"Thank you, Mistress Dorana," Konrad says with a bow.
A few our later, a steward comes to tell you that an escort is waiting to accompany you to the chapter house.
A young redcap is waiting for you in the courtyard. "Ready?" He asks a bit impatiently. He seems slightly annoyed.
Konrad comes out. "I'm really sorry about this," he says with genuine regret in his voice. "I was willing to wait until next week when the regular supply run went out. But Mistress Dorana didn't want me sticking around the covenant. There's no way you could give me directions so I could go on my own, is there? I can fly there if I had good enough directions."
The young redcap shrugs, "Yeah, maga Dorana is like that. Anyway, I have indications to find the chapter house, but then I know the region fairly well. I'm not sure I could give you informations detailed enough to get there on your own, unless you come from around there." After a pause, he adds with a disgusted expression, "And it's not like us mundane redcaps have 'anything better to do with our time', you know?" You can literally hear the quotes. "And Dorana would be really pissed off if I didn't make sure you get there safely."
"By the way, my name is Guntram." With that said, the redcap lead your small group out of Fengheld.
The trip itself is fairly uneventful, with the weather being a bit cold for the season but otherwise fair. You spend almost a week travelling, sometimes taking less-travelled roads between villages instead of the better path taken by most merchants. Konrad tries to find landmarks that would help him fly directly between the chapter house and the covenant, but he expects it to be difficult to make such a long trip on his own the first few times.
Mid-afternoon on the sixth day, you pass through the town of Walsrode, a fairly quiet place from what little you see of it. You can hear a the call of a bell coming from the southern part of the town, followed by the faint sound of singing voices. Along the northern side of a small stream the crosses town, there are the various shops and houses one find in most towns. On at the northern edge, set on a small rise, is a small manor house where the local knight probably lives. The town has a small river running through it, flowing southward.
Guntram leads you through the town, then heads north along the river. Less than an hour later, after hesitating a little, he turns back a little ways before turning west on a smaller path, which soon starts to disappear. The ground slowly becomes softer, and wisps of mist starts appearing between the trees. After half an hour more, you reach the banks of a small lake of undetermined size, as much of it is hidden by mist. After a little while travelling along the length of the lake, Guntram finds the place he was looking for. He spends some time searching the area, "There should be a hand bell hidden somewhere." A quick search locates it, and he rings it a few times in a pattern. "Now we wait."
After less than an hour, a boat emerges from the mist, with a man pushing it along with a wooden pole. It is soon lashed down beside the rocky area. The boatman invites you aboard, before pushing away from the rocks and poling the boat back the way he came.
Despite the cloudy sky, you can see that the water is crystal-clear water and doesn't look very deep. It has heavy vegetation at its bottom. But the boatman's pole sinks much deeper than you expect, so it looks like that same vegetation lays a heavy carpet at the bottom of the lake.
The boat regularly passes though misty patches, where the mist is thick and cold, cutting down visibility to only a few paces. Looking untroubled, the boatman keeps pushing the boat with the same long strokes of his pole. Between the patches of mist, more of the lake is revealed, along with more patches of mist. To the south you catch a glimpse of the distant shore between the bands of mist, before they drift and cut off that view.
After moving west for several minutes, the lake begins to transform. Small knolls of muddy earth topped with grass start to appear, as do trees with their trunk growing out of the water. The sound of frogs and insects is occasionally interrupted by a splash of water or a bird's call. The boatman guides your boat between the knolls for almost half an hour, occasionally crossing into another patch of mist, before the view opens unto the chapter house.
At first you only catch sight of part of an island, then a stubby tower. Finally, the mist parts and gives you a more complete view of the island. It is not very large, though it is certainly a lot bigger than the muddy knolls you've crossed while crossing over. There is a low, wide tower that rises two stories at the northern end of the island. A small number of armed men are waiting at the small jetty located further south. The south end of the island still has a few trees, surrounding a wodden house that looks like it has seen better days. From afar, you can see someone that appears to be Renatus coming out of the tower.
A few minutes later, your boat is secured to the jetty and you are on solid land again. Renatus greets you.
(To be continued in a different topic.)
Konrad understands what the redcap is going through, though the redcap might not believe him. He's currently at the beck and call of the masters, and has no real say over where he goes and what he does. Masters say jump and he's expected to ask how high. Of course the young redcap would probably say that it's different being a magus, and maybe he was right. Still, it felt like he had no control over his life.
So he starts slowly, first trying to sympathize with the redcap, without being patronizing, and then just trying to get to know him a little better. After all, they were going to be traveling for some time together. He even offers to share his Parma with the man as they travel so that it's not any more uncomfortable a trip than it has to be.
[hr][/hr]
OOC: FWIW, Konrad will try a Charm + Per check to overcome his bad first impression. (That's actually his specialty in Charm). So, with the -3 from the Gift, he gets a straight 1d10.
Per + Charm check: 1D10 = [6] = 6 (That would be 9 if the redcap agreed to share Konrad's Parma and removed the -3.)
Also, I find it odd that you say it would be impossible to fly between the chapterhouse and Fengheld at present. You implied that it was only a two-day flight when Renatus proposed it, and said that the more trips he made, the shorter that would become as he established landmarks that he could follow to take a more direct route instead of following the rivers and roads. Had he made significantly more trips at that time that he was more familiar with the route?
(OOC: Actually, I didn't say it was impossible. Guntram expressed his belief that he wouldn't be able to give Konrad sufficient information to get there on his own. Perhaps because he doesn't know the place well enough, or perhaps because he wouldn't be able to give you the appropriate landmarks for an air-based trip. I added later on that it would be difficult to make the trip the first few times. That means the trip will take longer, not that it will be impossible. As for Renatus of Bjornaer being able to make the trip in two days, that's because the route the larger party took was longer, but easier to follow from the air. The route that Guntram chose was shorter but used smaller trails that are harder to spot from above, and even harder to differentiate from other trails. Finally, Renatus flew to Fengheld in the first place, and encountered the problems of such a trip.)
(In short, it isn't impossible, just diffcult -- hence it takes longer. After a first land-based trip has been performed, that is, unless it is another flight-capable person who describes the landmarks to look for.)
(Just so you know, I am basing myself on descriptions of how the first WW1 pilots had trouble determining exactly where they were after a longer trip. Flying without accurate instruments and good maps makes it is easy to get lost, unless you take much longer routes by following clear landmarks such as rivers, major roads and large cities. 
)
OOC: THe best way to fly is to go is IFR (I follow roads or I follow rivers). 
(OOC: Exactly. And that only works so far, with the major roads, rivers and cities. For multi-day trips, in bird shape where you cannot take notes, it's hard to remember how many small villages you've passed along that major river, looking for a smaller one. Is that the seventh hamlet or the eight one? Is that the river I'm looking for or is that just a stream? With maps of the time being fairly crude and designed for land and river travel, there are too many landmarks missing for them to be useful.)