Animus nods, "Indeed, if we are to work together it would be a good idea to have some familiarity with each other's strengths."
"I have been trained as a scout by my House. I am reasonably strong in Intellego and Imaginem, but my specialty is Auram. I have been told that I carry the blood of Aquilon, the Roman god of the northern wind, which allows me to run like the wind and thus travel quite fast."
Menatia nods and looks with interest at Animus and Hildegarde as they describe their magical strengths.
"My main strength should be my gentle gift. I can't really imagine how it would be to live a life with people being suspicious of you all the time." She tries not to look with pity at the other two magi but fails slightly. "Mentem is my strongest art by far, but I know quite a few tricks with Intellego and Rego as well. Recently I have had a strong interest in Herbam so maybe you would be able to teach me a few things Hildegarde."
She turns to Animus as they walk on "So you can run like the wind? You mean you run that fast without using magic, naturally?"
"At any time, without casting any spells." Animus smiles in rememberance, "I have always liked to run. I ran from Fengheld to here in two days.
Eduardo would be the last to catch up with the group, snagging the tail end of their conversation as he was dressed in the same firebrand red robes, with black underclothing, chunky rings settled upon both hands and his hair looks meticulously fret over as he dipped his head to them and moved in suit* Good morning my fellow Magi, and interesting mix of skills and powers it seems, my own specialization in magic follows the school of Apromor, brutal skill in perdo designed to lay waste to redoubts and the pithy bulwark of viziers and offenders of the code. As for having a gentle gift, it must be a blessing indeed, it is suprising you were not sought out by the Jerbiton.
"Two days wow! Yet Adele travels the same way twice between dawn and noon" Menatia grins sardonically at the Tremere.
"Jerbiton, yes that would have been easy." she answers Eduardo and it seems for a moment that she is about to say something else, but instead she looks away and just walks on silent.
Animus nods his greetings to Eduardo, before turning back to Hildegarde. "Isn't a specialty in Herbam unusual for a Flambeau? I have heard much more about their aptitude with Ignem or," he nods again at Eduardo, "with Perdo for those who follow the teaching of Apromor. How is it that your pater provided you with such unusual training?"
He grinned widely at Mentia, all to wide Well we are all better off with Tytalyn verve and spitfire, one cannot simply watch the order fall into complacency. He tilted his head to follow the conversation as if to hear it better than a simple audience.
"Mock all you want, Tytalus," Animus replies angrily, his previous good humor gone in an instant, "but I have yet to see you offer anything useful in our investigation." He steps closer to Menatia menacingly, "In fact, all you have done so far is to express admiration for the perpetrator of this charade and insult those around you. Perhaps we are looking too far away for the culprit?"
OOC: Just acting out his Wrathful flaw.
HIldegarde answers Animus, She seems a bit bored suddenly "Well, This is quite possibly the question I hear the most... Anyway...In the beginning of my training, my master taught me a bit of creo, a bit of ignem, being from the founders school himself. I don't have any deficiency in those forms but I wasn't too fond of It... I was much more interested in his secondary school, the school of Vilano."
She adds, a bit cryptic" I guess his previous experience with an apprentice made him more disposed to allow me to give It a try."
Her look become vacant for a moment but she follows with renewed energy" He found out that I'm pretty good at rego and finesse so this was a logical choice. Instead of beginning with one of the two main schools and develop later the sufficient amount of penetration and spell mastery to make them really efficient, which can be really time consuming, He allowed me to start with a larger array of spell that bypass parma magica and that are equally efficient against foes of any strength. In the end, this seems to be quite a good choice in my opinion. But I admit that this isn't the most common way"
When Eduardo talks about her specialization she comments "I remember the small display of skill you showed me last time we met, your perdo skills were already quite sharp at the time"
As Menatia irritates the Tremere, She refrains a smile and try to appease him by adding "I'm sure If House Tremere trained him as a scout, He must be quite efficient at it. They rarely waste their resources in my modest experience."
She then turns to the Tytalus " You seem quite eager to seek challenge as expected, but I'm quite surprise that you're interested in Herbam is there a particular reason you want to learn It ?"
Menatia smiles broadly at Eduardo's and Animus' remarks. "Well none of us has shown anything to prove us useful to the investigation yet. Adele will be first to show her skills when she gets back - if she gets back. I'm sure we will have use for your running skills Animus, and Auram can be very useful indeed. Your House-relation to Madame Daria could also prove a boon to our investigation unless you value your house traditions higher of course. Which I have heard you Tremere do quite strongly..." she mumbles the last words as if just remembering what she has heard of Tremere magi before.
Turning to the whole group now.
"Anyway, don't fool yourselves that I don't want to catch this perpetrator and learn him, or her for that matter, a lesson. But I think it would be a waste to just burn him or let Eduardo use his Perdo magic on him without finding out the whole scheme first. I think we should meet this challenge with the same weapon that is used against us. Trickery and deciet."
She then turns back to Animus and looks deeply at him "But you are right, he may be closer than we think." she says in a darker voice to resemble a man and it might even have some slight resemblence to the Redcap that delivered her letter. She smiles at the Tremere again.
In reply to Hildegarde she answers "I have spent quite some time at Florum where they produce linen and are closely connected to the clothing trade. This has got me interested in different forms of Creo Herbam to create fashion that can be useful for different situations. Disguises you might say. Quite different from your Herbam focus I assume but still we might be able to learn from each other in time."
Come now Maga Menatia, it would be poor and ill suited to assume that my skills are simply like the swath of a siege cannon, strike a keystone and an arch crumbles, cripple a man and he can still speak but he sure is not going anywhere. He spoke in counterpoint that he simply would have killed the man doured his eyes lightly but the rest of his face did not show it as he fixed the way his robes clung to his shoulders as he listened on the study of herbam.
"I may have preconceptions of your House Magus Eduardo just like some of you seem to have of mine, but Hildegarde has already made me realize there is more to Flambeau magi than fire and destruction and so may you of course. I believe we should use all our strengths to make this investigation as effective as possible. If we were all the same nothing would be accomplished."
She pauses for a moment to think before continuing. "Maybe the schemer behind the letters have a plan that is grander and in the end prove beneficial to us?" She looks at Animus "I'm just saying, no praising."
Animus struggles visibly to control his temper. Hildegarde's intervention deflects it somewhat, which helps, but it still takes him a few moments to get hold of himself. He opens his mouth to add something, but realizes that the conversation has moved on without him. So he shrugs and mutter to himself, "Provocations and innuendos, what else can you expect from a Tytalus. I was warned about them, I should have remembered that." He grumbles a little more, trailing the group of magi as they move towards the library.
When Menatia looks at him, he simply looks back, saying nothing.
"Clothings, hmm... I've heard Bjornaer magus use this kind of spell, so lab text probably exist. This would probably be something around the 3rd magnitude, but you probably want animalem requisite. I'm not sure this is really worth spending a season inventing a formulaic version unless you plan to use It often or in urban areas." Hildegarde pauses to meditate Menatia's idea "An enchanted dress that you can re-weave at will and that let's you mentally control its threads to suffocate a foe or grapple him might be worthy of interest on the other hand"
[b]I'm sure we'll have opportunities to collaborate, I have an interest in mentem which is probably also quite different from your focus. Mentem can be quite useful to give plants enough intellect and perception to act as sentinels or even as scouts If you allow them to move.
But for now let's focus on the current task"[/b]
"I already know a version of the spell that is common among the Bjornaer but I have thought about developing it, making more intricate designs possibly with Animal requisite as you suggest. But I really like your thinking of a piece of clothing that can be given to someone and then while they wear it it can be mentally controlled." Menatia muses on the subject for a while.
"That is great ideas regarding mixing Mentem and Herbam as well. I had a discussion about something similar with one of the magi at Florum as well. I have always preferred to work with Herbam rather than Animal and the Intellego aspect is really interesting. We should certainly discuss this more and collaborate when we have sorted this out."
After walking silently for a while she turns to Animus again this time looking more serious.
"Animus, I have always wondered if it's true that the wind can talk. As an Auram expert I thought maybe you would know."
"If one knows how to listen to it, it can talk indeed. My pater displayed such skills, but I have not yet learned to do it fully nor reliably. Still, in limited ways I am able to use it to provide me with valuable information at times.
Hildegarde seems surprise, She smiles at Menatia and answers "I was thinking of a dress you wear yourself with treads acting like tentacles, a gift used to assassinate someone would not be considered chivalrous so I would rather avoid using It myself. But I guess we had different masters"
Eduardo laughed at the note of chivalry if you choke a person to death with their own clothing, it is because they are foolish enough to fall into your trap, however there is a sort of panache that one can see of them gasping out their breath, many of their spells rendered ineffective as they writhe before their last breath escapes them. I once saw a wizard war won by a Magus poisoning the oils of his rivals concubine, she escaped unharmed and his rival stone dead. He stroked the scruff on his chin as he mulled There are quite a few impressions one can make of other houses, but to make garishly large inferences tend to put the Magus or Maga in question as a disadvantage...though I have yet to find a complete non combative flambeau or a meek Tytalus, somethings will stand the test of scrutiny.
Hildegarde's expression suddenly changed into a nasty grimace "Panache ?!!" She chuckled " I don't know who you're trying to impress with your morbid descriptions since you arrived Eduardo . You believe my training was so different than yours ? The metallic taste of blood, the sickening smell of human flesh burning in agony, the sound of bones breaking are forever engraved in my mind. This isn't what makes us proud member of House Flambeau ! How dare you call those assassinations acts of panache, sooner or later you'll find a way to brag about waiting in a cesspit to get an arcane connection. Sometimes things have to be done to achieve victory, and they're not pretty, but that's not this way you learn anything, that's not this way you gain respect of your peers, nor glory"
I make no bones about your education, Hildegarde one way or the other. Glory is held by the victor who retains breathing while his rival or enemy is given the stones soft and silent embrace of the ground. How dare I though Maga Hildegarde? You should take a good look at the tactics of the Venetians, the Florentines. Victory is Glory, and Glory is victory, few will ever celebrate the loser and I will go to great lengths to continue breathing.