Times flies, faster than men can tell.
Despite all her talks with her grandfather, despite the promises and hopes, nothing happened to Vibria. Sure, her magic improved, as did her fire, but she is still hopelessly human, and nothing seems destined to change on that front.
But one night, everything changes. It is hot already, and, after yet another day in the lab, Vibria has come back to her private quarters, and is relaxing a little before the night, a cool breeze coming from the open window. She barely has time to register a flutter of wings before a huge crow enters the room.
Suffice to say, if you want to cast or spont cast something, now's the time to do it!
[color=red]Great, Vibria thinks as she reaches for a heavy robe. [color=red]Why did it have to be a 'cool' breeze? Maybe I should have pushed harder for Africa. Never gets cold there.
Considering how many fires and fireplaces there are in her quarters, to keep it at what Vibria considers a tolerable temperature, she is going to ready "Tremulous Vault of the Torch's Flame" as a held action.
A crow that size, definitely not normal, she's thinking either Familiar or a magical creature, either one powerful enough to pass through Andorra's Aegis.
Vibria know of only one being who could breach Andorra's Aegis, a fact that still makes Arachne quite uncomfortable.
And sure enough, the crow's shape melts, leaving in its place the human form of Sigmundo.
At last! I thought you'd never get there.
He looks at himself, seemingly checking his form for imperfections, then comes back to vibria, smiling Now, hello dearest! How's my favorite granddaughter?
Now you're talking. I've been freezing out there, waiting for you to come. I know my presence make some of your associates nervous, so I snuck instead of announcing myself, but this got boring after a while.
Meaning I'm up for a good fire, some wine, and all the meat you can find!
Sigmundo's expression goes instantly from joyful to full-on serious I've been thinking about it for a while now. I'm not sure if it's the best thing for you, but if you really want that power...
I think it is time, vibria.
Time for you to face the Terragon Mists.
[color=red]"Let's hope the cooks have recently killed a sheep or three. I've been training a lot with the guard the last couple of months*, and I need to keep my strength up.
[color=red]"The Terragon Mists?" Vibria frowns as she racks her brain**. [color=red]"That sounds vaguely familiar. Where have I heard that before?"
I've just now decided that her Spring of 1243 would be spent training with the Andorran Guard.
** I don't know if this would be Covenant or Area Lore: Andorra or Magic Lore. [strike]If the former, Vibria's hosed, as I've completely forgotten to give her any points in that.[/strike] If it's Area Lore: Andorra, then it's Int 1 + Area Lore 1+ die roll of 8 = 10. If it's Magic Lore, then Int 1 + Magic Lore 5 + die roll of 8 = 14.
OOC: Terrigen mists actually go back to the 1960s with the introduction of the Inhumans to the Marvel Universe. The Terrigen mists were what gave the royal Inhumans their powers.
Yes, but I don't think we have a Hermes Portal to the Blue Area of the Moon, or to the Hudson River for that matter.
The Terragon Mists have, I think, been mentioned in passing at least once in Vibria's presence without much, if any, context. So that was Vibria trying to remember where she had heard it before.
And I somehow, last night, had forgotten that Vibria did put some experience in Area Lore: Andorra after she and Vocis spent a season exploring the covenant and gacking a (fortuitously) Orbis Bjornaer mad-scientist-were-owlbear type. So, I'm editing the previous post.
Fantastic Four issue #45, 1965, The Inhumans. Their city was originally located in the North Sea, latter on the moon, and now the Hudson River.
But this isn't the same mist. It is a recycled name that I am spelling wrong. Tarragon is the name of a spice
As for Lord Featherbottom, he was actually invited to join House Jerbiton nd come to Bellaquin. But he never got the letter. Before squatting like a hermit in our back yard, he was at La Sagra. That is where the "incident. happened? and he ran away.
However, nobody that matters knows any of this. When last seen, LFB was gurgling blood and gasping his dying breath whilst Venkath dined on his entrails.
No one ever followed up on that.
The wedding!
At Vibria's wedding, Maurice was there in a human form. I did mention that, and that he had learned the secret of shapechanging from the Mist. I have also mentioned (ooc so no one knows in character) that Maurice can take a cat shape, and is the father of Vibria's familiar.
And so all of them; Sigmundo, Vibria, Maurice and his brothers, the dragon-cat (namr?); all are descended from SuGarr, Great Serpent of the Pyrenees, chthonic deity of Basque pagans of old.
Soon enough, Vibria and Sigmundo find themselves seated before roasting meat, her grandfather's appetite betraying his true nature.
Vibria remembers it as something which allowed Sigmundo, and maybe others, to gain some powers of shapeshifting. He mentioned it to her as a potential key to awakening her draconic nature. She knows it to be somewhere in the Pyrenees, but that precise knowledge is too elusive for her (although, with 1 confidence, she can know this, and a little more)
The results are slightly different depending on the skill, but whatever.
Vibria is lucky enough to have read some obscure tomes, and, more importantly, connected the dots. Her grandfather's talk of the caves was the key to this.
High in the Pyrenees mountains, there is a cave, hidden in a regio. This cave is rumored to be a nostril of the earth, and, in it, once can find strange, magical mists. These hold power over one's self, forcing change, which may be a blessing or a curse. But of those who inhaled the mists, none were the same afterwards, and none were truly human anymore. She also suspects that there must be a way to direct this power, since this is how her grandfather gained his ability to change shape, as did her cousin.
Vibria mulls over Sigmundo's words, and her own knowledge of what she's picked up here and there over the years, as she tears into the mutton. She doesn't quite match her grandfather's voracious appetite, but it isn't for lack of trying.
[color=red]"Regaining the ability to take my draconic form without resorting to an enchanted item is something that I've been working toward for the last five years," Vibria says as she licks the grease from her fingers. [color=red]"Which isn't all that long in the scheme of things...but I would agree that it's time. When do we start?"
When Sigmundo shifted into human form, he was naked, obviously. And this is where is otherness shows, in that, if he knows how important it is to the human, and thus clothed himself, he lacks the taboo of nudity (His true form is 100% nude, after all), and showed no shame at his state
Vibria also inferred that the mists are part of some kind of proto-mystery, or, more likely, a kind of "natural initiation". She's read about something like this happening in the Black Forest near Durenmar, so it is not unprecedented.
[b]If something can do it, the mists can, although their power eludes even me. Maybe they will, maybe they won't.
And the time is now, darling! Before, it was probably too soon, and after... I fear it'll be too late. But the days are hot, the stars are right, and your body smells of change, just as I thought.
So finish your meal, and off we go, lest we lose these auspicious signs![/b]
Vibria wolfs down the remainder of her meal, then gets up. [color=red]"I hope we have enough time for me to change into something more...fitting."
She steps into her laboratory and quickly dons the Arma Draconis, grabs her Dragon Helm, and wishes she had gotten around to commissioning a thematic sword. [color=red]Ah well...the old trusty shortsword will have to do. At least I had that artist friend of Guiverna's paint a nice dragon on my shield.
By all means, do, but be quick about it. We're on a schedule here, I think. I'll wait for you outside the covenant.
Wow, pretty nice!
When Vibria comes back from her laboratory, she finds that her grandfather has departed, but not without having eaten even more of the meat, while the wine is all but exhausted.
If Vibria wants to do anything special before she leaves Andorra, the time is now
Wow, pretty nice!