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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."
"...Wow. Have I said before that you're terrifyingly impressive?" Vanyel blinks a few times. "Monetary compensation would help a lot, honestly. And - I think we should get everyone in a meeting and when we do that we should have a plan to tell them about? For rebuilding and for what Valdemar does next, i'm just...feeling at a bit of a loss about it and I think so is Randi."
"I can do several Gift-implantations a day, and I can do them alone now that I'm a mage myself. I can teach anybody else with the Gift-combination to do it but it does take a while to learn so I can't exponentiate very fast, though if there are existing Healer-Mages around - or, Leareth, if you think you remember much about a past life where you were a Healer and could get up to speed fast - that would cut down on the time and they could watch me. New Palace architecture should have room for Companions as long as we have to build it new anyway. Uh, I have lots of ideas but many of them aren't immediately relevant. We will need to communicate in some way with Karse - they'll be annoyed if only for purely political reasons that the alliance-marriage is not going to persist in being to the King of Valdemar. Also I assume there's some way to communicate with Iftel to the effect that we are not pleased they sent gryphons to try to kill me. I'm not sure if it's worth, in either case, working very hard to retain a paper alliance - Vkandis won't respect it and it's not obvious to me how an irritated Karis will jump if the god and the treaty conflict, and Iftel obviously thinks nothing of unprovoked attacks. Given that, I think we need to make very good friends with Rethwellan - even without bringing gods into it I have a good explanation for wanting to do that. Leareth, how soon can we have Shadowgod conversational?"
"Much of the groundwork is already done for the new avatar. I will need to be recovered enough to finish adding the structure to the Heartstone, and - then I think I need to talk to Them one more time the unpleasant way, because They will need to cooperate with the process of linking Themselves into the Heartstone, and so I need to give Them instructions for it." He makes a face. "You might have a better estimate than I do of how much convalescence I still have ahead of me."
"You could probably talk to Them before you can do heavy magic work, because talking to Them is stressful but not, I think, injurious, and I think you'll probably be feeling more functional in another week but it'd be safer to wait two or even three."
"That makes sense." Grimace. "I think I will at least wait until I feel more clearheaded and am less distracted by pain, before I try to speak with Them. But - if I plan it carefully I can do that before the final Heartstone work, it will just not be operational until then."
"How much do you think we can have a preliminary plan before that's done? I think it'd be better to have some sort of briefing with the Council in the next few days, not wait weeks, but I also don't want to just leave them with more dangling questions."
"I think that rebuilding Haven is not contingent on the Shadowgod's plans here?" Leareth glances at Belrun, uncertain; he's not feeling at his sharpest right now.
"Wouldn't expect it to be. What sort of - format - would a plan ideally be in? I haven't yet taken a handoff of the diplomatic arm so I don't know how all the details are going to line up but I can have a broad strokes agenda soon."
"I think we don't need something that detailed for the first meeting, just a rough timeline for the official transition of power, and for people getting their houses rebuilt and-or monetary compensation. Mostly I think we need to give them an explanation of what just happened, and why it was necessary, both to do at all and to keep secret until the last second. And ideally some guesses at - how it'll make the future better, in concrete ways the lords will notice. So it seems worth it."
Leareth nods. "In a couple of days I can probably be with it enough to speak at a meeting and explain what we did. I...am unsure what concrete improvements it will give us. Mostly it removes a threat vector."
"Can you two list for me things a new mage will be able to do same day as getting the Gift, and things they can pick up inside a week?"
"Yes, of course. Speed of learning will vary by person - anyone with existing Gifts will have an advantage."
"My low confidence guess is that Fetching and Farsight would lend themselves most to picking up basic mage-techniques, then Mindspeech, and probably Healing and Bardic will be less relevantly helpful. The main upside is that anyone with existing Gifts will probably not struggle much with accidental magic use."
"Okay. Mostly what I'm looking for here is how much to frontload - if a brand new mage is useful in construction, as opposed to that taking months, then we might want a lot of them up front, and if they're not, that capacity is better spent on auctioning Gifts to pay for it conventionally."
"Depends what kind, but lifting heavy things is pretty basic, probably doable with a week's training if the focus is really heavily on that."
"Okay. Who-all should I assume is - available to me, apart from Leareth's people, to assign tasks, that affects how ambitiously I can plan -"
"Ummm. Let me think. You should at least coordinate with the Heralds, probably? And we've got a bunch of the Guard and all the Palace builders and other staff who evacuated, we can assign them work once we know what and where."
"Mm-hm, and that's how many -" She's making a little chart, wants more details, sketches out an agenda as she goes.
Vanyel, frequently consulting Yfandes, can give her numbers on available Heralds with various Gifts, and Palace staff of various specialties, and how much of the Guard can be lent over to help with rebuilding specifically.
:...Adorable. Awww. Poor Leareth, though, he's gotten messed up repeatedly by things lately, not a great few years: