Nod. 

:I'm not going to take everything you say at face value, so don't worry about speculating even though you might be compromised – what do you think? Of whether this looks more like - the trick is what happened with your in the north, versus the trick was the Death Bell in Haven? If you were the one making a decision here - you aren't, I think either way we need to keep you here, but if you were - which way would you go?: 

:The Death Bell being faked sounds like - not definite at all but the sort of thing that should be flagged as a possibility, and I think if you can tell people to consider it from here before you go anywhere vulnerable to lightning that would be ideal.:

Nod.

There's one more piece. 

:Earlier, there was a sighting in Waymeet of - something that looked externally like a Companion and claimed to be Yfandes. But visibly wasn't tied into the Web, which Companions always are. There were a few Heralds and Companions in Waymeet, none of whom are briefed on - recent events - they didn't answer its questions and reported back for orders, by which point it had gone onward into Valdemar.: 

:Enara admitted to Rolan that Yfandes had been planning to travel partway south until she was in range to be a relay point.: 

:There - was an avalanche, a little over two hundred miles north of here. Plausibly just before the point when the real Yfandes would be in range of Enara. Rolan received a frantic message, reporting children in danger. Not boosted by the Web, but he admits that in less than a dozen words of long-range Mindspeech he wouldn't necessarily have been able to distinguish if it was the real Yfandes just inexplicably locked out, or a fake.: 

:It - she? - was found dead in the aftermath when a Herald went to the scene. Which is - a little confusing, if it was a fake Yfandes traveling on Leareth's orders. It might have made it out if it hadn't turned back for the children.: 

How is Blai reacting? 

Yfandes was indeed supposed to do that. Well, was supposed to go to Waymeet, he doesn't know if she had a policy decided in advance about children in avalanches. :I don't think anyone has actually explained the Web to me but if it's going to keep coming up...:

Shrug. :Not sure I'm the best person to explain, but I'll do my best. King Valdemar made it eight hundred years ago, it's - part mage-working, presumably based on something from the Eastern Empire where he was trained, and likely part miracle. Before Vanyel improved it, it provided alarms for sufficiently major disasters anywhere in the Kingdom and slightly more efficient distance-casting, and all Companions were linked to it from birth, which is probably how it 'knows' about a Herald's death. At that point, it was powered mainly by the active Herald-Mages at the time, which limited its scope. Vanyel improved it by creating a Heartstone in Haven as a power source, which also let him improve how 'clever' the wards and alarms built into it are. ...This did include a change to the Death Bell, actually, previously we just knew a Herald had died. That was the part that's never been wrong in eight hundred years. All the Heralds knowing who died immediately when they heard the bell is - something that happened when Vanyel gave the Web greater scope. It's also never been wrong, for a lot of deaths, but - only over less than a decade. ...In fact there are no other Heralds' deaths that didn't get a Death Bell, we did check that.: 

:So... you installed a Star-Eyed artifact in your Web, and now both She and it are separately somewhat suspect?:

:...I suppose, yes. Though we had no previous reason to suspect the Web was unreliable before you arrived, with a story that - isn't incompatible with Vanyel being dead as of a day and a half ago, but is at least confusing and requires a complicated explanation and Leareth having abilities we weren't previously aware of. Which - is also the case if we assume he destroyed k'Treva.: 

:I understand you have no strong reason to put weight on my assessment of the man's Law but - I reiterate it.:

It makes sense to put some weight on it. Blai's other magic seems to work here. 

:I did want to ask about your impression of the man, since you're the only one in Haven right now who's met him. I'm guessing there are - different kinds of Law, even in your world, and some people who would read Lawful and would never tell an outright lie or break their word, but - would consider it fine to select misleading truths and give their word in twisty ways, and - to hurt people, if they hadn't promised not to. And some Lawful people who would consider that against their principles - against the spirit of Law, and wouldn't do it even if they could sneak it past the letter. If you had no reason to worry about mind control, I - am curious which sort of Lawful you would read Leareth as.: 

:Well, there are Lawful Good and Lawful Neutral and Lawful Evil people, and, yes, there are people who adhere to the spirit of Law and others who - don't. Twisty exact wording has never been my specialty but I didn't detect any in my exchanges with Leareth and he was very explicit about declining to swear those things he didn't feel sure of. In a world where no one can tell if you're Lawful or not, so reading Lawful to spells is not instrumentally useful in any way, I would expect the reading to appear mostly in cases where the spirit is honored, and he did not challenge that expectation.:

Nod. :That was always Vanyel's impression as well, and - obviously he can't detect Lawfulness but he had almost twenty years talking to the man, that's a lot of consistency to maintain.

