[Eureka] Well, we found it....

[Faith Augustin]

28th Ymiden, 721

It had been fourteen trials ago that they had decided what they were going to do. They were going to come here. Here being outside of Rharne, on the other side of the mountain to Volta. A place which had everything they wanted. It was isolated - it was weird and had strange and bizarre effects going on - and it had a mountain. Katie and Cyrus would be bringing the children here when Faith sent word - they were staying at their house in Rharne in the meantime, which they would sell when everyone moved here.

"So," Faith said, softly. She was wearing a pair of loose trousers, an old and sturdy top and she had her hair tied back from her face. "In terms of resources, I think we have to deploy them with as much sense as possible. We need to think about what is a priority in terms of the buildings." That was the first step, in her mind. "I suggest we start with a place to live for us, and a place to live for those who we hope will start arriving." Looking at it, she frowned slightly. "I'd like to go up the mountain a bit, if you're up for a walk," she said. "Get a birds' eye view of the place and see just how run down that mansion is"

Looking to Alex, Tina and Alissa Faith gave a slight smile. "It's going to be all hands on deck, so I want to make sure that you two are happy to be here. I know I've asked you before, but it's important." They all were and so, they made their way up the mountain. As they did, Faith took a moment to examine the state of the old pathway up here and she nodded. "We'll need to repair this," she said, glancing up at her husband. "I've brought all the resources from Scalvoris, and we have access to more via the Eclipse Portal if we want. I'd like to minimise the number of journeys we have to make, though."

"So, who'd like to make a bet?" Alissa asked, cheerily, "I bet forty golden nel that Faith's magic bag is filled with cleaning things?" Alex chuckled and shook his head. "I'm not taking that bet, thanks," he said and Faith gave a mock glare, but didn't deny it. "I'm envisioning," she said, ignoring her self-appointed bodyguard, "a pathway, but with railings on it, so we could run like mine-carts up here? But they won't be mine carts, rather a sort of carriage on rails." She had to admit, it had been a long time since she was this excited about something, and she was delighted to be here, finally. The getting here had seemed to take forever, but now that their feet were on the soil, she was happy.

As they reached the mansion, Faith looked at Padraig and she beamed. "It's old, it's run down, it needs serious work," she said. Her first words were not what she was feeling, though. "It's perfect." As they approached they could see the house, but it looked rather small. However, a closer look showed them that in fact there were windows meandering up the mountain and, in fact, the house was carved in to the mountain itself. Faith looked at him and her hand slipped into Padraig's. "It's not a tower for you to lock me in, is it?" It would be beautiful, she was sure of it. "All we need, for the moment, is one room and then we'll meet the builders in the morning, for a walk through and plans."

That said, she glanced at him and smiled. "Care to lead the way, Professor?"

[Padraig]

"Do you feel it?" Padraig asked Faith, and the pair who'd accompanied them as they carefully picked their way up and across the slope in the direction of what, it appeared, would sooner or later be their new home. "Something in the air," he considered. "Like a faraway storm planning to roll in, or that feeling in the air when autumn is just over the horizon." Or, something. In the air, all around them, or maybe even beneath their feet.

Or not, possibly, and it could be all in his head; given what he knew of the area already. It was part and parcel to the reasoning behind choosing this place. Still, Padraig wasn't quite prepared to pass it off as wishful thinking. He was a scientist after all, and whimsy was the philosopher's realm. Nonetheless, he'd dressed with roughing it in mind, and had no qualms about hiking and climbing in the outdoors. "I'm game if you are," he said, really addressing all three, but made sure to remain close behind Faith, so he'd be there in case of a misstep or some unseen pitfall.

Her thoughts on where they should begin made good sense. Practical, orderly, except that he thought that some of their new arrivals might have different ideas about that. Or at least, come with a sense of eager impatience. "It all makes good sense and I suspect that those more interested in building and functioning as a community would agree. Our scholars though may be more eager to get to the part where they're set up to practice their fields of expertise. Do we know when they might start arriving?"

He wouldn't be taking Alissa's bet, because Faith was, well, Faith. Besides, "It would be unfair for me to participate in any such thing," he added with a grin. "I watched Faith pack her belongings, and then I watched her pack mine." Not his workshop of course or equipment. He'd be bringing all of that anyway, top to bottom when the time came. As for carriages on rails? A fine idea. 'It could easily be done with pulleys, in the traditional way...But if we're to do groundbreaking work here, I might have some more interesting ideas about that." Magnetized rails, that was, though he'd need to enlist a proper engineer to work with in that regard.

"It's a diamond in the rough, I think," he said when Faith declared the run down old place to be perfect. Then turning around to look back in the direction they'd come, then all around, he added, "You certainly couldn't find a better view than this." And the way in which the place was constructed, part built into the mountain and a face to the outside world, was rather ingenious. "No, not a tower in sight," he said, putting on what appeared to be an expression of deep disappointment.

"No turret either, but not to worry, I'm up for a little improvisation," he teased her. But yes, Padraig would insist on leading the way inside. It was possible that no one had been inside of this place for arcs. Some of the windows were broken, and with that in mind, he had his bow close at hand, just in case as he pushed open the doors and stepped inside. And the first thing that greeted him was the sounds of upset in the rafters and the beating of wings before a swarm of winged beasties flew down and past him, and right out the door. "Ah! Bats!" Padraig exclaimed as he hastily retreated backwards out the front door, then collected himself.

He grinned sheepishly at Faith before heading into the place once more. He, and Faith by his side, had encountered any number of foul and dangerous creatures and entities by now. But similar to Padraig's aversion to blood, he simply couldn't abide bats. Nonetheless, once the light from outside the door spilled in, along with the few windows that hadn't been boarded up, or had the boards removed by vagrants or looters, the space just beyond the door proved to be a large, somewhat open one with high vaulted ceilings. It was dusty to be sure, the mosaic floors and the walls coated with grime built up over time. But in it's heyday, it must have been a very grand and impressive sight.

"Looks sound enough, at least in here," he proclaimed, and began exploring the room. Soon enough he found himself standing before one of the boarded up windows, this one arched at the top and quite large. Through the small gaps in the wood, he spied a bit of color lit up by the sun, and so he used a bar to pry off the wood. When it was all revealed, he stood back and smiled. It was a stained glass window, rendered with all sorts of color, legendary and magical creatures cavorting around it's edges.

"Nice, yeah?" he said to Faith, observing that the window, at least from the outside, had been coated over by the residue of no telling how many arcs of inclement weather. "Get that thing cleaned up and I bet that depending on the time of the trial or the cycle, it will bathe this whole room in a kaleidoscope of color."

[Faith Augustin]

28th Ymiden, 721

Something in the air? Faith considered it and nodded. Looking at him, just a glance told him how excited she was. "I feel it," she said with a grin. They were here, it was happening and Faith could not be more excited. They made their way up the mountain and, as they did so she slipped a hand into Padraig's. Her eyes met his and she smiled slightly. "I can't remember the last time I walked up a mountain with you." He was a whole bundle of worry and fuss and, as much as he would never change, Faith knew that he was more anxious than he'd ever been, following the events in Rharne which had left her in a coma. Faith understood entirely why Padraig worried and she had no intention of demeaning or belittling his worry. So, she just held on to his hand as they walked.

Padraig's point about the scholars wanting to get going on the scientific buildings caused her to think on his words as they walked. Eventually, she spoke. "Well, we could commission buildings to be built simultaneously. I'd like the observatory and the library to be built by the best, but we could ask them to sub-contract to trusted others and build the accommodation at the same time?" That seemed like a good compromise to her, and Faith wondered what he thought about it. As to when the scholars would start arriving, Faith shrugged slightly. "I'm not sure. Soon, I think."

When he refused Alissa's bet, Faith grinned. "He did. What he's failing to mention, of course," she said with a pointed glance at her husband, "is that he's not entirely sure where his socks live, most of the time. " He was a wonderful, remarkable man, but Faith wondered sometimes how he had managed before they met. She knew, of course; he'd had one drawer with all his clothes in. But already, he was off and thinking about rails and pulleys. Faith nodded. "I think we should have an ideas book, somewhere," she said. "A big book which anyone can access. One idea per page. You come along, write your idea and then sign it. Browsing that would be fascinating and it would potentially allow lots of collaboration." She liked that kind of thing, she thought it truly made a difference to a society.

The run down mansion built into the mountain was a delight to Faith. She patted Padraig's arm sympathetically as he squealed about the bats. "Could be worse," she said, deadpan. "It could be Tristan's cat and a bath." The noise he'd made then was something she'd never heard from him before or since. They made their way in and, once Padraig had declared it safe, they explored the room. His discovery of the window delighted her and she beamed at him. "It's beautiful. Oh, yes, we can clean that up and it will be amazing." Looking up at him she smiled and pointed to one of the creatures. "Dragons."

Exploring the place, they found that it was large and sprawling. In one of the rooms, there was a spiral staircase carved in stone and Faith made her way up there with Padraig and the others. "I think," she said with a glance at him as they walked up - and up - and up the stairs, "You might be about to get your.. oh, Padraig, look!" The stairs opened out into a large circular room, way above the rest of the building. It had windows all over one full half of it. Some were broken, cracked or shattered but again there was beautiful stained glass and, in there was another staircase. "You want to?" Faith asked with a grin. "I think this place is amazing. We should look at all of it, then set up in that one room downstairs, yes?"

They would find a home here, Faith knew. Her hand in Padraig's tightened and she smiled. "It's a palace," she said quietly. "Just like the first palace you made for me. Remember?" It was a far cry from a curtained off area with a bed and some drawers, but what that space had represented then was what this one did now. "Our palace." Lifting up on her tip-toes, she kissed him gently before the others walked in.

[Padraig]

Ordinarily, Padraig wouldn't be feeling overly enthusiastic about hiking up the side of a mountain. He was more than fit enough for that level of exertion, and he enjoyed the outdoors as a general rule. But he was far more accustomed to working in his lab or staring up at the heavens on a perfectly clear and dark night. Then, what really got his blood pumping was the discovery of something new, something he'd never seen or imagined before.

But this time was different. Not only were they embarking on a brand new venture, him and Faith and whoever they managed to convince to join them. But in addition to that, there was an unmistakable charge in the air, in the very ground beneath their feet, that just couldn't be put down to imagination. It was invigorating, and got the wheels in his mind turning. So many possibilities here in this place. "I remember it too," he said, nodding as they'd made the ascent and she'd reached out to take his hand. But the last time they'd trudged uphill, was a different matter entirely. "Wherever I walk with you, is the best place to walk," Padraig told her.

'Still, if I have my druthers, I'd much rather this one." As for construction, Faith offered her thoughts on the matter, the order in which things might begin to take shape, and he nodded thoughtfully. "If we can get hold of enough manpower to focus on several structures at once, I don't see why not." They could afford it easily, after all, so there seemed to be no reason not to. And then he grinned, and snorted in amusement when Faith turned back to notions of who'd done the packing, and who'd partly taken up the role of observer. "She speaks some manner of truth," he told their companions. "Still, who really needs socks anyway?"

Eventually though they had reached the old mansion, that was clearly in need of some repair, and in spite of a slight mishap involving a cauldron, or colony of bats, they'd made it inside the first enormous room. "That cat was evil incarnate," Padraig responded with a frown, and dryly, when Faith reminded him of that damned cat of Tristan's and the ridiculous process of giving the devil a bath. But the stained glass window was indeed a wonder, and when Faith pointed out the dragons worked into the design, Padraig nodded. "Hopefully the good kind. I think this will clean up very nicely. I can see some spots where the seams need to be sealed better with a bit of solder. Easily enough done."

So up they'd gone along the spiral stone staircase, him right behind Faith. "You know I worried at first that it might seem a little dark and claustrophic inside. But it doesn't. It's a very smart design. There's plenty of outdoor light getting in." The stained glass windows that greeted them when they reached the second landing, were even more impressive than the one he'd discovered downstairs. "We can fix those, clean them up. They'll bathe the floors and walls with color when the sun is postioned just right."

There was another set of stairs then, and Faith didn't need to ask twice. And so Padraig led the way this time, and stepped onto another landing that split off in several directions. One to his right led into a smaller, round room with a domed wooden plank ceiling, and a very large, clear window at the top. There was a lever beside it that, when pulled one way or the other, would slide wooden shutters into place. Both on the inside, and the outside. Presumably to prevent the window, which itself could be opened by sliding it aside, from breaking during any given storm. "This would be a great place to set up a telescope," he announced.

Of course there was more to explore, should Faith decide she wanted to do it now, or later. "I'd say it's got quite a few more bells and whistles than our first one," he said when she reminded him of the room he'd set up for her some time ago now. "But that one too had plenty of merit on it's own. Now though?" he said, reminded of the mess that awaited them downstairs. "If we're going to have a habitable place to lay our heads tonight, we might want to think about getting started, scrubbing our palace and chasing out the cobwebs." Or at least, some small part of it.

[Faith Augustin]

28th Ymiden, 721

This place was a wonder and Faith would, quite happily, spend the next few trials exploring it. But, Padraig was correct when he pointed out that they probably needed to think about getting one central place clean and sorted and ready for them to sleep. "Whatever has become of us," she said, good naturedly, "when you are the practical one suggesting that we clean, and I'm trotting off to explore. Unless, of course," she lifted her eyes to him, her expression teasing. "Are you getting hungry, perchance?"

Back down the stairs and into the first room they'd come to, Faith put down her bag and started pulling things out. "Alright, jobs for everyone," she said. "Can you three please set up a perimeter for us, and then a designated place to cook, I'll be using a campfire, so it needs to be outdoors or ventilated. Also, if you come across a source of fresh clean water, that would be great. I don't want any surprises in terms of where we are, so if you would?" Their three companions nodded and exited to do just that. Alissa was good with the security side, Alex was an able logistical mind and it would do Tina good to be given a role, Faith knew. Once they were gone, she glanced at Padraig and smiled. "Would you mind shoring up those windows, please?" she asked. "If you have any tricks to minimise wind blowing through and so on, that would be good. I don't want anyone getting unnerved by strange noises, if at all possible." She knew that there would be very little that could be done in terms of long-term solutions right now, but a short-term one would be fine for now.

"While you do that, I'll get the sleeping area ready," she said. First things first, she brushed the floor, then she got a mop and got cleaning. "I was thinking," Faith said as she worked. "Since we have caves, I was wondering if you could make an ice cave for me?" Some women wanted fancy jewels, she wanted an ice cave. Go figure. "I've got the cuttings from the ice caves in Ishallr, and we could transplant them here. Also, sub-zero storage is very useful for food and meat and any cadaver, really. It's excellent preservation." Pulling a ground sheet out from her bag, Faith got busy laying it down so that she didn't notice any response to the word 'cadaver'. She was sure there would be one.

"And, hopefully, we could have a very warm, almost tropical cave, too? There are mushroom and other plants which thrive in the volcanic soil of Faldrass. I brought some, it's nutrients and rich in minerals, so we could heat up a cave and put things in Faldrass-soil-planters, you know?" Lifting her gaze to him, Faith raised an eyebrow. An ice cave and a tropical cave wouldn't be too much to ask, she was sure. "And I was thinking that, if we use my bottled sunlight, we could have another cave where we have greenhouses and mirrors and things, and we could control the temperature and grow whatever we wanted. Things which wouldn't grow here, normally."

All of that sounded eminently doable to her and Faith was sure that they could do it and then some. "I think we should get some chickens." She was entirely serious. "For eggs. You like eggs," she mused, more or less to herself, as she continued the job of getting them somewhere warm and comfortable to sleep. And clean, of course, Warm, comfortable and clean.

[Padraig]

To get busy cleaning? Or to eat? That was easy. The climb up the mountainside had been a prolonged exertion and "now that you mention it, I could eat a little something," Padraig teased Faith while escorting her back down the stairs. This time in front of her, in order to provide a softer and much more forgiving break to a fall, should they run afoul of any sketchy or crumbling steps on the way. "I'd say that while we are getting a little longer in the tooth," he admitted, though they were hardly either of them close to middle aged yet, much less anything more.

"It's a matter of practicality. Unless you'd like to engage in the sort of nostalgia that once found us slumbering beneath a tree in a damp and shadowy wood, we're going to need more than just a roof over our heads. And I'd rather not sleep with bats hanging from the rafters over my head." But in order to get the place in a habitable state, it would need to be an all hands on operation, each with their own tasks to perform. The other three who'd accompanied them sprang straight into action.

As for the bits and pieces missing from the stained glass windows, there was very little he could do quickly in order to restore them somewhere close to their original state. But he could at least plug or cover the gaps. From out of his sack, he'd brought a small jar of quick drying resin that he could brush into all of the measurable cracks, which could also be used to glue in place little bits of oiled seal skin leather that he'd cut to size in order to cover the larger gaps.

He could otherwise have found pieces of flat and lightweight wood in order to cover the windows completely, at least temporarily. But they'd want some source of outdoor light spilling in during the trial. It was a time consuming operation, during which Faith had managed to sweep and then set up their sleeping area. "I could do that," he said when she asked about the possibility of an ice cave. Except there was a caveat, so far as he was concerned. "I'd rather two, rather than one," Padraig said. "There's something about the idea of storing dead bodies in the same space as food that just doesn't..." No. The answer was a difinitive no.

And yes, a more tropical cave was also well within the realm of possibility, he told her. A very good idea, as well. Even a greenhouse, and chickens, now she mentioned it. "It would be good for growing alchemical ingredients too I'd imagine," he said, while moving his efforts elsewhere once the windows were done. What about goats?"[/b] he asked offhandedly. 'They do well on rocky slopes and could provide a source of cheese, milk and even meat." Either way, Padraig thought as he stood back and looked over all that they'd done; it seemed they were all set for the night and a number of trials to come.

[Doran]

Padraig:

Knowledge:
Alchemy x 3
Engineering x 2
Logistics x 2

Loot: -
Lost: -
Wealth: -
Injuries: -
Renown: 10, for setting up the settlement.
Magic XP: -
Skill Review: Appropriate to level.
Points: 15

Faith:

Knowledge:
Science x 3

Loot: -
Lost: -
Wealth: -
Injuries: -
Renown: 10, for setting up the settlement.
Magic XP: -
Skill Review: Appropriate to level.
Points: 15

- - -

Comments: Eureka! I’m glad that Faith and Padraig found this place. Faith’s having Tier 2 Logistics really comes across here. I like the idea of using the Eclipse Portals to get more resources, should that be necessary, for example. And that carriage on rails … Faith’s excitement about Eureka was described well here and is rather contagious in my opinion!

I love how you two work together!

When Padraig entered the house, and a swarm of winged beasties flew past him I couldn’t help but laugh. I didn’t know that he was afraid of bats. That was such an entertaining scene!

You two really made Eureka sound like it will be a great place, and you made me excited about seeing it grow as well. That ideas book that anybody can access, and the ice and tropical caves are interesting ideas, for example. I love how creative Faith and Padraig are!

I also appreciate the mention of Tristan and his cat. That was a pleasant surprise!

With that being said, I hope that Faith and Padraig will enjoy their new palace, and I wish them good luck with their settlement!

Enjoy your rewards!