Ars Magica: Lumen Montis, A Covenant in the Alps [IC]

[Malacat]

After Celeste had finished speaking, Tsaran turned to me.

"Well, Polybius, we have heard from everyone else. Brigitta favors returning to Lemannus to retrieve raw vís, then a certámen duel to settle the matter, though she does not object to more negotiation first. Celeste opposes the certámen notion, preferring a less violent solution and, I think, would prefer us to retrieve a more pacific and well-spoken representative for further negotiations rather than sending any one of us to do the job; she would also, I think, prefer to find an uncontested site rather than resort to violence to win this one.

"I favor negotiating further with the magus before we leave. We were sent here to do our best to settle any problems, not just to trade insults with them and report back. While any agreements we make with him would have to be ratified by the rest of the covenant to be valid, I would prefer to bring back a better offer than the last set of terms Karl offered.

"But my preference is really for doing as much as we can to resolve the matter. Another option, which would do so, would be for the rest of you to return before me. In your absence, I can declare Wizards' War on Karl and, with luck, kill him. As I will have acted alone, the onus for his death will rest upon me alone. Marcus and the covenant as a whole can then punish me, and Lumen Montis will be able to stand before the Tribunal as a peaceful covenant, if one which contains at least one member willing to kill those who threaten it.

"That course of action would be accepted among the Tremere, but I think it may not be accepted here. I would be quite pleased to put Brigitta's plan into effect and, with a few pawns of raw vís, duel with Karl for the valley. I also note that you are well-spoken and the one among us who has so far done the best at speaking to Karl. Perhaps instead of sending me to speak with him, we should send you to negotiate?"

At this point, Tsaran glanced at Celeste, then at Brigitta.

"I would not willingly give up raw vís to this Karl in exchange for his departure, but permitting him to spend a season reading one of our liber quaestionum — What use would he have for it, after? — would seem fair to me. For that matter, I have no objection to exploring other possible sites in the area before we return. If we find a better one, we can let Karl be.

"But your vote will, I think, settle the matter. If you vote to negotiate further before we return, we will do that — and if you satisfy Celeste's preferences better than do I, and wish to do so, you will be our negotiator. If you vote for the Wizards' War, that will not, I grant, settle the matter, but if you vote with Celeste to leave without further negotiations, I will not insist upon them, and Brigitta is, I think, indifferent to the matter.

"As to the rest, once we have returned, with further negotiations accomplished or no, the whole covenant will face together the choice as to whether to explore more before we decide, and also the choice of whether we yield the valley to Karl, buy it from him, face him in Wizards' War (though not one which we will be able to blame on me alone before the Tribunal) or certámen, or allow him to join us on our terms. I favor the last of those, but I would hear the words of the rest of our sodales before I cast my final vote on that matter."

 

[Feir Fireb]

from Matteo's journal, Summer 1221

It is a pity that the girl, Daniela, and Samuel chose not to continue with the covenant beyond its formation. May they fare better in other endeavors. I had hoped especially to talk at length with Daniela on the matter of arcane connections once we'd had the opportunity to turn our attention from the political to the thaumaturgical. Her views on the subject are fascinating, and the matter ought to be of great interest to any Quaesitor. But I wonder if she isn't going down the wrong track in studying Intellego. Take, for example, the spell "Image from the Wizard Torn", which relies heavily upon the use of Intellego. Once the image leaves sight of the Wizard, unless an arcane connection is used, the spell ceases, even though the Wizard can perceive clearly from the locus of magic. I wonder if she ought not try Muto Corpus instead, to attempt enhancement of they eyes, allowing sight at great distance (as a hawk's) and through objects. According to Plato, sight results from the eyes' penetration of the objects they see, though Aristotle would differ on the specifics of this, and Alhazen rejects the idea completely.

In any event, "Eyes of the Cat" is well-known to allow spellcasting through a darkness that would ordinarily prevent magics without arcane connections. Depending upon the inherent potential for the ocular organs to penetrate solid objects (such as glass) it may be necessary to use Imaginem as well--Perdo or Rego--to bypass barriers to seeing. Or perhaps one might try a Mentem spell to extend the limits of one's consciousness to the objects one wishes to affect. Creo, Muto, or Rego might work. "Exchange of the Two Minds", for instance, is a difficult and problematic spell, but it demonstrates a way in which a magus who has gone beyond the limits of his own body retains the capacity for spellcraft. It would thus appear that the limits of arcane connections arise not from the inability to perceive an object with sufficient clarity, but rather from the inability to interact with it directly.

If she is indeed going the wrong track, I can only hope that she can make good on her mistakes. God knows how many magi have sought to understand one thing but in the end discovered something completely different. She strikes me as young and headstrong, even for one who has passed the gauntlet as recently as I. She has many years to pursue her route, wherever it may lead her. And I now have an interesting possiblity to research. But for the moment I must concentrate upon my transcription efforts. Strange that I should spend my spare time away from writing, writing! But if I do not record these thoughts now, I may not have them when I have the time to pursue them. Lucia approaches Aquam from an interesting perspective, and I look forward to reading her Summa more thoroughly, but does she ever write with a cramped hand!

 

[mmeubiquitous]

When Tsaran suggested that he declare wizard's war on Karl alone, Celeste went pale beneath her swirls of tattooes.

"If you try to attack Karl, I will stand in your way."

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

After we had each stated our views as how best to deal with the problem of Karl, we agreed to try a few things to gather information before reporting back to the rest of the Covenant. As the matter did not concern my House, I followed my traditional approach of deferring to my Gifted sodales. We first explored the remainder of the valley, spending a fortnight on the task. Karl bounded along watching us, but took no actions to interfere. Celeste informed the rest of us that Karl occupied the only area were the valley's aura reached its strongest point, but that another area, near where the river bed rises more rapidly up the valley, had more concentrated magic than the rest of the valley. [The other area has a magical aura of 4.] Thus, while we could make do elsewhere in the valley, Karl has established his sanctum at the place where we would most want to build our own covenant.

After assuring Celeste that he did not intend to declare Wizards' War on Karl, Tsaran proceeded up to speak with Karl again. He returned after only an hour or so of conversation, somewhat frustrated by the results. To the group as a whole, he said only that Karl was less receptive of the suggestion of equal membership than he would have hoped, but that Karl did seem somewhat interested in negotiation. Tsaran expressed his hope that we could retain Karl, with his firm resolve, as an ally, perhaps through offering the option of allowing him to read some of our libri questiona.

At my request, Tsaran provided a fuller account of the meeting for my history of the Covenant. He approached openly, as he planned, with some of his cheese and bread. I can, incidentally, vouch for the quality of the Volakula cheeses as one who has had the opportunity to sample many cheeses from many regions over the course of my travels. Karl gruffly called out to Tsaran, asking our Tremere sodalis why he insisted on intruding on his sanctum once more. Tsaran presented the bread and cheese he brought and stated that he wished to sup with Karl and have a friendly discussion.

Karl's response was quite offensive: he cast a spontaneous spell to determine if the food had been poisoned, as if Tsaran would be so low as to do such a thing. Satisfied by the results of his spell, he grudgingly agreed to eat with Tsaran, although he brought some goat cheese of his own herd on the grounds that no cheese from beyond the valley could measure up, and that in any event he had never heard of Volakula cheese.

They ate, with Karl rather ravenously gnawing away at huge chunks of bread and slabs of cheese, with saliva and crumbs dripping down his long, straggling beard. Tsaran ate at a more measured pace, using Karl's distraction to get out his statements of his experiences in a monarchical covenant to attempt to persuade the Bjornaer magus. At length, Karl finally replied. He first argued that if our covenant accepted his rule, we would together be strong enough to maintain the covenant's position within the valley against any interlopers, thus ensuring that he would not need to worry about being displaced. At the same time, he could not consider joining a covenant where he would not remain his own master. While he might be forced to move on to some other valley at some point, he would not accept the yoke of any, magus or vulgar-- not even to the point of joining as an equal into a fellowship that could give him instructions. He thus declined Tsaran's offer to sponsor him into the covenant, although not in a way calculated to give offense.

Their business at a close, they finished the meal together. Karl finally expressed a grudging opinion that the Volakula cheesemakers understood the craft, although the quantity of cheese he had consumed provided rather higher praise. Almost absentmindedly, Karl expressed his hope that Tsaran would continue their interactions with equal courtesy even if our covenant insisted on pressing our claims. Tsaran assured Karl that he would, refraining from mentioning Karl's discourtesy in presuming that a fellow magus would seek to poison him.

When Tsaran reported his results, Brigitta expressed her lack of surprise and reiterated her belief that we should simply gather up some vis and drive him forth through certamen. After some further discussion, we agreed that we should travel back to Lemannus so that our sodales could participate in the decisionmaking. In any event, if we were to either offer the use of libri, or threaten certamen with raw vis, we would need to gather those resources from our stores at Lemannus.

The trip back to Lemannus was uneventful. It took some 15 days to travel back, partly because Brigitta again insisted that we travel over land instead of taking a boat across Lake Geneva. Upon arriving, we interrupted our sodales' copying efforts to ask their opinions, although hopefully we shall resolve a course of action sufficiently quickly that we do not compromise their copying efforts for the season.

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

Double post eliminated.

 

[Feir Fireb]

The implications of Karl

As my sodales and fellow travellers took the opportunity to speak with those of our covenant who had remained at Lemannus, I approached Matteo to ask his opinion on the matter of Karl of Bjornaer.

Matteo was glad to speak to me, but bade me wait for a moment as he finished transcribing a paragraph of "The Nature of Water", in which he was deeply engaged. He explained with an eager blue glint from his sole eye that if he worked diligently, he might finish this copy much sooner than he'd first anticipated. But he was eager to hear news regarding first visit of the Magi of Lumen Montis to their new home.

Although he was quite pleased at the quality of the land and the great strength of the magical field, I did not linger on these long and moved quickly to the pressing point of our putative neighbor. At this he became clearly vexed, shifting his eye to a different corner of the room for each new point of the situation that he considered. With each new detail I provided, it seemed he asked for three more. But he laughed at the manner in which we found him, and again at the absurdity of making a strange Bjornaer magus a mighty primus after having put so much work into devising a charter that would grant us all equal rights and measures of security.

