The Winds and the Mage

Your months of study start with the assignment your master gave you: learning Telosian. Your first step is a massive tome titled "Tilean for the Reikspiel speaker." You find it incredibly easy to understand and decide to test your newfound mastery of Tilean sentence building on a Tilean Apprentice. When he looks at you like you're speaking at him in Cathayan, you realize there's a problem.

[Rolling: 33+16(Learning)+10(College teaching)=59]

One amusing conversation with a librarian later, you're richer in knowledge, in that you now know that some exiled linguist-noble from Nuln once established himself somewhere in the Border Princes near Tilea and attempted to build an abominable lingua franca of Tilean vocabulary and Reikspiel grammar. After a wasted day, you get to work with books pre-approved by said librarian.

Telosian doesn't have a neutral gender. It also uses word order instead of declinations to signify cases. Those two characteristics are infuriating to you, and are apparently shared by most other major human languages, since aside from Kislevite, they're all descended from Classical. You spend two entire months of studies hacking away at the language, but the best you can manage is to acquire a roughly complete vocabulary and correct grammar. You still have a very audible accent, and you sometimes lose track when your tutor -you asked for one after the "Tilean for Reikspiel Speaker" debacle, a harried-looking Perpetual Apprentice with the tanned look typical of natives from the Southern Kingdoms- starts speaking too quickly. If it weren't for his reassurance that Tobarans speak much slower than other Tileans, on account of the Khazalid accent so many of its citizens have, you'd be worried you might miss something in conversations. Ah well, frequent contact with the language and its speaker should be sufficient to get you where you want to be.

---

There are half a dozen men, most of them retired soldiers, in a small amphitheater inside the College with you and your Master, all armed... and bickering. The two swordsmen -one has a rapier, the other a sword- look about ready to draw on each other, and the other four are having a spirited debate about which kind of formation is most likely to cause friendly fire. You quickly notice that one of them -the one with a Hochlander accent and an unreasonably big gun- seems to be fielding no accusations at all, however.

Master Petru makes a polite cough-like noise, and the debates stops as all your weapon master candidates take off their hats. "I see that asking the Reiksmarshall about possible tutors for my Apprentice might have caused more enthusiasm than I expected. May I trouble you gentlemen to name yourselves and explain to Casandora the main advantages and drawbacks of your particular fighting styles ?"

With that call to order, the men shuffled and muttered before the first was pushed forward.

Rolling for ranged weapon masters
[96] high score upgrades masters' quality
up to 5 weapon masters, rolling for quality/exotism
[1.3.4.5.3]
3professionals, 1 elite
Rolling for melee weapon masters
[97] high score upgrades masters' quality
up to 5 weapon masters, rolling for quality/exotism
[3.4.3.2.3]
2 professionals, 1 exotic

"I used to command a squad of Roadwarden in Nordland," the first man explained. Short bows are ideal for mounted combat, especially against the kind of opponents we faced on the job: beastmen and bandits that can't outrun us, but are safer to engage from afar. You want to take advantage of the short draw to fully exploit the weapon"

A second man snorts at that point, shoves the first aside, and puts his weapon in front of you. "Now, the crossbow -that is a wizard's weapon. It's much more forgiving for people who don't have the time to exercise every day, and it will probably outperform even a longbow in terms of range and penetration-"

"But it takes figurative hours to reload," someone interrupts him. And longbows are much more viable if you want to shoot someone over your ally's head. You lose a little range, but penetration is basically the same with a strong enough bow. I've seen even Bretonnian knights in full plate armor retreat from my squad."

"If you want range and penetrative power, a long rifle will do the job. So long as you can trace a straight line between your gun and something nasty's head, that is." The Hochlander makes his case. "We don't do indirect fire, but you mage types tend to find a high place to throw magic from anyways, and a gun is less dangerous for everyone around... And I've once seen a Bright Journeyman explode. His Master said he'd underestimated the Bray-Shaman we were tracking. If he'd shot it instead, he might have lived."

"On the other hand," a man with a grin and no left hand interrupts, "you might prefer to learn how to use a melee weapon. The rapier is quite popular in the Southern Kingdoms and easily used with a gun in your off-hand, so long as it's a high-quality pistol and not some Sartosan-built death trap. It served me well as judicial champion of Los Cabos, and later as sergeant in the Free Company of Reinsfeld"

At that, the last person in the room lets out a laugh. "And if you actually intend to use your weapon for self-defense, your best option is still the hand-and-a-half sword. There's no weapon more flexible...." He looked you over critically. "The girl might need some physical conditioning firsthand to learn well, however." He tells your Master. At that, the archers and the rapier user nodded.

You set out to thank the men and tell them that they would be informed of your Master and your decision soon when you hear her mutter. "I thought there was one more..."

As she speaks, something that looks like a theater curtain made of shadows falls between her and you. Someone rises from a seat you could swear was empty. You try to look at them, but the moment you lose eye contact, any detail about their appearance slips from your mind like a drop of oil on a well-cleaned cupola.

"I pioneered techniques for mages to use their staff in self-defense." They tell you as if they were sharing a particularly frivolous anecdote. "It's good to keep you alive, and it works better than anything I've seen with Blessed Weapon. I want to see if it works as well for Azyr as it does for Ulgu."

You try to give the bow Apprentices are supposed to give to a Magister as a way to buy some time to think, but-

"It's better if I work on an Apprentice with no prior combat experience to speak of," they explain patiently as if you'd already asked the question on the tip of your tongue. "No bad habits to correct. And I'm not letting your Master see because she doesn't know I'm in Altdorf, and I want to keep it that way if you want someone else to teach you. It's complicated, secret, and she'll be mad at me for at least a week. Only tell her about me if you want me to teach you, or I'll arrange for a punishment."

Great, now a Grey Magister wants you to keep a secret from your Master. They disappear the way they appeared, and Master Petru seems surprised to see you, as if she thought you'd be somewhere else, but recovers quickly.

"So, what do you think? A weapon in particular catch your fancy?" She asks you breezily. You think, and answer-

[]Longbow
bonus vs armored target, very long range, indirect fire option, malus from noodle arms, unusable on mounts, professional teacher (+10 to learning roll)

[]Short bow
Fire-able on the move, medium range, indirect fire option, malus from noodle arms, professional teacher (+10 to learning roll)

[] Crossbow
bonus vs armored target, very long range, indirect fire option only at long range, slow reload, professional teacher (+10 to learning roll)

[]Long Rifle
bonus vs armored target, very long range, precise, slow reload, elite teacher (+20 to learning roll)

[]Rapier
Dueling weapon, easily paired with a short barrel firearm, malus from noodle arms, professional teacher (+10 to learning roll)

[]Bastard Sword
Very adaptable weapon, malus from noodle arms, professional teacher (+10 to learning roll)

[]Staff
Bonus to parries, lesser damages, malus from noodle arms, exotic teacher (+30 to learning roll)

[] Tell Master Petru about the Grey Magister without taking lessons from them
[] Do not tell her about them
AN: the last vote will be ignored if the staff weapon option wins, since you'll have to tell her about it in that case. There wile be a 20 minutes moratorium, then the vote will be open for 34 hours.
You'll have lessons with your weapon master locked as one of your 6 actions/turn every year/2 turns, to justify the expense for your master to retain them. You may do another action to search for master again in future turns, but it'll lock more actions in the same fashion. Any elite or better weapon master will have a chance to be an option again, unless something happens to remove them from the pool.