Elia nods "Of course there is a degree of risk, but so far, we have seen nothing crossing to our side." And she pauses before changing the subject "Regarding our discussion from earlier, I have a spell that seems to stir awake the intelligence in a tree. It requires Mentem, but since it's a Muto spell, it cannot be made permanent, but it does suggest that trees have some intelligence that just needs a push to come into realization. Our talk has made me think of some possibilities, and I'd like to hear your thoughts on them. The first one, is that maybe i can devise a Creo Ritual spell to create an intelligent tree. We can ask it to stand watch over the portal, and raise an alarm if anything crosses that didn't go in, or that we do not want. The second idea I had was to see if we can create a 'forest' around the trail leading here, both to hide it better, and so that if we are under attack, those trees can be used as a line of defense. Perhaps I can find a way to create sort of an intelligence network from the trees, that would make it harder to sneak up on us."
Kriegeist grins at that. "I think those are excellent ideas. You could grow your laboratory tree in the courtyard, perhaps, and its intelligence could both watch over the portal and assist you in your lab work."
Bartomeus has a grog share a note with each of his sodales upon his return from the excursion to the magic realm:
Spring 1230
Sodales,
With what we have learned and gained from the excursion into the magic realm, I feel an increased priority to apply some effort to increasing both the organization and the composition of our arcane library. I think we can all agree that our feeble collection needs to be augmented significantly to meet our current and future needs.
I am by no means a librarian but I spent significant time during and after my apprenticeship at The Great Library and am happy to put my understanding and effort toward growing our collection. If we are to train apprentices, for example, we will certainly need to expand our collection and add a number of primers and roots of the arts. We likely will also need other specialized summae and tomes to further our individual and collective work.
Let us collaborate together and recommend tomes for consideration to be added to our collection. I'm confident our Redcap connections will be able to assist as well as other relationships within and without the tribunal. Please share your recommendations, and we can then prioritize our acquisition efforts based on availability and need.
I also believe we need to be thoughtful, if not careful, in our use of the wealth we have discovered and recovered from the magic realm. A sudden flood of wealth into hermetic markets will certainly draw attention, much of which will be unwanted. This topic is clearly worthy of our discussion, and I wonder if we should convene a meeting to discuss this and other topics of concern.
Yours in the arts,
Bartomeus ex Bonisagus
Elia's letter seems to be smudges with dirt and leaves. If she wasn't a Maga, you'd wonder where all this dirt and leaves came from...
Dear Bartomeus,
I plan to write a Summae on Herbam, one that will compliment our Library, and hopefully allow most of you, and any apprentices we have, to reach a more than competent measure in Herbam. We can supplement that with other Summae, if you so wish, but I'm sure we would b hard-pressed to locate one that could be on any benefit to myself. Though, some tractatii could be useful.
As for other Arts, with our high Aura, it would need to be an exceptional book to be worth much for us to read, though, we could get some reasonable Summae and Tractatii, mostly to show that we are interested, though i think our efforts would be better served to get access to past Folios, and to odd Tractatii that feature expansions to Hermetic Lore.
What we are in dire need of, for future Apprentices, are books on Finesse, Penetration, Concentration, and Magic Theory.
Yours,
Elia ex Miscellanea