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They send her back.
- they send her back, and where she was when she was last in this plane was a classroom doing some kind of interplanar studies spellcasting, and there must be something wrong with time between the planes because they are still - here -
- she falls, again, and lands, again, and, shaking, opens her clenched-shut eyes.
Well I don't know what that's about but I'll be there faster if you want to come drag this sack of oats in your teeth?
:Sure, I'll be there in a minute:
Sayshen catches up more like forty-five seconds later, coming around the corner.
Bella gives her the top of the bag of oats to bite, slings the apples over her shoulder, and speeds up.
In which case she will catch up to Nayoki having a furious, silent Mindspeech conversation with Leareth in the middle of the hall, just outside the door to the infirmary area. Leareth is taking it calmly; he looks mildly confused.
Nayoki spins, eyes fixing on Bella. "He do it!" She gestures at Leareth. "Need fix it!"
"I have just been informed," Leareth says, expressionless, "that I was causally involved in the death of Vanyel's lifebonded partner, since a mage who apparently played a part in it, Krebain, was sponsored by one of my agents to cause havoc and weaken Valdemar, and in particular would receive a bounty for the death of a Valdemaran Herald-Mage. Nayoki is also convinced that this means I will be cursed by the gods of her people unless I immediately fix it, which I confess I am not sure is possible for me to do."
Bella takes a very deep breath. "...how are you expecting him to accomplish that, Nayoki?"
"I not know! But - Leareth do many things! Maybe he make better god now, they fix dead. Maybe he need ask you!"
Leareth's expression doesn't change at all; he is rather notably not reacting.
"My estimate on that is well over a century and that's if you have the right kind of souls here at all. Please do not dangle such a tiny shred of hope in front of Vanyel," Bella says in a low, tight voice.
Leareth lifts his hand. All sound from around them cuts off.
"Nayoki," he said, his voice cool and level. "One. Please be quiet a moment." He stares at her, maybe passing something in Mindspeech; her eyes widen. "Two. I may have been causally involved, yet I do not believe I was the only party involved, or even the main factor. From what I know, a number of unlikely coincidences led to an unnaturally powerful mage existing in the kingdom where I wished to begin my plans. If the gods of your people have any way of knowing about this at all, from over a thousand miles away, then I suspect they will need to take it up with the gods here."
Based on her shifting expressions, Leareth is saying some more things to Nayoki in Mindspeech.
"Nayoki," he says eventually, with an edge of weariness, "please go calm yourself. Somewhere else."
Leareth drops the sound-barrier around them and she flees. He turns back to Bella. "I apologize. For - a number of things, I suppose."
"I will not insult you by suggesting you were ever stupid enough to imagine that if you put a price on the heads of a vague category of people you might chance to to be causally involved with the deaths of some individuals who have loved ones given how prevalent the trait is," murmurs Bella.
"This was an expected result," Leareth admits. "That does not mean it was a cost I was ever happy about choosing to pay, or that I do not wish that somebody like you could have arrived in this world at any point in the last two thousand years before I had judged this course of action to be necessary or worthwhile. I do not actually prefer murdering people. Though, of course, it is reasonable on your part to judge my ethics based on what I was willing to do, whether or not I thought it justified."
"Better god, huh? This place has an ascent to divinity mechanic? It doesn't work out very usefully in Materia, folks turning into gods."
Leareth lets out what is just barely noticeable as a sigh.
"I would not say an established mechanic, no – Materia has this? Here it is - a theoretical possibility, and various steps of the process have been known to happen in the past. I have been studying this matter for approximately the last thousand years, and eventually converged on it as the best option starting from the resources I had. Which may or may not still be the case. If you know of any provably good divinities who might be interesting in emigrating, I would take that option first."
"Materia has this. Folks turning into gods, gods turning into folks, gods and folks having little demigods together, Materia's very busy with all sorts of things happening all the time. Materia is a staggeringly awful place and the ostensibly good deities do not make much difference, though they are better than the evil ones. I would have been tentatively inclined to vouch for the Valar and still don't know if they had full consensus on banishing me or not but if any dissented I couldn't tell you which ones or what it took to shut them up about it while I was begging for my life."
This is the point at which Sayshen catches up, still dragging the bag of oats in her teeth. :Bella? What in all hells is going on here? Nayoki just went tearing past me looking even more upset than before:
Nayoki didn't fully process the implications of working for a guy who is willing to kill people. I don't think it's an emergency.
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