They've landed in scrubby boreal forest interrupted by the occasional glacier-melt lakes, presumably sourced from the gorgeous snowcapped mountains about fifty miles north of their location. The closest sign of human habitation is thirty miles away, a tiny hamlet clinging to the banks of a major river, mostly consisting of a cluster of farmhouses and a big communal barn. 

It does not have electric lights. Or any signs of technology more advanced than plows and candles. 

There is a debate when the scout gets back to report this. 

Some planets develop unevenly, depending how they first get to clean energy (and Earth isn't there yet). It is possible that a village far from civilization wouldn't have electricity. 

Does it have humans. They're supposed to be bipedal, vary in coloration from off-white to off-black, hairy on their heads and an unpredictable percentage of their faces, two eyes in the front, walk unsteadily on two feet...

It totally has humans! These ones have tan skin and dark head hair and some of them have dark or reddish face-hair. Eyes and feet are in the right place. There are some tiny humans as well, being watched by an adult while they splash in the shallows of the river. 

Is there an adult human off on their own somewhere where they could be grabbed and dragged off for a conversation.

(Some people would feel mildly bad about this so he gives this instruction to one who wouldn't. They're preventing all these humans from being killed or enslaved anyway.)

It takes a bit to locate one, but there's a young adult human picking berries some distance away from the rest of the village. 

The young adult human is shot with a stunner on its lowest setting in case they have weird physiology that makes them more vulnerable to that than average; if they're instead average it won't hurt it much but there'll be time to fire another before it can object very loudly.

The human gets partway into a startled sound and then goes down in a heap. 

Good to know!

The human is dragged out of view and acquired and then they wait patiently for it to wake up.

She wakes up within five minutes, but after glancing from side to side without moving her head, she lies still and waits to see what the people who hurt her are going to do - it must've been magic they hit her with, they're mages, she's so scared. 

The person who hurts her looks like her, right now. (A different person is hiding in the bushes in the form of a Leeran, which can read minds.)

<Hello> says the person who looks like her. <Do you happen to know where San Diego is.>

Is this some kind of creepy sick illusion, she's heard mages can do illusions to look like other people - and also talk in your head, her cousin's husband had an aunt who had that Gift.

She understands the mind-voice but she's never heard of anywhere called San Diego and also she is absolutely panicking and most of her thoughts are about what the creepy illusion mage is probably going to do to her. 

<I am not going to hurt you.> says the person who looks like her, whose eyes are darting about rather frantically. <How about London, have you heard of London.>

She doesn't believe that at all. No, she hasn't heard of London. The only countries she's heard of are Valdemar and Iftel, she thinks the capital of Valdemar is called Haven, but that still seems hard to misunderstand as 'London' especially when someone is talking directly into your head. 

<Where is Valdemar from here?>

South. If you follow the river you'll get there eventually but she knows it's over a hundred miles. No one in her family has ever been more than twenty miles downriver to visit Hogshatches. 

<Thank you. I think you collapsed in the sun and had a weird dream> the illusion-mage who looks like her says seriously, and then stuns her again, with the correct setting on the first try this time. 

She is now stunned on the forest floor. None of the other humans have come looking for her yet. 

He drags her back to where she started, retreats to the forest again, and once he's rested flies back as a bird. 

<No Valdemar, no Iftel, no Haven. But the list of cities I was provided with is incomplete and also thirty years out of date.>

<And they definitely didn't have hyperspace or anything close to it thirty years ago ->

<They had reached their own moon rather recently. I think the next step is to go to Haven.>

<I agree. I'll work out assignments for that. We should acquire some more humans, too, in the meantime - ideally from a different village, so they can't compare stories - I want Sovyal and Firinar and Alkar on that, and Talik and Insar on aerial surveillance of Haven as birds, and you on -

- figuring out whether this ship could ever jump again. Just in case we're not on Earth.>

<How would there be humans somewhere else?>

<I don't know. Just - give me an estimate of whether it merits further study.>

Elsewhere, someone in an underground facility on the other side of said facility is staring at a scrying-crystal, trying to hunt down the source of the very clear alarm that was recently tripped. It doesn't seem to be magic, is the problem, but the wards over the scantly-inhabited northern forest are pretty thin, it would take a very big non-magical explosion or other disaster to set them off and he doesn't recognize this signature at all. 

A Gate-threshold flares and someone else steps into the room. "Allow me, please." He takes over with the scrying-focus, throwing much more complex magic into it, scanning the area where the alarm must have originated. 

In a valley in the mountain where those alarms were tripped, there is a crater. Partially buried in the ground at the center of the crater is something that looks like - an enormous turtle whose head is made of chrome and whose back is made of glass, except that no glass could possibly have survived that impact. The maybe-glass is currently opaque. 

