"Bye."

This time she wants to take notes when she wakes up.

Leareth, looking fairly wide awake, takes his own notes to compare with hers after. 

She's fairly brief and collapses back to the pillow in a few minutes.

They can talk in the morning. Leareth spends a bit longer writing things down but then wriggles in beside her. 

In the morning Belrun starts her letter to the Dean.

Leareth goes out and talks to some people and then comes back. He doesn't interrupt her, just gets out his notes from during the night, glares at them a bit, and then starts a new page. 

"Morning," she says when she's between paragraphs.

"Morning." Leareth sets down his notebook, shifts over, and hugs her. "This situation is very not ideal," he murmurs. 

"Yeah, I don't like it. Would that I could solve it by demonstrably being a real person but that's definitely wishful thinking."

"It would be convenient if I could solve it with a large army or powerful magic, but while I suppose I could technically try to solve this by invading Valdemar, actually that is a very bad solution. We will have to do our best with diplomacy." He frowns. "It struck me that Vanyel was being very frank with us, which is unusual for him. I suppose that could be an act but - no, that would be very surprising." 

"I mean, he's probably really stressed out... and also being kept out of the loop might confuse him about what things are still secrets? Nothing struck me as terribly surprising or sensitive." She sits back a bit. "Why Valdemar, again? I've got it written down someplace but as long as you're handy -"

"The proximity to the northern region, which was an ideal staging ground in several ways but mainly the fact that it is unclaimed by any gods. The local god's much lower-interference style and less overt unfriendliness to my work. The infrastructure of the Web, which is largely a massive spell rather than a god-miracle. Vanyel did since go on and change some of the considerations by, for example, building a Heartstone in Haven, which gives the Star-Eyed Goddess more foothold in Valdemar than I would prefer - actually, this is a reason against your going to Haven in particular, though much less a consideration for visiting a more distant region." 

"What does that let her do?"

"You know, I am actually very unsure what it allows Her to do in isolation, when not combined with locals who are also bound in a pact with her. Presumably Her power in Valdemar is substantially less simply because that aspect is missing – I doubt She can give strong premonitions, for example, since the Foresight mechanism belongs to the Companions and the Groveborn. Certainly She cannot possess people directly. I suspect it does give Her a lot of information on events within Valdemar and particularly within Haven, and perhaps even some ability to directly intervene magically through the Web, as well as a greater advantage to coincidence-wrangling in general." 

"...but you still want the Web? Or expect you could co-opt the Heartstone if you physically controlled it?"

"I expect the Heartstone would make it much harder to invade Valdemar violently, because of the power and additional flexibility it gives their defences, but - having access to a live Heartstone would actually be of great value, actually. Since it could serve as the container for the first several stages of the god-creation, and provide the power as well." 

"Is the expected casualty rate of the invasion actually much lower than the equivalent in power?"

"I have done the math on it, and - my median expectation is yes, but the casualty rate could easily exceed it if we were unlucky. This is not obviously the kind of ill luck that it is in the gods' interests to arrange, however, I would prefer not to count on it. There are more nebulous differences later in the process, because the containment might be more efficient and thus require less power, but this is fairly difficult to calculate in advance. It is, however, another reason why working with Vanyel instead of fighting him has become more appealing over time." 

"Well, he might no longer constitute particularly privileged access to Valdemaran leadership, unfortunately."

"...Unfortunately." Sigh. "I do hope it will end up resolving to a somewhat less terrible place. It seems deeply unfair to him, given that he was literally obeying the orders of the Groveborn and his own Companion's Foresight in not sharing our conversations." 

"Yeah, he seems to have been pretty wedged. Do all Companions freak out like that if you point out to them that gods sometimes practice slavery?"

"I have not exactly tried this before." 

"I suppose you haven't had enough time to try everything."

"In fact I have not, no." Sigh. "Ought I let you finish your letter?" 

"I'm about done." She adds one more line, signs it, folds it up.