Story : The old stone cottage rebuilt

Back to: Once Again, Atop the Long Mynd
== Work ==
:April 20 1220
Waking up with the sun the next morning was not a problem. Particularly not when the windows, door and makeshift roof all evaporated as the first light of dawn struck them. It was not a rude awakening, though – at least, not for Ambrosius. He’d been laying awake on his bed roll on the hard earthen floor of the cottage for the better part of an hour, rehearsing the steps necessary to construct a lasting roof for the cottage. He had grown more and more fond of Geraldous’ idea of the barrel roof, and believed that with judicious use of magic, a little finesse and a lot of luck, the four of them: Geraldous, Blathmac, Llewys and Ambrosius; could put together a structurally sound roof. 
There was one hazard – one potential problem, but there was little he could do about it. If he could not get the form just right, he would have to recast the shaping spell many times, and it could get very, very tiring for him – perhaps dangerously so. 
But, he thought, what’s creation without a touch of risk?
He rose with the others, the sun pouring through the now naked windows and doors. He took a few moments to step out of sight and renew his parma, then gathered the other men of the party around, explaining what his plan was – each step, each goal. Blathmac was obviously a bit confused, but that could not be helped. Ambrosius now knew him to be a capable and bright young man who was temporarily put off by a language barrier. He had no doubt that Blathmac would catch on quickly enough. He laid out the tasks that needed to be done, and set Llewys to collecting rocks of appropriate size and shape, piling them nearby so that, when the time came, he would have easy access to them. Meanwhile, Geraldous and Blathmac took to removing everything from the cottage so that there was nothing between the four walls but hard packed earth. When this was done, Ambrosius stood in the middle of the room and, speaking words of magic and drawing power from the minor magical aura surrounding the cottage, traced a large arc up one wall, across the sky, and down the other. As the business end of his staff passed, a thick wooden arch faded into existence, insubstantial at first, becoming more and more solid as seconds passed. When he was done, a wooden arch frame, 6 inches in thickness, 24 inches deep and from floor to floor stood ready to bear the weight of whatever the men could put upon it. After inspecting the results of his magic, Ambrosius nodded in satisfaction and asked Geraldous to ensure that he and Blathmac could move it easily enough. Satisfied that this was the case, Ambrosius stepped outside the four walls and, looking to the end of the cottage that currently housed the wooden arch, spoke the words of creation once again. A large stone staircase, leading up to just above the top most edge of the cottage wall, appeared out of thin air. Ambrosius stepped to the back side of the cottage, opposite the first set of stairs and spoke the words again. Another set of stairs, identical to the first, appeared.
Ambrosius stepped back to look over what had been accomplished so far. He had done most of the work up to this point, but the hard job was soon to begin, and the backbreaking labor would fall to the two grogs, Geraldous and Blathmac. And there was the work Llewys was doing, backbreaking in it’s own, 10 year-old way. The boy had gathered a goodly amount of stone, all of good size and shape, and Ambrosius deemed it was reasonable to start.
He stepped over to the pile and, knowing that a great deal hinged on this spell not only going off successfully, but *better* than successfully, cast a spell. He spoke loudly; he swung his hands in strange but mystic arcs as he worked. As the last sound of the last word passed from his lips to the open air, he knew he’d succeeded. To test, he picked up the first of many stones and began to press and ply it, as if it were clay. The rock moved easily under his hands, and in about five minutes, he had formed the first of nearly two hundred arch or key stones. As he finished, he set the stone aside where Geraldous, and eventually Blathmac, would take it and set it upon the wooden arch form. Despite the slow going of the work, it was rewarding, in a way that a Verditius knew better than most, to see the results of hard labor and team work coming together as it was here. When the first arch was complete, keystone in place, Ambrosius cast yet another spell, and again, he felt the results of a spell performed beyond expectation. He lay a hand against the massive stone stairs and pressed lightly; the stairs moved as if on a cushion of air. As Ambrosius moved the stairs, Geraldous and Blathmac worked together to relocate the arch frame so as to be in position for the next arch.
=== Disturbance ===
:April 20 1220
When Ambrosius started moving the stairs, Llewys came back yelling something about people coming.
Geraldous was first to react to Llewys's shout, dropping the stone he was carrying into place quickly, leaping down, and rushing for his weapons and shield. He moved forward to the edge of the dip, crouching, and peering in the direction that Llewys was shouting called back, "Hide behind the cottage, not in it, down in the dip, until we know who it is that approaches!"
