The tale you hear from the sexton of the church is like this:
The two lords who are neighbours are actually cousins, for in this part of the world, the lands of a father are divided evenly among his sons. Soon after the division, though, rumours were spread about one of the sons of the dead lord. They said that he was not his father's son. They said his mother had been cavorting with a strange man in the wood on nights of ancient and suspscious....[The tale goes on a bit puriently at this point, followed by a brief digression into sermonising, but when moved back to the point...] In time, the two branches of the family came to war, but the outcome was indecisive, for they were too evenly matched in men and material. In time, the church brokered a truce, but the bridge between the lands has never been rebuilt, and niether of the two lords alive today has produced a son. Some say it is the curse ofGod on them for kinstrife.
It was long ago, and so now both sides remember the side that had a leader fathered by the devil as the other.
When the magi are out of hearing distance of others. This tale gets more complicated as we explore it further. Titus looks indecisive. I believe that this is a matter that we won’t solve easily. Titus face make the impression of that he has reached a conclusion. However the only thing that we can do for the moment is to gather more information. We use stealth and caution until we know more about what has happened in this God forsaken part of the world. I have learned a few spells that can come handy at this sort of mission, but I think that there is a need to form a battle plan. Any suggestions?
Iohannes sighs, "I think you're right. We need to gather more information, and careful is better. And one noble knows this, the other knows that, and maybe some old lady knows something else... but the knight's squire knows the whole of it. He just isn't talking. It doesn't hurt to investigate more slowly.... unless the crows are doing something meanwhile."
I think that we need to learn the truth of the history and as our informant says none alive know the truth . We should see if we can find a relative without christian burial so I can interrogate him as to the events of the past as that may guide us.
Titus exclaims, Perhaps the father weren’t buried as a proper Christian. If we simply can get hold of a map and some arcane connection to him. Titius calms down, slightly embarrassed of himself. Would his real son be an arcane connection to the father? If that is so then one of the noblemen is the connection that we need the other leads to no-one or some deceptive decoy that is devices by the devil. Perhaps we can either cross-check it with some other connection. Perhaps the sons won’t do but most certain a body part would.
You can never go far wrong with body parts, they are the most dependable things in necromancy. A skull is traditional but I find fingerbones are much more portable and casue less trouble with the mundanes
Body parts however post a problem in this case. Titius sighs. If the body where slain and buried then the whole corpse is in the same place. Any ideas of what else could suffice as an arcane connection? If we feel that we are up to the task we can try to examine the spot under the bridge while holding the knight at bay, without slaying it of course. However I don’t feel comfortable with the thought of facing a fae knight of unknown power in combat.
Vispillius speaks up after listening and considering.
"A child would be an Arcane Connection to a parent - there is, I believe inarguably, a relationship there. It might not be hard to find a trace of the Infernal in one or the other, tho' demons have a way of hiding themselves from all but the most cunning of spellcraft.
"As for 'holding the knight at bay'... if we could have done that, we would have. It may be beyond our power, even if we were willing to kill him outright. Diverting him away and hurriedly performing an analysis, that might work, but I have seen none of us that could ward against him for long, save perhaps Iohannes, were he to be willing to fatigue himself for the day."
Iohannes says, "A child is related to his parent, but is separate, isn't it? Not an Arcane Connection, though I hazard faeries can do something with that. Though my understanding of magic theory is modest.... and this isn't the time for me to remedy that.
"Holding the knight at bay seems more trouble than it's worth. Killing him might be easier for me, because I could do that indirectly without the need to penetrate, and if I failed to hold him at bay, I'd be worn out and he'd be angry."
Titius seems a little more impatient than before. We sneak in to the nobleman’s manor and get our self an arcane connection. I can do it if no-one else volunteers. Then we try to find any directions to a corpse, or rather remains are more appropriate. I think that we have brought a map so that would give us a direction. We stride to action and try, come what may. After all we can’t have more than wrong. We can debate on the nature on arcane connections later or try to find out other ways to solve this situation if needed.
This thread's stalled, so unless there's an objection, you start doing what's above. I'll leave 24 hours from the timed of this posting for objections.
We will head towards the noblemans manor , and take shelter at some point out of sight from the manor but within reasonable working distance.
If no one has a better plan to sneak in I will wait until nightfall and summon some spirits to aid me in sneaking into the manor where I will try and find a family heirloom or similar which will ennable me to summon the ghosts of the dead family for information,
OK, you get a strange black vreature, squat and with a smoky body, that sits upon your head and makes you hard to see. Are you waiting until nightfall, or are you waiting until early in the morning? At nightfall the doors of them anor will still be open, but that's because people will still be awake. Later the house is locked up tighter, but has fewer observers.
You sneak in through the front doors, misapprehended for a servant or a shadow, and walk about the main hall. It has hunting trophies and weapons, and tapestries and a large chair at one end for the lord to sit in. Any of these do, or do you want to try finding your way into the lord's bedroom?
As a necromancer , Theodora is less than convinced of the effectiveness of using wall trophies as an arcane connection they seem to lack direct relevance to what she wants. So unfortunatly that means sneaking into the lords bedroom and using a spontaneous ReCo Spell to gather some hair
The spell is successful. You have a lock of the lord's hair ,and high tail it out of the manor with no problem, unless there's anything else you want to do on the way out.
Once out of the Manor, Theodora will retire to a seclued location in the woods , as she has an arcane connection to the current lord rather than to one of his ancestors hemetic spells for summoning the dead will not be terribly useful.
She plans on trying to call up those realtives of the lord who are not in peaceful rest or otherwise in their final rewards . She is not certain that this will not bring down some infernal wrath upon her so she will either spontaneouly create two wards vs demons or persuade a Sodali to cast the spell for hee. One ward will be intended to keep demons from outside intruding while the second will reinforce the summoning circle in case the demon comes from the summoning.
She will then attempt the summoning aiming to complete it around midnight as this seems a most prospitous time to call forth the dead.
As the midnight hour comes, your chant ends and a pale figure seeps into the middle of the circle. It congeals into the form of an elderly man in armor, with the crest of the manor you have just raided on his surcoat.
"You are a magician: I know this to be true, for I can feel the demons coming closer and their fear or your interruption. I am Henri, of the house from which you have so recently stolen, and you have but a few minutes before the demons come."
Henri goes on to explain, under simple questioning, that he did not die upon the bridge. He was murdered in a Satanic ritual and placed under the bridge to corrupt the faerie of the crossing. He knows that he is not alone, along the roads of Europe are unhallowed graves, just like his, and faeries corrupted with, and spreading, a disease that will break out all at once in many cities, with the first frost. He urges you to flee, and wait for the illness to burn itself out.
"If you must know more, you must ask quickly. I feel the eyes of the crows that serve them...they are searching for me. While I am here, the knight is free of them and they are concerned that their control of him may slip."