"Ooooo, trying to draw it out by tempting it with more of itself to consolidate with! I like it. And if we do it right, it'd work with both of us at the same time, which would be very tidy. But the new ball of magic will probably come alive and try to kill us, since that would be the most likely reaction even if it didn't start out trying to kill us. Which it did. So we'd need something to shield the people present once we killed it again. Otherwise we might get caught in a loop of killing it, redistributing the maddening magic around upon its death, and reforming it to get it off of its latest victims. Just to kill it and start the whole thing over again, hopping that after enough rounds it'll be dispersed enough that we can all finally move on with our lives. But this is an excellent idea, I like it very much."

"Pleeeeeeeeeeease," this time directed at Vetareh again.

"Well don't look at me, I was terribly charmed by the secret pass codes. He was the one that was all, 'You should be responsible and meet all of your options before permanently picking one'..."

"Far be it from me to stop you from doing the irresponsible thing if that is your wish."

    "See???"

Vetareh giggles.

"Joining the Order of Whispers does mean I get to tease all of the nerds in the big fancy nerd organization about my ancient magical knowledge. Which sounds very fun. And it'd mean more control over what ancient magical knowledge gets released versus what gets leveraged to my benefit. Resurrection signets and the like I'd want to freely release to the world, but I'm pretty sure that a lot of what I know could potentially be very dangerous when combined with modern advances, and I don't even know where they might be. If I joined the Order of Whispers would every secret I know then belong to the Order and need to be guarded with quite as much zeal as other Order secrets? Or would it be up to my own whims?"

"I don't... know? I don't think there's much they can do other than ask and advise. But we're way more about finding out the secrets before anyone else than necessarily keeping the secrets."

"Hmm. Then it will probably have to wait until I can interrogate a person specialized in recruiting instead of research. Sorry."

"I can get someone!" he replies immediately and brightly.

Vetareh laughs. “Sure, okay. But I think I will still compare to the Priory now that I’m actually being responsible and negotiating properly, so we should probably solve this problem first. Since negotiations take a while and are unscientific and barely about magic at all.”

Pout. "We were doing so well with the irresponsibility right there!"

"We were! And then I started again. Mesmer, sorry, I live to trip people up." She winks.

Pooooooooout.

Vetareh smiles innocently.

"So! We need to go collect bloodstone magic, preferably in that cave where we fought the thing originally. Do you have any recommendations for collection apparati?"

Boy oh boy does he! He runs off, and James laughs. "He sure is something."

"He is! He's very cute."

"Very competent, too."

"Very!" She pauses, then she squints at James. Thoughtfully.

"... James. Are you plotting?"

"Plotting what?" he asks, perhaps a bit too innocently.

"I don't know, but you are, I see it in your face! What are you plotting, tell me, I'll figure it out anyway and telling me will just save time."

"But it will be much less fun."

"Admittedly yes," she acknowledges.

"Incentives!"

She rolls her eyes, fondly.

"Fine. But I'm onto you. Whatever it is you're plotting about Elodir and—" She stops, mouth still open, then shuts it as she starts to turn a bit pink. "Are you. I. I don't even know the phrase for it. The precise opposite of jealous?"

"The word I have seen used nowadays for that emotion would be 'compersion', I believe."

He does not answer the question.

"Mmhmm. Good to know. But it'd be better to know the answer to my original question."