- is there anything else you think we should be considering when reasoning about this, that didn't come up when I questioned you earlier?: 

:I really do mean it about the lightning strikes. I'm not accustomed to working around hostile gods but the Acts was written when it was a going concern and they had divine help to counteract a lot of it and it still sounded like - you need to really overdetermine things from multiple redundant angles, and if you do it well enough every one of your precautions will look unnecessary, and if you don't then when it matters most they'll, uh, have lightning strike a tree nearby.:

:And you're worried I might get struck by lightning before I can report on this to anyone?: 

Honestly, Melody was a lot more worried about being arrested, and - in hindsight was that something the gods were steering for as well - keeping her too distracted by grief she couldn't let herself see head-on to think of this when anyone else was awake, and too frazzled and tired of everything to make a decision on whether to wake someone to get permission and who she ought to get permission from. 

But - that's even more of a reason to report it immediately, really, it will look even worse later. 

:Yes. I don't know what your resources are or who's awake at this hour but if I were you I'd tell five different people, before leaving the room, and leave a note with me, and carry a few copies of one yourself and leave them in different places, and have each note specify where the others should be found so if any strange number of them go missing it's alerting.:

:Wow. Is that the sort of precautions your goddess advises in the holy book? That's - I realize this is an odd thing to say but your goddess reminds me a little of Leareth.: 

Also Melody is a goddamned idiot and did not bring...paper. And cannot actually Mindspeak anyone without at least opening the door, she's not keyed to the shields either. Though she can open the door and still stay inside, and surely lightning can't leap directly a room. 

:I'm going to go open the door and alert the Groveborn.: Pause. :...Actually, first. Are you - going to be all right? I - sorry: there is no right way to say this to Vanyel, even, and she doesn't know this man nearly as well. :I don't just mean 'is this unpleasant for you', it certainly is and also I know you can handle that. But it seems like it could be traumatic to be locked in a room for days without your magic: especially since it keeps happening to him, :and - if you're right about what's happening, and the Heralds catch on in time, then we might need your help without much notice. Would you anticipate that being an issue?: 

:The command of Her crusade, since Her enemy had a god's backing, yes... I don't think I'm particularly close to having an operational constraint here. Do you know what you might want suddenly, so I can prepare spells accordingly at sunup?:

‘Operational constraint’ is - exactly what she meant, huh. 

:Communications with the north, but I don’t know if your magic helps with that. …The spell that makes you wiser, maybe, if I can convince anyone it’s worth letting you cast it. Another prophecy spell wouldn’t be a terrible idea. And - if they end up deciding they can trust you to heal the King under close supervision, that would improve our operational capacity significantly. That’s all I can think of on the spot.:

:I'm not powerful enough to cast Sending. I.... could prepare a Planar Inquiry and ask for a messenger, but it would be really here, not a summons, and I wouldn't want to get some lantern archon killed unless it was definitely that important and ideally also sufficiently redundant that killing it wouldn't be useful to the gods. I'm not practiced at reasoning about that.:

:Hmm. If you have room to prepare it without giving up something that might be more useful, we don’t have to commit to using it yet. I - do - think it could be that important, and - maybe more likely our gods wouldn’t know what to do with it. Unless a lightning strike or avalanche would work just fine against it, I guess. …It sounds like you can pray for your spells even with your ability to cast them blocked for now, is that right?: 

:Archons are immune to electricity actually, and can fly. And I don't know, I haven't tried it yet.:

...Nod. 

:I'm not going to change anything for now.: It would substantially increase the odds of the Heralds deciding to arrest her, and make everything she has to report more suspect. :I - hope it still works. Dawn will be in about three candlemarks, I think.: 

Melody has also given herself time to think that, possibly, the Groveborn - tied even more deeply into the Web than most Companions, and even more a direct creation of a god or gods - is not the best person to contact first. She'll try for Dara directly. And wake Jeren, who's on call for Mindhealers' tonight, to come bring her paper, which is by some arguments abusing her position but right now she does not care. 

She goes to open the door. 

:Don't you need to write notes? If you don't have paper I've got two copies of the Acts here and I can scriven off another later, take some pages -:

:I was going to have my colleague run paper over but - sure, if you don't mind.: She does at least have pen and ink in her pocket. 

He carefully rips out the last few pages of the less nicely-bound copy; it's poetry and there's plenty of margin from all the line breaks.

Melody feels like she's being slightly sacrilegious but Blai is the one who suggested. 

...Okay, what to actually write. 

Further interrogation of Select Blai suggests alternate theory. Blai's report at face value incompatible with Death Bell. Should be less confident which side is a ruse. Could be Leareth lying, but Star-Eyed Goddess could have sent Changecreature & destroyed K'Treva. Heartstone modification affected Death Bell, could be subject to tampering. Consider possibility that Leareth is truthful & events in Haven are the trick. 

If I die in an implausible accident, I consider this evidence for the second theory.

She writes a note, describing and tucks it inside her robes. Writes another on a second page, folds it, places it on the stool. 

:All right. Now I'm going to open the door.: