We should probably think about what our next step is if it fails.

Well, hopefully if it fails we'll be able to figure out why, and it'll be something we can do something about - if we need a mage who can cast faster or deal with distractions better or whatever, that'll take longer but it's still pretty straightforward. But a backup plan in case we can't, or in case it's not that easy, yeah.

I'm more worried that we might only get one chance, depending how it fails.

She considers.

I don't think that can happen unless we mess something up, but that's not impossible, she says after a minute. When I used the mage-sense in Angband there was something really weird about it, and overwhelming - knowing what I know now I wonder if I was seeing their mind, in which case casting there at all might count as casting while touching them. I didn't cast, I just used the sense, but if that's the case we're going to have to be very careful about finding the edge of the effect and having the mage cast from outside of it. And hope they can't move the edge very fast.

Or simultaneously distracting them, but it's hard to distract a Vala.

I'm much surer we'll be able to teleport their body away, that sounded like it'd do it.

I hope so. I think it ought to.

Nod. Yep. I wish we had some way of testing this stuff ahead of time, though.

Me too. Is there magic for seeing the future in your world?

She considers.

It's not impossible but I'd be pretty surprised.

There's some in ours but it only works if you aren't going to act on the information.

That sounds pretty pointless, then.

I wonder if it's somehow possible to make spell forms.

Did they all come about as Gifts? The existing ones?

I assume so. If any of the city-building species knew how to make them things would be very different, at least.

Can we interact with any of the city-building species, or is that too dangerous?

Elves and goblins we shouldn't; humans and dwarves I don't know very much about, but what I do know says they're probably okay, at least if we can come up with an explanation for how you got there that doesn't involve kobolds.

I bet we can do that. What's wrong with goblins?

They make more sense than elves, but they're even more aggressive and they keep slaves. They're not as hostile to kobolds as elves or humans or dwarves are, so if we need something specific from them I might be able to get it, but I don't think it'd work to try to talk to them longer than that.

And someday we should change that, too.

Would be nice. One of the Speakers is a goblin - they've been living with us kobolds for almost two hundred fifty years, they're nice. They can probably help us figure out what we can do about that.

Goblins don't experience the wearing out and dying thing?

Mmhmm. Goblins and elves don't; humans and dwarves do. And all the animalfolk species, I think; tigerfolk do.

Okay. A problem for after the war, I suppose.

...fixing aging?

Slavery. Aging is strange to me but I wouldn't fix it more than any other kobold difference unless it bothered you.