Praxiteles makes his way from his house in Koblenz to the main site of Laurus Argenti, after receiving word that all the magi have attended. He and his small party make their way through the countryside towards the covenant. While traveling along he is thinking of his lovely wife, recently returned to Oculus Septentrionalis to visit her cousin, Henri de Tours and secure some of the promised resources from them and other covenants between Lubeck and Laurus Argenti, coming with to act as as translator.
He arrives in the council room a bit late, but by all appearances, the council meeting has not begun as the assembled magi are engaging in just chit-chat.
"Salvete sodales." He says in heavily accented Latin while taking a seat. Alips is standing just behind him and nods at all of the magi present. Wordlessly, all the magi know that Alips is translating for Praxiteles, no one should have any objections to her presence and it is sorely needed, as evidenced by their meetings at Durenmar for Tribunal and Titus's gauntlet without her presence. ((We will say that Praxiteles hasn't thought to disclose the familial relation to Henri de Tours, and even so, he's a bit player in Oculus Septentrionalis, at the present time.))
((For now, Petronius accepts Alips' presence as necessary. But privately he will urge Praxiteles to learn Latin as quickly as possible. It makes him slightly uncomfortable to have a mundane present during all of the covenant's business. As for her relationship with Henri de Tour, let's say that we haven't paid attention to it if it's been mentioned. Essentially, let's roll with the Spies covenant hook.))
Light from the mid-morning sun of early spring illuminates the library and the multiple armarii that line the walls. During the library's use as a council chamber, the door leading to the scriptorium is closed and secured to avoid interruptions from the mundanes working there.
Petronius, a bit pale from spending all of winter and fall in the shared lab, smiles as Praxiteles joins them for the council meeting. He rises to greet the Jerbiton magus, exchanging some pleasantries with him in High German. After the two magi and Alips have taken their seats, eyes turn to Aedituus, who as disceptator makes the opening statement.
Salve, Praxiteles. I trust your travels were easy and that the servants found you refreshment when you arrived? Aedituus looks at the other two magi present, his eyes wide. Titus should be joining us momentarily. He sits back slightly bemused at his current position. If the old Abbot could see me now, I wonder what he would say? He rubs his nose and glances through the Charter document again, slightly nervous about how to begin, but resolved to proceed with all the seriousness a First Council deserves. And probably trip over my own robes in the process, he smiles to himself.
"Salve sodalis" Titus enters the room with little physical presence but his greeting is spoken in a strong clear voice.
Noticing Alips presence, he makes a short bow in her direction and almost tonelessly acknowledges her with a "m'lady.".
"Apologies for my tardiness, but I believe we are now all here?"
"Salve," replies Petronius with a smile at his House-brother, "are you finally settled in your sanctum?" Apparently, the rumor mill has propagated the young Bonisagus' difficulties in arranging his quarters to his satisfaction. Having the servants move his furniture around four times in three weeks had generated some grumbling from them, and good-natured smiles from his fellow magi. They had not been exempt from such incidents as they settle into their new home.
Petronius, currently living in some of the guest quarters on the ground floor, understood perfectly well. His own sanctum in the basement would be some seasons before it was ready. He'd informed the others that it was not a high priority for now, as he could use the shared lab for the occasional season he would need one.
((Just making small talk here, filling time until Aedituus officially opens the meeting.))
"Almost I think. I might have have to have the bookstand moved again, in order to make room for a small still. Not sure it'll be a good idea though. And how about you? I understand you you plan to fill up the large lab, so that it doesn't feel as empty?"
Alips and Praxiteles can be heard whispering quietly. When Titus and Petronius are looking over at them and he catches their eyes he nods politely, and Alips says, "My apologies, he was curious about the nature of the discussion. I tried to alleviate his concerns that it wasn't official business, but he is persistent." She smiles winsomely at the magi.
"Well, I spent the last two seasons preparing the shared laboratory for use. For the moment, it has been configured to make some use of that extra space, but there is a lot more available."
"While I was working on its preparation, I spared some though on what uses we could do of the statues and the altar, integrating them as major magical features. The altar could provide a strong advantage for the Art of Creo, while the statues of Mercury and Rosmerta could improve our use of Corpus. Thus, together they would provide a significant bonus to the preparation of longevity rituals."
Turning to Praxiteles, he explains the same in High German, bypassing the need for Alips to translate his words.
((The only language problem we have at the moment is between Aedituus and Praxiteles. Petronius and Titus Aurelius can both communicate well with Praxiteles in German, and with Aedituus in Latin.))
((And Praxiteles will be quick to point out that, they can excuse Alips, if it's mentioned, but she is also able to translate while the person is talking, so as to minimize the length of the meetings. Repeating everything twice is probably also going to lead to some accidental omissions, whereas Alips omissions are purposeful. ))
((Petronius will keep doing it occasionally anyway, when the subject touches on magical subjects. He does not feel comfortable letting a mundane translate on such things.))
