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When Vanyel is ready for the mad science tour, he shows him the monkeys. "They're monkeys," she feels it necessary to clarify. "I know they look very human at this point, because the whole point of them is that I'm going to move into one if I ever die, but they're not people, and I have forbidden the staff to name them. I could move into one now if I had to but I'd like to get one actually looking like me in particular first, and I want to stick more Gifts into them, I got Fetching out of some Changesquirrels but further work is needed." She shows him the mice, too. "Do you suppose Jisa'd like a winged mouse? What's her favorite color?" She shows him all her microbiology eggs. "That's a flu sample from the recent plague! I remembered to take one. Those there are other flus. The white eggs have more-alive microbes and the brown eggs have less-alive kinds - there's a cold one of the staff mages had a few months ago, there's food poisoning, there's the most common kind from healthy intestines - you could get your Sight this fine, you know, I don't do heavy Healing-Gift use apart from Sight for this work."
"Hmm, there was something...I'm trying to remember... Maybe it'll come up later on."
Further excerpts:
Dara hooks up with an attractive man in a town that's preparing to host this year's Games for its province. Dara's journal dwells for a few bullet points on all of his excellent features, such as his dreamy blue eyes and his very attractive arm hair. He's the mayor's cousin and works a job in logistics; he says it's important they do a good job because his cousin is up for re-election this year. He complains about the headache of arranging accommodations for the gryphon wing.
"I can't remember, let me think..." Dara frowns for a while. "I saw one at a distance. And some flying overhead at one point, the locals said they were responding to a crime report, I think. Huh, it's bizarre how that didn't seem interesting until now!"
"I had not been sure. There was a surviving colony to the far west at one point, but I do not ever go there anymore, the gods are unreasonable."
Dara sat in on an argument about politics in a tavern, which nearly turned into a brawl. She thought it was great fun. There was a debate over whether the winner of the past year's Games, a gryphon whose name she never caught, did or did not have a personal grudge against the High Priest because of some drama involving the high priest's second cousin once removed and a gambling scandal.
"Not surprising they have a high priest - I wonder if they communicate with the Karsite church at all..."
"I would've expected to hear Karis mention it at least once, but maybe not, if she also gets hit by the thing where Iftel seems very boring."
"Dara, I just wanted to say that this is very valuable intelligence. I am amazed that you managed to sneak spy notes past the border guards, probably because their eyes glazed over on the fluff about dreamy blue eyes and they did not actually read as far as the interesting bits."
"It's good to know but it's not clear to me yet why it was worth a huge row of coincidences to get."
"We should go through the rest and then see if there is something to be read between the lines."
Dara passes through her first big city! There's a parade in the streets with people throwing confetti at the division winners of the Games, and everyone getting drunk in the streets. Dara spectates an argument about tactics, makes a few points that one of the arguers finds impressive, plays this into a hookup with someone who brags that he nearly made the division platoon-squad and thinks he'll make it next year. Claims his ambition is to make semifinals and hope to stay in charge of a company for a few years, it's easier to keep that position at the regional level.
"Like a military company or do they just organize their police that way? Iftel hasn't - I think I would have been able to recall after all my practice by now if Iftel had been in any military engagements ever. They have a fuckoff giant force shield and nobody remembers they exist! Who would they be fighting?"
Dara scrunches up her face. "I don't know. Probably because it seemed uninteresting at the time and I was instead interested in his abs. To be fair he had really good abs."
Back to smaller local towns. Lots of vineyards and wineries. A mayoral candidate running for re-election, likely to lose because it came out he had maybe been rigging the local Games hosted in his town by bribing the judges, which is super illegal, and there was a huge scandal about it.
Different town. Political argument over funding for the Games versus infrastructure, apparently a longstanding debate, though a difficult one to resolve because funding for the highest level winners and their armies is enshrined in law.
"I'm getting the sense the - game armies thing is important, but for what, a normal sport probably wouldn't have the force of law behind it..."
"Right, it's interesting - I didn't find it interesting at the time, which is so dumb, I hate that entire thing, it's my brain! But - people acted like it was just as important as the elections. Talked about it kind of the same way, I think?"
Leareth glances at Belrun, then returns his eyes to Dara. "As though it were a selection process for leadership?"
"- And fame and renown, mostly, the winners were really popular, seemed like they were household names although of course now I can't remember any! But...no, it didn't seem like just a sport, even if people had a lot of fun spectating and betting on it."