The issue being also that anyone with an ability in medicine and possesses a mind would cause the collapse of the circle by crossing it. At that point you might as well use day duration and let them feed themselves every sunrise and sunset.
Forget the circle, I mean this.
That should work, it will require periodic checks against medicine to keep them properly fed and hydrated.
Ironically the best medics in the settlement are Arabs.
When they talk this over with the Cathar covenfolk there are 17 individuals who choose to be put to sleep until a new perfecti can be found.
Ok great, let's do it like that. In case the Arabs ever mess the feeding and hydration up, have the Cathars check on the sleepers several times a day. If they seem to be weakening, we'll wake them, feed and hydrate, and then Lares will put them back to sleep. Hopefully this will help the Cathars accept the Arabs, too.
The Cathars will now gather the vis, correct?
After this is done, Lares will report the results, to the magi who were not present, over dinner.
"... so they were going to kill them. Imagine that. I'm sure God would have been real pleased with His flock."
He shudders slightly.
"Anyway, I put them to sleep instead. Not ideal, but it's better than having them murdered. This means we'll be short some menial laborers for the coming year or so. I'll have to see where we can cut corners or switch tasks around. But they should be gathering the vis now. I didn't have the heart to wrest the task from them, given the circumstances. Maybe later - they seem to want better jobs, so maybe train them in something else and spread the vis duties around in exchange. It's a long-term thing."
He pauses.
"Of course, all this could just be postponing the inevitable. We better find a perfectus in Europe who is in his or her right mind. Willing to bend a few rules to see justice done, in other words. Else our poor sleepers will go right back on the slaughtering block when we get back."
He sighs.
"Oh, and they also really hate the Arabs, and think we have broken some kind of a deal we made with the Cathars back in Europe. I suspect this is not all good, yet."
Plasmatoris shakes his head as the magi discuss the situaton later. "We are currently hoping that there still are perfecti who we can find - we have no actual knowledge of the Cathar situation in Europe, do we? Do they still practice?" He sighs deeply, and shakes his head. "Whatever monster decided I should be in charge of things really- Oh, wait, this is my own decision. Right, I'm a monster." He lifts a hand to Tastheus as if warding off a comment. "I am not saying it is a duty I am unable to handle," he drawls with his tight, rictus grin. "I am merely saying that I would rather be a lazy slob and not deal with it."
Okeannetis looks at Plasmatoris, and says "None of us can be a lazy slob. Not with this complete change. And we'll have to deal with it."
She looks at her fellow Magi before continuing "I don't know what others have planned for way to get to and from Europe, and am sure some of you might be more versed in Rego Corpus than I am. I don't know, nor care, what shapechanging spells my former self had learned, but I do plan to invent new ones, but it will take me time to improve my Muto Corpus, to a level where I can do that. It might afford us a faster way to get to and from Europe, and once I research such spells, I would be willing to invest them into a device, so that others might make use of it as well, if it pleases this council."
Plasmatoris lets his manic smile into something a bit calmer, more natural. "I do understand, Maga. I will do my best to handle everything put forth. I can promise my full effort. But I cannot promise I will not complain about the weight we all must carry."
"You're right about that. Wait a while, I'll see what Winitran knows. He is not one of the Cathars, but maybe he has heard something. He hasn't lost his memory, after all."
@silveroak Lares gets up from the table and heads out, looking for Winitran. He asks him if he has heard anything about the current situation of the Cathars in Europe.
Winitran nods "At minimum the Catholics believe there are Cathar's in France, since they are still hunting them down and every year or two they execute a few people they claim are Cathars. I do know that two years ago one of the covenant Cathars underwent his perfecti ceremony before leaving for France for missionary work, so unless the Inquisition has killed him there is presumably at least one Cathar perfecti in France. I should mention he was granted a longevity ritual before he underwent purification, in order to prolong the missionary work in the case he was not caught.
"'Catholics believe' - you make it sound like the Catholics invented the Cathars just to be able to execute people."
Lares chuckles.
"Can you describe this perfectus who left the covenant? He would make an excellent contact if we can find him. And... it was two years ago, you say?"
Having presumably gotten the description, Lares goes to the Cathar leadership and asks them if they could look to see if they have any memorabilia of the perfectus who left. "Especially hair, blood, bodyparts - anything of his body. It could help us immensely in trying to locate him."
The Cathars did not keep any memorabilia of him, this would be too much like worship.
Lares returns to the others and reports his findings.
"So there is at least one perfectus. I suppose we just head there and hope for the best."
"Aetherius promised that he would invent a shapechanging spell for travel purposes next Winter. I hope we can travel to Europe in the Spring using that. Teleportation would be faster, of course, but that will have to be postponed for now, I believe."
Zarkut nods. "We could work on a flying carpet, or something similar, as a backup or an alternative. Incidentally, who among us can speak French? I'm realizing I need to study a bit, I'm from Euskal, I'm not sure if Cathars went there or not, I think it would be easier to hide from the church but they might not be welcome."
Plasmatoris shakes his head and frowns. "I am Venitian, and did not learn other languages before the Order decided I had to learn Latin," he says. "But I have begun studying the book we have on Lyonnaise in our Library. I am not a practiced conversationalist in any language though."
FYI there is no French language.
There is Langues d'oil which predominates in the North of France and Franco-Provencal which is spoken in the south, and the two are as different from each other as they are from North Itallian.
Would Zarkut know that?
There are books in the library marked "Franco-Latin", is that Franco-Provencal to Latin (and vice versa)?
I think Tastheus knows Langues d'Oil, so the north-French (@Lothindil ). I would assume that the books in the library are of the Franco-south-French - Plasmatoris has managed to pick up some of that already. So those two might be useful on the expedition. I'm not sure if the other magi would know of Tastheus' language skills.
I confirm for langue d'Oil for Tastheus, he's from Normandy on North France
Plasmatoris has been picking up the languages to interact with the locals, inflicting his chaotic and Gift-irritating ways upon the poor covenfolk.
Plasmatoris has the rudiments of the language (2) but his social skills are terrible enough you shouldn't rely entirely on him.
obviously you can take along Cathar grogs, the risks are pretty self explanatory...