"Yes, we will be a day, maybe two if you want to see more of the island. bring with you what you will. The distance we travel will be greater than it sounds, for we will travel ancient paths of mystery."Meliai prepars to head back towards the forest regio... unless she can find one closer to the village...
OOC: Meliai is unaware of any forest regio entrances closer than the one they used to get here.
"Very well then," Fergus says. "Let us see what this 'paradise' is that you promise."
OOC: What's the general plan?
general plan- return to the region, make the trip to Atlantis, show him around, including Artemis grove, the area near Artemis grove she had planned for a town, and discuss what else they might want or need to consider settling here.
The tour goes well. Meliai is able to get a boat off the island that afternoon and travels to New Atlantis quickly thereafter. Then it's a ten mile walk from the only regio entrance on New Atlantis to the Artemis Grove. Thankfully there are roads now, so it's not a bad walk. The site itself is impressive for its Aura, but little else, there being nothing built there. But Fergus can see the potential there. Over the course of the next day or two, he has several questions and comments that Melia might want to respond to.
"Not much here," he notes when he sees Artemis Grove. "We've already got an Aura we can work in over by the village. And we've got cottages, the smithy, the mill, and everything else already there. Here we'd have to start over from nothing. That's a tall order."
"I can see that there's no one here," he observes about the island. "But how long will that last? And how can we be sure that we won't run into persecution when more people do get here? It's happened before. We're safe where we are now and will be for some time to come. No one bothers us. How can we be sure that'll still be the case here in a few years?"
"You have an excellent place here," he says, looking out from the edge of the Artemis Grove. "Room for a village or a town, good roads, an Aura, fields for planting. But there's one thing you don't have - our Gods. They live in Hibernia. What can you offer that will get us to leave our Gods?"
"Your magical path through the forest was useful, but will it accommodate wagons of goods? If people move, they'll want to come with more than just what they can carry on their backs."
"Yes it is, and some may wish to move here while others stay behind. What there is here in abundance is room for growth."
"Because ruler ship has been established, and I rule this fifth of the island. And the rulers of the other Cantons and I have already come to an agreement that tolerance of all faiths will be a guiding principle here, as it was, more or less, in Ancient Rome."
"Gods, in my experience, travel far more easily than even I do. When we get back you might want to discuss it with them. Where Gods are truly local, of forests or rivers, there are new Gods here we have yet to discover."
"We have a ship, but it is much slower."
"I have some business in Provence that will take a day or so, do you wish to return now or should I come and bring you back when I am finished?"
"You make some good points," Fergus replies. "Though you leave some questions unanswered. Our Gods, for example, have not moved in thousands of years or more. They are likely to stay where they are for a thousand more. Oh, they can travel more easily than you or I. But they rarely change their homes."
"But this land definitely shows promise. I daresay that some of the younger members of the village would be willing to move here with the promise of more land and greater acceptance. I'll certainly present the possibility to them."
"One question will come up, however. Will we be granted access to the Aura here, or will that be reserved for the use of the magi of your Order? The Artemis Grove has a fine Aura, to be sure. But that does us no good if we can't use it. How much of the Aura could we expect to use? Could we set up cottages within it? This is something our villagers will want to know."
"No, I will return with you now. The villagers deserve to hear of things now."
OOC: Since we never set forth the boundaries of the Aura, let me say that it's a rough circle about 200 yards in radius (~25 acres). I'm not sure how much of the area will be covered in trees and how much will be available for structures. But it should be more than enough to fit in a covenant and even some extra stuff.
"The covenant, or currently chapterhouse, that will be established in this grove will include those who are outside the order. There will be some restrictions, only those who are part of the order can learn parma magica which means restrictions on the library, and I think requiring you listed to a pitch from ex miscelania once a decade to offer to let you join the order will probably keep the tribunals happy. I plan to try and grow the aura, so the non-gifted will probably want to keep their houses outside. As to what your Gods will do, I would not presume to speak for them."
She takes him back and proceeds back to the Tribunal hoping to speak with Carles before the Tribunal finishes up.
