That's not unexpected, but does run into the problem of how to deal with the blockage when he's underwater - and also what he'll be letting water onto if he just removes it.
[OOC: I'm assuming he's going to be at -12 to casting anything - no words and only subtle gestures. This is consistent with the "Voices in the Ocean" box on page 77 of MoH. He probably can therefore cast Ominous Levitation of the Weighty Stone, albeit with fatigue, but anything spontaneous is going to be tricky for him.]
He'll inspect the barrier, trying to work out how easy it would be to dislodge a part of it. He also picks a likely large rock near the top (where the barrier is likely to be thin, and points at it, then at his eye, then drawing a line from his eye to the rock, before looking at Fray questioningly whilst making gestures that would typically be associated with Muto spells.
Fray will try to cast the MuTe effect for transparent rock, using fatigue. However he's already got fatigue from a previous cast (unless its been some time for the water to drain away).
[(4+7)/2 = 5.5 > 4, so should succeed, unless I'm missing something?
A single short term fatigue level only takes two minutes to recover from (then 10 minutes for the next, etc.). I've been assuming we've been resting after each two minutes unless there's obvious reasons not to be, so he'd be rested from his gills of the fish spell.]
Ah ok. I assumed that the casting roll should have been reduced by a further -1 (or so) for fatigue at least. I asked as I wasn't sure what the elapsed time between events was.
In which case it works, and we should be able to see what is behind.
Fatigue penalties are 0 for first level of fatigue lost, -1 for next, -3, then -5, then unconciousness. The penalties are applied before division. Time to recover short term fatigue is 2 minutes, 10 minutes, half an hour, 1 hour, then 2 hours for unconciousness.
Spontaneous spells (for a standard character - Viola has virtues/flaws affecting her) can be cast one of two ways:
Fatiguing. You roll a stress die, and divide by two. You always lose a short term fatigue level.
Non-fatiguing. You don't roll any die, and divide by five. You never lose a fatigue level.
Apologies if that was unnecessary - I was getting the impression you were a bit fuzzy on some of the specifics of the rules.
Gregorius will chip off a bit of stone from a large rock, then make his way back to dry(ish) land. Once they're both able to talk again, he'll comment to Fray:
"I'm wary of just removing the blockage without having an idea of what's behind it, in case the water damages something valuable. I'm trying to think of a good way to do that without draining the passageway. Or, failing that, a good way to drain the passageway. Shall we leave it whilst we think, for now, and explore up the waterfall staircase?"
[MTKnife: what's the approximate volume of water they're dealing with here? How many size magnitudes?]
Ah - that makes doing things to it a lot easier than I thought it was going to be.
He'll ask Fray "If I move the water out of the way, can you create something blocking more water from coming in? I found clay worked quite well earlier - easier than stone."
Assuming Fray responds in the affirmative, he'll begin to cast a Rego Aquam spell to move the water in the blocked passageway into the ,oving stream.
[Base 4 (control water in a forceful but calm way) + 1 Touch + 1 Concentration = 10. Casting total is (Re 8 + Aq 0 + Sta 1 + Aura 5 + W&G 2 + die 3)/2 = 9.5, works from what I understand of how we're rounding (invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4465241/). ]
[Ironboundtome - I think you need a botch check on that roll - the 10 is actually a 0. Assuming that there isn't a botch that would mean this is an obvious bad idea...]
Looking on the otherside of the barrier has the problem that they don't seem to have managed to find a stone that goes all the way through the barrier, so they're only getting the second layer of rubble. I think thinning the barrier is therefore in order first.
Gregorius will go back into the passageway, and start casting Ominous Levitation of the Weighty Stone again, standing well back and removing stones from the top first. Ideally, he'd like to get to the point where a vertical "layer" of stones has been removed, but the barrier is still stable enough that it's not obviously dangerous to go near it.
[Casting total is Re 8 + Ter 7 + Sta 1 + Aura 5 + die = 21 + die, verses a spell level of 15. Finesse is Finesse 7 + Per 3 + die = 10 + die. Hopefully these are stressed circumstances, so I don't need to make loads of rolls, but please let me know how many (or make them yourself) if necessary.]
[OOC: No, it's only extra botch dice for the aura if it's a foreign aura - so "not magic" in Fray's case ("not magic or faerie", in Viola's). Base botch dice start at one, so unless there are circumstances I don't know about I think it's probably just the one botch die.]
While Gregorius is working at the other end, Fray will briefly interrupt him and say he's recasting the CrTe effect.
This time with a longer duration of Sun. I'm not sure why I opted to do it with fatigue loss last time.
Effect = CrTe4. Level 1 is 10 cubic paces of clay, Touch +1, D: Sun+2, T:Ind. A basic shape so no harder than base.
CT = (20+roll)/5 for no fatigue. Cr 3, Te 7, Int 3, Aura 5, W&G 2.
roll 1d10+20=27, (so CT is 5.4 vs effect CrTe4), with Weird check of 1d10=9
all castings are ok, and means he can continue without concentration.
Fray continues to chatter "Excuse me Magi Gregorius without the water around us, I can more easily make the rocks transparent. Perhaps in a few areas more without us having to move anything?
Better I think."
If he agrees Fray will try to cast the ReIm effect to move the images of the rock aside, using fatigue.
A group of rocks this time, so should be better.
* Target effect level = ReIm 10 (base 2, R:Touch +1, D: Con +1, T: Group +2)
CT = 16 + roll. Re 7, Im 1, Int 3, Aura 5
roll: (1d10+16=23)/2 = CT 11.5 vs ReIm10 which works.
Thank you.
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