Pre-Sage Advancement & Narrative (Cont.)
1201 - Year 8 Post Gauntlet
Year 8, Spring
He continued to socialize with the Magi of Thermakopolis, drawing closer to them and putting his best foot forward as it were. There was no dissembling on either side as all of the Magi weighed whether Thermakopolis would be a good home for him and his wife. Vorsutus found more and more, as he continued the process, that he was surprised at himself at how much he had come to desire this to work.
In the interim he shifted his studies by day to the Art of Vim and discussed with Amina how he was enjoying the change and what further uses he might put these new skills to in the future. She seemed well amused with him, yet her own affairs kept her busy much of the time. "You already seem to have put aside the lesson from Lemnos. It made you stronger, but it was only a small test. Sometimes I wish you had actually been a Tytalus, though I do love you as you are." Sometimes a Tytalus can be a real chore.
(Study Vim Summa: +15xp)
Year 8, Summer
Vorsutus served as lab assistant, in a non-Sanctum lab, to the Archmagus Mathieus. It served both the purpose of paying his way for continuing to be hosted by, and permitted to study at, this Covenant of which he was not a member ... and to bring him and the Archmagus into close and prolonged contact as his suit for that very membership was under consideration. Vorsutus found he enjoyed the older Magus' company. He was intelligent, wry, and perceptive.
The project was also an interesting one. A crystalline sphere the size of a pomegranate housed in an arcane apparatus the size of small chest. This curious device Mathieus confided in him was meant to form the heart of their new strategy for any potential defense of the city. A device capable of affecting the minds of an entire enemy army at once and thoroughly and completely destroying their ability to work in cohesion or even amity with one another. The single greatest advantage of any mundane force, completely eliminated.
Vorsutus was impressed and overawed at a level of power, and ability to resist the ultimate mundane assault, that he could only hope to wield such greatness himself one day. He wanted to join this Covenant now more than ever. Amina listened to everything with wide interested eyes and an amused smile.
(Exposure: +2xp Magic Theory)
Year 8, Autumn
Vorsutus resumed his studies of Vim, attempting to regulate his program of study once again now that he was free from the lab. He dreamed of working on another similarly grand project of his own one day. It gave him deeper motivation for his own studies.
In the mean time Amina was becoming more active with visitors to the city. Magi not from Thebes, many of them. Vorsutus was distracted though he noticed a haze of vaguely dark possibility about some of them when he met a few of them. He caught a brief reference of one of them telling another he was the husband of their "ally" and this seemed to garner him immediate acceptance in their group.
(Study Vim Summa: +15xp)
Year 8, Winter
Continuing his studies Vorsutus, despite his usual isolation from the mundane world, was none the less disturbed by news of building conflict. Conflict enough that it threated even the great city itself. Intrigued and concerned both he spent his free hours speaking with the others of Thermakopolis (as he thought of them now) about the state of the city and whether it would need to be defended.
The Archmagus assured him that there was nothing to fear. Thermakopolis was well prepared and all would be well. He felt the certainty of the older Magus and it was indeed reassuring. His visions showed a triumphant Covenant celebrating a great victory. Taken together the outcome of any dispute seemed all too clear to him.
Amina was often traveling for her own interests during this time. The nanny that tended their children had her hands full much of the time. Vorsutus made time in his own evenings to spend with the children and wondered what project had so absorbed her that she had not yet shared. Yet one does not generally do well to pry into the affairs of a Tytalus. His visions once again contained her less and less, a fact which slowly began to bother him the back of his mind.
(Study Vim Summa: +15xp)
1202 - Year 9 Post Gauntlet
Year 9, Spring
The news continued to grow worse regarding impending conflict. Vorsutus shifted his studies to match, abandoning the topics he was most interested in seeking instead to better prepare himself for any approaching violence amongst Magi themselves. This was not to his liking. He preferred to think that Magi, in their world apart, should bolster one another against a hostile mundane world. Yet clearly there was always the possibility of conflict amongst your very own. And he did not wish to be defenseless.
