:Right! I think we should get you to try your Healing on the King, we really should have thought of that when you were still in Haven, but he - has a wasting disease and he might only have a few months left, one of our Foreseers saw him dying before next autumn. I think I hadn't been thinking about that because it was uncomfortable, but - it would be easier to get through all of this if he's healthy. I don't know if your spell can do that but maybe it can get far enough that our Healers can help him?:

Pause for breath.

:Also I think I might know how to make the oath work now! But it...sort of...maybe would have to involve blood-magic? On yourself? To make a power linkage that no one can dispel from the outside. I think you could also make two lifebonded people swear a binding oath to each other and power it off energy flow across the lifebond, but that doesn't help us, it was just what got me thinking.

- oh and I had an idea about how to find Leareth's immortality setup in the Void, but I don't think we should actually do that, it would scare him.: 

That was really fun actually! Once she realized she could think about inventing magic and not about decisions in her personal life! 

:I'm happy to try healing the King next time I'm in Haven assuming nothing and no one is... exploding at the time. I don't know what a lifebond is. I am unclear on what purpose magically binding oaths between... anyone... serves, as I am accustomed to the situation being such that if you solve the problem where someone might violate their mere solemn promise, you're left with the problem where you cannot specify the promise well enough to control someone clever at wordplay, and if you solve the problem where someone wants to do clever wordplay to evade your agreement, too, then you have solved basically all of the problems you had to begin with.:

:Possibly it's not actually important if you can just tell if someone is the sort of person who will keep their solemn promises, we can't do that. Though we also need to persuade the rest of the Heralds your magic does that. Mostly it was bothering me that it came up in the other prophecy you did but I still couldn't think how it was possible. 

Lifebonds are a way people can be soulbonded – sort of like Companions with Heralds, but even moreso. ...I'm lifebonded to Randi's heir and in hindsight I plausibly shouldn't have come north given what I knew at the time because he would - take it really badly - if anything happened to me, and I had a realization that I wasn't thinking about it because I can't stand it when someone gets to tell me I'm not allowed to do something because it's too dangerous.: You would think that being able to use Mindhealing Sight on yourself would mean you had ALREADY HAD ALL THE IMPORTANT REALIZATIONS but apparently not. :Though with what we know now, I think it's actually better that I'm here.: 

:If you need to do a magically binding oath so that it's legible to the leadership in Haven that Leareth is committed then I suppose that's a fair enough reason, though they'd be counting on unfamiliar experimental magic instead of unfamiliar offworld magic and it's not a clear win to me.

Did we want me to do the Aura Sight, before dawn?:

Yes!!!!!!!

:I guess it would be interesting.: What if he reads evil though. Stef thinks he probably doesn't, Blai makes it sound like actually evil people in his world are worse than just...not actually a good person, which he definitely isn't. 

...What if Van reads evil because of all the people he killed on the Karsite border. He would be so upset about it!

If Stef does not voice these thoughts then they will not stop Blai from casting his spell and looking at everybody here!

Stef doesn't ping as anything. 

Neutral Good. 

Also Neutral Good. 

Lawful Good. 

Chaotic Good. 

"No aura - that can mean neutral or just not powerful enough - you're both Neutral Good - you're Lawful Good - you're Chaotic Good."

:What does that...mean...? I don't think I would break solemn promises.: She hates making solemn promises but that's different. 

:I haven't met a lot of Chaotic Good people and have not known you very long.:

Is that a polite way of saying he doesn't trust her anymore it would be DEEPLY INAPPROPRIATE AS A MINDHEALER to read his mind to figure out if he's silently judging her. Completely different from reading his mind because Leareth might have gotten to him or they found out he used to work for an evil god. Jisa has PRINCIPLES, whatever his stupid spell has to say about it

So apparently setting thousands of Karsites on fire doesn't make you read evil. 

Is that all of Blai's spells that they needed to use up before dawn, then? Stef needs to pee. 

Yes, that's everything. Blai starts praying in advance of actual dawn for lack of other diversions.

Vanyel sits down and has an internal debate over whether they should tell Leareth about a confusing prophecy that involves Final Striking the Heartstone in Haven possibly to run the first-stage god-creation, when the actual explanation might be that Leareth is going to end up compulsioning him to take down Valdemar's defenses - though his top theory for why Leareth might have done that was a misunderstanding - but that's not the only possibility - arghhh now he can't quite follow all the reasoning he did while he had the spell that made him wiser, that's so frustrating, he should have taken notes - 

He does not draft a message to Leareth. They're planning for Blai to go read his alignment in a few candlemarks anyway and - they'll know more then. 

If they're not actually doing anything yet then Stef is going back to bed. 

She should write a message to Treven and apologize for sneaking out on him? Probably??? It's a really awkward thing to say in a letter but she definitely had the thought while wiser that it's not better to keep putting it off for days... 

Blai only needs 3 Endure Elements today since Stef is staying behind, so he can squeeze in a Detect Law. Another Minor Prophecy, another Owl's but only one and he'll squeeze in a Suppress Charms and Compulsions. And a Dispel Magic.

Vanyel would prefer Jisa stay behind by default too, but he admits that it's quite plausible they'll end up wanting to call on her for something only she can do, whereas he really can't think what emergency would require a Bard. 

The agreed-upon meeting time is noon. The days are short this far north, though, it's only a little over four candlemarks between dawn and noon. And there's no reason not to go a little early, if the weather won't bother them anyway. 

The question is whether Vanyel initially shows up with Blai, or waits until Blai has verified Leareth's Lawful tendecies. Leareth agreed to Vanyel being there, and - given that Vanyel might well be able to Final Strike at short range in time if he feels Leareth trying to land a compulsion on him (or even just thinks he does), it feels like Leareth is the one taking the bigger risk here, and it's a risk that would make a lot more sense if he really wants to negotiate. 

He could wait somewhere shielded, but - he thinks it's only reflexive paranoia at this point, and probably not constructive? What does Blai think. 

:I can cover the both of us with Suppress Charms and Compulsions for ten minutes, but I'm increasingly unsure that local magic even allows a save, and the way to use the spell which instead prevents them from working categorically will last only thirty seconds if I keep my focus on it the whole time.: