Jehundik Vanyik
Physical Traits:
Healthy
Well Fed
Well Rested
Fit
Uninjured
Skills:
Local Folklore: +5
Woodsmanship: +4
Herbalism: +4
Archery: +2
Spear Fighting: +2
First Aid: +2
Gardening: +2
Possessions:
Sturdy Hunting Bow
Thick Fur Cloak
Sharp Steel Knife
Sharp Aged Steel Short-Sword
Worn Boots
Aged Iron Cap
Several sets of Woodsman's Clothes (including leather belt and cotton trousers and shirt.)
Belted waterskin (full, holding a litre and a half of water)
Hip Quiver (Full)
-Twenty-four ash-tipped arrows.
A Satchel (Full)
-Extra Bowstrings
-flint
-a whetstone
-two days worth of Jerky, dried apple and onions.
-Four days worth of Hard Biscuits and Oats
-Nine Rabbit Pelts
-Twenty five feet of straw rope.
-small pouch of poultice herbs (full)
-a large bundle of feathers suitable for fletching
-depleted supply of leaf wrapped tea herbs
-seven silver coins (an eye on one side, a shattered spear on the other)
-Set of Herbalists Tools (Including mortar, pestle, and small blades capable of precisely hooking or cutting under good lighting.)
-A Small Book of Cantrips (read by candlelight)
Rat Sack (empty)
You seek lodging at the cheaper of the two inns in town, dubbed
The Lizard's Trough. You find it to be a friendly, if busy place, the local watering hole for labourers, farmers and even a few fellow conjurers. Veila and Maergor have sought lodging here too, and in the coming days you are glad for their familiar company. The innkeeper is a personable fellow named Ajkar, with a startling patchy mixture of lizardlike scales and pale human skin.
1d20-3(
almost no practice in bartering+)=15
1d20-2(
very little practice in diplomacy)= 13
You manage to negotiate cheaply for room and board, though perhaps as a result the ale is watery and the bread is crusty. You supplement that with a little from your personal supply of food, seeing no reason for it to waste away anyway. You spend some of your time fishing from information among the locals, and find them helpful, treating you with friendliness, with ready and practiced answers to the questions you give them, as if they are common. You learn that this town is a vassal of the Bronze Tower, the residence and stronghold of an order of sorcerers, which lies about a day and a half's walk to the southeast.. The Bronze Tower is also sometimes called the pillar of Fire and Light, which is a name you *have* heard in folk tales. The tower and it's vassals are ruled and managed by the nine most powerful of the tower's sorcerers, called "Keepers", who serve only the master of the tower, who would seem to have little time or interest in matters of state. Those who would seek apprenticeship at the tower must petition them for entrance, a process that involves interview by one of the more experienced members of the order, interview includes a demonstration of magical talent as well as a review of the mundane skills of the applicant. This interview is also where initial pledges are made, it is common for prospective apprentices to offer coin, artifacts, legal bondage, or the support of foreign nobility in exchange in order for their petition to be taken more seriously. A Keeper must approve or disapprove every petition, and they are not reviewed immediately. Apprenticeship itself is not binding, only the promises made in *exchange* for apprenticeship are so. The privileges of apprenticeship however, are permanent, and include a room within the tower, the possibility for advancement and training in arts not available to be learned elsewhere, and proximity to the tower itself, which is said to be a place of power.
When you ask about Keeper Aednat you learn that she is rarely at the tower itself for long. Instead she travels the world seeking old magic and places of power. She's something of a mysterious figure, and rumoured to be very powerful, but uninterested in the affairs of lesser mages. She *is* rather active in recruitment, so your sort of story isn't unheard of, though strangely it is common for her recruits to lose their way on the journey from wherever she recruited them from. Those she sends are referred to commonly as "Pilgrims", though none of the locals seem to know exactly why.
...
Maergor finds work in town doing manual labour, though he plans it to be a temporary thing, until he finds guard or mercenary work. Veila finds work with a poor local farmer, though she plans that too to be temporary. Much of her time she spends with you during your studies. Despite the noise and bustle of a busy tavern, you find the environment incredibly beneficial. You arn't the only conjurer staying here, and the cantrips used by those entertaining, showing off, or practising seem very similar to those you yourself are learning. The different techniques and levels of skill displayed from a variety of people give you better context to learn your craft, and Veila seems to benefit from the environment as well while the two of you collaborate.
D20+4(
prepared spells)-6(
novice conjurer+)+2(
ample time to study)+2(
collaborative environment)=20
Within the week you have totally mastered each and every one of the spells within the notebook, and your skills improve noticably. Veila fails totally at learning any of the magic that you have at your disposal however, or even at reproducing her one fluke casting.