaching Mongol horde, who have recently begun invading Poland, forcing several covenants to flee. Out of these, they ask for covenants in the Order to accept inclusion of any of the refugee magi, to which Andresina accepts the inclusion of Eratosthenes of Ex Miscellanea. The most notable point of order is brought up by Archmagus Niger, whose discovery of a member of the Order of Odin deep in the Rhine is of grave concern, voting that the Rhine should be at the forefront in dealing with this enemy Order. This plays to ego of the upper-most leadership, and they begin to deliberate on the need for sending a member of the Rhine to the North for reconnaissance and assessment of the proper response. One of the Bjornaer (the one that gave Scolarus his next mission for the mystery cult) speaks of a good candidate: loyal Bonisagus who is under Oath to disclose all information, a known teleporter, proven intelligence with recent achievement to Master status, and a recent victim of the Order of Odin's incursion and therefore aware of the threat they pose...Scolarus.
Scolarus, who's been planning and putting off on his trip to Norway for his mystery cult for seven years, accepts the responsibility. A journeyman by the name of Disrun seeks a new covenant to live in for a time, along with their personal assistant, an imposing foreign woman named Lynn (which Eratosthenes recognizes as Mongolian). They accept, and the group makes their way back to Andresina. There, the two new magi are given the task of cleaning out the two old and unused labs as their season of service for staying as guests, which they can then use freely while staying. Erathosthenes asks for assistance in setting up a food source for his familiar, as there are enough sentient animals that he'd rather not risk someone important being hunted by accident due to ignorance, to which Joseph agrees to use one of the spare rooms in the central hall's basement to spontaneously conjure two thousand rats through ReAn & spare wheat taken from the silo, with all of them walled within by a ward to prevent escape. Several covenfolk are tasked to periodically refill barrels with water and wheelbarrows with grain so the rats don't starve, and the familiar is free to come down to snack upon the rats.
Later that season, rumour start moving about that one of the villagers is pregnant, and that they're trying to keep the covenfolk (and magi) unaware of this fact. This is of particular note to Gotvinus, as he's been keeping an eye on their reaction when they realize on their own that they are collectively barren due to the longevity ritual; several divorces over the last couple years due to marital strife at the lack of producing a child being the first indications they're noticing. Enchanting one of the grogs into invisibility, they send him on a mission to infiltrate and check in on this pregnant woman who shouldn't be pregnant. That night, he finds her being attended to by several women and a stranger in a peasant's approximation to wandering priest's garb, applying soot to the woman and encouraging everyone in the hall to start dancing in celebration because the woman seems in perfect health while also reminding them that the wizards in their towers don't care and aren't worth the bother. This stranger, red of hair and strange of accent, chooses a happy couple and anoints them, bidding them good favour at conception this evening. Everyone is encouraged to sleep for the night and let the happy couple consumate their love with God's gift in private, leaving him alone in the building but for the invisible grog. He looks at the grog, asks what the high-and-mighty wizards want, disparages their willingness to actually help, and calls for a 450lbs boar to burst through the door as evidence that they won't lift a finger to save him. Acting magnanimous, he permits the grog to leave, as he is more forgiving than his masters in their ivory towers.
The grog returns with the findings, to which the party prepares themselves with invisible black cloaks to make a personal group visit to the stranger the next day. Finding him alone, they have a short conversation; to which Disrun noticed he is incredibly stricken with Warp, and Gotvinus smells an overwhelming number of active spells on his person. Disrun surprise uses her magic to make him more loyal to her than to anyone else. He apologizes for his deception, reveals himself as the younger brother to Boris, who was slain by wizards after Gotvinus reported his findings. He and his family, originally from the Loch Legean Tribunal, at the direction of someone he only knows as The Eldest, have been infiltrating various covenants and instigating strife between members. Third party individuals had been used for information gathering, and his mission was to foster distrust among the villagers to then recruit them to be enchanted to take down the covenant of Andresina. The Eldest was capable of giving anyone numerous supernatural abilities and skill enhancements, with restrictions of various types; his ability to summon animals would be lost if he ever touched meat, his Second Sight would disappear if he ever witnessed God's might (anything magical aligned with Dominion, aura or creature), etc. He agrees, thanks to Disrun's magic, to work with the party, but is suddenly struck dead. Gotvinus examines the body, takes note of the non-hermetic sigil in the enchantments, and they dispose of it with a Christian burial.
And the beginning of the next season, pigs are found dead one at a time over successive nights, exsanguinated and chewed upon by local fauna. The pigs are disposed of for fear of the meat being bad. This is of concern because most of them are barren, making their size smaller with each successive year and the process of trading grown ones with fertile piglets has been slow. They try to trace the wounds magically, but the arcane connection is too old to track. Directing the village to gather all of the pigs into a pen, they set up half a dozen black cloaks with night vision on guard duty that night, with the fertile pigs kept in the covenant proper. That night, one of the pigs lay down, and nobody noticed that it bled out and died at some point. They try again, and this time one of the pigs actually makes a noise; one of the guards notices several rats crawling upon it and going for the eyes as it falls. One of the black cloaks heads for the covenant to tell them of their discovery, while the rest set themselves upon the rats. One rat is killed and one of the Black Cloaks narrowly avoid grievous injury (without the high-end armor, he'd have five Heavy Wounds), the rats take their chances and successfully escape due to their uncanny teamwork. They examine the dead rat, noting it subtly different from a typical black rat; an almost lionlike puft of fur at the tip of its tail and longer, lupine-like legs. As near as they can tell, their normally timid nature had been replaced with an aggressive, pack-hunting (leadership gives huge bonuses, letting half a dozen able to kill a horse in two rounds) instinct. It also showed Joseph Miller's casting sigil, indicating its magical origin. Checking with some of the covenfolk, a number of rats had been taken from the warded room over the season for use in their pits where the kennel master's hounds would kill for sport.
Concerned with highly dangerous potential, they fill the room with fire to kill any remaining rats they know of. Gotvinus then performs some InAn spontaneous magic (using the corpse as a template for knowing what to look for), slathers himself and several black cloaks with his full suite of invisibility magic, and then spends the next several days hunting down every rat in Andresina.