Fergus wrinkles his lip at the talk of becoming a member of House Miscellanea. "Órlaith has told us of the Order and that we could join, though at the cost of taking an Oath to your Order. We have elected not to so that we can retain our freedom. But we can certainly listen to your House Miscellanea make the offer, so long as we are not required to accept."
The trip back is uneventful, though involves a lot of walking. Fergus is dropped off with a promise to have an answer within a week's time.
Meliai is then off to Iberia again to try and catch the tail end of the Iberian tribunal. She arrives two days after she left with the business of the tribunal concluded not hours earlier, and most of the magi still around. It takes her a little while to find Carles, during which time she's scolded by a local magus for taking a valuable room during Tribunal and then wandering off, not using it. But that's easily ignored.
Eventually she find Carles conversing with a few other magi at an outdoor table near the main covenant building.
"I'm afraid I've been too busy with Tribunal business to take care of that task you asked about," he says to Meliai when his conversation ends. "Give me a few weeks and I should have some more information."
OOC: It was Iberia, and not Provencal, that Carles was at.
"I did not expect you had had time to talk to anyone, but I do need to talk to you about either plans to meet when you have spoken to them, or a way to guide my apprentice, who is quite young, to your store without drawing attention."
"Of course, of course," Carles replies. "Is your apprentice Gentle Gifted? That would be the best way not to draw attention. But I suppose so long as he or she does not have the Blatant Gift, we can work with it. I do get occasional Gifted visitors, and so long as it isn't too many, I can manage. Just how old is your apprentice, by the way? Much younger than fifteen and I'll have to come up with a good story for why he or she has come to the shop."
"Contact really depends upon how quickly you want word. I can send you a message via redcap, but that might take months to get to you. If you want word sooner, we would want to arrange a meeting. Most convenient for me would be if you or your apprentice came to my shop, as I said. But that's only if it could be done without drawing too much attention. Then you could come by to check any time. Other than that, we could arrange for a meeting away from my shop, though busy as I am, I couldn't do that very often. I'd probably set the meeting at a month from now to make certain I had time to make the enquiries you asked about."
"In either case I can give you directions to the shop or the meeting place."
"Right now he is eight, but at least he dresses like most people." she smiles at her "dress" which is a collection of folk charms hung together so they technically cover her.
I did not realize that was how Meliai dressed. She would have gotten much different reactions from people if I'd known that. Carles would have been a bit more stand-offish, for one thing.
I mentioned it when she was first introduced and it has been how she always dresses...
I must have missed that when you first posted it. My bad.
I went back and checked her introduction, and noticed that she also has green skin. I'd also missed that. Something like green skin will make it very hard for her to pass through mundane areas.
Assume that she's gotten some stares but no overt reactions up until now, since it was my error.
On the plus side no pagans in hiding are going to mistakenly assume she is an agent for the Church trying to ferret them out...
That's a fair point. 
"I don't know that I'd want to send my eight-year-old apprentice through the unfamiliar streets of Barcelona," Carles muses. "But you know your own business, I suppose. He'd probably have an easier time than you would on the streets. I doubt you'd get a hundred paces before you were accosted. Like as not someone would try and have you jailed for indecency or worse."
"Is there anyone who could be hired as a guide for him? I'm assuming messenger boys of his age exist in the city, perhaps a companion of his own age who knows the city? Of course, I am relying entirely on stories I have heard of cities, I clearly do not enter them often."
"An excellent idea," Carles replies. "I know several boys ranging from about ten up to about sixteen who would be happy to earn a few coins taking a child around the city. How would he be arriving into the city? And when? I could arrange to have someone meet him somewhere."
A thought occurs to him, and he interrupts himself. "But I'm afraid that the boys would only speak Catalonian. None of them are educated enough to know Latin." He pauses and thinks for a moment. "I suppose if you wanted a lad who spoke Latin I might be able to arrange to get an apprentice scribe to be freed for a day. Of course, that would cost more, significantly more - though we're still talking silver and not gold, so I imagine it's not a problem."