Aetos, who did not enter the regio, joins Gregorius.
Gregorius nods at Aetos as he joins him, but doesn't say anything much unless spoken to. He spends a few minutes just standing, enjoying the view down towards the river. For thoroughness, he attempts to cast a non-fatiguing spont to check the strength of the local aura:
(In 6 + Vim 5 + Sta 1 + Words & Gestures 2 + Aura)/5 = (14 + Aura)/5, succeeds if there's any magic aura.
After that, he takes Theodoric and starts going round the repaired houses, removing traps and assessing their state of repair and capacity. He's interested in housing 5 magi, 25-30 (?) grogs and their supplies, and wants to know quite how badly they're not going to fit into the space currently available.
The Magic aura in the entire clearing, save the temple to Neptune, is 4. As for the buildings, Theodoric has only two of them in livable shape at the moment. Yes, it's enough for everyone to squeeze into, but it's hardly comfortable.
Scott
After examining the houses, Gregorius turns to Aetos.
"The sooner we can get some more houses repaired, the better. I can't think of anything very useful I can do - are you capable of anything relevant, or do you know of any way our sodales are?"
Assuming Aetos doesn't come up with a solution to their problems, he continues,
"We might be able to put some people in the caves, depending on what Portia and Tasia find, although I can't see it being a popular option with the grogs. In the mean time, instruct [the autocrat] to arrange very perishable supplies under a roof, less perishable supplies under some rigged up cover, magi either in their own small rooms or at least a partitioned room, everyone else squashed in with slightly superior accommodation for custodes? Possibly relatively generous accommodation for Theodoric as well, since it's thanks to his rebuilding we have any shelter at all. Oh, and a bit of space left for the cook. Anything I'm missing?"
Theodoric has been using rubble from the buildings to repair them. The old covenant was built partly with dressed stone from the Greco-Roman ruins, but partly with limestone quarried from the cave system--apparently the magi were using some kind of magic to quarry and dress it, including, for part of the life of the covenant, an enchanted knife. Wood, on the other hand, will probably have to be cut in the woods to the north, or else bought.
Scott
Presumably the enchanted knife got lost at the time of the attack on the previous covenant?
Gregorius will take Theodoric and start looking around the remains of the ruins. He's looking for sites that can be relatively easily repaired, as well as good sources of stone. He takes along whatever builder/architect grogs we have (presumably we have at least someone at least vaguely that way inclined?), and is largely content to listen to their advice. He's also interested in finding and removing any remaining traps in the village, of course.
[Are there any glaringly obvious interesting buildings I've missed/forgotten about? If so, he'll go and look at those too.]
He's beginning to keep an eye on the sun - Alcimus is still waiting for him.
Gregorius would like to go back to the village, doing the journey in the light, spend the night on the boat, then return in the morning with Alcimus (leaving the village whilst still dark, but doing most of the journey in the light). A few questions that'll affect this:
- What time is it by this point, and how long until sunset?
- Is the small boat we came up in still around, or did it go back after we unloaded it?
- What are the river banks like? Should they be easy to follow on foot?
- How long is the journey on foot likely to take? Presumably we were going upstream coming to the site?
- Is tonight likely to be a particularly dark night (phase of moon/and or weather) such that there are likely to be ghosts at the covenant?
- What does the weather look like?
- The ship should still be moored where we left it, right? (And if not, what's happened to Alcimus?)
I'm reposting this back in the story thread--try to keep anything directly relevant to the story there, so that anyone coming back to look at it will have info like this available for reference.
You're in mid-afternoon.
The boats (plural) dropped you and all the supplies off, though it took some time for the grogs and villagers to unload them.
There's a road paralleling the river, at the same level as the ruins. It's about a three-mile walk, meaning probably an hour at most.
It's sunny weather, and you'll have a quarter moon tonight--so no dark night.
What the ship did depends on Portia. I had been assuming it unloaded you, then left shortly thereafter, but there would be some leeway to get the crew to stay for a day or two. At worst, the ship probably turned south to sail up the main branch of the Don for a trading call.
As for Alcimus...want do you want him to do/have done if the ship leaves?
Scott
A lot of things got lost. Remember though that the magi retreated into the caves, and so it's possibly that God-knows-what is buried down there somewhere.
Theodoric shows you around, and you help him remove the remaining traps. Yes, you have a couple of grogs with building experience, and the autocrat in particular has done this before (which is the main reason he was selected for the job). There's enough loose stone up here to repair at least another building or two--one very big benefit of Theodoric's presence has been to keep scavengers away--but you're going to have to start quarrying the caverns eventually.
As for interesting buildings...not especially. The two-story building you found Theodoric in included the Council Hall, though, as well as some living quarters and storage. He's also repaired the kitchen building, which should be handy.
Scott
[Arya - what did Portia instruct happen with the boat? Gregorius will have been in favour of it staying around for at least a day or two.]
[How big are the two houses we have? I think I may have been considerably understating their size in my head.]
Once they've finished looking round the rubble, Gregorius will instruct the autocrat to start preparing the houses. His instructions are very similar to those suggested to Aetos earlier:
- Supplies into the storerooms.
- A room per magus, if reasonably possible given space constraints. If not, partitions to be rigged up to give each magus a private area.
- Next priority are custodes and Theodoric.
- Then find sleeping space for the other grogs.
Also, get the cook into the kitchen!
He'll then find Miklos, and order him to start organising watch rotas. Gregorius wants (at least) a man with a bell on the tower at all times, and someone else posted next to the two rebuilt houses (I'm assuming they're close together). He'll listen to any other suggestions Mikos has, and leave the finer details to him.
One's a kitchen, so not all that big, but the other is a two-story building with a dozen or so large rooms.
OK, all done.
Scott
Once the house and watch are being set-up, Gregorius will take Theodoric, one shield grog plus any woodsmen amongst the grogs and start locating the traps in the woodlands. He asks Theodoric how big an area he's trapped - is it just the band of trees between the river and Tanais, or is it a wider area?
He probably won't have time to finish this. He'll return to the main area leaving half an hour to discuss the results of their various investigations with his sodales before he needs to set out to fetch Alcimus.
It's mostly just the trees, though there are a couple of ravines where he placed traps near cave entrances, just in case.
Scott
Aetos' birds are sent to report on the neighbroing terrain (starting closely at home, flying away ever further (max 5 miles).
Once they are familiar with the terrain, Miklos men start creating places for everyone to sleep while the women take care of the daily chores (cooking etc).
The birds don't find much I haven't told you already: the site is surrounded by fields--pastures, actually, where the Kipchak graze their animals--and to the east, west, and south, these pasture are cut in places by ravines and gulleys. To the south lies the small branch of the Don you came in up, and further south the rest of the Don delta, including several other branches. To the north, there's a small forest.
Scott
If I understand correctly we don't yet have anywhere into which we could have unloaded our equipment and other gear. It BETTER have stuck around until we were good and ready to unload our gear, because one should never cross an angry Italian maga.
Well, you knew where you were going, and so I assumed that your gear came with you. But you can choose to have delayed the ship by a day just to make sure the site is safe first.
Scott
[Right, I think I've got through most of Gregorius' time before he wants to meet up with people again, But I've got a bit ahead in posting, so I can't have a conversation to find out what they've found out yet. Should I pause in posting and wait for other people to finish their threads, or say I'm (assuming nothing happens to prevent it) having the conversation, go to get Alcimus now and play it out once other characters are ready?]
Yes, that sounds reasonable.
Scott