Go with Nadia to see Master Maurippos

Ms. Sterling has dismissed you and Nadia, but you're out some distance into the Weirding Wood, and you've been warned as a first-year that you shouldn't travel alone or in unfamiliar territory.

And you don't have a broom, and never learned to ride one by yourself.

And Ms. Sterling is about to start some sort of dire magical business here, from the look of the warding runes on the parcel she has ready.

"If you're not in a hurry, Eric, I'll ride you back," Nadia says.

"Oh, thank you, Nadia!" you say.

You can tell from the twinkling in Nadia and Ms. Sterling's eyes that your face and your manner have betrayed your relief.

You bow your head in respect to your instructress and bid Aurelia -- well, properly, Ms. Sterling, here, irrespective of any other things you are to each other -- goodbye and thanks.

Nadia wings her broom away over the Weirding Wood, taking you toward a valley where the trees thin out into open woodland and meadows. The broom twitches, bucks, and descends. "Oh!" she says in surprise. "Not so tight, Eric!"

"Sorry!" you say, shifting your hands so your fearful grip clutches her brown House robe, not her hips.

You feel a tingle of magic. Something has turned your broom from passage.

Nadia curves to one side of your course, descending slowly into the woods until you alight with a soft crunch of fallen leaves.

"What was that?" you ask.

Nadia dismounts and takes her broom in hand.

"It's what happens when you don't notice a ward till you fly into it," Nadia says. "Granny Rook would take my own broom to my backside for that. Granny Corby would just say I did it to myself, and bless my lucky stars it was such a gentle reminder."

"Oh." You're not so sure you're in a hurry to learn how to fly a broom if invisible barriers are a matter of course.

"Well, I did do it to myself," Nadia says. "Or us, rather. Master Maurippos would of course put up a ward if he were doing anything more than a little this-and-that, and here I come, flying in early."

"Oh. That's alright," you say, hoping you weren't the cause of any distraction. You weren't talking together. After the rigorous magical exercise, your member had behaved itself, not rising to prod Nadia in the seat of her robe. You feel a twitch below the belt of your robe. Down, please, you think.

"This way, I think," Nadia says. She leads you through a grove and over a little rise.

You feel a tingle in front of you. "The ward?" you say.

"Yes," Nadia says. "We're a little early, we should wait."

You can see before you, a little distance down a gentle slope, a meadow with springlike grass and flowers persisting, even as morning frosts are becoming more regular this season.

"There he is," Nadia says, pointing.

A bare-chested centaur with long, curly black hair and beard presides among a small group of senior Boarbristle students, robed in brown, red, and green -- no Minervals present -- spaced out and facing inward toward a rowan-tree heavy with berries whose limbs are moving without respect to the wind. You've grown up a bit of a city boy, so the whole scene is a little scary-wonderful for you. You can feel both your fears and your dreams about going to Boarbristle welling up inside you. You blink. It almost looks like you can see a face in the foliage and berries, looking towards Master Maurippos.

He moves a knobby wooden staff in the final figures of what appears to be a dismissal. He stamps his foot, taps his staff on the ground, and says a final word. The rowan-tree's leaves and branches whisper as they lose the seeming of a face, you're sure that's what you saw a moment ago. He lifts his staff and waves it in a wide circle about his head. The ward before you dissolves.

"What was that?" you ask Nadia. "The face in the tree?"

"Dinnah," she says. "Might be a dryad. Rowan-tree, so maybe something about attracting birds. Or dowsing for things underground. Might be some other forest spirit or even who-knows-what."

Maurippos directs the robed Boarbristle students in collecting the candles, posts, and other materials used for the just-concluded operation, then calls them together to talk. From here you see him in profile, a handsome centaur of seeming middling age, from what you can see of his human parts, with his horse parts are compact and nimble, of bay coloring, you might say red-brown with a black tail and black socks, sort of. He wears a red and gold medallion, probably a House Leontes sign.

There's a rustle among the trees a little way to one side of you. Maurippos frowns, turns his head, tilting it up and scanning it from side to side like he's caught a scent. Something has made an impression on him, anyhow. His equine member grows, stiffens, and throbs under his belly. It doesn't look, well, quite as big as your forearm.

A quick drumming of hooves heralds the appearance of a a centaur mare, her coat light gold and her head hair and tail white-blonde. She prances as she moves toward Maurippos, dancing to one side and the other, her tail held high. She turns her tail and poses, her legs braced, teasing the centaur wizard. Bright pink flesh is revealed under her raised tail.

"Praxilla, blasted girl," Maurippos says. "Where did you find love grass in this season? Settle yourself down before I do it for you."

"Haha, haha, haha," she carols. She kicks up with one foot, knocking the staff from Maurippos' hand, and wheels to catch it before it falls to the ground.

"Praxilla!" Maurippos calls after her. "Stop!"

Praxilla runs up the low rise toward the grove where you and Nadia have been waiting.

You've never leaped in front of a horse, but even a small horse, is, well, big. But if you recover Master Maurippos' staff, that wouldn't be a bad thing.

"Eric!" Nadia says, snatching at your sleeve.

But you're off, dashing to cut off Praxilla before she gets away.

You have 4 XP.

You have Ambition -1, Bravery 0, Cunning +2, Diligence +2.

You have a FAVOR from Miss Wormwood, and a FRIEND, Aurelia Sterling, your Enchantments teacher.

(+1 Forward on your Move roll from your successful practice with Nadia and Ms. Sterling.)

Roll +BRAVERY(+1)(+0 Bravery, +1 Forward) to impress Maurippos, the Centaur stallion who teaches Care of Magical Creatures. On a 7+, you have the opportunity to DEFEND YOUR HOUSE'S HONOR by facing a challenge that he sets related to magical creatures.