Chapter 2: Back at the covenant

Retired Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: Ad fons (at the spring)
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Mariella nods to Justus, still looking pained and angry.
She turns to the Girl who rescued her,"[color=red]I don't know if you speak Latin but rest assured I will remember your help today if there is every anything I can do to aid you let me know and I will help. We will see to your wounds"
She then turns to Justus

[color=red]"Where is the captain of the Guard I wish to hear his explanation of why this intrusion was not opposed . It had better be good as I am not in a forgiving mood today. I Suppose we better save one of these as we do not have a good Necromancer we need to find where they came from as I have to go and kill all of their freinds as well.

Her glare is truly ferocious and only made worse by the fact that she is covered in blood both hers and others .

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Justus replies as he walks to the wolf man who where slain last. [color=red]There is a good reason for that the guards didn’t fight the intruders, they didn’t have a chance. Most of them are slain and didn’t even have a chance to fight back. The woodsmen ambushed them and slain them without a fight. The captain of the guards is still alive, at least for now. The men that followed me are who ever I could find this late hour that where standing up and could take a blunt item with them. The captain’s life hangs in the hands of our Lord now. Justus bends down to the one of the wolf men and stats casting spontaneous magic in order to stop the bleeding, his second attempt succeeds. Justus rises again and looks at the other magi and speaks once again. [color=red]I have no special skills in healing, at least non that exceeds my spontaneous magic. If we are desperate to aid her in her recovery we can take her to Oculus Septentrinalis, the magi there they are skilled in both Mentem and Corpus. Justus looks at the girl and translates what has been said to her that concerned her to Pomeranian then he turns back to the magi and speaks. [color=red]Her name is Ilsa and she is 17 years old.

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[color=red]Very well it is our collective failing our security should have been better as a Milite of Flambeau I should have done better. Our the covennat grounds clear if not I will take a couple of men and clear them. If the werewolves cannot reach me I can kill as many as I see. We will do what we can for her if that means paying Vis it will come from my share as I owe her. For now we must secure the covenant and see to all the wounded there will be time for thanks and vengeance later

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[color=red]Agreed, we should search the covenant's grounds, and try to capture any remaining wolfman. I find their attitude very strange, and I'm not sure at all they really intended to hurt us.
I'm all for destroying our ennemies, but let's make sure they really are our ennemies first.

As per bandaging wounds and such, is there no mundane healer or wise woman in the covenant? We can't always rely on magic.
If there's no mundane way to save Ilsa's arm, then, yes, we should take her to Oculus Septentrionalis

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Mariella gestures to her injuries
[color=red]They attacked without provovationa and by the time they attacked me they had already attacked our guards. We gave them the oppertunity for peace they have chosen war . Very well they will learn the price of crossing the Order of Hermes. Death will be their reward and that of their kinfolk.
No one does this to me and mine and lives.
Turning the other cheek is very christian of you Ardeth .

Mariella limps out of the room with a couple of guards to sweep the covenant grounds and kill anyone else causing trouble

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[color=red]Mariella clear the grounds and post militia men to guard our covenant during the night. Ill make a servant tell Yannic to come home. Then I will scribe a circle here on the floor to create some spontaneous healing ward that will cure both the captured wolf man, the guard captain and Ilse. Then we get some sleep and await the morning. The wolf man won’t give us any information until he is surely amongst the living again. Do not rush of into the forest. Ardath do what you see fit in order to get us through the night. Justus speaks in manner that he is ordering everyone about, perhaps he is a little bit more shocked up by the event then he care to admit. Justus starts to order servants around and takes a piece of chalk from a pocket and stats constructing a circle for his ceremonial magic.

As Mariella comes out into the night there is quiet outside and nothing seems to move except for the wind blowing things around.

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Mariella will procede to limp slowly around the covenant accompanied by the guards to make sure there are no lurking werewolves. She is not going to move beyond the perimeter of the covenant or village.

When she finishes she will return and make sure that the wolfmen are firmly secured , and then limp back to her Sanctum to prepare her own healing spell

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If no one does anything else we fast forward and start the morning after when Yannic returns. There are no werewolves lurking the covenants grounds.

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Once she has determined that there are no more wolfmen lurking around. Mariella will just be making sure our prisoners can't escape and then going back to her snctum and setting up the best CrCO healing ring she can manage before going to bed .

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Time passes and night turns into morning. And in the morning after a night of uneasy sleep all magi assemble at the covenants council table. A breakfast is served by the servants who have spent all night cleaning floors and re-arranging the furniture. With tired eyes and empty eyes they serve the breakfast, a simple but still something to eat. (Yannic have rushed during the night and are at the table even if he is somewhat tired.) Justus Felix starts to speak as the magi assemble. [color=red]Ilsa is recovering but her arm will never be the same, unless we cure it with magic, she can do lighter work once the arm has heal but not the heavy lifting that our servant usually does. The werewolf is weak and has yet not awoken from his unconscious state. Our curative magic aids his recovery and will make him survive. If he where left to our covenfolk I doubt that he where amongst the living for much longer. We have a number of issues that we need to make a decision about. How will we retaliate when we know who to strike against? How do we increase our security? From where to we recruit new guards? And how do we reward Ilsa for her heroic actions? I dread to think about if the werewolves had arrived later during the night when we all where at sleep, they seemed ruthless but why where the attack so poorly executed?

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[color=red]"To determine who we reward Ilse we determine what she wants and do our best to help her achieve it, if we ened to use magic to heal her arm the vis will come from my supplies as it is me who is indebted to her. I will see to it that she is rewarded.
As to those who attacked us we determine who they are , where they come from and why they attacked us. Then we carry out a punitive strike killing those responsible for the decision and punishing all others involved . We cannot allow ourselves to appear weak, we did not choose this battle but now they have started it we must finish it decisivly. If the force is more then we can deal with then I will appeal to my fellow house members and we will see what we can do. Our prisoner lives only until we have what we need then I will execute him for his crimes.
As to security I have only my prelimary thoughts we will need a proper palisade in place , properl coordinated guard patrols and alarms to bring the mages to action as soon as an attack develops , along with guards for the mages to keep our enemies at a distance where magic can slay them. We may also wish to augment our defenses with extra wards to keep out intuders who are able to pass the Aegis and alarm spells. I will review our defenses and propose changes.
You have my apologies for my failure to properly defend this covnant I will review my spells and endeavour to make amends "

Mariella is pale and still clearly in pain from her injuries but has a look of total determination on her face

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[color=red]Well obviously, we should use magic to heal Ilse. This will be a signal to the grogs. With a little luck, we can harvest the necessary vis from the werewolves corpses.

We will also need to take care of all the widows and their children. Make sure that all the dead get proper burials and so on.
This will be my assignement. I knew some of the dead well enough.
We shall have a priest here soon enough, I'll explain the details later.

As for our defenses: I brought a siege engineer and a silversmith from Kolberg.I guess their skills will be useful. We could plant blackberry bushes round the wall as well. They'll be a nasty surprise as soon as I learn a little terram...

What I have to say now may be a little... surprising...
On the way to Kolberg, we encountered a whole household of lycantrophes. We made friendly contact, and I learned that the forest is alive and sentient.
I invited them here, and prepared an alliance with them.
Maybe Aldrick can tell us who the attackers are.

Where shall I begin with detailed explanations?

Yannick will then tell his sodali everything that happend, in their order of preference. No need to write the whole story again, right?

After having answered all the questions, Yannick continues:
[color=red]
We have a couple of choices to now, and we need to decide our priorities.
I would like to spend a season or two in the forrest and learn to hear it talk. That way, we'll be able to better understand the folks around here --and the werewolves as well. It will enhance our relations to Aldrick. Maybe we can even make sort of a deal with the forrest itself. I got a couple of ideas.
I believe this would do us good in the long run. So if you do not need my assistance to enhance our covenants security here and now, I'll be with the widows and children first, with the forresters after that.

Trouble is, can we afford this in the current situation? Would you prefer that I help you tracking down those beasts?

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[color=red]We have some time before the captive wakes up and can speak to us. In that time we can take care of the dead and mend wounds. Shall we send word to Oculus Septentrinalis and ask for their aid and give anyone who arrives a hefty price for perform the magic that needs to be done in order to aid Ilse. I think it is best of us to remain here at the covenant; we need any magus that can be available. The morale boosting effect may be substantial if we cure her wounds. Perhaps if we invite this newfound perhaps ally of ours he can identify the corpses and give us some information. Just lets hope that no-one of the servants has saved themselves the trouble of burying the werewolves corpses by feeding them to the hogs. As you know there is a stone wall surrounding the covenant but it is off little protection against a determined attacker. Perhaps it is quite easy to scale if you are a werewolf. To the widows of our guards I say that we give some form of support, perhaps a few extra pigs and a tax relive for a year. I don’t know what would be suitable but perhaps Yannic can arrange that in cooperation with the village council. They should know how to best support a family who lost a significant source of income.

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[color=red]Mariella, don't confuse caution with weakness.
I just want to act in full knowledge of what happened, that's all :wink:

To justus:
[color=red]We'll need to heal Ilsa, but later. We don't have the time or ressources now. In the meantime, lighter work will perfectly do.
If she still proves willing to serve us, we could raise her to Custos status. She deserved it.

New guards... Yes, we need some. And we can't recruit them here, as we may have loyalty problems. Unless we do some thorough screening maybe. Are any of you skilled in intellego mentem magics? This would surely help.
But we surely have a huge security problem. We need more mundane security, with closed gates, guards, patrols (both fixed and random ones)... Some hounds could be usefull, or maybe some gooses? Magically... Wards would have been really great. Or maybe items. I could also collect some ACs to spirits of the aura, try to enlist them, but this is risky. Anyway, most magic solutions will take time, so I won't discuss it now.

As per the werewolves, you've struck a point. There's really something odd about their attack and behavior, and I intend to know what, and why they attacked.
Retaliation is a tricky point. Our defenses are far from optimal, and we're likely outnumbered, so we mustn't trigger an all-out war yet unless we've got no other choice. This would be too hard to win
Things will depend on what our captive has to say. However, even if they had a good reason to attack us (say, they beleived we had captured one of their children), they'll need to pay for this attack, in one way or another.

After mariella's speech:
[color=red]Well, I certainly agree that, should we strike, we must strike decisively.

Good ideas else, I see we are on the same page here.
Constant shield grogs is a really good idea, and an important one at that.

Before this, do not be too harsh upon yourself. Not only are we all to blame for poor defenses, but we survived the attack and won, despite bad odds. This is what's really important.
We've all been complacent, and this was a warning from kalesh in order to keep us sharp. Next time, we'll be ready.

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[color=red]I think we are agreed that we see what reward Ilse would like and then see to what we can do. When we finish this meeting I will go , take a translator and talk to her . I think we should send a messanger to see if we can find a mage who will perform magical healing for her and I will pay.
We must also look after those others who were killed or injured doing their duties they did not beyond their duties as Ilse did but did their job and we must show our appreciation.

On defenses we agree we need to apply magic where we can and improve our procedures so that we integrate the magi and the mundane defenders, We also need to hire some more soldiers to reinforce our security and replace losses. We may want to see if we can recruit from any other covenants at the upcoming tribunal as we will then be able to get Grogs who are used to hermetic magic.

We need to interrogate our captive and then determine how and where to strike at our attackers as we are agreed they must pay but need to determine the why and the who before we deal out justice.

Ardeth I do appreciate your opinion but I am a Milite of Flambeau , protecting , defending and avenging my Sodali's is my Job so a failure of defense is a failure by Me. I will endeavor to see that it does not happen again and those who dared attack us pay the price for abusing our peaceful attitude.

Yannick I do not think it wise for you to wonder the forest alone until we have dealt with this threat you would be too vulnerbable , as to the sidom of the act in the long term I leave that to you and the others. Diplomacy is not my strongpoint nor is the study of new magics that is why you are at this covenant . I am here to ensure that you are able to study and talk to the locals without risk.

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[color=red]Can we conclude this meeting by deciding upon the following, Justus clears his throat and continue. [color=red]We will; Hire new guards at the upcoming tribunal until then fill up vacant spaces with local militia men, save our vis the next year to be spent upon security perhaps we all spend time to invent or learn a spell that is useful in combat or as a security spell, interrogate the werewolf and find out where he comes from and deal with the threat accordingly and help Ilse in the best manner that we can and if possible recover her arm wholly. If there is nothing left to add we can call this a day, bury the dead and mend wounds. I’ll summon you all when the werewolf can talk.

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[color=red]You can count upon me improving my combat and defensive spells. If this meeting is concluded I will leave and speak with Ilse
With that Mariella painfully gets to her feet and heads out of the council chamber

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[color=red]Alright. You lot will take care of magical healing , rewards and magical protection.

Ardath, you may want to see the siege engineer, together with all of the smiths in town. If they can set up their workshops togehter, this will save us a lot of resources.

I have a lot of very mundane things to do then:
I'll meet the autocrat and village council to take care of the dead, the widows and orphans, try to get hold of those werewolve corpses, have one of the forresters buy guard- and war-dogs, talk with Aldrick, and more generally keep the grogs in line.

But I'll be off in the forrest as soon as possible. I won't have my long-term-plans hampered by a bunch of brutes. The place is close enough to Aldricks home to be safe enough for me. I'll need a few pawns of herbam vis as well, unless you want us all to run out of money and maybe even loose Aldrick as an ally.

Anything else you need me to do? The season is wasted for studies anyway...

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Hum... We should also learn, maybe foremost, why the werewolves attacked us, what was their objective here.

Saving vis next year and designing new spells will prove vital, we really need more magical defenses.
One of my goal is to create a spell that'll allow me to control the spirits I summon, instead of needing to bargain with them. Although I prefer fair exchange of services, this could prove really usefull in various manners.

If the season is wasted, I'll continue to train with Hans and the other grogs, teaching them to fight against and aside magic and unknown threats, and concentrate on mundane dangers while we deal with the mysterious ones. In the meanwhile, i may even catch some tricks from them

Yannick, your suggestion about the smiths is a good one, I shall meet with them. I see no problem with your herbam vis, especially if you can gain us an ally. Could you see if he could shed some light about what happened?

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After leaving the council chamber and while waiting for the werewolf to be available for interrogation Mariella goes to speak with Ilse taking along one of the covenant folk who speaks both Latin and the local dialect

(OOC While talking to Ilse Mariella will extend her parma magica over Ilse and the translator so they can have a conversation without her Gift causing problems)

Mariella will take a seat in the room Ilse is recovering in
[color=red]Ilse , I and my colleagues have been discussing how to reward you for your bravery. First you have my thanks and I am in your debt if you ever need my help ask. Secondly we cannot immediatly fix your arm as none of us hear have the skills however we will find another mage who can and arrange for him to help you, finally I would like to ask you what we can do for you? If you wish to continue working for us in what profession would you like to work ?, do not worry about having the skills we will see about training you need.