"She was in better shape than you and Kellan didn't seem very worried."

Vanyel nods. He seems maybe slightly reassured. "Were you hurt? And Leareth?" 

"I'm fine, though it was, uh, exciting. Leareth's fine too."

"I guess he would be. He's - very good. And you're fast and tough and had the shield-thing. What're you doing now?" 

"He's going to help me get set up for Sing. Then he apparently wants to talk to it before giving it more hardware than it needs to exist even though that's silly but I figure it'll talk him around in five minutes and we can move on, it's a superintelligence."

Vanyel manages not to blurt what he's thinking, which is 'that entire sentence is concerning.' 

"I - mean - I get why he's worried?" He rubs his eyes. "I get why you're not and you just want to do it fast, but - he doesn't have that much to go on directly, right, only you, and you weren't an expert in building superintelligences over there... I don't know. I mean, I really hope he's being too careful because Sing is great, just... In our world, things aren't great by default, you have to - be careful and work for it, usually, and - that's what Leareth knows. Also I think he's spent centuries working on trying to build a nice god and he seems to think it's a very hard problem where you can't afford to get literally anything wrong."

...ow ow ow possibly he should stop trying to have complicated thoughts now. 

The Healer seems to concur. "You should rest. You're pushing yourself too hard." 

(Ugh well now he sort of wants to argue back out of spite but that's dumb so he doesn't.) 

"Superintelligences are also a very hard problem where if something is a little wrong it's very bad, just, Sing has a track record." Sigh. "He's right, you should rest, d'you want me to sing if you're not going to go right back to sleep?"

"Sure, I'd like that." Vanyel fends off the Healer's help and eases himself back down into the bed, with a wince when he jars his rib which is definitely very sore even against the backdrop of general ouchiness.

Tarinda singing is nice. He's cozy and apparently Leareth is on their side and Tarinda is going to build Sing and - and everything will be fine, surely. Eventually. Somehow... 

Vanyel falls asleep within ten minutes. 

Awww.

Leareth is back a little while after that with copper - both wire and a hunk of it because he forgot to ask which - and a magnet. 

Then she can set it up so they can see if mages can generate electricity by enlivening the wire!

Leareth is more worried about overpowering than underpowering it and so starts off very gently. Just trying to directly channel mage-energy at the wire doesn't do it, but he pokes around with various different formats of energy - the way he would shape it for an attack, except without the actually striking with it, just easing it very gently at the wire. 

Eventually she declares victory and provides an estimate of how much electricity that is in her units.

Leareth notes what format of energy he's using - it's not quite standard mage-lightning. "Is that a safe amount of electricity? I can do it much harder than this but I did not want to hurt you by accident."  

"I mean it wouldn't tickle, but I'd be fine."

"It - would not tickle? Is that an idiom, I am not sure what you mean - would it do worse than tickle but just not harm you because you have advanced healing technology?" 

"Yes, it's an idiom, sorry, Page is anticipating what I'd say and apparently I'd have tried translating the idiom. Electricity can hurt people. In this quantity it would be painful but not lastingly injurious to even an unmodified person but I would recover much faster and also routinely get into injurious situations for fun because it's aesthetic so I have a good tolerance."

"Because it is aesthetic." Leareth just shakes his head. "Well, it appears to work. I can work on designing an artifact for more steady supply. Your workshop is being set up now downstairs with some of the preliminary materials, though we will not have everything for some time." 

"Thank you. Van remembered a bit more last time he woke up but I think I'll stay till he wakes next, make sure he thinks he'll be okay from there on out."

"That makes sense." Leareth heads for the door, then pauses there, glancing over his shoulder. "We should have Vanyel send a message back to Haven when he is next awake. I have a report from my people there, the Heralds are not panicking but they are worried about him. There were twelve casualties, which is really remarkably low - all of them were found and frozen within a candlemark." 

"Okay. They - probably Sing can get at least most of them - with magic maybe all of them - who was it -"

Leareth gets out his pocket notebook and reads off some names. 

Most of them are unfamiliar. The only Herald on the list is Kilchas, who was up in the astronomy tower and fell, breaking his neck. They thought his head was all right, though, and that probably Sing could fix it, so he's frozen and so is his Companion. 

Tarinda nods, shivering. "They - are they going to get rid of the Heartstone, do you suppose -"