Sorry, I wasn't clear. I'm not trying to sense a "Magical" aura - that's why I changed the spell's name. I'm just trying to sense any supernatural aura. I.e. am I an an aura now, or possibly even a regio (if the spell would detect that). I'm pretty sure I'm in some kind of aura, and I know they all look the same to me; but I want to confirm I am in some kind of aura.
There is no such guideline. You will need to use the new guideline: InVi 5—determine the bonus or penalty the local Aura adds to the casting of this spell, as well as the stability of the spell measured in botch dice.
Note that the guideline you want to use was replaced; the general case doesn't apply to it.
Other than not casting that spell, I'll do what my post says otherwise. Look at the trees, and then make my way carefully down the path, ready to jump if there is danger.
"Picklefish are salty. Picklefish are tasty. They taste a little like fish and a little like pickles. Very good for you. If you eat picklefish every day for a thousand years, you'll live a long time. They usually swim in barrels, packed closely together, but I don't have a barrel so here I am.
"And if you bring me a picklefish to make up for the one you let get away--uh uh, don't argue! You have stars in your eyes so it's your responsibility to see further and be ready for what's coming--and a second picklefish just because, I will help you." He pauses. "With your family. They're about to have some very bad luck. But I can keep the worst of it from them. Most of the worst of it."
You cast the spell and hold the blade aloft; between the two you can see very well.
The floor of rough stone is inset with grooved gutters that lead to the wall and out of side. A work room of some kind, perhaps, where water or more noisome fluids are expected to accumulate in sufficient quantities to flow. Yet the walls are hung with tapestries, out of place for a purely functional room. Unless the tapestries were placed there for someone to hide behind? No, not likely, because they don't go all the way to the floor. Unless one of the tapestries conceals an alcove where an adversary lies in wait? Could be, could be.
Or perhaps there is something with you in the room, impervious to normal senses?
So far, however, no one has ambushed you. If appearances do not deceive, you stand alone in the room.
Has Astris ever been to the Black Forest, or one of the other great forests of Europe, next to which the grandest forest of England is a mere copse? Did he ever have a sense of its vastness, of sheer presence of FOREST even in the absence of any overt supernatural activity?
This forest is like that, only more so.
And if he hasn't, he now has a sense of what people who speak of the Forest mean... except that they didn't do it justice. Not by half.
In a place like this, a man could easily believe that wood shall emerge victorious in its battle against fire and axe and plow.
The trees do nothing. The wind is still. Even without casting a spell, you know that you walk in a place where the boundary between the ordinary vision of man and the true workings of the world thins.
The path leads you to a small clearing. In the center of the clearing is a wooden picket fence, neatly square, perhaps a pace in height. There's a wooden picket gate that dangles wide open and unlatched. The fence was painted white a season or two ago, and surrounds a yard.
Eleven human skulls stand impaled upon eleven upright iron spears all around the yard; the skulls glow from within with a soft and eerie light, noticeable even by day. Weeds and grass grow here, not quite kept in check by a magnificent stallion and a gaggle of scrawny geese.
In the center of the yard stands a small cottage upon two vastly over-sized chicken feet. Smoke rises from a smoke hole in its thatched roof.
Not enough against a friendly (to each other) group of trained knights who have trained together. They bear you to the ground, work you over on general principle, and you continue to luck out in that none of the gathering, jeering crowd notices your chest.
If you cast a spell, you'll be doing it without Hermetic gestures, but shouting firm Hermetic words is probably a Bad Idea, and assuming you don't do that, you find yourself 10 minutes or so later with 3 light and 1 medium wound.
The silver in your pouch is tossed to a very appreciative crowd. With one final contemptuous boot, you are left sprawling ignominiously in filth and offal by the quayside. They leave you your sword--another insult, that! Also, they are not in this to take your stuff. That would be stealing! Giving alms to the less fortunate is charity, and don't you feel so virtuous now?
If you do not act against them, this is what happens, and we pick up as you pick yourself up.
Or maybe casting magic isn't a bad idea, because you have something clever in mind. If so, we pick up with their grappling and immobilizing you.
After some mail back and forth, in which the stereotypical Jerbiton and Thebes Tribunal suspicion of Tremere magi is assuaged by gifts of what turns out to be an exorbitant 5 pawns of vis for any inconvenience, possible damage, and general tokens of regard, blah, blah... the magi of Pilum Aquam are most welcoming, with quarters, grogs to guide you, provisions, whatever you want. Most welcoming indeed; a bargain at one fifth the price. Perhaps you shall get to repay the 'favor' some day. Or perhaps you don't need their help... yet now that they know you have plans in their Tribunal, they might take offense if you decline their 'generosity.'