((In any case, Alips is probably translating to French, a language that Petronius understands. So on the one hand it is distracting to him, and on the other hand he will notice any gross mistranslations.))
((It's a melange of French, Greek or German(5,4,4 for her, and 4,5,4 for Praxiteles), as she's going through her vocabulary of matching the Latin words to one of the three languages to find the best fit. Her Latin is impeccable (5), by the way, and if anyone talks to her, she's quite familiar with the Hermetic dialect and terminology.))
Begging your pardon, sodales, Aedituus interrupts the small talk, now that we are all present, I can call the First Council Meeting of the Covenant Laurus Argenti to order. He pauses to look at the other magi, and scribes the date on the parchment in front of him while Alips translates.
Part of our business today is to hear and vote on motions from the membership, assign shares of surplus resources, and ... After a quick glance at a copy of the Charter, Aedituus continues and determine the need for and assignment of service to the Covenant. Considering our current state, there is probably much service to be done, and not much in the way of stores. We should also discuss the casting of the Aegis.
After pausing to allow Alips to translate, he continues with a flourish of his quill, Any motions?
((I just realized that I am not sure what solstice/equinox we are at.))
Call it early spring for convenience. There is sufficient Vis on hand to conduct one Aegis. I little bit more of other Vis is available. Also we would probably disclose the things We acquired, and show off a bit for the things we brought.
((There is no Greek in her stats on the wiki, which is why I wrote French and German. And since all her xp seems to have been spent elsewhere, Greek might have been in a previous version...))
((I also assumed that the year started with Spring, so it is probably a few days before the equinox.))
((JL, when you say there is enough vis to conduct one Aegis, it that 4 pawns? Or did you already consider the vis savings from Mercurian magic? As for the rest of the vis, can we simply say 1 pawn left over from each of the non-Vim sources? That would be 5 pawns total (1 in each of Creo, Rego, Imaginem, Mentem and Terram), plus possibly 2 pawns of Vim due to the Mercurian savings of the Aegis. Let me know if that seems reasonable, and I'll update the wiki to reflect our starting stores.))
((Version conflict! That is a different version of her...Hrm... Dropbox conflict must have happened, and I resolved it a certain way, because the MC file I have is rather different. Now, I need to figure out what to do... blech.))
Petronius nods in agreement at Aedituus' words. Looking briefly at the others to see if one of them wants to speak first, he smiles and takes the floor. "Well, the shared lab is ready for use. My own sanctum won't be ready for some time yet, but for now I can sleep in the guest quarters. As work progresses in the basement, I'll move there and set up my own lab."
"As I may have told you individually, last fall I discovered another vis source. While supervising the transportation of laboratory supplies, I noticed the large wooden pillars that emerge from the Rhine river. The remains of an old bridge, I believe. Apparently some kind of large birds nest there over the summer. They were gone at the time and the nests deserted. What caught my attention, however, was that that despite heavy winds that day, the nests themselves seemed unaffected and quite firmly attached. My boatman refused to approach, claiming this was dangerous because of the weather. So a few days later, in more clement weather, I went back to survey the nests. I was able to determine that some of these nest contain Rego vis. Not a lot, but enough to make it worth our while to collect it. I shall endeavor to learn more about this source over next year, to see if its yield is higher than the one pawn I recovered. If that is agreable with the Council, I shall take responsibility for harvesting this source in the future, as I did for the rose bushes, a Vim source at the base of the burned tower where we are setting up the aerie for Crintera." Petronius smiles, "Enough Vim vis remains from that source for us to cast our Aegis, but little more. I'm afraid we spent most of what we discovered securing resources to build our covenant. But if we are diligent in harvesting our sources, that should be quickly change."
"I mentionned laboratory supplies. In addition to those for the shared lab, we have enough for each of us to outfit our personal labs, with enough to spare for a visitor lab. Most of it is still stored in crates, but as soon as we have time to set it up, we will be able to properly host a peregrinator when one shows up." After a moment's thought, Petronius inquires, "I was wondering if we should not want to reserve use of the shared lab to ourselves? Considering the importance of the statues contained there, it might be wise to bar non-members from using it." A shrug of his shoulders, "It is something we may want to consider."
"Of the books that were pledged to me, only one is yet to be delivered. The others have already been placed in the armarii around us. The undelivered book is a summa on Vim, and should be delivered over the next few months."
((I'll wait for the other magi to summarize their resources before having Petronius move to tasks he believes should be performed.))
"I too have most of my pledged resources. A few books still need to be collected at Durenmar, but other than that I believe everything has arrived. I'm still hoping to aquire a copy of Ultor as I believe I mentioned the last time we spoke, but that's about it I'd say."
((Sigh! Just noticed I'd bought the labtext for Gathering the Essence of the Beast twice. Right now I'm tempted to ignore it, but if someone needs 3 build points...))
((Perhaps Doublet of Impenetrable Silk, Preternatural Growth and Shrinking or Bitter Taste of Betrayal? All are spell of the same level and fairly useful in their own way, although the last one might be less commonly known.))
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