Chapter 2: Somewhere, Under the Barrow...

Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: Base Camp
61

Gregorius eventually realizes that voice speaks roughly every diameter.

He eventually locates the source of the voice: a stone cube, about 2 feet in every dimension. The hills around it are less uniform in shape than elsewhere -- indeed, one hill has an almost concave aspect to the end closest to the cube. There are carvings in it which seem sort of generically faerie-esque, but lacking the precision and grace to their lines that Gregorius has seen in his readings.

(Does Gregorius have any experience dealing with the Fae?)

62

[Gregorius has no Faerie Lore (he should, really, but I was struggling with xp). What little he does know about fae is largely about Translyvanian fae, which are invariably dark fae, and usually vampiric in some fashion (HoH: TL has Wili, which are the corporeal ghosts of maidens who drowned on their wedding day, and who suck the life from young men with their kisses, and moro, which are children who were murdered by exposure who turn into moths and drain the life from people and particularly babies whilst they sleep. Then there are Dhampirs, of course...All in all, Translyvanian fae aren't very nice.]

63

The cube seems to be a very hermetic approach to mimicking the imagery he'd seen among the books in the library of his apprenticeship. He recalls his parens flipping through a book with an image very similar to what he's looking at now, while he was re-reading some massive text by Amphelisia Tremendi.

64

Gregorius considers the cube thoughtfully. It looks like a fairly standard CrIm device, although he's struggling to work out how it's been made to trigger every two minutes. The obvious purpose for it is keeping people away from the area, although to allow the device to use Voice range is barely possible as an alternative reason.

Guessing it's the former, he starts examining the surrounding area more carefully, and also asks Alcimus if he can see any signs of any tracks. He particularly concentrates on the almost concave hillock.

[OOC: I'm not sure if there's a way to do it under standard MT or not - it's probably iffy under an Environmental trigger, as two minutes having passed doesn't really correspond to anything in the environment, and the momentary creation of sound means you can't trigger it off the previous spell ending. It could be done using a linked effect to count astrological minutes (which doesn't actually require a virtue, but is a bit obscure), or there's the Merinita mystery "Spell Timing", but that only works for spells rather than enchanted items. Assuming this is an enchanted item rather than simply the focus of the spell, of course. Those are both rather more obscure than Gregorius is likely to know without a very good MT roll, though.]

65

(MT roll to theorize? Absolutely viable. If you want to actually KNOW the method used, that would equire investigating. Make some awareness/investigation rolls.)

Alcimus finds those very tiny footprints, but other than that, nothing. Alcimus's hackles are up, btw.

(Also, I'm tired of speaking for Alcimus indirectly. Do you mind if he speaks in my posts?)

66

Gregorius first tries to check the local aura once more.

[Non-fatiguing, loud words and gestures to give casting total of 14 + Aura, against a base level 3. He'll try both magic and faerie, in case there's one aura overlying another.]

He then spends a few minutes inspecting the cube carefully, looking for any maker's marks, other identifying features, or just anything else of interest.

Next, assuming he's not in a strong faerie aura (in which case he's nervous about botches), he tries to work out the amount of spun vis present in the device, followed by the arts it's aligned to.

[Variants of Scales of the Magical Weight and Sense the Nature of vis, designed for enchanted items rather than spells/raw vis. Both InVi 5 (I think I can get away with Individual rather than Group target for the latter, as he's casting it on an individual object, and Ind Vim spells tend to either affect every spell on a single person/object, or a single spell. It's slightly iffy, though, as I'm making an analogy for vis.

Casting scores are (In 6 + Vi 5 + Sta 1 + Aura ? + die 2 (invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3348023/)) /2 = 7 + Aura/2, should work.

(In 6 + Vi 5 + Sta 1 + Aura ? + die 5 (invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3348024/)) /2 = 8.5 + Aura/2. Again, should work.

My understanding is that he'd have to spend a season investigating the device in the lab to really answer for definite questions like "how is it triggered", although he could work out a certain amount, such as the magnitude and effects, if his InVi total was high enough.

Magic Theory roll is Int 1 + MT 4 + die 7 (invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3348044/) = 12]

67

Gregorius is in neither a magic nor faerie aura.

And damn you for making me have to actually figure out the mechanics of this item. :stuck_out_tongue: There is four pawns of vis in the object, a mix of Corpus and Imaginem in unequal quantities.

It occurs to Gregorius that if the effect generating the words was a diameter-duration spell, then it would repeat for as long as the triggering condition was true, even if the message was less than a diameter long.

68

Gregorius looks concerned when the aura turns out to be neither magic nor faerie, and sponts the divine and infernal counterparts.

[Totals as before. I'd forgotten we were rounding spont totals up - I had a moment of "wait, no positive aura? Then how did the spell work?"]

He frowns slightly at the corpus, before speaking his thoughts aloud to Alcimus.

"No vim, so it's a lesser enchanted device. Which means there's only one effect in it, using both corpus and imaginem. About eighth magnitude, but that's not exactly limited. I'm puzzled by the corpus, though - one obvious possibility is there's an InCo effect as part of it, but I don't think I can feel anything against either my Parma or the Bitter Taste."

[OOC: Sorry, yes, feel free to have Alcimus talk. General personality is intended to be fairly serious, and with a certain sense of his own dignity - he has a pride minor flaw, and losing his status as the alpha male in his old pack hurt him a bit. In the Tremere, being chosen by one of the wolves to become a familiar to tends to be considered an honour, but at the same time it's also a mark of status for the wolf.]

69

Alcimus, lacking any hermetic knowledge says, "Intellego, that is the confusing, yes? The one where you target your nose instead of the thing you're smelling." He sniffs at the stone cube again. "I don't think this thing could sniff back."

Gregorius first attempts to detect a Divine aura, gets nothing, and then casts for Infernal. He gets a very weak affirmative.

Infernal Aura 1.

"Hey," Alcimus says as he turns his nose downward. "There's a hole dug out under the cube. I think somebody lives under there. Smells like mice, maybe."

70

Gregorius hits himself in the arm.

"Of course, the Invisible Eye Revealed! I'd forgotten you needed specialist spells to detect Intellego magic - Bitter Taste won't be enough." He looks briefly pleased with himself. "There's an obvious way to check whether it is an InCo requisite to trigger it, of course."

When Alcimus announces the hole, he frowns again. "Well spotted. Wait here for a couple of minutes to see if the device triggers without my presence, then follow me, please - I'd rather not plan on top of it."

He takes one of the stones out of his bag, and holds it ready warily, before walking a little distance from the cube in the general direction of the rings. He makes sure he gets out of sight of the cube, but keeps a close eye on the rest of his surroundings. Alcimus sites himself on top of one of the surrounding hillocks, where he can both hear the cube and see Gregorius.

71

"Yes," Alcimus says when you've regrouped. "The device eventually stopped speaking after you left, at a point when I could still smell you."

Where are you now? Back at the rings?

72

What time is it? If it's beginning to get near midnight, Gregorius will head to the rings to redo his Parma. If there's still a while to go, he'll head to where he saw the watch-towers earlier, but via the southern barrows to do the rest of the suite of aura checks on the hole they'd found earlier (and which he'd previously been assuming was faerie).

73

At the mention of a Corpus trigger, the Cat rubs lovingly against Gregorius' leg, quite animalistically.

74

Gregorius has about an hour left before he needs to head back to get to the rings on that schedule. Roll for aura checks and tell me where.

75

[He's going back to where they found the hole in one of the southern burrows earlier, and doing checks for fae, infernal and divine aura strength there. Non-fatiguing, so no dice rolls. Casting total in (In 6 + Vi 5 + Sta 1 + W&G 2 + Aura)/5 =(14+ aura)/5. Target level is 3. If those spells are flat out failing, he'll try non-fatiguing spells to check whether there's an aura of each type there (without checking strength) - same casting total, target level 2 rather than 3.]

76

Your first three spells fizzle. Attempting your less informative spells, you discover that there is a Faerie aura inside the hole. After a quick second puzzling over this, Gregorius succeeds at an MT check and realizes that the burrow hole must have an extremely faint Faerie aura, only of use to a Merinita wizard.

(OOC: (14 + (Faerie Aura/ 2) = 14 /5 = just barely under 3). The aura strength flickers between 0 and 1.)

77

He'll head on towards where he saw the watch-towers earlier.

78

It's now midnight. When is Gregorius planning to call it a night?

Since I know what everything really is, I should not be giving names to them, lest I give things away. Can you please list and name the various places that Gregorius is interested in investigating so far?

79

[Now midnight when he reaches the watchtowers, or after checking the aura?

The places Gregorius is interested in investigating are:

  • Southern faerie aura "house" - initial reconaissance done, considering whether and how to come back and attempt to investigate further/negotiate with the inhabitants at a later date.
  • Northern infernal aura device and "house" - initial reconaissance done, considering whether to come back later and try to clear out whatever's living there.
  • "Watchtower" locations he saw with his second sight.
  • "Castle" he saw with his second sight (under the rings, but he's leaving it for last on the basis that it's likely to be a bigger and more important version of the rest of the necropolis).

"Later" is likely to mean another day (/night). As per his plan to Patrick, this is an initial reconaissance mission only, unless forced to be otherwise.]

Gregorius had been aiming to be in the rings by midnight; however, if he misses this, he'll put his Parma back up and recast his Bitter Taste of Betrayal, Comfort of the Weary Travellor and Eyes of the Cat. He'll do a non-fatiguing spont to check he's not in a dangerous aura, and move if he is.

[First two should be simple dice, so I won't bother rolling. Last one is a spont. MuCo(An) 4, casting total = (Mu 0 + Min(An,Cor) 1 + Sta 1 + W&G 2 + Aura ? + die 6 (invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3356728/))/2 = (10 + Aura)/2, should do it.]

80

Gregorius re-casts the spells and renews his parma shortly before arriving at the watchtowers. Now what?