Guida may take a day or three in Iverea, since it's one of the few mundane stops she expects in her season, to see whether she can find covenfolk prospects as Anastasia requested of her and other emissaries. After seeing whether she can find any lead or not, she will move on and forge ahead, expecting a harsh winter route to the Matterhorn.
Spending time in Iverea she discovers that the Guelph vs Ghibillene conflict is internalized to the city, which currently favors the Ghibillene cause (pro Fredrick), though this is largely a stance designed to keep the Montferrat Marchon at bay in his claims to the city, which enjoys a relaxed "rule" by the house of Savoy, but it could well flip come spring if there is an indication that the powers of the Holy Roman Empire might start paying greater attention to them.
How this pertains to Guida is that these divisions are not coldly calculated moves, much as they might seem to be such, but strongly held positions of partisan factions within the city, where Guleph alligned customers buy bread from Gulefph aligned bakers, as it stands with every industry, nearly splitting the economy in twain, and there is a rising unrest suggesting that while the city is walled up for the winter violence might well erupt.
And as is always the case, there are people who are neutral on the topics, as well as people with strong opinions who are afraid of how they might fare when young ruffians with an ax to grind (or more precisely already ground and looking for an enemy to plant it in) might start taking to the streets.
Knowing this is the current mood in the city, Guida will spend some time talking and socialising to prospects who match the background she's looking for, trying to size up who is afraid of the current situation and could want an opportunity out of town, and a new employment far away from the potential civil strife or marching armies...
Two people of prominence stand out. The first is a mason of local renown for having made a statue of Fredrick II, who ic concerned that this fame might make him a target for Guleph reactionaries if the tide turns to favor the Church. The second is an aging miller who worries that war brings food shortages, and food shortages can lead to food riots, of which the miller is frequently a target. The miller is strictly non partisan as the city owns the mill, on which he pays rents, and he has managed to keep his position through shifts in prominence between the two parties. The mill is powered by a water wheel propelled by water flowing underneath.
Guida will check out the statue to get an opinion of his skills, although I'm not sure if sculpting would be the same craft as masonry?
As to the miller, I doubt the covenant has a mill for him to work, or that it would make economic sense to build a mill for 20 or so laborers that may not be fully focused on grain crops, so the questions is going to boil down to whether she knows if there's a lack of mills arround the covenant or inactive mills due to lack of miller that could be turned into an income source. 9 on an int+area lore check with a specialty in personalities for the Alps if that helps. If she has no idea, she'll focus on the mason and look for other leads if time permits without delaying her route more than two or three days.
stoneworking/mason are essentially the same ability.
The statue has an aesthetic quality of 12.
Guida will engage the mason on his concerns for the Guelph reactionaries. If he's open, she'll offer him a way out of town with a new employment.
If you are willing to take him he will leave his business to his 20 year old son, though he is concerned about how he is going to proceed through the Alps in winter without shelter.
Guida explains she will arrange for safe transport out of town in about a week or two's time (adjust what she would say if the time seems unrealistic for her to have a stop at the covenant after doing her route stops), which should leave him enough time to tie up loose ends and transfer his family business.
She does not name Gardenia and speaks in very general terms about the destination. Things she may communicate to him include well to do patrons, a small community out of town, in an area safe from church and imperial politics, and so on. She would not mention traveling through the Alps in winter since the idea is for Anastasia to vet him magically and to arrange for his transport by teleportation in order to preserve the secret of Gardenia's location.
She'll take notes of where he can be contacted at, and take an arcane connection (a rock, for example) to a spot slightly out of town and hidden from view for Anastasia to teleport to.
In principle, including layovers at covenants, it should take the whole season for you to complete your rounds.
I mean, sure, I expect to work as a redcap for the season. But Switzerland is a tiny area. Being able to fly in the remote, tough parts, as well as accessing mercere portals should let Guida pay several visits to all the covenants and the copper rooster inn. Gardenia would just be a quick stop.
At this point Guida really doesn't know- she has jus been given an alpine route, and while these are reasonable assumptions they may not prove to be as simple as she thinks, hence an adventure for her first time on the new route during the winter. Just pointing out that "whenever she would expect to be done" is putting a lot of unknowns into he air and not taking responsibility for them, and will not magically make her estimate more accurate to this situation.
I'm working with imperfect knowledge. Imperfect knowledge about the future is normal, and if Guida gets trapped in Arcadia or time dilation regio, well, stuff happens. Imperfect knowledge about geography for someone who has been given a route and could access a map isn't normal, which us why I was asking for your assistance. The character should have an idea of which routes she can take for overland movement, short of an army blocking a road unexpectedly. It seems reasonable to me that she would be able to stop by Gardenia. I'll go with that assumption at this time and plan accordingly.
She might want to pick up arcane connections from various places, that can be fixed.
Like I said, this is a route you have not taken before, where blockages may occur due to avalanche and other unexpected conditions. It is not knowledge she has familiarity with, and in fact would have less knowledge then what you can get from google earth. Are you ale to look at the images of the alps in google earth and be able to tell how long it would take you to hike across them in the winter? You are crossing the alps- a prospect which nearly stopped Hannibal from invading Rome, in the winter, which keeps experienced merchants who know the route holed up for the winter, with the assistance of your magical devices and directions left to you by redcaps who have traveled this route before. This is not a run to the store for milk where you simply know how long it will take. I couldn't even give you a reasonable estimate of how long you expect it to take as the SG without more details as to what your plans are for travel.
Allright. Guida will not give a precise date and merely say she'll arrange for a safe travel out of town. Once that business is concluded, she'll keep on moving along the Great Saint Bernard Pass route, so from here, to the north!
The next leg of the journey is 20 miles up the valley in ankle deep snow, climbing about 3500 ft over the 20 miles. Once you are out of sight of the city your shoes make the journey significantly faster- at maximum speed you can cover this stretch in an hour and a half- an hour to get outside of sight if the city and a half hour for the rest of the journey, if you are willing to make the higher finesse rolls to control your motion. I'll let you decide how fast you are going before we proceed.
A question for you re: Mercury's Winged Sandal, TME p. 111. Ease Factor 3 is defined as walking pace, while Ease Factor 12 maximum speed is defined as 40 miles per hour minus Load. The ambiguous part for me is in between the two, as it only lists EF 9 as moderate speed and doesn't define moderate speed.
This brings up two questions:
- My understanding is that there are 3 speed settings. Is that your understanding or do you consider the EF 9 is just a landmark while rolling a 7 would yield a different speed from rolling 3?
- If we're talking of 3 speed settings, how fast is "moderate speed"?
First of all, your speed is not determined by what you roll- you decide how fast you are going and then roll to maintain control when you need to do something like turn left before crashing or land before you get the attention of a mundane. Failing that roll means a loss of control.
That being said, I would allow for all sorts of speed/target number combinations, including adjusting for environmental conditions (penalties for heavy winds or precipitation). At a base a 9 would be around 20-25 MPH.
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I'm aiming for about 15-20 MPH, about target 8 I'm guessing from what you wrote, rolled a ten, excluding specialty which is grace, if that applies.