Leareth is still kind of stunned. :That is not what I was expecting from this meeting at ALL. How - do you feel about it...?: 

:Pleased as a cat with cream, I suspect: Amshalan jumps in, kneeling to make it easier for Leareth to mount her. 

Up he goes. :It's exciting! It'll have a dozen headaches - I'll want to finish sprucing up my monkey and attaching my soul to a book before I assume the role formally, it's definitely very awkward that we can't go to Haven - you'd said something a while back about Heartstones being a possible alternate power source, do you think it's actually feasible to decouple this one from the Star-Eyed and cannibalize it for mage-energy or was that for a scenario where She was helping? -:

:I will have to think about it. I - do not think it would be impossible to attempt without Her cooperation, if we do have the cooperation of the Companions, though of course that would require informing Rolan of the actual plan...: 

:It's such a bad plan, I'm going to feel somewhat worse about it if I spend a couple centuries Queening Valdemar to glorious prosperity and then have to go 'okay murder time'... it wouldn't work just to say that it does require a lot of power? Uh, you thought my research might lead to the possibility of giving people Gifts they didn't already have potentiated, if we just had an absolutely ridiculous number of mages, how many mages would it take -:

:Much, much fewer. A tenth to a hundredth as many, depending on strength of mage-gift - if you could reliably give people mage-gift at Vanyel's level, perhaps it would be possible with as few as ten thousand people: 

:And his turned up under weird and therefore underexplored circumstances, right? Would ten thousand Vanyels even have to die about it?:

:Perhaps not. It would also become worth re-exploring far more alternate power sources if I could expect to have ten thousand Vanyels to assist in channelling them: 

:Okay. And - we have a while to think, right? A while to figure out how to blow up the moon with ten thousand Vanyels or whatever else:

:Yes. - Especially if, as is seeming increasingly likely, there is a local god who is partially on our side. I am...very confused about that and would really prefer more information, of course: 

:Maybe Rolan will talk to it again sometime:

:Maybe. I...wonder if it would be willing to speak with me directly: Leareth seems very tense about the concept, though. 

:Could ask Rolan about that? Or I guess you could try praying but there's got to be some reason that doesn't normally work:

:I have tried praying before and it has never worked, but - perhaps it would be worth attempting it again with a god who might actually want to cooperate: 

:Did you know the Shadowgod even existed - perhaps not by that name -:

:I suspected there was a god local to the Valdemaran and Rethwellani regions, that - meddled much less blatantly and had goals I understood little. But the lack of overt interference that is found in Karse and Iftel, or the Pelagirs, is one reason why I selected Valdemar for the current plan:

:If it covers Rethwellan too is it likely responsible for the lifebond?:

:- You know, that is a very good point. Perhaps: 

:And probably also Amshalan - but it didn't save you from the wyrsa -:

:At this point I am inclined to think that the lifebond and the wyrsa were the work of different gods; I was already inclined to think Amshalan was. The north was close to both Iftel and the Pelagirs, and possibly the Valdemaran god could not have stopped Vkandis and the Star-Eyed from working together to meddle there: 

He's quiet for a bit, thinking. They reach the inn and Amshalan stops. 

:...It is possible the Shadowgod, as we are calling them, in fact allowed the wyrsa deliberately. Since, in the end, I think it strengthened our alliance with the Heralds considerably: 

:Well, I guess we already knew its methods weren't perfectly friendly:

:Yes:

Leareth dismounts slowly, and has to lean on Belrun for balance. He's suddenly very tired again.

She supports him back to bed.

He lies down with relief. "I really do not have my stamina back, that is annoying. Anyway, I suppose we will find out soon if the Heralds and Council will accept this plan, but - their reactions at the meeting were quite promising." He's still a bit confused about that. Maybe it'll fit together better once he has his entire brain back. 

"I'm actually kind of confused about that - there's lots of obvious objections to me, I was educated in Rethwellan and can't have kids and bear not even a tenuous relationship to the royal family and have not been formally graduated as a Herald and so on."