During this time a group of Quaesitors from Polyaigos arrived in the city and visited Thermakopolis itself. They were very direct in urging everyone present to leave the city. Vorsutus had some conversation with one Magus among them called Regulus after the official meeting had concluded. He saw a haze of possibility around this man that he did not see around the others. Some future entanglement that was not yet clear. He did his best to be friendly and try to draw him into conversation as he tried to unravel what the nature of this future entanglement might be. They concluded their conversation with him having come to no firm conclusion yet perhaps one friend richer. And perhaps that was the matter itself?
Of course the Magi of Thermakopolis would not abandon the city. Their stated purpose as a Covenant of Thebes was defending it! Vorsutus could see no alternative for himself either, though he was no warrior Magus. And where was Amina?
(Learn Parma Magica: +15xp Parma Magica)
(Regulus Interaction1)
Year 9, Summer
The Crusaders, and their Hermetic Allies, arrived and besieged the greatest city in the world. Archmagus Mathieus and Vorsutus stood on the wall together looking out more than once. It disappointed the elderly Magus that such a great army was composed of would-be allies and on the wrong side of the city. For centuries they had resisted barbarian forces from outside Christendom. And here was Christendom come to repay them.
Even in the early days of the Siege there came to be exchanges in secret places of the magical world between the Magi of the city and those of the army attempting to breach and establish a metaphorical beachhead within. Vorsutus felt ill prepared for such however he participated in several defensive actions none the less. He isn't certain if he killed anyone, or if so how many. But he is certain on more than one occasion his Arbalest spell hit home. His friend Belisarius and he were frequently fighting together in these exchanges. His sodales of Thermakopolis rewarded him with a gift they thought suitable to his talents.
How could the Pax Hermetica come to this? Wasn't preventing such things why the Order even existed?
Amina however had returned and this was a welcome joy.
(Adventure: +8xp (+8xp Parma Magica) + Reward: Scrying Crystal of Quality)
(Initial Siege of Constantinople)
Year 9, Autumn
The army and the city settled into the siege. The Hermetic conflict also simmered down to a quiet state with building tension, much like the mundane conflict. Vorsutus found himself pressed, with his rarer divinatory skills, into constant service to Thermakopolis and the defense. Connections gathered after battles, or from prisoners, or from scouts sent outside the city were constantly brought to him for him to exploit and determine if they were useful for information.
In what free time he had not gathering information for the defense he attended the councils of the defenders and lended what advice he could. Yet he was still young compared to many of the Magi defending the city and could lend little of substantive might to their efforts, despite yearning to desperately.
The factions amongst those Magi still residing in the city began to squabble among themselves over management of their resources and how best to defend the city. Vorsutus repeatedly attended gatherings the purpose of which was to try to sway Magi to one or another faction devoted to a certain strategy ... or to abandoning the city altogether. He did his utmost to sway his fellow Magi to sustain the defense and to support Archmagus Mathieus. He had every confidence in the ancient Jerbiton.
Amina did not seem so confident. She did not quit the city however she did have every bit of their household goods and affairs prepared for doing so given the sparest moment of notice. Vorsutus was too absorbed in his maneuvering among the defenders to pay close attention to his lack of visions of her. Yet looking back the lack of her in his Sight is striking to him.
(Exposure: +2xp Intrigue)
Year 9, Winter
The tense "peace" of a siege did not last on the Hermetic front. Vorsutus again found himself constantly absorbed in skirmishes to defend the city and even more than once the grounds of the Covenant itself. It was dismaying to him that such open warfare could occur, hermetic on hermetic.
