"What doesn't exist?" Vanyel appears at the bottom of the stairs. "Er, are you done testing with Nechar's door?" 

"We are, both tests were successful. I don't know all the Maiar but the Elves will know some of them and those will probably know most of the rest, I don't know there to be any Maiar who weren't acquainted with anyone at all, though I can't rule it out."

"To clarify," Leareth says, "this is relevant because I suspect that the search component of a Gate can be adjusted to anchor on a specific magical signature – for example, a given individual Maia – and either offer a direct path to them, or resolve as something resembling a summoning spell rather than a Gate per se. There is the case of a mage accidentally summoning an Adept to his own location when attempting a Gate without knowing its purpose; my theory for why it happened this way is that it was the lower-energy option, if that makes sense? A person is much smaller and more mobile than a location, and it might take less power to pull them through the Void rather than stabilizing a bridge between two places." 

Leareth turns to look at Vanyel. "Since any version of this is likely to involve Gates, it would seem to be of great value if we could mitigate your sensitivity to them. Cam and I were discussing what could be causing it, earlier, and Cam thought it might be fixable. Is this something you would be willing to work on?" 

Vanyel blinks, startled. "Um." He drags a hand over his face. "I...guess so." He looks over at Cam. "...What were your ideas so far?" 

"Uh, if I understand correctly, mage-energy is all the same thing and you can't be allergic to it, but you could have a stress reaction to identifying it as a gate. My medical training knows nothing whatthefuckever about magical channels, so if the stress reaction happens entirely locally to those, I don't think I can help you without knocking you unconscious or sedating you, but if it's a physically referred phenomenon we could maybe get somewhere with something like beta blockers or a light muscle relaxant."

"Huh. I...never thought of it that way. But you're right, the energy itself can't be different. And it definitely does something to my mage-channels, I have horrible backlash afterward, but it's not just that – it messes with my head in general, the last time I had to do a Gate myself and cross it on short notice I was delirious for days. Supposedly. I usually don't remember it. It is a lot less bad if I'm drugged for it – not just at the time, it seems like it actually damages my channels less." Shrug. "I don't know why that happens. Lancir – he was the old Queen's Own – said I would be sensitive to Gates, because that's, um, how my Gifts happened." 

He looks down at the floor. "But he didn't explain it and I - wasn't curious. I hate thinking about the entire topic, I guess." 

"I mean, that's super legit, and you didn't even have someone dispensing beta blockers to hand so it might have made the most sense at the time. But yeah, think of it like somebody clenching their teeth so hard they get a headache, that's what I'm imagining."

"Makes sense." Vanyel grimaces. "Testing this is going to involve me doing a Gate, isn't it." 

"I suspect it would make more sense to begin with exposure to a Gate," Leareth points out. "Perhaps from a significant distance. My understanding is that you are sensitive enough for this to be quite noticeable – and thus for improvements to be remarked on – without causing lasting damage." 

"Yeah, even if there weren't potentially promising drugs that could work, I'm not a psychiatrist but I think that's how exposure therapy works."

"And based on this theory, I'm guessing you think it'd help if I relax as much as I can and try not to be stressed? I don't know that it's ever occurred to me. It's not very intuitive – it'd feel like trying to relax when you're lifting a heavy box." 

"Yeah, it'd be extremely counterintuitive if you have that bad a reaction. I think the general idea behind exposure therapy is, like, say someone is scared of spiders, you show them a picture of a spider and they look at it and nothing horrible happens, and you do that till the picture doesn't scare them, you have them look at a spider in a tank, ditto, you have them maybe actually poke somebody's pet tarantula, etcetera."

"What a clever idea." 

Vanyel takes a deep breath. "All right. Should we try it? Cam, er, do you have any way of telling where the source of the problem is? Or did you just want to try it without and with drugs and see if that changes things?" 

"I think doing undrugged exposure therapy will only be necessary if drugs happen not to work! It will be way faster to convince your subconscious that gates aren't dangerous if they physiologically cannot frighten you. I'm gonna do a panel on your blood and whatnot as of the time Leareth gated in - that would have done it, right - see if there's anything obvious so I'm not just guessing."

"It should. Your maker power can just get my blood from the past like that?" 

"Yes. I mean, I have to know when I'm grabbing from but I was - not there, but interacting with the situation, so just straightforwardly yes." He is doing things on a booth table with vials and weird slips of paper and spontaneously appearing machinery.

Leareth watches him work, obviously intrigued but not interrupting. 

"Beta blockers it is," remarks Cam eventually. "Bar, help me out on dosing him?"

Bar and Cam go back and forth a bit about exact substances and amounts and eventually Vanyel gets a bunch of little papers. "Stick 'em under your tongue, ideally give the gate a minute or two of leadtime. One by default, two for the worst third or so of cases especially if you don't have a chance to do it ahead of time, try not to wind up taking half a dozen in a day but honestly if you do the side effects aren't nearly as bad as being totally out of commission for days unless you get up to fifteen or something like that, basically just don't abuse them to become a professional gate making person except by completing your exposure therapy and no longer relying on drugs about it."

Vanyel snorts. "I would've said no way, except that who knows, I might end up helping Leareth do half a million Gates in order to get Maiar. If you're right about the cause then I should be fine once my main association with Gates is 'interminable boredom' instead of 'horrible pain'." 

Yfandes wanders up to them. :Van is pretty bad about taking too much of medicines because he forgets and loses track. What are the side effects, just in case I end up having to know what to look out for?: 

"Bar recommended fancy ones without some of the usual side effects but given their actual mechanism of action there's no way around the possibility of poor circulation - cold extremities, fatigue, sometimes weight gain, he might faint."

"I'll keep it in mind. If taking too much will make me feel tired then I would probably stop doing Gates at that point."

:While I might wish that you were that sensible: Yfandes sends, wandering up, :I'm dubious. At least I'm around to prevent you from being an idiot: 

"I still think that we ought to begin with a test from a significant distance," Leareth says. "If you want to take one now, I can run about a quarter-mile away in the backyard and we could start with that distance and see how it goes? Cam, does this seem an advisable plan to you?"