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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Malacat" data-source="post: 1385043" data-attributes="member: 14528">Up the valley with KarlAfter days of barely speaking, other than to offer brief but civil answers or to give orders to the grogs, Tsaran spoke up abruptly.    “I think I rather like this Karl.  He’s independent enough to set out to make his own home in the wilderness, and brave enough to take on all comers to keep it.  The terms he’s offered so far are unacceptable, but we started off trying to drive him out of his sanctum like the modern lords drive peasants from their farms.  I spoke in haste, I admit, and I feel I erred.    “I think it is clear that we should inform our Primus and the others as to Karl’s presence here, and clearly we should hear their thoughts on the matter before we proceed with any action that might cost us the valley, or even our covenant.    “But before we go back, I, for one, would like to speak with Karl again and see if a different approach would work better than the challenge we presented before.  There are many goats where I come from, and they are rather admirable creatures if you know how to appreciate them.”    What Tsaran proposed to do was to take one of his cheeses and some bread up to the top of the waterfall, which he felt would attract Karl’s attention.  “I will offer to share my food with him if he hears me out.  If he is a goat at heart, that should be a difficult offer to refuse, especially as Volakula cheese is the best in the world, and both bread and cheese are hard for hermits to come by.”    “While we eat together, I will ask him what he is going to do now that the Hermetic world knows he is here.  A young magus, alone, in an area with a strong magical aura.  He mentioned Primii in the strongest sense of the term.  I will tell him what I know of such Primii.  They are not young and inexperienced.  They are ancient and powerful.  If there comes to be a covenant here with such Primus, that Primus will not be him.  He will belong to that Primus.  Even if we leave and never come back, word will spread.  Grogs talk to other grogs, Lemannus will want to know why we left — Lemannus may come to reassert their claim to the valley.  If they do not, other covenants will.  And if we had never come into the valley, Lemannus would have come themselves.  One magus simply cannot hold this valley against the covenants alone.  His is a hard position in which to be.      “Then I will change the subject.  I will talk about our covenant.  I will point out that we are young, like him, and that we are as independent as a herd of goats.  There is a powerful friend who watches out for us from afar, which protects us from the other old covenants, but we are otherwise largely free to do as we wish.  I will explain to him our charter, and the benefits it offers to all of the strong-minded and independent members of the covenant.  Among the other benefits I will mention are the presence of grogs who can prepare good food for us and tend to mundane things that interfere with getting serious work done.    “I will admit that we have recently lost two members of our covenant, and that we do not have a Bjornaer among us.  I will comment that we consider the diversity among our numbers to be a strength, and that while we all seek wisdom in different ways, that makes our strength when we work together in friendship all the greater.  So, I will suggest to him, another member of the covenant — another equal among equals — who was of House Bjornaer would be welcome.    “Then I will thank him for sharing my food and hearing me out and I will ask him what news I should take to the rest of the covenant: that I wish to sponsor Karl of Bjornaer as a member of the covenant with the distinction of being first to enter the valley, or that Karl of Bjornaer does not wish to join our company of equals.    “Whatever his reply, we then go back to Lemannus to consult with the others and acquire what we’ll need for our return.    “That is the plan I propose.  With luck, this issue with Karl will be over quickly, leaving us with the rest of the season to get on with our original work.  But I am one of many here, and I insist on none of my plan if it displeases the rest.  What say you?”</blockquote>

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