1232, Summer
After a long break, we are back to Druids’ Dale, or Ars Magica saga. Previously, we encountered a gateway into faerie, and also heard that many local children had gone missing over the previous months. During spring, Pisciculus also entered a magical cave in order to complete the first step on her mystery path. Her goal is to open up the Path of Seeming, which will enable her to transcend the physical world.
On completing this, she gains the virtues Clear Thinker, Common Sense and Keen Vision. She also gains Disfigurement. The latter is going to make it even harder for her to communicate with mundanes. She was originally built as a character capable of doing some social stuff, but we have another maga, who also has the Gentle Gift, who is better at doing that. So I might as well embrace the oddness of House Criamon and stop trying to be ‘normal’.
Pisciculus ex Criamon – Spring, 1232
I spend nights in the Cave of Illumination, ironically sitting in darkness and silence. The only sensations are those that my mind makes up for me. After a while I hear voices in the darkness. They fill my ears but I am unsure whether the voices come from without or within. I feel in the darkness, my naked feet and hands cut on sharp rocks. It is the only thing I feel, and after time I come to embrace the pain. Each cut cleanses my mind and tells me more about my body and the hardness of the world.
I have conversations, with myself or others I do not know. We talk of the Engima, of the illusionary impermanence of the world. I see things in the dark, different paths that twist around themselves in a complex pattern that leads to understanding.
After several days and nights I found myself sitting outside the cave. There are scars on my arms and face, physical memories of what I learned in the cave. More than just cuts on my hands and feet, I must have carved new tattoos into my flesh. My existing tattoos seem to flow around the new scars, and even my scars seem to switch position to match.
Pisciculus ex Criamon – Summer, 1232
I spend the time reading our book on Imagonem. It is good to get back to sensation. My appreciation of my senses seem to have improved my ability to see the world. Though now I am less sure that the world that I see is real.
The book is a good one, not only does it contain advanced material, we have improved its quality by using the very best paper and binding material, and having an artist illuminate it for us.
Jack – Summer, 1232
I hire a professional to brew the beer in the library, and try to impress on him the importance of actually testing the results and then improving things based on the results of the tests. This process seems to be working for the magi, so I figured it might work for important things, like beer.
Even I am surprised to find that this technique works. This is bringing in more people, and a better class of them. Though the brewer was initially against the idea, he is ultimately impressed by his own results and wants to set up a place to do further experiments. I decide to spend the money to buy one of the rooms next door to give him room to expand the flavours we sell.
Whilst waiting for batches of beer, I go to talk to the lower class women folk to try and find out about the missing children. It seems clear that quite a few young urchins have gone missing over autumn and winter last year. First it was thought to be just the cold weather, but it was far more than usual. Maybe a couple of dozen from the town.
There are stories about what happened, but most of it is probably made up. One man saw the King’s soldiers taking children out of a building. They had been chained together, and there were talk of them being taken north. But the source of this rumour is known to make shit up.
Talking to a merchant who has also noted the lack of children. He was told by a wandering healer that the smaller urchins are more likely to die when it was cold. The healer was very good at healing people, and was dressed in funny robes with strange designs on them. The children vanished around the time the healer was here.
He only healed certain people, and refused payment. He also gave people the creeps, so despite being successful wasn’t used by a lot of people. Sounds an awful lot like a magus.
I go back to the covenant and explain to Maedbh what I’ve found out. Personally, I think the healer might not be as friendly as he may seem.
Pisciculus ex Criamon – Autumn, 1232
We are woken early one morning by a grog knocking on our doors, telling us that “something has happened at the gate”.
There is a smell coming from behind the gate, so I head up to the palisade to look over. There is a large leather bag from which is coming the stench of death.
There was a terrible noise said a guard, and there was a sack there. I float down, and there are some scratch marks on the gate, like a large claw. I cut it open, and rats flop out of the sack. Several of them are rather large with a misshapen heads.
It looks like a very large cat has left us a gift. On the underside of the sack is a note, written in poor hand writing: “It said it will let me go if I write this note and put these rats in the bag. Thanks for the present of rats and it will allow you to deal with the ones in Strone”
It seems that our local cat spirit has hunted down some of the rats that were roaming around. It also managed to find someone to package them up and scribe a message for us.
