"And we have to assume he's gotten to Vanyel," Tantras says darkly. 

"I only have - edges and corners of how he is around people who aren't me, and he's different around me. I don't think he's actually - I think 'two thousand years of practice being persuasive' is misleading. He doesn't have substantially more space to hold memories than you do; he has had a lot of time to build up resources and think through plans, but in a conversation all two thousand years aren't there, just some of the conclusions he's taken that long to draw.

"I think he makes more sense if you compare him to other entities who are two thousand or more years old, control a lot of resources, have a lot of skills, and attempt to cause large-scale effects. He's attracted the notice and the enmity of at least several gods and in the course of learning to keep ahead of that has become in some ways like them."

This gets all of the Heralds settling into uneasy silence, glancing at each other. 

"Vanyel - mentioned the fighting the gods part," she says finally. "Leareth was accusing the Tayledras of being slaves to the Star-Eyed?" 

"...no, that was me. They can't quit. They don't get paid. They didn't even personally agree to this can't-quit-don't-get-paid project themselves, their ancestors did. I think it follows pretty straightforwardly from thinking of the Star-Eyed as an agent in her own right instead of like... the weather or something... that this is slavery, and I said so. I wouldn't characterize it as accusing them of anything, it's not their fault and hasn't been for generations, although they're unfortunately still among the groups I wouldn't want to be alone in a room with."

This has Herald-Mage Savil leaning back in her chair, looking moderately uncomfortable. 

"...That's a good point," Shavri says quietly. "I didn't think of it that way before. I've met them and they seem - happier than us, on average. But you're right, they are bound to this thing that their ancestors agreed to on their behalf."

"I have no reason to believe they're typically unhappy about it," agrees Belrun. She opens her mouth to go on, then thinks better of it.

More awkward silence. 

"We think the gods are responsible for lifebonds," Shavri says finally. "Presumably yours and Leareth's as well. I don't know if it's productive to talk about that, or if you even have any information we don't, but I'm very curious what They're trying to accomplish." 

The Heralds all look very uncomfortable. 

"Our first guess was that they were trying a more permanent method of incapacitating Leareth than direct murder but there haven't been any assassination attempts so far. It could still be the plan and just take a while, though - for some reason it took them two thousand years to try lifebonding him at all, so maybe it will take more than a few weeks for them to get around to murdering me. We don't know which god to assign responsibility and can't even guarantee it was intended to be adversarial, though it was certainly unwelcome. It's really hard to piece together the motives of often-anonymous beings who operate principally through the management of coincidences they can finesse with the heavy use of long-range Foresight. Leareth's been trying for longer than I have and he doesn't know either."

There is a longer awkward silence. The Heralds still keep glancing at each other. 

Shavri looks around, fidgets, and ends up staying silent as well. 

"I notice that Shavri's been doing all the talking since gods became topical, possibly because everyone else over there is a Herald, would you guys rather talk about something else, or adjourn until you have an agenda, or truth spell me about whether I've been making things up, or... I'm not a real diplomat, I read a couple books on it in the last week but I didn't bring any of my notes on anything except the one on - uh, more god-related stuff."

"I don't actually think you're lying," Savil says slowly, "but it would be good practice to ask that under Truth Spell anyway. I'll do it now, if that's all right. First-level only shouldn't feel like anything much, on your side. May I?" 

"Yes."

"There, done." It doesn't, in fact, feel like anything, but apparently it looks like something; the other Heralds stir, eyes turning toward her. "Hmm. Tell me whether everything you just said was honest and true to the best of your understanding." 

"To the best of my understanding everything I said was honest and true. And not misleading either."

"Is there any particular agenda of topics that you're hoping to cover during this visit?" the Herald introduced as Katha says eventually. 

"Um, I don't have it quite that planned out, it depends a lot on what you want to do with me. It wouldn't be violating any of my conditions if you just left me in my room all the time and slept better because Leareth's not likely to attack while you've got me. I'd like to get more on the same page in general but there are various obstacles on both ends to doing that very efficiently."

"Hmm. It's...pretty evident that there are obstacles, I think, but I'm curious what your sense of them is, and whether any of that can be mitigated." 

"You've all got Companions making you very uncomfortable with certain lines of thought via some combination of having shaped you from early adolescence on and being disapproving in your heads and those lines of thought are fairly essential to my and Leareth's points of view, and also I can't exactly just tell you his master plan since that would make a conflict should one occur better targeted against it etcetera."

This, rather predictably, gets uncomfortable looks from all of the Heralds. 

Shavri is the one who eventually speaks. "Would it make more sense to have you meet with just the non-Heralds to try to explain, er, your and Leareth's general point of view?" 

Herald Tantras nearly surges out of his chair. "Are you kidding? That is literally just letting her try to corrupt you too!" 

"I mean, I'd be fine with that but as you can see the Heralds have some issues with not being involved everywhere, the country's rather built around it," Belrun says to Shavri, gesturing at Tran. "I appreciate very much that you're willing to participate but it doesn't seem politically feasible to cut them out when they have 'bad' and 'doesn't pass muster with the Companions' synonymous, see?"