"I was considering suggesting that she visit Manus to request acccess to their records if your inquiries by mail do not yield results."

"I don't have any specific reason to want to keep secrets from her and she should probably know that it would likely have unintended consequences if she went into too much detail about Desna to anyone. If she's willing to undertake the errand that sounds like a good idea."

Well, apart from the thing where gods get stronger when you tell people about them. But on the current game board, she will more useful than her knowing will do harm. It is not a specific reason, she supposes.

"Very well."

"Thank you for sending this device and updating me."

She nods. "You know how to deactivate it? Remember to replace the stone in the other socket, or it will not recharge adequately."

"- it recharges on its own?"

"The mana stone left alone, will recharge from ambient mana, from empty to full capacity in approximately one week. Emplacing it in the silver socket of the device will allow it to capture more ambient mana and recharge faster, in twenty-four hours instead. Separately, a [Mage] may manually recharge it from their own mana in several minutes to half an hour, depending on their strength and skill."

"Amazing. Thank you." And then he will move the mana stone as directed.

The device goes quiet, and the weird colors on the mirror fade away.

And he squares away his teaching responsibilities for the day and goes to ask the librarian to put in a request for Manus's records.

The librarian has to take a moment to remember what Manus is and agrees to reach out. Also the oldest record(s) with any mention of gods?

Right.

That will take longer than Germina, maybe two weeks just on the round trip if Manus is prompt about it. (They've not been in proper correspondence with Izril before, not while this librarian has been here, so they don't really know what to expect.)

That's fine if that's as fast as the process goes.

Back to his contractual obligations. Also he's been here a while and needs to find someone to play chess with soon, do any of his clerics know where people go for that.

It's a big city with a high standard of living and lots of free time; there are chess clubs galore.

Oh good. It's an important self-maintenance task he is commanded to undertake.

The next day, the office in an uproar. Not in the way of a work-related emergency, but in the way of shocking news from elsewhere.

"...think he'll come again..."

    "...I cannot believe His Majesty will allow it..."

"...promises were..."

    "...fools to believe..."

"- what's happened?"

"You didn't hear yet? The King of Destruction has awakened."

"...who is that?"

"The ruler of Reim—he's been sleeping for, what is it, twenty-two years? I hope they don't go to war again."

Wow, that sounds awkward but at least due to no small effort on Blai's part it's not his fault. "Do you know how he woke up?"

"No, the rumor from down south is just that he's seen walking in their capital, and the splinter states are struggling to keep things under control."

"What are Khelt's diplomatic commitments and stances?"

Right, he wouldn't know.

"Khelt was vassalized the last time the King of Destruction was active. It was more nominal than anything, so we were autonomous, just paid tribute. We declared independence when he entered his slumber and the empire collapsed, same as all the other nations, and I don't know what diplomatic contact has been made since.

"...The King was very unhappy about how last time worked out. One of the concessions we made was allowing Flos—that's the King of Destruction, Flos Reimarch—to recruit for his war in Khelt, and he was... more persuasive than His Majesty expected."