Wait Leareth's immortality spell does WHAT.

(Did what, Seldan supposes. It doesn't do anything anymore.) 

See that's an example of a bit of context Leareth could have been leaving out which might conceivably matter for an assessment of his characteristics! Though, uh, him not having it also killed a bunch of people. Causally, not in terms of moral responsibility, not that Blai is the expert on moral responsibility.

:I don't know if he will in fact pay for any such thing. He might or might not consider that something he owes reparations for: Blai stalls.

That sure is a bit of context! Seldan doesn't actually feel like it's at all surprising or in tension with everything they think they know about Leareth's characteristics, and is mostly staring in fascinated horror at the fact that you can even do that. It's hard to think of a coherent moral system under which it would be worse than murdering ten million people, but in some sense it's...creepier. 

...Anyway, the thing Brightstar tried was in fact a stupid plan! That he did not spend even five seconds thinking about the consequences of! Admittedly 'chasing after someone's soul when they die' makes sense as something one would need to do instantly, and there is an important skill in being someone who's capable of forming and acting on a plan in a split second, and if Brightstar survives his twenties then someday he might be very, very good at that. 

Fundamentally, it seems like Brightstar is a hotheaded young fool. There's no shame in that! It's a rather common way for young men to be; every so often you get someone like Treven, who seems like he's had the deliberation of a forty-year-old man since he was a small child, but that's unusual even among Herald-trainees. Seldan himself is pretty sure he was once a hotheaded young fool, and the only reason he made fewer wild and insane decisions was moral luck and having a Companion. 

Apart from having a Companion, which seems unlikely to be in the cards for Brightstar, Seldan feels like the standard wisdom for surviving - and not getting other people killed - until you learn some wisdom and maturity is...having trusted friends and mentors with better judgement, and listening to them if they yell at you that you're doing something idiotic? Brightstar could definitely stand to do more of that. He's lucky to have friends who are very forgiving people, and Jisa might be herself a bit of a hotheaded young fool but she at least does have a Companion. It sounds like perhaps Brightstar was previously trying to use the Star-Eyed Goddess as his older and wiser mentor, which is - kind of understandable, that's got to be a rather common way of relating to one's god - but it does not, in fact, seem to have been a good idea. 

...Something is niggling at Seldan. Something about that the Shadow-Lover said, about - 

- oh! That it had taken an intervention to keep Leareth's soul out of Vkandis' hands.

Brightstar isn't a follower of the Shadow-Lover's god, but the Shadow-Lover didn't actually say that this wasn't done in collaboration with the Star-Eyed, and the timing must have been very finessed. If they'd gotten to Leareth sooner he might have lived, but in that case Vkandis would have Foreseen it and possibly found a way to do something even more wildly destructive. If they'd gotten to Leareth even ninety seconds later, he would have died in the records cache, not in Haven, and the Shadow-Lover might not have been able to grab him. So - it wasn't what Brightstar was trying to accomplish, and he couldn't have known, but it's possible that his decision to help did have some rather important consequences? Seldan isn't sure if this will help Brightstar to hear. 

Honestly Blai does not really want to give Brightstar the advice "keep being stupid in just this way, it seems like it makes you useful for gods who are trying to do stuff and need a stupid person".

Fair enough. 

What does Brightstar want to hear. Seldan is wondering this not because he thinks it's a good idea to tell Brightstar what he wants to hear, it very often isn't, but because it's occurring to him that he genuinely can't tell. It might be best if Brightstar could be convinced to just, you know, do fewer things for a while until he's 25 and has better judgement, but in Seldan's experience, or at least Seldan's vague-common-sense-recollection without any examples of specific cases, it literally never works to give that advice to hotheaded young fools. Blai is really not the right person to, like, say he forgives Brightstar and understands that mistakes happen, or whatever, even if that were the right thing for Brightstar to hear from anyone right now. Maybe Brightstar wants to apologize properly to the people actually close to him, and doesn't know how? 

...Or maybe Brightstar thought of some new insane terrible plan within thirty seconds of the vision, and is now trying very hard to improve on his past choices by actually thinking about whether it's a good idea? He has that sort of fidgetiness to him. 

Oh no that's a very worrying prospect. Blai could... ask what was in the vision in more detail, but... presumably Brightstar would've volunteered this information if he wanted to share it?

Not obviously! Or, well, not if he's torn about it. He feels to Seldan like someone who really, really wants to say something and also really, really doesn't want to, and so is talking around the edges of it while trying to feel out how Blai might react. Maybe he's anxious about being told he's an idiot again, maybe he's afraid that Blai will try to stop him, maybe he's just...not thinking that clearly because he looks pretty out of it from the godvision. 

