Whilst there Fray will approach Viola when it suits her. Apart from small talk on their current undertaking Fray will try to politely skip to the question.
Fray asks, "Maga I remember some tractus writings which indicated that family connections are special within your House, and perhaps may be used for spell casting. Is that true? "
Yes, this is something Theoros covered in recounting the covenant's destruction. He buried the body of one maga, along with with a number of other covenant-folk, but the rest were missing, and, given that he was hiding himself during the final stages of the attack, he has little clue what happened to them. The only thing he knows is that the caves were the scene the last fighting.
Scott
Viola nods, eyes narrowed and one eyebrow quirked.
Scott
Fray waits a moment or two meeting her gaze. When she continues to not answer the question he turns and leaves.
As a final element in this topic - Fray also adds, " I asked Viola about family links in Merintia magic and she just raised an eyebrow. I know there is something there, but perhaps it is considered a House taboo. "
"I agree, we return to the covenant. "
Fray doesn't realize that a nod means "Yes"?
Scott
Gregorius gets a more worried. The missing bodies could indicate captured magi, or perhaps they could be dead but the amazons have magic that can interrogate them still. We know that they have some way of stopping magi from casting, as they did that to Tasia. If they have some way of doing things to ghosts...that could explain the comment Theodoric made about getting the impression the raiders who attacked the previous covenant had inside help - it is haunted.
We really need to get hold of one of their magic users, and interrogate them to find out what they're capable of. That will give us a lot better idea of how to block it.
[quote="MTKnife, post:106, topic:168262, full:true"]
Fray isn't mucking about anymore with this threat, so if with that level of response Fray will find another way. Viola can be a dick sometimes, and that also means that sometimes people around her won't pander to her bullshit.
[OOC: Apologies, missed this response.]
Gregorius grimaces. "Short term, I agree it's the least risky option. From a long term perspective...I don't know. We've killed a raiding party, or at least part of one, and we've learnt some things, but nothing that useful. We haven't found one of their magicians, or their home. If we go back now, I don't have a plan for what to do next beyond an expedition to try to find those things - which will be harder to arrange than this one was. Meanwhile, we've hurt the Amazons, but I don't know how badly - will they back down, or redouble their efforts? I think I'd prefer to press on."
Fray sighs in reply agreeing, some of his frustration leaving him, "Fair point. I will keep searching in the same way. We might find another patrol, or a different camp."
"Thank-you," Gregorius says. He doesn't smile, but looks a little relieved. Let's start heading east and see if we can find this sea they apparently have their island home in. If nothing else, we have a rough location for that."
I think even at the time any well-traveled person in this area would be at least be vaguely aware that there's a sea to the east of the Caucasus, known as the Caspian (and by a handful of other names, depending on the culture--but "Caspian" is in-period).
Scott
Gregorius has at this point vaguely heard of it, but doesn't have a clear idea of where it is, how to get to it or where exactly the Amazons' island is in relation to it. Ideally he'd like to acquire suitable arcane connections to it that would let the Order spy on it from a distance.
OOC: would we have an idea of how far east we will need to go to reach the Caspian Sea? Local knowledge might be faster to cut down the search area, because from memory he caspian sea is pretty big.
[Foo, sorry, I missed this one.]
While map-making isn't terribly advanced in Mythic Europe, the Order does have a lot of magi who can move quickly, and so, if nothing else, you could probably dig up the info from the Redcaps. A traveling merchant in a larger town could probably give you an estimate as well.
Scott
[OOC: I'd been assuming that the Redcaps didn't know masses as it was well outside the boundaries of the Order's usual territory. Can we assume that Gregorius has dug out at least what was easily available before the mission? Looking for the Amazon homeland and acquiring ways to spy on it was one of his original goals when planning the mission, before it got diverted due to incoming raiders (who we may have now dealt with).]
The Redcaps don't travel there...but they do assiduously gather and disseminate information, especially geographical information, and so, as an organization, they're the most likely magi in the Order to know something useful.
Scott
[OOC: So what sort of timescale are we talking to get into the right area? How close were we when we found Tasia previously?]
The distance, along roads, is more than 50 leagues, but less than 100. Assuming you're traveling light, and don't have to worry about provisions, road hazards, or miscellaneous toll gates, you could get there by road in a bit over a month, probably.
Scotdt
Hmm. A two month round-trip is rather a long one - Gregorius doesn't think he's going to be able to take the local light cavalry with him for that, especially as it would mean leaving their village exposed. Which leaves sending them back and going ahead without them (do we still have Wishbone with us? That would make Gregorius a lot more comfortable about that option), keeping scouting round the local area in the hope that we find something or giving up.
[@MTKnife: Rereading the thread - am I right in thinking that the band we killed previously only included 6 Amazons, none of which obviously displayed large amounts of power? If so, that doesn't sound like it is enough to explain the destroyed villages we heard about, so there are (or at least, were) almost certainly more Amazons somewhere not too far away. Did they have any significant amount of loot with them?]
Gregorius asks Fray: "If there were Amazons somewhere reasonably close and they were hiding from us, what are the options for how they're doing it? And how can we beat it?"
"Options that occur to me are mundane disguise, illusory disguise, invisibility, shape-changing, mundane hiding, regios..."
"My guess would be probably not regios, as I doubt they know the local area well enough to know where useful ones are located - this isn't their home terrain. What's the terrain you've been scouting like? Are there places you could plausibly hide groups of horsewomen? Have you seen any groups of horse-riders that didn't look obviously like Amazons, but could have been a basic disguise?"
"Some of these options I could see through with Second Sight, if I was in range of the target. It wouldn't be my first option due to the warping, but how long could you turn me into a bird for? Other options...I don't know Sight of the True Form, and can't spont it at any useful duration. I assume you don't know it either? Viola might be able to spont it - fifth magnitude would allow seeing through mundane disguises for Sun duration, but probably wouldn't work for any serious spells."
"What else am I not thinking of?"