An adventuring party recruited from Osirion teleports into Azir on the 8th of Desnus. Rahadoum's recruiting contact in Osirion wrote ahead to note they were expected. Couple of guys he's known a long time - a wizard, a ranger - and a new guy, sorcerer, probably to replace the cleric they usually travel with. They spend two days in Azir getting oriented and head out to the front. The ranger wears an unusually high quality amulet of Nondetection; the sorcerer wears a headband for intelligence, which is a bit unusual as sorcerers usually don't need it to cast, but some variants do; they are otherwise unremarkable. Chaotic Good, Lawful Neutral, no reading, which could mean neutral or 'hiding it'. They work quickly and effectively, manage resources reasonably well, get recommended to higher-ups for a closer look on that account.
He will do the same, though he'll leave someone sitting in there silently who can tell him if Leareth needs anything.
As long as he lies still with his eyes closed and doesn't think too hard, it's sort of tolerable. Every so often he manages to mumble that he's thirsty. He doesn't ask for food, eating sounds terrible right now.
The headache lasts longer than a standard talking-to-Abadar headache. Midway through the afternoon finds him crying just from sheer frustration of not being able to sleep, he's so goddamned tired.
They're still in the capital of the country her Uncle Van saved, they're not allowed to go home yet because it isn't safe.
Jisa escapes her governess by making up a story about there being a mess in the privy, and then darts off and extends her new Thoughtsensing to its full range, searching for the laundry wizard lady.
The laundry wizard lady in fact has a spellbook with only the one cantrip in it, plus another that if pressed she'll claim she never really mastered. She is at home, with her cactus, contemplating escape plans if she gets into trouble.
Oh no she really hopes the nice wizard lady isn't scared that Jisa will tell her parents about the sex and the King will get mad. She doesn't think Papa even would get mad about that, he would think it was funny. Mama would get mad, but it doesn't matter because Jisa isn't going to tell them.
She walks through the streets like she's definitely supposed to be there, and knocks on the wizard lady's door.
She gets the door. Jumps a little.
Hi, she thinks at the mindreading kid.
:Yes it is. I guess we can try, but you mustn't be upset if you can't get it, all right? It took me years of school.:
:I won't be. I'll be very patient: Jisa promises. :Can I come in and see your house?:
:Sure.:
It's a small cheap apartment with a bed and a hastily-cleared table. Under the table there's a filing cabinet that is magically locked. There's a bookshelf with four cheap historical romances and the two major Arodenite holy texts, which were being distributed for free at the temple of Iomedae one day she went looking for people with visions like hers.
She pulls out her laundry-wizard spellbook and tries to explain how to prepare a cantrip.
Jisa pays such close attention. Maybe the closest attention she's ever paid to anything. She also reads the wizard lady's thoughts about the explanation because maybe she'll get more magic in her brain that way.
The wizard lady is thinking about how this would be easier to explain with reference to some other spells, but she can't, because SEX, and sometimes thinking more useful things like exactly what the magic is doing and what it feels like in her mind when she prepares it.
Jisa is so confused about the connection between other spells and SEX! Maybe the laundry wizard lady knows some sex spells that she doesn't think Jisa is old enough to know? Jisa doesn't ask her about it because grownups are weird about sex.
She focuses really had on what the lady thinks it feels like, and then tries to make it feel the same way in her own head. Her new senses, the one Melody says was Mindhealing after she used it on Mama by accident when they were having an argument, are really useful for it; she can see the garden that's the lady's mind, and she can try to make the garden in her own head do the same things.
That is SO COOL!!!! Jisa is delighted and hugs the laundry wizard around the middle - while very very carefully not letting go of her MAGIC - and then she tries to do things with it.
...she has to try to call the energy back to her, see, once she's used the spell, or she won't be able to do it more than a couple of times. You do that like this. (It shouldn't be possible for Carissa to use cantrips if she's letting Jisa use her spellbook but Jisa doesn't know that and it's in fact impressive that the kid picked it up that fast and maybe she can learn some things from Jisa about Velgarth while she's here.)
Jisa also picks up how to call the energy back to her on the second go, which she can tell is impressive. She knows it's because she's very very clever, and beams about it.
Jisa plays with her new cantrip and is bouncing up and down with joy, and will eagerly tell the lady things about Velgarth. Whether or not she wants to hear them, actually, Jisa is bad at not talking.
Carissa will learn that Jisa is seven, and her mother is a Healer and very busy and important, so she has a governess called Beri who is sometimes mean, and she'll learn a lot of random servant gossip and where all the best places in the Palace are to play hide-and-seek (if one is the size of a seven-year-old). Jisa's uncle, who isn't her real uncle, is Herald-Mage Vanyel and he's very famous and has songs about him, Jisa can sing some of them (badly).
Also her papa is the King so he's very busy too. Except Jisa is a bastard because her papa had to marry the Queen of Karse so the war would go away, and Mama was sad about it.
Some things. Her Uncle Van's best friends who saved his life are Tayledras. They're in bad bad trouble now, they tried to murder Leareth who everyone used to think was evil but actually he helped Uncle Van win the war against Hell, so he's good even if he isn't Good-with-a-capital-G like they talk about here. Anyway Mama had to go to all sorts of meetings with Papa about it because they were trying to do a murder investigation and decide whether it was their fault or whether the Star-Eyed Goddess made them do it. Jisa isn't really supposed to know any of these things but she's very clever, see, so she finds them out anyway.
(She's also quite good at listening behind doors. And at reading thoughts, even some of the Heralds don't shield her out all the time. She doesn't say that though because it's naughty of her to do that and Mama would yell, and she doesn't want the nice wizard lady to yell at her or tell her mama.)
That's so impressive! Leareth is here in Cheliax now though Carissa hasn't met him (has tried obsessively to avoid crossing paths with him). Why'd people used to think he was evil?
Jisa doesn't actually know that much because most people won't talk about it with her, but after the war more people knew about Leareth. She thinks maybe he was going to have a war with Valdemar? Except then he didn't, instead he took his army to Cheliax and helped Uncle Van.
She thinks he did other bad things because there've been a lot of Dark Meaningful Grownup Looks about it, but no one told her. (And they were all Heralds who had good shields so she couldn't read it either.)
It's so frustrating when people won't tell you things. With magic she could pretend to be a grownup and then people'd tell her more things, probably, but that's a hard spell, it'll take years of practicing.
Can Velgarth magic tell whether things are dead or alive? She saw some Velgarth mages notice once that a plant was dead even though it still looked all right on the outside and she didn't know how they did it.
Ooh, yes, if you have mage-sight like Uncle Van does then all living things glow a little bit with an aura of life-force. She asked him a lot of questions about it when he was teaching her how to shield her Empathy and Mindspeech, that was all the way back when she was six. Jisa is jealous that he's a mage and she isn't, he said she has it in potential but that it wouldn't awaken and that isn't FAIR.
Jisa can only see people's auras, and her Empathy picks up a little bit from animals but Animal Mindspeech is a different Gift and Jisa doesn't have it, which also isn't fair. Jisa can see Carissa's aura, though, and tell her that it's purple, and - oooooooh she has a cactus that has feelings!!! That's so cool!!! Where did she get it, are there cactus pet shops here, can Jisa get one too???
- oh, it's her familiar, wizards can have familiars, and the familiar borrows a little bit of the wizard's intelligence. However, wizards keep it a secret who or what their familar is, so Jisa mustn't tell anyone, all right?
Jisa will absolutely keep her secret. (She loooooves knowing secrets and it's not like she can tell her parents about any of the magic anyway.) Can the cactus talk?