Blai could just ask if there's something specific that Brightstar thinks might serve his Goddess but might just be him having terrible judgement? Brightstar might or might not say, but Seldan thinks his exact reaction would still be informative – if he goes all furtive and guilty about it then Seldan will be a lot more confident in the 'insane plan' theory and they pass on that someone had better be keeping a very close eye on Brightstar, whereas if Brightstar just looks blank then it's more likely he's trying to get an apologizing-to-Vanyel script or vaguely wanting to be told he's not a bad person just because he made a mistake or something like that. 

That's a good idea. :Is there some specific course of action you're considering?: Blai asks.

Brightstar freezes. 

Ohhhhhh he absolutely is. Oh no.

Come on, Brightstar, you came all the way here to get advice like a sensible person, go on, just say it... Blai should maybe try to look as much as possible like someone who won't shout at Brightstar even if the plan is really, really dumb... 

:I think I can figure out how to Gate to Golarion: Brightstar sends, staring at the floor. 

:You do?:

:...I think so.: Brightstar kind of looks like he wants to sink into the floor. :Jisa is trying and she said they can probably figure it out it in six months or a year. But it does not seem that difficult to me? It is just a search-spell and figuring out a planar route so it is not too far to Gate.: Self-consciously, :- I am very good at planar routing and search-spells. I am just - that was how I found Leareth's immortality spell - I am scared that all of my plans are bad and everyone will be angry at me.: 

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seldan is probably in a second or two going to have a reaction more...words-y...than internal exclamation marks but that's all he has right now. 

:If something doesn't seem difficult to you this might be because it is not difficult for you but it might also be because you are missing something: Blai says on near-autopilot. :If you can in fact find Golarion - it matters a great deal where on the planet you land - some parts are extremely dangerous -:

On reflection Seldan can kind of believe that Brightstar is the one person on the planet (other than Leareth) who could figure this out and not consider it that difficult. He found Leareth's immortality spell! No one else had done that in two thousand years! 

They'd brought it up with Leareth and his plan had been to figure out interworld scrying before aiming a Gate anywhere in particular? So that would be good for Brightstar to know, but, uh, also it's probably premature to leap ahead to implementation details. The main thing is: Brightstar's plan would, based on the information they have and their best guesses, be really good if it worked! It could also be a disaster if poorly executed and so it was very sensible of Brightstar to seek advice before running off to try to be a solo hero about it, good job Brightstar, he's learning!

They should...probably have Brightstar be at the meeting later, and Jisa and Nayoki and maybe one or two of Leareth's top researchers can be present in order to sanity check whether Brightstar is fundamentally confused about some aspect of the problem and missing why it's actually difficult, Seldan isn't qualified to assess that, and if Brightstar's approach seems workable to them then he should do it with other people... 

That all sounds sensible... Blai's so tired and might need to throw up his tea again in a minute so he's gonna hold very still to see if he can stave that off.

Oh no. Seldan can take over. On this topic he's pretty sure he can address Brightstar without filling every word with sarcasm. 

:Brightstar: he sends, :that would almost certainly be incredibly valuable and save lives.: Quite possibly his own life and Blai's life and Van and Stef's lives in particular, if it makes the difference between solving this in a week or two versus six months. :Blai is right that it's risky even if you succeed, and you weren't aware of all the risks there, so - you did right coming to ask us about it first. But - I think it's a good thing to do, and I think your Goddess would agree if She could see better right now, and - it's not something you need to do alone. It'll be safer to work with Jisa and the others and have someone watching your back. We were going to meet tonight, so - I think you should be there, and we'll discuss it.: 

Seldan is also deeply not feeling up for personally supervising Brightstar for the rest of the afternoon until the meeting. ROLAN HEY YOU NEED TO FIND ENARA RIGHT NOW AND TELL HER TO GET JISA THE FUCK OVER HERE! NO ONE IS DYING BUT IT'S STILL KIND OF URGENT! 

Seldan did not need to shout but Rolan can confirm that Enara will go pick Jisa up from the Work Room and bring him over. 

Good.

Seldan will try to summon his best wise-mentor persona and try to say all the things that hotheaded fools who just got someone killed often benefit from hearing, delivered mostly without any snark, and do his best to stay awake and keep Brightstar supervised until someone else gets here and he can make it their problem. 

Dara beats Jisa there. 

:Seldan, is it true? Brightstar claims he can figure out how to reach Golarion and - wants to -?: 

Yes apparently that's what Brightstar claims. Can he please make Dara responsible for babysitting him until the Jisa handoff, maybe somewhere that isn't this room, his Herald needs to rest before they have the meeting tonight. 

...Yes of course. Dara looks kind of stunned, but she takes Brightstar by the elbow and leads him out of the room. 

Brightstar, also still looking kind of stunned, allows this. 

Great okay now Seldan can flop. And actually pay attention to whether his Herald is okay and whether there's anything he can do to help. And flop.