Trintion heads to Constantine’s house.
[I may be a little confused, I assumed the covenant had a central location.]
Thermokopolis consists of 6 houses, each with its own lacunae which appear to derive from a shared aura which is generally suppressed by the divine aura except where holes appear- it is in the description on the wiki.
As you approach the house you notice the man you have been trying to track leaving the servant's entrance (note, not from the servant's entrance- he was not in the building, he came to the servant's entrance)
Trintion approaches the door to Constantine's home and headbutts it to "knock."
From inside he hears "I heard you the first time!" he also sees a note stuck to the door.
Trintion waits... staring at the note, wondering what it might say.
As he waits, Spyridon has discovered that while following a slippery roughian may be difficult, simply asking people in shops and on the street if they have seen a riderless horse come through on its own is a remarkably easy way to track Trintion, and arrives shortly before the door is opened by the cook. "Hmm, well we'll need to take this to someone who can read it, and who might this be?" She asks Trintion, nodding towards Spyridon.
"This is... Oaf. He has been of great help attempting to track down Young Constantine," says the horse. "He has a child he wants cured of... something, I told him I would try to help."
"Constantine is missing?" She looks at the note in her hand. "Head to the stable, I'll let the mistress know."
Shortly afterwards Constantine hears Artemis in his head "When the fool unties you, impress upon him that he has incurred a debt to our family, one that can be paid only with service, and that you will be back later to inform him what that is, then head straight home so we can discuss this misadventure."
He observes the older man looking around suddenly, then fall to the ground in obvious pain. When the pain ends he crawls over to where you are at and unties you.
Constantine stands, and looks down at the man. "You should have been more reasonable. For the gift of your life, and in recompense for your offense, you owe my family a debt of service. When it is needed, I will return and command you, and you will obey."
He looks around to find the package with poison, takes it if he can find it, and then returns to his house.
While she waits for Constantine to arrive, Artemis comes down to the stable, addressing Trintion and Spyridon. "So, who is this newcomer, and what exactly happened?"
Spyridon takes out his cap and bows to the new magoi while holding the cap in his hands. A second sorcerer! this is really a place of power. They surely will be able to help his nephew. If they can be trusted. The horse magoi certainly looks fair, but this other woman has a dodgy air... On the other hand it is the same dodgy air that his nephew seems to have, and he has come to ask for help, so he tries to overcome his visceral reaction of "leave this place and inform the authorities about this woman" and decides to play along. he is the one interested in their services after all.
My name is Spyridon. I am a man from Sozópolis, in the Thracian frontier. I come here seeking refuge and a cure. Not for me, but for my nephew. I am not a deserter from the war, but a concerned paterfamilias. My nephew has been showing a series of... abilities lately that nobody can explain, and we are not sure what to do about him. there seems to be an unsettling aura about him, oh powerful magoi. He seems a little bit uncomfortable and unsure about himself at this point, but decides to go on 2 cows he was guarding died from lightning strikes under a clear sky, and he seems to travel far without realising how he goes there. I was told that in Byzantium I could find wise men (and women) that could help him, and so I am am here. I already met your powerful magoi companion here, that can turn into a horse, and would like to beg for your assistance in ensuring that my nephew is made well again, and that his curse is lifted. Unfortunately I do not have much to pay for your services, only a few coin and my pledge of service if it would be of utility to you.
I was in the same tavern that your young man entered, and followed him because he did look out of place, and I know what the kind of man that was with him can do. I met with the horse magoi and we followed him together, but the man took the kid and they disappeared. We captured the man afterwards, but he managed to slip us in the docks. Unfortunately I am a warrior, not a tracker. We were unable to locate the kid again, and I fear what might have happened to him.
Spyridon keeps his head low and he seems to be sincere, but nervous, he fidgets with the cap held in his hands, and sometimes glances at the door, as if considering leaving.
Artemis smiles behind her hand at the man's account. "The child you lost is a magus as well, my apprentice. Bring your nephew around this evening to the kitchen entrance and let me get a look at him, we will see what we can do. Do not worry about the boy, I have already taken care of that situation."
Yes madam. thank you madam. I am glad nothing untoward happened to the boy With a bow, spyridon heads for the door and leaves the scene for one of the cheaper parts of town, where his sister and her child are waiting.
Artemis turns to the horse "Horse magoi, huh? Diane is going to love this one."
Shortly thereafter Constantine will arrive home.
Soon as Spyridon is out the door Trintion does some strange sounding hybrid of guffawing and neighing.
"Oh! neigh-guffaw May I join you for dinner? This is too good! We must keep up the charade."
Constantine enters, tense and seeming braced for a difficult confrontation. [He has put the package (if he found it) in his satchel.] He approaches slowly, eyeing the room's occupants warily, before addressing Artemis.
"I'm back. I..." he looks around at the company, but continues to address Artemis. "Whomever that was, the one who captured me, could be involved in something related to my goal. Or at least, he is in the same business. He will not be able to use what he acquired today."
His words carry hidden meaning, filled with a bounty of information that conveys different secret things to each listener.
"Two things we need to go over, first what do you know about the man who captured you, and second, what mistakes you made that were responsible for you getting captured. Which do you want to address first?"
Constantine looks at the others in the room, then back at Artemis. "I don't know much about him. I assume you made him feel that pain? All I know is that he was the recipient of a package which I took to be poison, he masquerades as a shopkeeper but is clearly more."
He looks down, then back up at her. His eyes hold sorrow but also fury.
"As for mistakes, I made many. Including a failure of magic I don't entirely understand. But I was vulnerable and I had no leads to work with, and I don't believe success was a possibility."
"Why wouldn't you have leads? You've been exploring the city for one season a year for years now, you should know it inside and out. As for magic, the city is in a divine aura, and that interferes with magic. It's important to rely very little on magic, and to master what you do use so it can be relied upon in hostile situations. In an urban environment, magic is an edge, not a solution. So back to my question, why didn't you have any leads?"
She spends a few hours analyzing your mission, from lack of proper preparation, using magic with mundane skills instead of replacing them, and a plan to develop this herbalist with a penchant for poisons into a resource that Constantine can exploit. She notes his twilight scar and poses questions about that as well, and assigns Constantine a season of fixing the ransom letter as an arcane connection to his abductor.
The package turns out to have been toxic, and illegal herbs.
7xp, 1 confidence each for Constantine and Trintion.
After the way the adventure turned out, and finding out how you feel about her training to date the rest of the seasons until the tribunal are:
fix arcane connection, taught magic theory SQ:20, lab assistance- her longevity ritual, open library, lab assistance making PeCo charged items, teaching spells, lab assistance making ReMe charged items, then tribunal
Sweet! A confidence! (Unless someone is feeding me vis).