[OOC: I think that given the Ironboundtome doesn't appear to be very around, it probably makes sense to wrap this one up?]
Gregorius thinks a moment more, then sighs and shakes his head.
"Let's go back to the covenant. We've got the location and some arcane connections - we'll send one to my Exarch so the Order isn't starting from scratch if something happens to us or our covenant. I'd have really liked to learn more about their magicians, but hopefully we can use the arcane connections as a starting point for that."
OOC: The next logical thing for Fray to do was approach the people, but I didn't want Fray to approach the strange people on the island as he's had previous devastating experiences with being under attack, and also being alone in confrontations. He's curious rather than brave.
"the arcane connections will need to be made fixed. Perhaps there is enough threat from these strangers to make that time well spent even if the exact location isn't known as strategic. Even to retaliate if needed as a form to distract. I would hate us to hurt ordinary people if the have no direct bargain in the attacks. "
Gregorius nods agreement to the suggestion that the arcane connection be fixed. "I can do it myself if necessary, although ideally I'll be able to persuade Viola to lend us a season of her apprentice's time. Keeping another arcane connection on hand in case something goes wrong, of course, but it should be suitable as an introductory lab project."
"We need to use the arcane connections to gather more information. It's frustrating that we haven't managed to find one of their magic users, but we already checked the cave where they were holding Tasia previously, and short of that I don't have any ideas of where to look for them beyond just blundering around and waiting for them to attack us. Which is a strategy with flaws, shall we say?"
[In terms of defences, Gregorius has been doing some work on this already - by now we have perimeter wall contructed by a Tremere Architect, and a tentative agreement with the local village about their light cavalry in exchange for us helping them capture some of the Magic Stallion's mares. The early warning system is still the big problem - we'd had some discussions of Viola creating something, either via Animae faeries or Imaginem enchantments, but I don't think we ever got either off the ground. I think the key problem of the latter was where to aim them - do we have any better ideas now we've been traversing the terrain?
I'd quite like to get an Enchantment of the Scrying Pool set-up and then Fray to use his knowledge of the sea to use it to spy on the coastline of the sea / island until we find something useful, but that requires someone to learn an InAq 30 spell and (at least) 6 pawns of In / Aq vis.]
The question was how do we know ahead of time that a hostile force is headed our way. One possibility was to set up remote monitoring on likely routes to the covenant, either by arcane connections and Intellego spells to a location or installing spies (e.g. faerie Animae) at the locations. But I don't think we even quite managed to answer the question of where to put them that actually had a high probability of being on the route the hostile force took.
"Scrying is on of my weaknesses, so I cannot help with that. On defence of the covenant, I believe we can we safely assume an attack on foot, and many of my spells could be bound to a device to hamper and disable soldiers and horsemen. Should you wish I can craft such an item."
You're pretty certain they can move efficiently cross-country, so yes, finding places to put devices poses a problem. The one thing that immediately springs to mind is finding fords and other river crossings.
OK, taking a look at the map...given the breadth of the Don delta, monitoring all the Don crossings might be difficult. You could try to monitor the major ferry points, but there's going to be a few. The only other major river between where you are and the Caspian Sea run NW to SE, so it's not gonna be a barrier.
You mean towns on the mainland? There would be a few, but you suspect that the way the island is hidden, none of the towns' inhabitants has ever been there.
So in summary, the Amazons could come by any one of a variety of routes, and there's nowhere reliable to observe. On that basis, Gregorius will suggest to Viola that she focus on the end points of the route; in the immediate vicinity of the covenant, and close to the Amazons' island. The former doesn't give us much warning, and the latter has the problem that we don't know whether any warbands we spot are actually coming to us - but it would be useful to know more information about them anyway.
I don't think Viola ever made any promises about anything, but some of the ideas batted about included Intellego spells to remote locations and creating Animae faeries and stationing them in the area, having bargained with them to give us advance warning.
Viola agrees with Gregorius' suggestions. She's not sure what she can do without enchanted devices, though. It's not really a situation where sponts will be of much help.
Developing spells feels like an option? Although with LLSM Viola probably could do some things on a temporary basis with sponts.
Viola has a Mu(Fo) lab total of Te 12 + Fo X + Int 4 + MT 8 + Aura 5 + Lab Mu Bonus 1 + Familiar 8 +IG 3 = 41 + Form
The most obvious Animae to create given what we're trying to do are Animal or Herbam ones.
Muto Animal is base 10 to change an Animal into a Faerie (so 10 + 1 Touch + 3 Moon + Might would be level 30 + Might), whilst her Animal score is 8, so a score of 49. She could slightly bump that up by involving Chryse (only +1 currently) or experimenting (IG +3 + die), but not to the point she could reliably invent the spell in a single season. In two seasons she could create a level 32 spell, which is only a 2 Might faerie (3 if she involves Chryse) but it probably doesn't need to be particularly powerful for our purposes. If she did go down this route, it probably makes most sense to make bird Animae of some kind.
Muto Herbam is base 4 to change a plant into a Faerie, so a level 20 + Might spell. Viola's Herbam is 6, so she has a MuHe score of 47. That's comfortably enough to invent a level 23 spell in a single season (24 if she involves Chryse). The downside of a Herbam faerie is that it's likely to be significantly less mobile than an Animal faerie, so she's probably have to plant them in situ, and come up with a way for them to communicate back to her.
The other problem with Animae is the question of control over what Viola's getting (and then the need to bargain something with it to get it to do what it wants). This has been discussed before on the boards (e.g. Animae: Thoughts on How to Use in Practice - #2 by Jank) - in that thread I suggested allowing a Formulaic spell to produce a consistent result, and for the Maga to be able to have a broad goal when designing the spell (as presumably testing whether it's doing what she wants is part of developing the spell), but not to be able to determine an exact stat block.
I wonder if it might be more efficient in the long run to create enchanted devices? Viola does have ridiculous lab totals, after all. Let me run some numbers over the next couple of days.