Mrrrrrrrrwhat

He looks too shaky to get anything off on the first try, which is kind of a problem.

She has a solution to the problem.

:You need to cast Guidance on yourself. Then stay awake and don’t do anything until I give the word. If I  for it, cast Stabilize on Blai and use the Guidance to get it right on the first try. Did you follow that.:

It’s not a great plan. She doesn’t think you can keep someone in Blai’s condition alive indefinitely even by casting Stabilize every six seconds continuously. But she just needs him to have a steady heartbeat again for long enough that she can get her Healing-link back up. 

Okay. He can do this. 

Wow trying to cast spells that require pronouncing a word out loud when it feels like the entire inside of his mouth is one big open wound is. Really unpleasant. And also interfering with actually succeeding at the task.

He can channel early, and then every half-candlemark, it might help a little and there’s no point in saving them for the afternoon. And someone should get him painblocking.

It takes a lot of tries but eventually Vanyel can successfully cast Guidance on himself!

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Shavri has the worst reaction-headache of her life. Breathe. Blai is getting dehydrated again on top of everything else, people running a high fever lose a lot of water to sweating. Breathe. Actually they should do something about that,Shavri orders a trainee to strip off the blankets and cover him with towels soaked in ice water, at least he’s too unconscious to care. Breathe. …She should probably eat and drink something, she’s getting shaky, but she can’t afford the distraction right now she’ll just have to drag herself over sharp rocks for another - fifty minutes? Breathe.She would harass Jisa but she can’t multitask that well. Brea— SHIT

:Vanyel NOW: 

“St -“ Swallow. “Stabilize.” Did it work?? 

She’s got the link again and she’s not actually sure the Stabilize did anything so she might have panicked prematurely. Better than panicking too late.

:Get a Guidance on yourself again: 

And - keep going - 

Six and a half candlemarks after Joshel’s departure, the math researchers calculate a routing that should be just barely possible for an Adept to cast, if they have a team of other mages feeding them energy. It’s clearly still worse than what Brightstar had, and nowhere near the optimal routing they want, but it will get them one brief Gate.

….Scry first, search-spell targeted on a talisman they gave Joshel to wear for this exact purpose. Where is he and who does he have with him?

Cicerone Raad has pulled together, in addition to himself:

- a sixth circle Sarenrite
- two fifth circle Abadarans
- a fifth circle Nethysian
- a third circle Abadaran
- eight first- and second-circle clerics (mostly Abadarans, one Shelynite, one Pharasmin)
- a fifth circle wizard, party member to one of the fifth circle Abadarans
- the Shelynite's brother who won't let her travel to another planet without a chaperone especially because she is probably going to insist on HUGGING the other Shelynite there
- a sword guy, party member to the Sarenrite
- four unempowered Abadaran acolytes to carry things and take notes and keep an eye on the BOX OF DIAMONDS, which as the hour of transit approaches has been removed from the safe deposit box and is being watched like a hawk
- a wand of Gentle Repose with 34 charges left on it

all of whom are expecting kind of a lot of money and stand ready to charge through a gate.

Wow that’s a lot of people! They were expecting, like, three people? They’re going to need to hold a Gate up for at least fifteen seconds to guarantee getting that many people through. 

Can Jisa ask the Healers’ team if they have time for another half-candlemark of calculations to get a route that won’t leave the mage trying to cast and hold it for fifteen seconds unconscious with backlash?

...Jisa is going to poke someone other than Shavri. She doesn't feel up for being shouted at again and also it might be a bad moment to interrupt. 

it SURE IS a bad moment to interrupt she's needed to shout at Vanyel to cast Stabilize twice in the last fifteen minutes and it was definitely doing something so she wasn't in fact overreacting and he doesn't have Guidance up again yet

(A very very stressed and frazzled trainee informs Jisa anxiously that they cannot wait half a candlemark) 

:We can't wait. I bet they'll have healing to spare that can do something about backlash though.: That's SO MANY people. She might kiss Joshel. Treven would understand.

(Someone else from Leareth's organization is making a plan to confirm with Joshel very quickly what payment he negotiated. They can afford it, their financial resources weren't what was hit hardest by losing most of the northern facilities, but they were expecting fewer people today and more time to figure out payment for the others they hope to get over later.) 

A Gate goes up! It's less dubious-looking than Brightstar's and landing on an actual doorway - unlike Brightstar they have scrying good enough to target that - and it will be up for exactly seventeen seconds before the Adept doing the primary casting and two of the others in rapport to provide mage-energy for the working are all unconscious on the floor. The other end is in the House of Healing. 

Not actually in the room with the patients, there isn't space, but Jisa is parked at the open door ready to direct people.

:Vanyel NOW NOW NOW: he didn't get the Guidance up in time and it's going to be so fucking stupid if Blai dies thirty seconds before help arrives -

He's trying! He's really really trying! Shelyn help I really need this to work - 

...Nope. Didn't work that time either.

The assembled run through in their assigned priority order, Raad and the Sarenrite shoulder to shoulder in the first row with the wand of Gentle Repose in his hand, and the others following.

Shit

Clearly the Shadowgod misjudged Shavri's capabilities here and it wasn't even enough of a miracle 

BLAI NO THAT'S A GATE GOING UP RIGHT NOW THEY'RE HERE THEY'RE COMING YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO JUST DIE 

Jisa doesn't know what's happening but Shavri just swore out loud and then it got very quiet in the room and that seems bad. 

:In there: She steps out of the way of the door. 

Oh. Things are happening now. 

Stef is incredibly tired and feels abjectly awful but he's not going to miss this.

Come on. Everyone has to survive. Stef doesn't want this stanza of the ballad to be a sad one even if they fix it later, that's not the best version of the song at all

BLAIBLAIBLAIBLAIBLAIBLAIBLAIBLAIBLAIBLAIBLAIBLAIBLAIBLAIBLAIBLAIBLAIBLAIBLAIBLAIBLAIBLAIBLAIBLAIBLAIBLAIBLAIBLAIBLAIBLAI

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

The room contains: 

- Three beds, or rather the more-easily-moveable narrow folding cots they sometimes use, all occupied.

- A box on the floor filled with a pile of straw and dragged up right beside one of the cots, which contains a large white blue-eyed stallion who does not appear in very good health, and is currently trying and failing to literally climb on top of the cot he's beside and the man in it, who's wearing a holy symbol of Iomedae (surrounded but not concealed by a haphazard pile of wire-wrapped quartz thingies on leather cords). He doesn't appear to be breathing.

- A small woman in green robes is halfheartedly trying to bat the horse's head out of her way. 

- A silver-haired, silver-eyed man is being supported by two teenagers in green robes, clutching a handmade but overall recognizable holy symbol of Shelyn, and seems to be trying to cast something. He is also clearly dying of something but not quite as imminently.