He struggled awhile to recall anything he might have heard of this Karl in his and his parens' correspondance. At first he approached the matter from the standpoint of hermetic law. He was visibly frustrated at the fact that Karl had established his sanctum there, seeing as hermetic law tends to be generous to individual magi on the matter of their sancta, though he rather doubted that Karl's claims beyond his sanctum would be enforceable over those of Lemannus, particularly if we moved in and established our own sancta as he did, with his approval or no. He attempted at length to determine in what ways Karl's claims might be invalidated, or at least weakened. [CP, please confirm: ] It seemed unlikely to him that Karl could lay claim to having a covenant of his own encompassing the whole valley, particularly given the Tribunal's general reluctance to establish new, unsponsored covenants. After putting forth a few considerations of his own, Matteo said that his parens Laurentius would be the real expert if he were willing and available. He also suggested a few legal matters that could provide additional leverage in bargaining for Karl's abdication, which he asserted would clearly be the best course of action assuming Karl's claims have any validity under hermetic law.

He grimaced at the thought of trading away the Libri Quaestionum upon which Fionuala and Marcus had worked so diligently this past month, though he found mere use of them unproblematic. Matteo was quite set against the trading of vis, of which we have very little and which we must eventually set to collect in anticipation of paying our obligation to Lemannus. He further emphasized the need to conserve our vis resources when I moved on to other suggestions that our travelling party had considered.

Matteo claimed that the stronger magical aura was worth bargaining for with use of Libri Quaestionum, or even spare copies of the texts themselves, for the extra vis that we might extract and for the chance to build laboratories within in the aura's influence. He suggested that if what we have proves inadequate, we might promise more to come in the near future, and that Karl might find long-term reading access to our Libri far more appealing than any advantage he might gain from sole ownership of the valley, or even of the high lake. But he further asserted that without knowing more about our opponent's skills, certamen now would be an exercise in abject foolishness. If Karl had been collecting vis from the stronger auras in the valley for some time, he might have a great store of vis to use in certamen. He might further have a Form specialization that would make him a formidable opponent as the challenged, even if he were not a terribly capable challenger.

If Tsaran, as good as he is for one as hermetically young as the rest of us, were to fail, we could in one fell swoop lose our claim to the land and any vis we might have expended in the duel. And if Tsaran were to win through expenditure of vis, we would spend what is currently our most precious resource, most difficult to replentish. But we might find it wise to have Tsaran carry vis and make it obvious that he is a Tremere and that we are willing to take certamen as a second recourse. This would lend strength to our negotiations, for he may be as unwilling to risk loss as we.

Matteo argued that given the choice between on one hand taking a terrible chance with the future of our covenant through certamen and on the other hand settling for a good but less-than-optimal location, we ought to settle for second-best and hope that the future brings favorable changes, either for a closer relationship with Karl or for Karl's abdication of his own choosing. Even if our bargaining is fruitless, we might be able to contest his claim on the rest of the valley merely by establishing ourselves, and if so we ought to. He asked me my opinion on Karl's temper and demeanor. I told him what I could, but said that Tsaran had spent more time speaking with him, and Matteo agreed that he would speak more closely with Tsaran on this matter.

But ultimately Matteo considered this to be an unwise time to be actively making new enemies, even of a lone hermit magus, unless we could do so decisively and with little cost to ourselves. Matteo severely doubted the wisdom of Tsaran or anyone else fighting a lone Wizard's War at the Lumen Montis' behest, whether with our open blessing or with such blessing concealed by punishment. The consequences could be almost as unpredictable as certamen, the means less honorable, and the stakes our very lives. He recommended that we only try either as a last resort, should Karl actively interfere with our attempts to make use of the valley.

Matteo then begged me to silence for a moment, at which I heard what sounded like a hymn in the distance. He noted that there was an unbearably cheerful Franciscan friar who by the name of Louis who frequented the covenant, and that Marie was trying to foist off on us, claiming that his singing, piety and incessant attempts at good deeds were disrupting Lemannus. He joked that perhaps Karl would be less inclined to view his sanctum as a valuable commodity if he were in earshot of another hermit's shrine, his research continually interrupted by matins and vespers. In any event, Matteo noted, Louis is a kindly fellow and has proven to be far less of a nuisance to us than Marie made of him.

Matteo considered awhile the possibility of accompanying the scouting party back to the valley in order to lead a new round of negotiations. Considering the legal issues at hand, he might well be best-suited to doing so and was as such willing to come along. But he was loathe to leave a thus-far exceptionally fruitful season of copying and stated that if he judged Tsaran or another hitherto copyist equally up to the task, he would instead equip that magus with such knowledge as might aid their bargaining. He complained that if "Wings of the Soaring Wind" weren't so dangerous, he might make the trip in a matter of hours, but as such he may have to delay its use until he can devise a protective item or spell.

 

[Feir Fireb]

The implications of Karl

Double post eliminated