Polycarpus: I will inform the Venetian of our decision. I assume that he must take the offer back to his superiors.
Later Polycarpus returns to inform that the Venetian had enough mandate to accept the deal and that soon a work crew will arrive to start the construction.
OOC: After this story is complete and if the deal with the Venetian is still intact then the magi can reduce the upkeep for their labs with 1 and if they wish purchase laboratory virtues like superior equipment and/or ingredients. Even flawless items are possible to obtain but you have to pay through the nose to get them. Just follow the rules in the covenant book and ask if you have any questions. Any lab virtue that could be bought can be bought. Just use your common sense, as always.
Some time later… (The first magus/maga to post is the one affected)
You get information that one of the ships that “acquires” goods for the covenant seems to be lost at sea and there has not been any storms of late. The information is given to you by some servant that handles the more mundane affairs of the covenant.
Kalliste is not happy with the news and hearing of this, she moves to find out what route it was supposed to be taking and within a short time, she is diving into the waves to swim that direction. She is going to find out what is going on since she suspect that the venetian friends might be behind it even if the covenant's ships should be leaving the Venetian alone.
As she swims, her voice echoes through the water to her fellow dolphins and whales looking for information.
Nestor in the meantime started to open the arts of his daugther.
ooc: his regular seasonal activity, probably there will be plenty of interruptions and all, but he can't know that. It also means that he'll try to take her with him if they go adventuring, and try to teach her en route (thus fulfilling the dependant flaw). He'll only emerge from his lab for important disturbances. With some luck the sinking of the ship and the opening of the arts take long enough to complete the season in the meantime.
Kalliste swims around in the Aegean sea trying to locate the missing ship. This pirate vessel is however not bound to any particular trade route, it just goes where the winds take them and where the loot is. None of the sea living creatures can give any hint on where the ship might be.
She hoped that it had a general area where it worked. Still, if water can not help her, she will find a quiet spot and take to the air soaring the skies, her sharp eyes able to see for miles for sights of ships including the nearby ports where she might see if it is docked there. She used her dolphin form first in case it was sunk and a sinking ship might draw attention.
The Agean sea is large so there is a good chance that you just have failed to find either a wreck or a dolphin that knows something about it. From the sky there is no information to be gained either. You can see the ships and ports but there is no sight of your ship. The sea is much easier to get a view from above. There is some increase in the activity of ships belonging to the Duchy of Naxos, and they seem to be warships or at least ships on anti-pirate patrol.
Kalliste wings down to land on a spar of one of the ships and listens. Perhaps she will hear something about pirate fights, sunk ships or reasons for sudden increase in patrols after they get over excitement of an eagle on their rigging.
There is some excitement over the eagle landing on the ship. Once it has cooled down Kalliste can hear a conversation from the sailors that concerns the for the sailors joyous topics of loose women, less pirates and increase of patrols from the duchy of Naxos. Someone of the sailor is raise worries that the duke of Naxos will perhaps enforce tolls that is close to piracy. He fellow sailor replies with the fact that at least tax collectors are more like to let sailors keep their heads. A few laughs and then the conversation returns to the loose women of the port.
Kalliste spends the next couple of days being a good luck charm, perching on masts, fishing the harbor for meals. She isn't close enough to people for her gift to really affect them and listening to all the news of the pirate hunts, the increased patrols and such. This would not be the first season she has spend learning about the powers active in the region.
The same story is repeated with a few variations. Everyone is happy that pirates are being hunted, the locals worry about the Venetians and that the duke will take the pirates place. The venetian traders are just happy and grumble a bit about the locals fish smell.
Kalliste finally flies up and after a time in her lab to dress and prepare, she heads to tell the other mages. "We have a problem. The Duke of Naxos has started some very heavy anti-piracy patrols. We are going to have to take steps to equip our ships to deal with warships hunting them."
"The point is that his ships are out actively hunting for pirates. This means they are protecting trade routes too. It will affect our impact unless our ships are prepared to deal with ships that would try to sink ours." The news is not good. This is a strong source of covenant income that has just been weakened and yet another blow to that same source is in the merchant coming here. His ships aren't targets either.
Polycarpus: I think that we must make a choice here… Either we send our pirates to other locations in hope for slimmer yet safer pickings, we stop with the piracy and go into trade more or we make sure that our ships come out on top if they run into trouble. The first would leave us with less of an income and the other two would gives us enemies, if discovered that is…
Nestor:
"Sailing with our pirates means we can spend years on board a ship, away from home, away from our labs. I'd prefer going to Naxos to see if we can eliminate the reason for these extra patrols. Failing that, we might get someone to attack Naxos, so they have something else to worry about."
Polycarpus: I know a few good spells for sailing really fast and safe. But there is some important lab work that I must attend to… Is there anyone who wish to go to Naxos and see what the duke is up to?
"Going to Naxus would be helpful, I say that we reinforce our ships if we can think of a way. We develop some form of new crafts or something here though that might increase our income to suppliment the pirate trade. Eventually we might have to limit our pirate ships or shift their shipping lanes but let's start working on alternate income if we can now before it becomes a crisis." Kalliste might be spending another season at sea rather than in her lab but taking down ships attacking the covenant ships could potentially get the covenant replacement ships.
Nestor:
"We might be able to speed-grow trees. They could be made into ships then. There are hardly any decent ones left for shipbuilding - and last two thousand years were not exactly sustainable. Of course we'd have to build a shipyard and offer generous terms for specialists. But at least we could wait till trouble comes to us - and do our labwork until it arrives."
Polycarpus: I say that we take a look at Naxos and go from there but I like the shipyard idea. It will give us silver, a mighty fleet and perhaps we can shift our income from piracy to shipbuilding.
If no-one add anything more to the conversation. I soon write a short text about the travel to Naxos.