semi-open | spirit surveys.

[exequy]

WHO: Kostos & Mostly Mages
WHAT: Surveying spirits at Circles and battlefields
WHEN: Throughout the winter
WHERE: Various
NOTES: This is for rebel mage tasks. Involved mages are so so invited to toss up top-levels for their Circle/battlefield of choice, which can be exploration or spirit stuff or something else entirely. You're also free to bring an uninvolved/non-mage buddy along, with excuses made for the visit and the spirit aspect kept secret as needed, if you want to do your own CR stuff about visiting old haunts. And if you want to be involved but don't see a clear way in or need more preliminary planning first, hit me up and I will see what I can do.

The network of eluvians makes this prospect—visiting abandoned Circles, surveying battlefields from the Mage/Templar War—less daunting than it might have been before, but many of them still need to wait for some other work to carry the right people within a day's ride. Others need to wait for snowstorms to pass and roads to be cleared. The timing winds up erratic.

But the work itself follows a routine. Address mundane problems first, going around them rather than through them whenever possible. The Circles in the cities might have posted guards who need to be bribed or convinced or snuck around. Those in the wilds might be under occupation by vagrants or highwaymen who require the same. And any of them might have roving shades or veil tears to avoid while Kostos follows a more familiar former occupant through the halls, terse questions about where the fighting was worse, where the Harrowings occurred, or where the troublemakers were tossed emerging from the hood of his heavy coat.

Battlefields are easier. Most of them open spaces, many of them still sporting scars.

Sometimes nothing needs to be summoned; it's already there, running down a corridor in terror, and only needs to be persuaded to stop. Other times Kostos lays out summoning stones.

Comments

For Benedict

[overharrowed]

He can't help his glance toward Benedict as their steady climb up the tower inevitably brings them past the Harrowing chamber. (Surely there will be an unquiet spirit or two here, if anywhere.) Still, given their earlier conversation, he wonders if Benedict even recognizes it at a glance the way any Southern Circle mage would. Julius doesn't hesitate, exactly, but it doesn't feel kind to actively point out the nature of the place.

On the other hand, Benedict may have enough context to guess without help. The grand space, well-lit in a way none of the rooms on lower floors are, but cool with the light filtered through stained glass. The remarkably tall ceilings supported by columns. The stands to hold the lyrium. It's a space designed to make sure that observers know the importance of what takes place within. Even granting cultural differences, it is unique when compared to the rest of the tower.

Still, Julius waits for Benedict to ask. To comment, if he's going to, or perhaps to venture inside.