Ambrosius chuckled at Geraldous' reaction, even knowing that it was his job to react just that way. Mnemosyne has a good man in him, Ambrosius thought to himself. Reaching down to the cloth tucked in his belt, he wiped the dirt off his hands and, after watching to make sure that Alicia and Llewys slipped behind the cottage, stepped up to stand just behind and to the right of Geraldous. Even though it was a day early by his reckoning, he hold it was the first of his sodales returning from their investigations. Truth be told, he was looking forward to hearing about the potter's field from Marcus, if only for personal reasons. He was also anxious that he and Mnemosyne relay what they found of the regio...speaking of which, where was Mnemosyne?
Mnemosyne had been minding her own business and staying out the way of things when she heard the shout about arrivals. She was not expecting any of the magi to arrive until the following day, and indeed had been hoping to explore the Mynd further and have more information to report, but a strange lascitude had fallen over her this day and she had not been able to bring herself to interrupt Ambrosius' enthusiastic pass-time. She moved off quickly to position herself beside the cottage - actually a little away from the others, by chance - and prepared herself if neccessary. She had not been able to help Ambrosius, but intruders would not be difficult to deal with.
She was almost disappointed when she realised who it was approaching. Then worry gripped her as she wondered why they had come a day early.
A few minutes later 3 people were silhouetted against the sky as they crossed the ridge line of an outcrop of Round Hill, before continuing up towards the cottage, and Pole Bank behind it. As soon as they realized that they had been seen, they waved to greet the people already there.
===As the Magi Return===
:April 20 1220
The construction of the barrel vaulted roof went much faster, once Bedo and Phaedrus arrived and pitched in.
With glowing eyes, Phaedrus set to making key stones and arch stones by taking each in hand and telling it to sheed the unfitting parts. And with a shower of stone pieces a new key or arch stone appeared, some of them needed some extra polish but you can't expect all stones to know how an arch stone should look.
There was no shortage of stones to form into arch stones or keystones, and each magus threw in special touches related to their specialties. 
When complete, the barrel vault was no plain construction, but a lovely thing to behold.
By mid-afternoon, Bedo was clearly tired of the work, and after walking off to slake his thirst, he found shade behind a rock, and settled down with a book, making notes on the progress made so far. After a while, he packed the book away, wrapped himseflf up in his cloak, and making himself comfortable dozed off for a while. It was dusk by the time he awoke, and shortly afterweards by the time he returned to the cottage.
== The evening's discussion ==
:April 20 1220
As five magi gathered around the fireplace that evening, after they had taken their meal, Ambrosius took out some rolls of torn and frayed parchment. "Sodales," he began, "I have been giving this some thought, and would like your, ah...impressions of my plans." He paused, uncertainly. "As you know from our first meeting a few days ago, I am ex Verditius, as well as an Elementalist. I find that these types of tasks as such that I can become, ummmm, involved...deeply involved." He smiled ruefully. "It is clear to me that this small cottage will not lodge us all, indeed," he gestured around to the cramped space, "it barely holds us just now. If we are indeed going to reside here while we investigate these locations and establish our covenant, well, we'll need more, um...space." He placed the rolls on the hard dirt floor and unrolled them, using pebbles from his pocket to hold the corners down. "My suggestion is twofold. First, I would propose using my Creo Terram arts to call the surrounding stone at ground level into a solid stone ring, encompassing the entire cottage and, ah, the areas I propose. The circle will be think, two or three feet, and solid stone, so that it cannot be broken by any but the, um, most determined mundane. Once that is complete, we may use that ring as the duration for many of our spells. In this way, when we finally abandon the cottage..." he put up a hand quickly, "which I am not certain that we should do, mind you!," he continued, "Should we needs leave this cottage, we have only to break the ring ourselves and we shall leave behind as little or as much as we wish." He removed the first, blank piece of parchment to reveal a top down drawing of the cottage and some other living spaces. "I believe that we should use our Arts to tunnel into the Mynd, just enough to create...ah...additional living space. Two of them, about this size, should be enough for all of us who wish to stay here." He set aside the top down view and displayed a view from the side. "In order to use the Mynd as...ahhhh...camouflage, we do not need to go down so far...I think we can even put a sealed light shaft in the higher of the two rooms!"
Ambrosius sat back, his face the image of a child’s on his name day. "What do you think, Sodales?"
