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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."
Belrun asks the staff if there are cards to be had anywhere, deals them out right there in the dining hall. Shows Amshalan a hand's worth without looking at them herself and lays them facedown on the table for Amshalan's memory to track so she can tell her which one she wants to play.
When suppertime arrives and no alarms signalling a gryphon attack have arrived yet, Dara finally starts to relax. A tiny bit.
They can all bunk together if that would help Dara relax enough to sleep? Dara gets top bunk so Belrun can fling an arm from the bottom one over Amshalan.
:We think something started going wrong at the Heartstone but the comms person on their side didn't get a full message through, they're trying to reach the backup person now. Can you tell - is Leareth in trouble - also worried now'd be a perfect time for gryphons but hopefully they don't know where we are–:
Mostly just strain and distance, and a vague sense that he's really tired, which isn't in itself surprising, but no obvious distress or feeling that he's injured.
"I'm not picking up anything I wouldn't expect. He's tired. And far away." Yawn. "I don't think he's hurt or scared."
:He's out of the way so maybe he's all right? All we got on the report was that there were some lightning strikes, the kind without any rain - not even necessarily suspicious, they're channeling a LOT of power, it'll bring weird weather - and it started fires. No one's near the Palace to get hurt though. They've got another six, seven candlemarks left:
:I do not think Leareth's been struck by lightning: Pat pat. Yawn. She rolls over and burrows back into her pillow.
The next thing to wake her, a candlemark and some later, is the ground shaking under her.
The ground shakes again. Some dust filters down from the ceiling.
:Not sure. Where'd the mage go - I can't walk if this is going to keep happening, can you, Amshalan:
:I think I should actually just sit on you so if things start happening fast we aren't split up: She grabs her bag and hauls herself up onto Amshalan, leans down on her neck so they can get through doors.
"I don't like this," Dara is muttering to herself. "Don't like it don't like it..."
"Me either." Belrun starts Mindspeaking the mage trying to wake him up, looks for other people in the facility who might be waking up on their own from the shaking.
A lot of people are waking up! There are stressed-out cooks and librarians and guards and janitorial staff popping out of bunk rooms all up and down the hall.
The mage is awake. :- I don't know what this is. Don't think it's gryphons - did get an alarm a candlemark ago from the place we were, there were in fact gryphons, didn't figure it was worth waking you since we're here and not there: