Being an approach to Junius of Verditius and polite inquiry about massy terram books.

From Alexios, Summer 1217:

To the esteemed Junius of Verditius, Senior Magus of the Covenant of Semitae, Doctor Alexios Constantine, Magus of the Schola Pythagoranis and Magus Ex Miscellanea, sends greetings on this, the twentieth day of July in the twelve hundred and seventeenth year of our Lord.

I feel some trepidation in approaching you, an eminent member of the House that my parens once was a member of. I am not aware of what it was that my parens did to be declared Orbus and, in all honesty, I have no desire to know even if you do. He is my parens and my friend and I owe him much. His teaching has broadened my understanding of this world in ways I would never have thought possible when I was solely a philosopher and scholar. I make this avowal in advance as it seems to me that truth and honesty must come first in any arrangement of friendship and collegial spirit. Such an arrangement I would like to enter into.

I do this for all the normal reasons of one of our Order, the desire to learn, to understand, to build. But I also do this out of respect for you and your house which is the one I wish in many ways I had been part of. My ambitions and desires in magic are ones borne out of the house that my magic is linked to and while I will not criticise my parens, I would reach out to those of his former house in amity and the hope that, whatever caused his dismissal from the house, you would be willing to consider me in friendship and brotherhood.

I also have two specific questions that I wished to pursue. Firstly, I am told that few if any in this tribunal match you in the field of the magic of the earth. I too am interested in this field and wondered if you or your covenant would by any chance have the text known as the branch of this magic. If you did, what might I do or provide that would be of sufficient value that you would you be willing to allow me a copy.

Secondly, and far more speculatively, I wondered if you had heard of any summa texts on the magic of control that I might pursue. I am unaware of a book of the quality of a branch of this magic but I am sure that you would be more likely than I to have heard of books of the sort of quality I seek.

With best wishes for the continued health of both yourself and your covenant, I remain, sir, yours in friendship and amity; Alexios.

From Junius, Summer 1218:

To Doctor Alexios Constantine of the Schola Pythagoranis,

My apologies for extreme brevity, but we are departing again in five diameters.

I fear there is little of the mysteries of the house that I can discuss with you. If you seek to learn more of our ways I would suggest that you seek out the Prima, Imanitosi, and petition for admittance to the House.

The Branch of Terram I know of only two copies; in the libraries of Durenmar and Verdi.

Within this tribunal I believe the greatest knowledge of Rego magic is to be found in the covenants of Cad Gadu and Blackthorn.

Slightly further affield the Irish covenant of Elk's Run is well known to have a significant library and might contain books of...

[The last line ends with a large blot of ink which is mirrored on the other side of the fold]

From Alexios, Summer 1218

To Junius of Verditius, my thanks for your response and best wishes for your travels.

I am grateful for your recommendation that I should contact the Prima of the house and given your encouragement that this may be possible, I intend to seek such admittance.

The information you provided on texts is also extremely valuable to me and I am grateful for it.

Finally, I was wondering if you could give me your thoughts on something. I was originally wondering about asking you if you would be interested in entering into a regular correspondence on the art of terram. However, it occurred to me that given your travels it would be difficult to maintain this regularly.

I was thinking about this and it occurred to me that it might be possible to construct a pair of boxes made of iron, with an inner box which a letter could be placed within and, when activated, this inner box and its contents would transfer itself to sit within the linked outer box. This would allow correspondence to be maintained no matter where the writer is.

Do you think this would work as a possibility, if so, and I was able to construct such a box, would you be interested in entering into such a correspondence?

Yours, in amity.

From Junius, Winter 1218

To Doctor Alexios Constantine of the Schola Pythagoranis,

[Some waffling about the theory of such a pair of boxes]

I should think such a thing might work, but I would worry about the potential consequences were something other than a letter, such as something living were inserted in the box.

Also I'm not sure that it would work in all places that we visit, however that would produce at best a temporary hinderance.

Another alternative would be that I recall reading about an effect that links two books together such that whatever is written in one appears in the other.

Yours, etc.

From Alexios, Winter 1218

To Junius of Verditius,

My thought was to enspell the box so that only specific products would go through and potentially to use a product different to normal parchment called paper which is governed by the herbam form being made of linen rags. This is an invention from the East that I have came across in Constantinople as a curiosity and I have heard that it is being made in Valencia now. Although the quality of paper is not the same as parchment in terms of wear, it is less susceptible to water. If we used this and an oak gall ink, the box should be safe.

However, your idea seems an excellent one as well. I take it the idea is to link the two books via a Rego effect so that what is written on the one is written on the other. Presumably both Animal is needed for the book and Terram or Herbam, depending on the type of ink expected to be used? What is your preferred type of ink by the way?

[more technical details follow]

It may take me some time to make such an item as I have a small backlog of projects that I promised my Sodales. Once I have done those, I will look into constructing such a tome and see whether it is within my capabilities. I suspect it will stretch them to the utmost at the very least. You mentioned you had read of such a thing, do you by any chance have a laboratory text available for one or know where such might be?

I hope this is acceptable to you?

I look forward to your reply.