Belisarius and he were constantly together in such unsavory contests whenever Vorsutus was not occupied with divining on behalf of the defenders. His fingers ached constantly either from casting his Arbalest spell or from the constant writing of astrological calculations and inceptions. There was little in the way of rest or time to think beyond the needs of the moment. His visions kept him on a path forward that he felt certain would lead him out of this nightmare alive though not perhaps as well as he would hope for. Yet he could not bring himself to walk away from the nightmare and leave Thermakopolis and the city seemingly to destruction and rapine. The ancient Malthieus spoke of him almost as if he were already a member of the Covenant, indeed he said he likely would already be one if this affair had not so disrupted things. Beyond the personal thanks and encouragement of the Archmagus himself, he was gifted with a lab text from his own collection.
(Adventure: +8xp (+8xp Parma Magica) + Reward: Lab Text)
(Lab Text: Memory Palace of the Magus - CrMe 35)
1203 - Year 10 Post Gauntlet
Year 10, Spring
Vorsutus was sure until the end that the city would hold. That Mathieus and the grand power of the defenders would prevail. And he would do his part as well as he could, for one so young in Hermetic terms. Yet he had failed already without knowing it.
The clashes leading up to the final battle were much the same, though the intensity built up as all appeared to know the conclusion in any case was drawing nearer. Vorsutus had such a wide collection of Connections with which to divine by this point that he couldn't make beneficial use of them all in a day. He fed constant information to his allies, thwarting attempted breaches repeatedly if indirectly.
And yet in the end it was all for naught. Returning to the now fortress-like atmosphere of Thermakopolis one evening Vorsutus fell into a haze of prescience. A vision of the possibility and such a pivotal moment that he felt almost compelled to follow it. In an almost trance state he let the vision lead him down into the treasury of Thermakopolis to find Amina there, the doors wide and the protections disarmed.
He stood silently watching as she looted from the treasures of his friends and would-be Covenant-mates until she suddenly appeared to notice him. Then she laughed as if a child caught stealing from the kitchen. He walked forward as she began to speak, looking down at a fractured and clearly no longer functional device ... a crystalline orb set into a fine apparatus the had helped enchant not so long ago. He held up a hand interrupting her. "It is clear this is more than theft." he said, his anger palpable. "I can't believe-"
And then he was motionless. Not insensate, but locked in place somehow.
"My dear husband. You've grown so much these past few years. But I think you need so much more. I have plans for us both. You were wasting your life away like a Jerbiton until all of this. Now look at you! Trust me, my love, this will only make us both stronger. You will suffer, I know, but I am not sorry for it. For I can not wait to meet the new you when all of this is concluded. For I have faith you will stand the test of the fire and emerge rarefied." she said. After that a kiss, and then the next thing he remembered was waking in a distant townhouse for the city.
A townhouse occupied nominally by the Crusaders. But really by the Hermetic allies amongst them. The siege was over and he recognized some of those Latins now as being among those who knew him as the "husband of their ally" from not so long ago. All was as it had been arranged to be. By Amina.
He felt if anything a fool. Yet he was alive.
(Adventure: +8xp (+8xp Parma Magica) + Reward: ???)
(Fall/Sack of Constantinople)
Year 10, Summer
As the city settled into a state of occupation the magical world reeled with the great destruction of longstanding Covenants. Including Thermakopolis. Vorsutus was grateful in some ways to have survived yet he could not stomach the deeds or how readily his wife profited from them. How she had shattered so many lives, including the one he was building with her here, with purpose and foresight. She seemed convinced that eventually he would understand what she had done. He was less certain.
Going amongst the others, the survivors of the defense, he did what little he could to give aid and try to help arrange especially for those of the Cult and the League to which he was so friendly were able to exit the city unharmed. In these interactions he again encountered the Quaesitor Regulus doing similar work. Again he paused to converse with the man, the sense of growing entanglement surrounding him again. Vorsutus was perhaps too much still stunned by how these affairs had transpired to be a pleasant conversationalist.
It was during these days that he came to become acutely aware that his visions no longer included Amina, and that he had been so distracted with affairs that he had not noticed. Prying open the ring he had made he detected that the Connection to her was gone. She had planned this so far ahead it would seem. And blocked herself from his Sight to achieve it.
He gathered his things and made a silent departure with the next group of Cult members that he assisted instead joining them in their relocation via magical means to a distant Sacred Grove of the Cult in Rome. One he knew well.
It wasn't long after this that, visiting Venice, he rekindled an old relationship with Isabella Carraro.
(Exposure: +2xp Cult of Mercury Lore)
(+1 Warping)
(Regulus Interaction2)
Year 10, Autumn
The idyllic temple was perhaps just what he needed, deep in his heart, to recover from the lengthy ordeal of such sustained conflict and violence. To say little of such a close betrayal. The ancient High Priest seemed to read everything in even just his bearing and, hugging him close, welcomed him "home" in a way that made him feel utterly and completely welcomed and accepted. It was difficult to keep his composure after that.
At first he simply partook of the usual rights and functioning of the temple, striving to see it all done "right" as he had learned when he had done his year of service. Yet the high priest would have none of it. That was work for those doing "their" year of service, not for him.
This freed him from constant demands. It was then that he turned his mind, and considerably more developed skills, to an old problem he had not thought about in entirely too long. The birds stealing the sacred fruits of the trees of the grove. He spent several days wandering the grove itself after that, searching and letting his visions play out in his mind. And eventually he discovered a single new, significant and possibility laden it seemed to his eye, almost blue-black feather.
Unlike before this time his skills were up to the test. He was shocked at what he learned over several hours of divinations and calculations. There was in fact only one bird. But it was a bird of significant power, able to fly through some unknown means in and out of places like the regio of the grove.
As he sat in the grove itself and considered what to do about it he heard very Raven-like caw. Looking up a bird to match the feather in his hand was looking back at him. "I was just thinking about you." he said after a moment. "You seem to like eating things that don't belong to you. Yet perhaps we could make a deal?"
And the bird answered.
(Adventure: +8xp (+5xp Cult of Mercury Lore, +3xp Intrigue) + Reward: Find Familiar)
Year 10, Winter
The high priest was overjoyed to hear that there was a solution to his bird problem. He volunteered the use of a laboratory on the temple grounds immediately and Vorsutus set to work sealing the bargain with his new friend. Formerly thieving the fruit to keep up its considerable magical strength the mystical raven seemed naturally compatible with Vorsutus and had been slowly persuaded as the two came to know one another over a span of several weeks that life, a longer life at that, as a familiar without such needs was a compelling offer. An offer too good to refuse.
As Vorsutus forged his connection with his new familiar the high priest undertook at work of his own. Noting the young Magus was in need and of an age for it to be relevant he had determined to perform a longevity ritual for him. He named a price low enough that it raised the eyebrows on Vorsutus in surprise. "Believe me young man, if your bird isn't eating the fruit anymore this arrangement will all pay for itself!" the older man cackled.
(Bind Familiar)(+LP)
(Exposure: +2xp Magic Theory)
1204 - Year 11 Post Gauntlet (Partial)
Year 11, Spring
Vorsutus finally finishes making arrangements for a Covenant to join. The Rhine is not somewhere he has ever spent a great deal of time, yet it is stable and magically rich compared to Rome. And after all his recent experiences he is eager to make his way there. Coordinating to travel and arrive with Belisarius seemed convenient and safer for both of them, and for his family and retainers.
The roads of Italy were long established if not always well maintained. Making their way to Harco was relatively straightforward. It was a simple matter from there to arrange transit through the Portals to Durenmar. Once there Vorsutus pauses to get to know the ancient Covenant, and arrange opportunity to study for both himself and his new Familiar before moving on. Belisarius wished to pause to learn the local mundane tongue as well.
(Vorsutus: +13xp, Ancient Greek)
(Skepsi: +14xp, Artes Liberales)
Saga Advancement
(Pending!)