Thom watches the gem glimmer at the base of the hill, blinking in surprise. He scrambles down to retrieve it, turning the little eye-like stone in his palm. Vim vis? Imaginem vis? He slips it safely away, brow furrowing in thought.
By the time he reaches the Oak Circle, the notion has taken shape. If every glamour goat leaves such a trace… perhaps there’s a pattern to be found. A seasonal tithe? A recurring vis source? Could the chapterhouse work it into a regular source of vis?
That evening in the common hall, Thom sets down his cup and speaks up. “Another goat lost—but its semblance left behind a pawn of vis. If this repeats, we may have the makings of a seasonal source. I’m considering setting a warded circle about the pens to watch for future mischief.”
He looks around the table. “Thoughts? If we’re clever, we might yet turn this nuisance into a fair bargain.”
"Hum... A vis source of Vim for some goat, if I understand good. That could be a good deal, yes. But, we need to have more goat, then, to have enough for faeries and for magi. Because we cannot eat vis. Maybe a circle where we put the herd and sometimes let one walk outside, for the forest."
"I like that idea, Sionag. As long as we can maintain the circle and train the covenfolk not to disturb it.. or our Nisse friend," says Thom. "I'll get to work on that in the morning."
"It's going to need to be re cast with some frequency until we figure out a longer term solution," says Thom after a while. "I'll work on figuring that out."
Cath'rinne will suggest: "The boundary of the oak circle is a circle of about 50 paces accross, where an aegis can cover a square boundary of 100 paces accross, or equivalent in surface area. The marsh area arround the grove is too large to be covered, unless I invent an Aegis with a larger size. Which I'm not keen on doing. I don't know that we'd want the goats within the circle itself either. But would lodging them on the inside on the marsh circle be doable? That's roughly a standard boundary, which I might be able to cover with the next spell, and weak faeries should stay out of the aegis."
Thom nods to Cath'rinne. "That's an excellent idea! I'm sure we could work up a goat pen in the marsh circle. But... can you cast it to allow our Nisse to pass through? He's been such a gift to us and the goat herd, I wouldn't want to lose him. He's been with us since... Well since I left Mildred."