:No, not at all.:

Nod. They can go into the Palace wing that holds the royal suite, then, down a few hallways and through a door and - 

- it's not incredibly nicer than the guest room, though it has thicker rugs and newer furniture and more wall hangings. It's almost stiflingly hot (which at least won't bother Blai with Endure Elements up). There's a daybed with an articulated joint to raise the head of it, pushed against one wall. 

Shavri nudges open the door of the bedroom. :In here.: 

:I don't know anything about what his condition is and do not know if Lesser Restoration is the right tool to address it. And I only have one today, though if it works well and the slots have no other more pressing use I can do four of them tomorrow. I need to touch him to cast it on him.:

Nod. :I understand. Come in.:

The King is asleep.

He’s also very obviously dying. His body is emaciated, his eyes sunken, his remaining hair wispy and colorless. He looks like he should be translucent, the skin of a person with most of the substance removed.

Shavri puts her hand on his shoulder and closes her eyes. :Go on.: Her mindvoice is flat.

Blai touches the man's hand and casts with the other. "Lesser Restoration."

Shavri's breath sighs out. :Oh.: 

It doesn't do that much, in a sense. It doesn't fix him, not like the channeling instantly fixes injuries. It doesn't seem to do anything at all about the creeping darkness, the part that was visible to Healing-Sight first. It doesn't reverse the muscle atrophy, or instantly restore the flesh over his bones. 

But the faded guttering remnants of his life-force are suddenly a lot brighter, sluggish gluey tangles of energy unwinding and flowing normally again. He doesn't look well, but - he isn't dying. She...can't actually remember how long ago it was that his life-force was this bright. Months? A year? 

The hardest thing about the last couple of months is that he can barely tolerate any actual Healing anymore; his body no longer has the resilience for it. Even the best Healers in a meld need to draw a little on the patient's own life-force and he has next to nothing left, and all Shavri can do is block his pain and directly feed him her own energy to keep him limping along a few days longer. Now, he probably could benefit from a Healing-meld again.  

She breathes in and out again. :That - did help. Thank you.: Her feelings are still catching up to it, like water pooling up behind a dam. 

:I can prepare more tomorrow. If we come by contact with Golarion there are stronger spells too.:

:I think the same thing again would probably help more but I'm not certain - it was so fast, I couldn't see that much in Healing-Sight of how it works. But I would be very grateful if you were willing to prepare more tomorrow. At the very least, this buys him time. A lot of time. And maybe that's long enough to contact your world.: 

She is putting off having any emotions until Blai leaves, she decides. She may not be entirely up to speed on what's been happening, but the man has not been having a good week and will probably not appreciate it if she starts crying and trying to hug him. 

In that case he'll - see himself out, or is Herald Dara still there -

She's waiting outside the bedroom. :Did it work?: 

:It improved the situation though it didn't resolve it completely.:

Dara apparently cannot actually feel relieved yet, but she manages a smile. :That's - good. Thank you.: 

And she'll usher him out back to where Seldan is waiting. 

Now what.

:If Vanyel is still in transit, no one needs additional prodding to make Yfandes's body available for me to cast a spell on tomorrow, and it would be better to let Herald Joshel wait to discuss interplanetary currency valuation until other matters are settled down, I am not sure what's next on my itinerary. I suppose I could read you the Acts of Iomedae.:

:I'll prod people if they need prodding about Yfandes' body, it might well get dropped in all the chaos otherwise, but I'm the one with Mindspeech and using it to harass other Companions until their Heralds remember to do things is traditional. Vanyel is: brief pause, :still in the north, and it seems fairly likely Melody will want to talk to him as well as block his mage-gift, we probably have another candlemark. Joshel is: another brief pause, :stuck in a meeting arguing about what Valdemar owes all the mercenary troops they frantically hired and abruptly don't need anymore. So I don't think we have anything pressing. ...Have you eaten supper? I think I can still find my way to the Heralds' dining hall and I won't fit inside but I can Mindspeak you just as well through a wall.:  

:I haven't had supper, no.: Aboard he climbs.

It's dark out and a lot of the buildings are different - how long has it been? it's starting to seriously bother him that he can remember snippets of quotes from books he wrote but nothing about the year he wrote them - but Seldan can still manage to navigate to the Heralds' dining hall. The roof is new - well, not new, but replaced at some point probably in the last century - but it's recognizable. 

(NOBODY is allowed to give Blai weird looks like he doesn't have every right to be there. Seldan is making sure all the Companions of Heralds in the dining hall right now - which isn't that many, it's a bit past the usual supper hour and none of the senior people have been taking meal breaks today - are aware of this.) 

There's a long table at one end with food - fairly picked-over at this point - and a lot of smaller tables, mostly empty. 

:If you grab some food and go sit down at an unoccupied table with a book, that's a signal for no one to bother you: Seldan explains helpfully. 

:Thank you.: Normal paladin horses can't talk unless they get a permanent Telepathic Bond which has got to be too steep for the typical paladin who just got a magic horse, so probably they aren't this convenient. This is really really convenient. He goes and takes some food, he's not picky, and picks an empty table and opens the nicely bound Acts and starts at the beginning.

(Companions are SO convenient and Seldan is finding this delightful. He will take the opportunity while Blai is getting food to harass, like, six other Companions to pin down who exactly is considering themselves the responsible person for getting a message to the Herald on circuit who found Yfandes' body to tell them to bring it somewhere where someone has a Gate-location.) 

He finds a spot under an awning to stand and wait outside, and settles in to be introduced to the Acts of Iomedae. 

The first Act is technically Iomedae slaying a manticore but in terms of content that isn't about slaying a manticore there's a fair amount of information on Iomedae's childhood including the episode where she spoke only in Arodenite Scripture for months, her calling as a paladin, and her setting out to find a paladin order that accepted women and finding them all wanting.

Seldan is very attentive and does not slip in sarcastic comments at all. (This is unlike him, and is not going to work long-term, but the Companion-bond thinks it's important not to upset his Herald and it's hard to tell how it will land when he's still not very familiar with Blai's mind.) 

...It's easier than he expected. His stereotype of religious texts is not like this. 

:- Was it difficult to find an order that accepted women?: he does interject at some point. :That's - I understand that men and women play different roles in society, but it's not the same if Gifts are– I don't know if being a paladin is like having Gifts, maybe you should back up and explain what a paladin is. Enara just said they sounded like Heralds but to a particular god, not a kingdom.: 

:Paladins are a bit like clerics but more specialized in combat, and they all have to be Lawful Good so only gods within one step of that corner can have them, and if they commit an Evil act they fall at once, so they have less leeway than we do. Gods vary somewhat in what gender balance of clerics they wind up with and it's not unusual for that to vary a lot by culture but for paladins they're mostly men across the board, men are stronger and more warlike as a general rule. There are female paladins and always have been, it's just rarer. In any event she wound up founding the Knights of Ozem since she didn't find the vows and missions of any other orders adequate to her purposes, and her Knights were mixed sex.:

:I see.: So another difference from Heralds is that you definitely cannot go found your own separate Collegium if you have a dispute with the Heralds' Oath (or he would have been tempted to do it, half because he's pretty sure he did have a long list of complaints and half out of general contrariness.) :Go on.: