"Fallout?"

"It left behind a lot of weird magic that - distorts things, changes them. In almost a purposeful way - the plants and animals life in affected areas are usually a lot more dangerous." 

"That's so weird! I wonder how it works."

"I don't know. Maybe Moondance does."

"I guess it's not immediately relevant."

"I'll suggest to Savil that she ask them if it seems like not a terrible idea to her too." 

"You going home soon, or just writing more?"

"Writing, and she wanted a way to talk directly, if Leareth has one - we've got a communication spell but it's interceptable and also I don't think my control is back enough to cast it." He makes a face. "I - should probably wait a bit before going home." 

"Who intercepts communication spells?" wonders Tarinda.

"Well, until recently we were worried Leareth would intercept ours. He taught the spell to me in the first place, gods, more than fifteen years ago. And I assume he would've been worried we'd intercept his. Now - I guess we should both be less worried, but, I don't know, Tayledras working for the Star-Eyed could maybe get in the middle and intercept it?" Shrug. "It's possible we're being too paranoid but it's hard to know what the right amount is." 

"Would they not even have to know when?"

"I mean, it's detectable? At least in theory, in practice you'd need to have someone whose entire job it was to keep a lookout and that does seem like an inefficient use of a mage." 

"You could use a code, maybe. Propose using a book that I've looked at before that they have a copy of in Haven as a key. Whoever's in the middle probably won't have one, if there's anyone at all."

"Ooh! That's a good idea - we do that sometimes with prearranged code books, but obviously I wasn't exactly in a position to prearrange something when I left Haven." 

"I flipped through a lot of books and it wouldn't take long to write out short messages' worth of contents for you."

"That would be really helpful! - I still can't cast the communication spell. But hopefully Leareth has an artifact that does the same thing, even if he also hasn't figured out how to make it non-interceptable." 

"Maybe he does, though I haven't heard it mentioned."

"Somehow I doubt he goes around mentioning all the rare magic he can do without a specific reason." 

"Yeah, fair."

"I'll ask him." He stands up to go, and then pauses. "Gods. I wish... I want to go home–" He cuts himself off. "Sorry. I know you - your situation..." 

"You can want to go home too, I'm not gonna run out." Sigh.

"I mean, no, but it'd be tactful of me to go find someone else to whine at. Anyway, I should go." He heads out. 

"See you."

She returns to her rocks progressively more sophisticated tools.

Leareth does, in fact, have such an artifact, which Vanyel can use himself even though his control is still imperfect. 

Vanyel takes it, thinks for a bit about rare-ish books he could specify somewhat cryptically to Savil that Tarinda has also read, and then writes out some messages for her to codify for him so he won't need to waste lots of her time coming up with them. 

...At this point he's very tired and takes a short nap. And then afterward goes to see if Tarinda is interruptible.