Or perhaps they have something to hide, and are hoping that you'd not be able to afford their price?
It's up to you.
But first you have to get there! There's the land route, across forest and steppe and mountain to the coast, or the water route, down the Dnieper to the Black Sea, past Constantinople to the Mediterranean and finally to the Adriatic.
Each offers advantages. The land route allows you to stop by Coeris--in fact, you can simply Pylon yourself there, and travel from there. Or perhaps you can get closer. Venice is much closer, but you might not have been there, and probably have not been to Constantinople.
The water route lets you travel down the Dnieper and see for yourself how Cuman and Pecheneg barbarians have choked off the trade to Kyiv. But this takes a long time without magic. So does land travel.
"That is a very serious game your about. I would be very upset if some ill were to befall my family. What sort of bad luck do you mean? " After he answers...
"Tell me where you normally find your picklefish, and I'll get you two."
What do the tapestries show? I'll also look behind them as well. I've got a bad feeling I know what is expected. Does my OoH: Tremere lore give me any clues (2=2 Int +2 OoH:Tremere -1 Nocturnal, -1 Fatigue)?
[OOC: I know what this is, at least generally; obviously Astris does not. I will do my best to keep "player knowledge" apart from "character knowledge."
I think to myself that this looks exactly like the kind of place one has a hideous death in. I'll take a few minutes to look everything over, straining my ears to hear anything from the cottage. I'm thinking this is clearly some heavily mystical something or other and I'd really rather not annoy it. If I can't hear or see anything (more) unusual in the, say, 10 minutes, I call out (in French): "Hello! I am a traveler from a distant land, lost in these woods. I would please speak to the master of this co.... house."
I can't possibly cast while grappled, nor fastcast, nor defend myself, so I get good and beaten up. I remember what I can of this captain and these knights. If I live through this, they won't see many more winters.
Once they leave me be, I'll crawl away. I'm too injured to travel, so I look for a church or monastery that may take me in long enough to heal, at least so I am well enough to travel.
Does the covenant ship anything down the water route? At least as far as Constantinople?
I also see if Eirick can arrange ship passage for me down the Dnieper and to Spalto (or the area nearby Pilum Aquam) Having a magus along may speed up some vital trade. Etc. at the very least, I'd like to avoid a rehash of 1180.1.
One tapestry shows a man at work in his forge, surrounded by much smaller men, also at work. Another shows a unicorn being hunted, each panel a different phase of the hunt. Another shows a Greek symposium. The last depicts the Roman triumph following the Battle of Pydna.
House Tremere lore and tradition suggests that the wise magus always be prepared for the worst, that bad feelings are often well-founded, and that pessimism is a sound basis for strategic planning.
Door or no, I'm not barging unannounced into the home of something that lives in a hut with legs and considers glowing skulls to be tasteful lawn ornaments.
Is there any light or signs of inhabitation from the cottage?
He doesn't know what kind of bad luck, because if he knew, it wouldn't be luck anymore, but a curse, and he expects that you know the difference. And it would be so terrible if anything bad were to happen to them, because they have been so nice and so kind and so understanding over the years. But if you don't want him to get involved, why that's just fine, and he'll have to look for picklefish elsewhere, delicious picklefish, or so he's been told, because he has never had one before, though he's looked in river and stream and lake, and they're supposed to be salty and tasty and very different from regular fish.
Indeed. It's almost a shame that they didn't take your sword, because then you'd have an Arcane Connection. Still, you will probably remember their shields, should you see them again--or their children.
You are taken in, because, as you overhear one monk tell another, even though you certainly deserve at least as much on account of your obvious wickedness and many sins, it is their holy oath to take in all men. They seem capable healers, and bind you up. They let you stay overnight but are not willing to keep you there for the entire month needed for your Medium Wound to heal.
That's probably a good thing, you realize as you leave, because your Hours spell on your chest is going to expire very soon, and your Sun spell on it a few hours after that. It wouldn't do to have a chest suddenly go THUMP to the ground while you are being tended by monks within their holy precincts! If you choose not to at least stay overnight, you feel quite confident they will gladly let you leave.
