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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."
"Hrrm. I think some of them? I got the impression that it helped for getting elected, having competed at a regional level and done all right, but I think most competitors at a higher level basically did that for their living."
More notes on spice-loving local landholders and attractive stablehands. One of said stablehands worked at a stable that hosted the cavalry division for the Vineyards of Glory province.
"I am getting the sense," Leareth says, slowly and carefully, "that if one wished to have an army, in a country that has always been at peace and has no real military engagements in its entire history, disguising it as a prestigious national sport would not be the worst method."
"They could certainly be turned into an army on short notice if they aren't one already."
"I am not exactly delighted by this fact! Though it is certainly much better to know or suspect it than to be caught entirely by surprise. They have gryphon cavalry, then?"
"I...think so... Gods, I was so incurious about it, I can't believe myself. But someone had mentioned logistics for hosting a gryphon...wing? I guess that's a reasonable name for it. Don't know how many gryphons are in a wing but I'll try to remember what he said about the accommodations. Hmm, they were taking over the old town hall for it, so - maybe a lot of gryphons."
"I don't really know how big a gryphon is! Never saw one up close. The town hall was... Maybe ten of this room long, four wide? Big tall roof too."
"If they have not diverged too far from Urtho's original gryphons, they are somewhat larger than a human. Up to three yards tall, and they can reach an eight-yard wingspan. Though they need less indoor space than one would think, given that, they are not too clumsy walking on their hind legs and their wings fold up out of the way."
"Huh, I always imagined them as quadrupeds. That's, what, a few dozen - and probably there are more units that size?"
"I saw a statue of one in a town and it was upright, it looked like its front limbs were more like bird-claws, but I suppose they might do better walking around on all fours anyway. Mostly they apparently tend to be claustrophobic in places that don't have big high ceilings."
There's not that much more of interest, though there is at one point a mention of meeting a mage who was retired from competing in the Games at the district level and had made some money this year betting on which company would win, because he had insider knowledge on their mages.
"It is certainly better to know that they have combat mages, even if the combat is sort of pretend."
"Are we getting this intel just for our information or because Iftel's actually liable to attack us?"
"I wish I was more sure of the answer to that question. I suppose we could ask Rolan to ask the Shadowgod about it, but somehow I doubt we will get a comprehensible answer. At least not until after I have attempted to give Them a better communication avatar, if They agree to it and we can pull it off."
She nods. "Well, we can, uh, make sure the Web is ready to report on gryphons flying in, I guess."
Vanyel grimaces. "I'm - not sure it is, by default? Not unless they're using magic, I don't think they're inherently magical enough to register and we hadn't previously been worried about the attack vector of 'very large birds flying'. I suppose I can fiddle with the alarm settings..."
"If the Heartstone is big enough to hold a god-chunk that can do that, it will presumably still be big enough after we've taken it from the Star-Eyed and then we can stick a homemade one in there if it's gone stupid without Her? I'm guessing, perhaps there's some magey reason that doesn't work."
"No, I think that ought to be workable, though it would be simplest to insert our homemade god-chunk at the same time as we knock out Hers. The only trouble is that we are not ready to do it yet, in terms of having our power source in a transportable and usable state and enough mages with the skill to channel it."