Chapter 1e: Fixing the Plumbing

I would say the're pretty big: each is several feet long, and a few inches thick.

Scott

Right, so Tasia isn't around.

In that case, Gregorius will try for a spell with at least a Group +1 target - concentration if he can manage it, otherwise instantaneous (which I think is unlikely to enable him to work out where everything is in relation to surface features, but should at least give him some idea of how bad things are.

(In 6 + Te 7 + Sta 1 + Aura 3 + W&G 2 + die 0 (no botch - invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4428762/))/2 = 9.5.

Trying again: (In 6 + Te 7 + Sta 1 + Aura 3 + W&G 2 + die 2 (invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4428764/))/2 = 10.5 Should give him an instantaneous idea of where the pipes are broken.

The standard Individual target for a base metal is one cubic foot, meaning each pipe could easily be two or three individuals, and so a +2 Group might be more realistic.

Let's see....One visible property (and that assumes he's looking for something specific, like a breakage or a blockage) is Base 2, +1 for Touch, +2 for Group, so that's level 5 already, making it level 10 for even a +1 Group (and that's Instanteous, though if he looks for a breakage, let's say, I don't think he needs Conc).

I'll say the spell is a little weaker than what Gregorius really needs, but he gets a vague impression that there are no breaks in the water system.

Scott

Do you mean two or three individuals per pipe, or two or three pipes per individual? They're presumably considerably less than an foot in diameter and hollow (and it's the volume that counts), so I'd been assuming you could get multiple pipes to an individual.

Anyway, you've let the spell work, which makes it a slightly moot question. No breaks means he's going to have to find where the water should have been entering the system, and why it's not. Hmmm.

I was thinking the opposite, but as you say, the question is largely moot at this point.

For the sake of moving things along, I'm going to say he also cast a spell to detect blockage, and didn't find that, either.

Scott

The next step is probably to trace where water should be entering the pipe system. Which means tracing the pipes. The easiest way to do this is probably to bring in re-inforcement - he's going to fetch their dowser Niketas (grog character sheet here: https://forum.atlas-games.com/t/covenfolk-character-sheets/5242/1) and instruct him to find where the pipes leave the covenant site by dowsing out the bronze in them. Relevant scores are Per 3 + Dowsing 5 + die (probably simple?), so he can probably do it with time but not major difficulty. That's fine - Gregorius would like this done, but isn't in a major hurry, so he can wait until dusk to deal with his sensitive sight.

Once the line of the pipes leading away from the covenant has been found, Gregorius will set out on a cloudy day with Niketas, Alcimus and Aison as a shield grog to follow them to their source.

He also leaves a wax tablet with a message for Viola should she come out of her regio and care where he's gone.

[i]Viola - talking with Theodoric has indicated that the previous magi may have improved or stablised the aura here by getting the fountains going again. Not sure what the connection between the two is yet. The pipes don't appear to be broken or blocked, so I've gone to try to find their starting point to see if the problem is water not entering there.

Gregorius[/i]

Edit - actually, he'll take Godzimir rather than Aison as a shield grog - he he does at least have Latin 3 rather than 2.

You want to play out this investigation in detail, or do you want the long-story-short version?

Scott

If there are no major decisions for him to make, happy to go for the long-story-short version.

Once Theodoric notices that you're actively investigating the water system, he volunteers some more useful information:

"Ah, so you're wondering about the water system, yes? Well, those bronze pipes you've found all lead to the same place, on the northern edge of the old city. There's one end of an aqueduct there, buried under the ground. It runs about a mile and a half to the north, up to a stream there that comes from the northeast, and runs southwest to the river--it feeds into the river about halfway from here to the coast.

"The pipes are all new, but the aqueduct was here in Greek times. It's a shame it hasn't worked since the attack. I walked up there one time, right after it happened, to see if it had been blocked somehow, and that's why the fountains weren't working anymore, but I couldn't find anything blocking it." He shrugs. "I never did figure it out...but if you say the pipes are fine, there must be something wrong in between here and the stream."

Your investigations verify Theodoric's description: Niketas is able to trace the aqueduct, which is made from limestone blocks and is buried a few feet under the surface, up to a stream in the rolling hills that lie to the north and northwest. He's also able to establish that the aqueduct still contains water, down to a point a few dozen paces north of the ruins.

Scott

Can he get an idea of how big the aqueduct is? Particularly the inside of it?

Judging by the inlet at the stream, its about a pace across, and maybe a little higher than that.

Scott

So theoretically possible to crawl inside, if you ignore the water issue?

Does water seem to be flowing into it, or is it still? (Just looking to check whether the water is going in but mysteriously disappearing half way down, or something).

Yes, you could crawl into it--there wouldn't be water if you crawled from the city side, but you'd have to dig down to it first, and if you cleared the blockage you would have to deal with the water. Those are the sorts of reasons why Theodoric never tried to deal with the problem himself. Yes, the water is still.

BTW, I think we should probably say that this whole thread is happening sometime fairly early in the saga, before the barrow stories--given such a basic need as fresh water, it's something you would probably have investigated quickly.

Scott

[OOC: yes, happy to have it happen early - I'll use his old stats. It does raise slight questions about Tasia/Aegis again, mind.

It may be worth splitting these posts off into a separate thread?]

What's the slope of the land like round here? How far would he have to go to get to a place where the general land level is a reasonable amount below the top of the aqueduct? How about below the bottom of it?

The result would be the same, either way. :slight_smile:

I fully intend to, when I get around to it.

Well, the land slopes gently all the way to the river, though there's a more pronounced drop-off just south of the town, where the old river-bed starts. Keep in mind that the aqueduct slopes with the land--it's buried about the same distance underground the whole length of its run.

What are you trying to do? With a better idea, I might be able to give you a more specific answer.

Scott

Essentially, he's considering trying to drain the pipe with ReAq, and wants to know how easy it would be to stop the water running back in if he damns the pipe off from the main river - i.e. can he dig enough of a ditch so that the water once he "encourages" it out will run away to somewhere he doesn't care about. Bearing in mind there's about 3000 cubic paces of water in the aqueduct, it's probably going to be non-trivial to dig a ditch enough to hold all of that, so he's thinking of cutting a channel to somewhere at a lower level.

The slope of the pipe can be worked round with Rego Aquam, at least to an extent - he can get it out, the issue is stopping it going back in again.

Because the land slopes, and the aqueduct with it, diverting the water shouldn't be overly challenging--it would be a matter of making a ditch to the nearest ravine (remember that there are a lot of those around the covenant site).

Scott

Gregorius starts doing some calculations, talking to Alcimus (or rather, himself) as he does so:

"Let's see...There's a mile and a half's worth of aqueduct, with a 1 pace by probably slightly over a pace in cross-section. Let's say there's slightly under three thousand paces to the length of the aqueduct, so that's then around about 3 thousand cubic paces of water, so a cube slightly under 15 paces on each side.

A base individual of water is about 55 cubic paces of water. So I'd need two size magnitudes to affect all of the water at once. I might be able to manage ReAq 10, but probably obnly 5...so I might be able to do something very gentle. I'd have to have somewhere to put the water, though, and a way to stop it filling up again before I was ready..."

He gets the grogs to stand out of the way, then begins to cast:

ReTe 10: Base 3 (move dirt in a slightly unnatural fashion, same base as for Unseen Porter) + 1 Part + 1 Touch + 1 Concentration = level 10. (Re 7 + Te 7 + Sta 1 + Aura 1(?) + W&G 2 + die 2)/2 = 10. (invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4431250/). Basic individual for dirt is 10 cubic paces.

He's looking to move soil and mud from the bank to form a dam around the entrance to the pipe so that no new water will be able to flow into it. An earth dam isn't going to have a permanent life span, but it should be long enough for his purposes. He'll take the dirt such that it forms a channel from the inlet of the pipe, heading towards a convenient ravine. He'll check the ravine first to try to check he's not going to be flooding something he shouldn't. If necessary he'll repeat this spell a few extra times; please can you roll dice for me if so (although he may switch to Perdo Terram once the damn's a decent size - he doesn't want to damn the entire river, just block off the pipe from it.

This is probably complicated enough to require a finesse roll, so here goes:

Per 3 + Finesse 7 + die 9 (invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4431287/) = 19. I assume that's more than enough.

If everything's gone well with the channel, a fair amount of the water should flow out of the pipe anyway, but the slope of the land may mean it needs encouraging, so he'll try to make sure it all moves out of the pipe rather than just some of it.

Re Aq: Base 1 (control water in a very gentle fashion) + 1 Touch + 1 concentration + 2 size = 5. If he rolls up, he'll control the water a bit more forcefully.

(Re 7 + Aq 0 + Sta 1 + Aura 1(?) + W&G 2 + die 6)/2 = 8.5 (invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4432545/)

Before he does this, is Gregorius informing the grogs of his plan?

Scott

He's talking out loud / to Alcimus, so they'll probably pick up on at least the outline. He'll also have given them a rough summary as part of telling them to move out of the way.