The Need For Some Time to Appraise

It’s the daytime after the group has first started scouting Tarkus Vell’s warehouse. Ethelred is on watch.

Alexis stirs, pushes himself upright, and glances around the camp. The others are still wrapped in sleep, breath rising steady from their blankets. The quiet hum of the nomad quarter beyond, the wide grasslands holding steady at the city’s edge. He spots Ethelred on watch and lowers his voice.

“Evening Red” Alexis whispers.

“Mostly good,” he says after a moment, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Though I woke from another of those dreams—like the visions back in the Westlands. This time I was behind the eyes of a great white wolf. It dug at the earth, but the ground gave back bodies instead of dirt. And still it tore on, trying to reach something burning below.” His hand closes around the red jasper at his throat. “We can’t let him succeed. He’ll ruin everything if we do.” Alexis says it plain, as though stating the weather.

Alexis takes a moment and shifts gears.

“I’ve been thinking that after we leave here we need to spend some time discerning what some of our tools do. I still lament giving up those wooden rings, but we weren’t spending the time we needed to figure them out and Mavon needs the money. But while traveling away from here, or wherever we are next that’s quiet, please make sure I make time to uncover the mysteries.”

Alexis eases back down onto his bedroll, folding his hands behind his head. His gaze lingers on the pale sky, a faint smile touching his lips as the sounds of the nomad quarter drift across their camp.

Test Plan: Wooden Rings

After Alexis has examined the wooden rings and found out

  • They are abjuration-hued
  • Clear connection between them
  • They seem identical
    • but in two different places
    • AND they seem more like one thing than two things
    • OR like their connection is so strong they seem like one thing
  • They appear like pieces of a working, but not the full working
    • They seem like they are a blank canvas which other magics have yet to be put on

He addresses his companions “I would like to test the nature of these rings. The one time we experimented with them, my nausea was amplified because of what Red was feeling? Or I got his feeling of nausea?”

“Over the next while I’d like us to run some tests, and I want us to come up with a plan for these tests. Red and I will be ‘conducting’ the tests. Ezrin, you’ll be studying the effects from the outside, and possibly working on trying to save us if things go very badly. Gus, you will do your best to protect us. I leave it to you to decide how best to do that.”

“Some of my thoughts on the rings:

“I would like to figure out what makes these rings ‘abjuration’ in nature. What sort of protection was the intent?”

“The ‘blank canvas’ nature of the rings made me think that perhaps we could put magics within the rings and they could be released at a later time. And this might be the case, but perhaps only protections can be ‘painted on the blank canvas’?”

“I didn’t notice any particular warren flavor while studying the rings, which is interesting of itself. Especially interesting given the material of the rings.”

Alexis looks at the group “everyone understand the plan? Any questions, or other feedback?”

This Looks Like Your Kind of Wood

As the group is walking back to their tent to witness the failure of Ethelred’s ballistae attempt Alexis moves close to Gustav, takes off his two wooden rings, and hands them to Gustav.

“Hey Gus, I need you to tell me everything you can about these rings, yeah? I figure if you have any question you can ask Telosh since he’s working on mastering the Arts.”

Alexis waits for Gustav to acknowledge the request.

Ring Time

During the last few nights the group is at the Greyfax estate, Alexis starts taking half an hour before bed to lay out the two wooden rings on one of the inn tables and chants while fingering the one ring and then the other.

The chanting has some of the same feel as when Alexis uses his magic; the words have a similar nebulous sound.

“Impiea padtion xame herum” Alexis takes a finger and circles it around the ring once. Then repeats the ritual several more times before swapping rings and doing the same thing with the other ring.