While looking at the drawings Phaedrus comments, "This seems like an ambitionus project for a temporary place, but I like it. The depth of those rooms seem significant thou, we might need some way to drain them. I would also expect much of what we have to do to create those rooms will be manual, Muto, Rego or Perdo work of a more permanent nature, just like the roof we made today. I do not think we can expect to be able to leave the cottage without significant traces of our additions."
A sour look cross Ambrosius' face. "You are right, of course, sodale." He leaned over as to study the drawings again. "Perhaps we need not, um... worry about what we leave behind. Frankly, I would not at all mind seeing the cottage belong to the covenant in time. It has...possiblities."
"That is as may be," put in Mnemosyne. "However, for now it is merely a convenient place for us to gather and discuss more important issues. However," and here her voice grew a little softer. "I am impressed at the work which has transformed this cottage in such a short space of time. This is excellent practice for the task of constructing the covenant buildings later and it may prove most useful as a temporary shelter while we do so. Which brings me to the main point in issue..."
The Guernicus maga looked around at her companions with a steady and serious gaze. "Where shall we base our covenant?"
She let the question sink in for a moment. The magi had got drawn in hopelessly into Ambrosius' project and she had watched with a mixture of amusement and superiority - 'Boys and their toys'. Now was time for business though. "Ambrosius and I have made some very interesting discoveries here on the Mynd, and while we have by no means plumbed all of it's secrets, I beleive you will find this of particular interest." She then went on to outline the events of their investigations clearly and concisely, carefully seperating what they presumed to be fact from what they currently only beleived to be conjecture. She spoke about the normal features of the Mynd, then the Regio and it's varied layers and the conjecture that there was at least one more layer that they had not explored, as well as the degree of magical power each layer of the regio seemed to exhibit and the estimation of the unexplored layer perhaps being being an aura of the sixth degree. She mentioned the sites of interest and how they appeared in each Regio layer and where they had explored them and where they had not. She talked of the greenway and was particularly clear in describing the entry and exit points from one regio level to another, even as she hypothosised that there could be others. She emphasised the size of the regio, and that this was in her opinion quite unusual and potentially presented an enormous opportunity. She was also careful to call on Ambrosius from time to time to confirm something she had said, or to explain something more clearly where his expertise was more capable, and also to give him proper credit for his actions.
"And so you see," she said eventually. "I think this could be an excellent site for our covenent. I suggest you bring us up to speed on your own discoveries now and then we can discuss things a little further. I am eager to hear how you got on." Her blue eyes gleamed in interest.
"Well maga," Phaedrus answered, "I had thought to await the others arival before laying our plans but anyway. We found a good 4:th level aura and solid bedrock to build on with fresh spring water convenient and a magnificent view Stretton, the castle and much of the vale. We more or less agreed that it's a possible site but not very interesting."
"Formal discussion and plans can of course wait until we are properly assembled," Mnemosyne agreed. "I see little point in holding our tongues or avoiding the topic until then though. I for one am curious as to the details of your expidition. You say it is not very interesting, does that mean you also feel it has nothing in particular to recommend against it either? Is it's lack of interest the reason you arrived here a day early? We were not expecting you until tomorrow."
"There was little more to see there," Bedo interjected "We had seen all there was to see at the Caer, so we made our way here via the castle south of Church Stretton. Further, although the views from the top were impressive, there was nothing I could see beyond it which tempted me to search further in that direction. In summary, there is a small aura on the hill, within the bounds of the fort, but any buildings were were to build there would be in direct eyesight of the village, it's church, and the castle. There will be more to tell at the meeting of all of us, and I will wish that we return there once we are more established, but for now, I would say it is not the place we seek to build our covenant."
== Late ==
:April 20 1220
Once the serious part of the evening's discussion was done, Bedo made his excuses, and wandered outside. Wrapping himself warmly, he climbed slowly up the rise to the North, until away from the noise from the cottage, and then found somewhere comfortable to sit, leaning back looking up at the skies. As the night air chilled him, he wrapped himself tightly in his cloak, and sat there studying the skies, apparently thinking until late into the night.
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==Continued==
Next page: Meeting in the old stone cottage.
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Category:1220
1220Q2
12200420
Category:Ambrosius
Category:Mnemosyne
Category:Geraldous
Category:Alicia
Category:Llewys
Category:Blathmac
Category:Bedo
Category:Phaedrus