When Tartessos hears about this he will ask Talus, Flavius and Terra about how to increase a faerie's might.
"It is my admittedly limited understanding that the reason faeries do what they do is to increase their might over time. If we were to help them in this y interacting and playing their story, they will have more than a single vis when they revert to ivory. Why can we not take the excess while they are inert and not cognizent, then help them regain it once they reform? This seems like a perfect vis source and possibly even an ally if we manage our interaction carefully and then e careful of how much we draw out.
What would it take for a faerie to have two vis when it reverts to ivory?
OOC, how would a mage find out how much vis is in a faerie or the ivory? And how would we be able to measure an increase due to interaction? I'm sure a sponted InCo or InVi might be able to do it?
Terra does not have an answer to this- this question requires actual faerie lore not just a basic familiarity with faeries such as can be found in Merinita lore or faerie magic.
"i'm afraid, as I said," Talus replies, "my knowledge of Faerie is limited. I don't even know if what you propose is possible - or whether it would likely be palatable to faeries."
Nicholae recalls that a faerie can open themselves up to modification- including a change in their power level, by a skilled artist or craftsman, but that such a modification would have intrinsic risk and cost to the faerie, and can only be done if the faerie chooses to allow it.
"Tartessos, that would not work; these faeries aren't plants but more like animals. You can get fruits every year from an apple tree, but you can get a ham from a pig each year. You, magi, have to decide, either you gather the vis or you let them be; I dont think what Tartessos was suggesting in reasonnable nor feasible."
Nicolae tries to choose his words carfully:
"But to answer Talus' question, it can be done, but to a great cost to the faerie. Most would be reluctant, and you would probably need to earn their "trust" in whatever manner they like, be it feed it for a year and a day or ... sell them your first born."
Some people and creatures give Vis every year. I for example have Creo vis grow out of my head. That's what this flower is actually, Terra points to a flower in her hair. Maybe we could get the Faerie's to do the same? I don't think the Faeries will like being killed.
"And I dont think they will appreciate having their lifeforce drained so they are left only with the bare minimum required to subsit. I dont want them to die, but harvesting once would be the more humane thing to do. I am guessing that loosing so much essence would be akin to loosing an arm and a leg.. or even part of your dear Gift.
How would you react if some faerie lord was suggesting to do the same to you?"
Tartessos is genuinely interested in what Nicolae has to say. "Are the Fae truly that different from creatures of the Magic Realm? Some of the vis in magic creatures are inherent to their nature and not mutable save by death. But far more is renewable. For example, an elemental will retain their essence down to the last pawn, and many other beasts follow a nature based cycle of vis production.
It appeared these fae were following the same trend, but I see it goes deeper than that. Please explain further."
I think there was some confusion as to who would be explaining, but...
Faeries are made of glamour- we could go on for some time as to what glamour is but for the purpose of this conversation, there is one key point. Glamour is vis. When you take faerie vis there are basically 3 forms(there are technically more but they are variations on these):
abandoned glamour- a faerie has decided to take on a different roll and left the glamour behind
dead faeries: as noted in this game, dead faeries can get better if nobody messes with the vis
not really faerie vis: faeries are known for collecting magic vis and wrapping it in glamour to make it act like faerie vis
Faerie vis is directly tied to the might that the faerie has (and yes, different roles can have different levels of might for the same faerie- this gets into some very complex metaphysics of faeries which can be very self-contradictory), which means the potential vis harvest is influenced by a faerie's might. Is it possible to grow a faerie's might? Yes- once they accumulate enough experience in pretenses, they can exchange this for might with the help of an artist or craftsman.
Can you take vis from a faerie without destroying them? yes, just take part of the vis
Can you take vis from a faerie without killing it? No, but it will get better
So getting faerie vis by improving faeries and harvesting the vis would be a bit like if there were a huge demand for human fat (don't ask why) so someone decided to fatten you up, induce a coma, surgically remove your fat, and then do this again, and possibly driving your body into malnutrition or stunting your growth in the process.
If we could go ahead and wrap this up I can assign experience and confidence. It pretty much comes down to a choice at this point- live with the faerie troublemakers and find ways to placate them, kill them and dump them where you found them to recover, or kill them and drain the vis to finish the job...
As long there is no decision made by the council how to deal with this, Frederic will kill all Faeries that pest him or one of the coven folk. He will not actively hunt them, but given a change and a reason he will burn them. And he will also make it clear that he will drain their vis.
While Tomas does not like the idea of destroying Faerie, once he has said that he is not going to try to stop Frederic. He know he does not have a good alternative answer,a nd that Frederic is understand reluctant to just ignore their pranks.