Journey to Skorba

As requested, Tomas moves over, sketches the very hint of a bow, and tries a smile on for size.

I allowed the speech- and especially it's content, to give a target of 6 for persuading the crowd. You were at com(1)+folk ken (2) and I rolled a 9 -6 for the gift and repulsive, which makes it right on.

The crowd mutter for a while, then someone comes forward. "You'll need the permission of either our lord or the tax man, not sure which, but we are willing to give it a try."

The boy then stammers out an apology "I.... I...I'm sssss...sorr...ry.."

(I remove the spell with a pe vi spell. Also, the -6 due to repellent is additive to the gift with regards to rolls involving trust, so the total penalty would have been -9. I will spend a confidence point to make up for the difference. sorry i don't have time to post something better, ill edit this post to add descriptive narration when I have time off from work)

the version I am looking at has repulsive but only the ordinary gift, so -3 twice.

The flaw isnt repulsive, it is repellent: Realm of power : Infernal p. 89. I have chosen demonic eyes. So i will definitely need to spend confidence, as this is a trust based roll i think.

At first, Antonius didn't know what to expect, but all in all, things had went better than expected; the villagers knew they were magic users and had not driven them out of their land with the proverbial pitchforks and torchs. He walked toward the young man and explainded what he would do:

"I am going to remove the curse that affect you. Please stay still."

And after the young man aquiesced, Antonius removed the curse. And then adressed the crowd again:

"For now, we will continue to explore the ruins until the end of the day, and then leave until we get the permission from your lord to establish ourselves here. If any of you wish to visit us, you are welcome."

After saying that, Antonius started walking towards the temple ruins. (if there is no answer from the crowd)

(Unravel the fabric of Corpus LvL: 5 (casting die roll: 0, botch roll (5 dices, could be more : 8 - 7 - 4 - 6 - 2, not a botch), dispell die roll: 9 (5+10+9 = 24, curse of the unrully tongue is dispelled)

As the afernoon was well underway, Penko and Tomas were sitting amidst and eating the food they had acquired from the villagers. Various theories about the clay statues, and the temple were exchanged, but it was clear that what Jarcovius Ex Bonisagus had known about this site had dissapeared with him when he entered final twilight... or did it ? An idea suddently flashed in the mind of Antonius Ex Bonisagus.

-Tomas ! We don't know about this ancient temple, but Jarcovius might had, otherwise he wouldn't have brougth the caravan here ! When we go back to the remains of the caravan, we should look in his belongings. Maybe he had a journal of some sort with notes regarding the multiples temples of Malta! I guess that might be a gray area with regards to Hermetic
Law, but I am sure that in the events that he comes back from this Twilight episode, he would approve of us continuing his work somewhat. Now that I think of it, we should make sure that every excavation and magical site we explored is detailled in a book... so that his work lives on.

As Antonius is done eating almonds and dates, and his thirst is quenched with conjured spiced wine, diluted in water drawn from the village well, he wake up and stretch.

-Now, we wouldn't want our minds to be dulled by all of this food and wine, wouldnt we ? A bit more investigation should keep ourselves awake for the rest of the afternoon ! Penko, would you be interested to know what portions of the ruins are left buried ?

(I will cast a InTe 20 The Miner's Keen Eye spontaneously using ceremonial spellcasting : 2 sta +10 aura +5 artes liberales +2 philosophae + 5 intellego +10 Terram 6 die = 40 ! Yay ! It will take one hour of ceremonial casting. I will look for stone and can see through intervening materials (see core rulebook p. 153))

"I'm interested, although I confess I am more looking forward to the challenge of building a new home in these islands." He hefts the water bucket he borrowed from the well. "The water table is shallower here than I expected, shallower than where the wagons are. There must be some underground source beneath us, giving us one more reason to settle here. Of course, I would expect any ancient settlement site to have good access to water."

"How much money do we have? It strikes me that this golden limestone would look incredible when sanded and polished, a technique the ancients did not possess. Imagine the sun coming up at dawn and our covenant shining like burnished gold?" He pauses for a moment with an astonished look of revelation on his face. "Dawn! That's it! The ancient temple faces the rising sun, probably lines up exactly on some special date!" He seems satisfied that he answered his own question from earlier.

"Back to the polished stone, well, polishing compound is expensive, and if my mind's eye is to guide our home, we would need a lot of it. Which will take money. Or maybe you have some, ahem, alternate way to get it?"

The villagers do not respond when you inform them of your plans, and shortly after you return to the ruins you notice Cheech playing with a tasseled cord.

Tomas quickly goes over "What have you found Cheech?" as he tries to see if this a free piece of cord (from where?) or if it is attached to something?

The cord is not attached to anything, from the worn kinks it appears to have been used as some kind of belt. Cheech takes you to where he found it, in a small bush lodged between some rocks. There doesn't appear to be anything else nearby.

Because I would feel stupid otherwise, spont a L2 InVis (base 1, +1 touch) just to test that there is no vis in the cord.
Was the cord cut, frayed, or can't I tell? Is it new or old?
Then bring it to the others "Cheech found this at that bush. Odd place for a cord."

There is no Vis in the cord, it appears to have been designed as being belt length, with a knotted tassel at each end. It may not be brand new, but aside from your group and the shepherd's lunch it is probably the newest thing at this site.

Antonius looks at the cord and raises and eyebrow, perplexed by Cheech's discovery.

-That is a really fancy belt for a location such as this. And it was in a bush you said Cheech ? Ah, what a strange place to loose a belt. Tomas, I've got an idea, why don't you try to find out to whom it belongs ? If it was lost recently, it might still be an arcane possession to its owner. Maybe an intellego spell with corpus would do ? Let me think... how was it called again.. Oh ! That's right ! The inexorable search. Antonius frowns But... if I remember correctly, you need a map... hum that is unfortunate.

Antonius walks towards the bucket, and after grabing it and prononcing a few magical word, it filsl it with black ink. When he is done, he conjure a large sheet of papyrus and draw a crude map of Malta with a spell. Satisfied, he hand it to Tomas, and says :

-Well, as it is your familiar discovery, would you like to try finding the mysterious owner of this cord ?

After, handing the map to Tomas, Antonius will investigate the area near the bush more thoroughly.

(Btw, there was nothing special underground ?)

(Create Ink: Creo Aquam 10 Base 2 , +1 touch, +3 moon, ind. Casting total: 2 stam, +10 aura, +7 creo, + 6 aquam, + 6 die = 31)
Create a sheet of papyrus: Creo Herbam 10 Base 2, +1 touch, + 3 moon, ind. Casting: 2 stam +10 aura, +7 creo +5 herbam, +8 die = 32 )
Draw a map of the island of Malta : How well I remember Matla : Int 3+ Area Lore malta 0 +die 7 = 10)
Rego craft to draw the map : Re Aq (must be fairly low), casting total : sta 2 + 23 rego + 6 aquam + 10 aura = 41
Finesse: roll 7+2 finesse +2 per +2 die = 13)

Tomas looks at Antonius for a minute, then watches him created the necessary components.
Oh well, worth a try: InCo 20; 25 Corpus, 5 Intellego, 2 Stamina plus Aura plus Stress roll of 4 = 36; since the aura is plenty, that should work.
Move my finger slowly over the map, starting where we are and spiraling out.

Let's ask the obvious, first - does it appear to be something the villagers might wear, or is it obviously out of place for Mgarr? Does anyone in the group recognize the style?

It does appear appropriate for Mggar, and in fact the spell reveals that the owner is in Mggar, and lost it recently enough to be an arcane link.

looking through the stone base of the temple reveals... more rock, and a bit of clay further down. Limestone and sandstone at varying depths.

"Penko, you want to see who lost this, and if there was anything odd he will mention about when he lost it?"

"Magus, I will do my best, but I do not speak that gibberish they call a language beyond the words for stone, and um, well, let's just leave it at that."

While Penko isn't the talkative type, he is reasonably perceptive (Per+1) and used to managing work gangs of people he does not share a language with. So he'll keep his eyes out for anyone missing their belt, wearing a substitute, or an obviously worn out one, like someone might who had lost what is probably their only belt. If nothing else he can try to match the belt length to a general physical build by measuring the creases. He thinks anyone hanging out at the dig site is likely to be young, or otherwise rebellious to the strictures of village life, so concentrates his observations on people who appear to fit those categories.

What's the chance he would knows much about warping or that magically aligned virtues prevent warping (like the gift, or hermetic inclination)? He has Int+Magic Lore of 3.

The belt, especially at the creases, is fairly short, suggesting a very thin person, perhaps 18 to 22 inches at the waist. While not a cheap belt it also does not appear to be particularly expensive, and wandering through the village it becomes quickly apparent that the majority of young men in this village are of a fairly stocky build.

As to warping it would depend heavily on how often they were at the site. The Shepherd must take pains to avoid the inner area or not have been at the job for long, otherwise he would presumably already be showing signs of warping. The inner area is relatively small and well marked though, so someone could visit the sight fairly often and still avoid it easily. If they spend less than 1/4 of their time in the aura they might not show any signs of warping at all. Or of course if they have the gift, or any magic realm affiliated virtues. I'm sure that in their travels these points would have been raised more than once as safety issues for anyone who was with the caravan and might risk exposure to strong auras (a traditional excavation lasted 2 seasons, so you would need to spend less than 50% of your time if the aura was at 10... usually they weren't, but then the next aura might be strong as well, so it would be clear that anyone without a magic aligned virtue would need to be careful.