After a minute a door opens in the chrome part of the turtle. A bird flies out.

A minute after that, six tall, distinctly nonhuman creatures with bladed limbs depart through the door and start walking around the outside of the giant turtle, smearing mud on it and bringing over underbrush to lean against it and slashing through trees to bring them over and lean them against it too. It's going to take them a long time because it's a very enormous turtle but the aim is quite plainly to leave no obvious signs of it.

Well. Interesting. 

For now he won't reveal that he's noticed their arrival, but people are going to be scrying the area very closely around the clock from now onward. 

Leareth gets out the artifact that helps him cast at a distance, and lays a hemisphere of passive wards around and over the turtle-thing, undetectable to anyone without mage-gift, but sensitive enough to alarm if anything larger than a deer moves across the boundary. 

The first bird comes back. More birds leave. 

The blade-creatures stay close to their turtle, felling a dozen more trees to drag over and conceal it. 

Are they magic birds. 

Nope! They are not magical at all.

Fine casting at a distance is very difficult and almost no one but Leareth would be able to do it, even with the artifact setup. He attempts to hook a little ribbon of magic to one of the birds, invisible and intangible except to mage-sight, but durable enough to last a few days and it'll let him recognize the same bird again, and hopefully, trace where it goes. 

It goes off south in the direction of the nearest village. 

Leareth leaves someone else watching it while he drops some similar tags of magic on the now-half-concealed metal and glass turtle, and also tries to get as close an examination of it as possible. 

There's no apparent hinge at the place where the chrome sometimes folds open to reveal a door, and the door seems to open into a chrome antechamber just large enough for two of the bigger-than-human people to stand in which does not itself have other doors, or at least they're never open simultaneously. Half the turtle is buried in the dirt where it landed, but it looks like it might have fins like a fish rather than limbs like a turtle. The exterior looks in various places scorched, in addition to smashed in the landing. There are some dents and some streaks like a bolt corroded partway through the chrome.

The person watching the bird informs him that the bird is turning into a blue horseman???

What? Leareth is over in the room again seconds later, looking for himself. 

Blue horse-men is about right! They're four-legged but also have arms, and have a long bladed tail more than the length of their body, and have additional eyes on stalks, and have no mouth and an odd snoutlike nose. 

They're hanging out in a forest. They seem to spend a while just resting.

Leareth's expression is very level but his thoughts contain escalating levels of 'what???' 

Does one of the blue horsepeople still have a bit of magic marking them, from when they were a bird? Leareth will try marking all of them again anyway, they don't seem to have mage-sight or at least aren't reacting to it. 

After a while one of them turns into something smaller, thin-skinned and frog-like though it's the size of a housecat. The transformation process is grotesque; the skin bubbles and the bones visibly shift around and the skin goes translucent in time to watch the organs stretch and distort.

None of this is magic at all though it is, if one thinks to look, interacting with other planes a lot.

...the other one takes a few cautious steps forward through the trees and then fires an energy weapon of some kind that's also not magic at the nearest human.

Leareth badly wants a closer look, he can sense some of the weird interplanar shifting going on, but scrying at this distances loses a lot of resolution for mage-sight and it's murky. 

He doesn't know their capabilities, though, so he stays where he is. His expression doesn't change at all when the strange, vaguely levinbolt-like but nonmagical weapon fires; he just watches to see what happens to the young woman next. 

They drag her into the forest. 

The one that's still a centaur-thing turns into - her. 

There is a brief conversation. 

It shoots her again and drags her back out to where she was, after checking to make sure no one else saw it. 

Leareth asks someone to watch and make sure she wakes up again. He keeps his attention on the centaur-thing, in particular waiting to see if his magic markers will stay put over all the body-shifting. He suspects they will; it's the same life-force, it's just having very strange things done to it. 

The things turn back into centaurs, rest, and then turn back into birds. His magic markers do stay put; apparently whatever is being swapped between planes in such an elaborate fashion isn't the lifeforce. 

They fly back.

The turtle has almost entirely vanished beneath felled trees, at this point. 

Leareth is viscerally hungry to stick a Healer in front of one of them and find out what their Sight can pick up on. It's not even magic, strictly speaking - maybe some sort of unheard-of, highly specialized Gift...? 

He does not immediately Gate any Healers out to look. Instead he uses his communications-spell artifact to contact a dozen people in other locations, makes sure the area is under high-alert scrying coverage, and then goes to get some rest until something else major happens. 

Over the crashed ship, the sun is setting. 

It's not worth working on hiding the ship at night, the lights might be conspicuous. The people who haven't been dispatched on additional acquisition or spy missions stay in their ship, try to repair some of their equipment, sleep in shifts, pace their Dome.

Nothing alert-worthy happens until the morning.

A small group of people travels south overnight, hoping to get near enough Haven they can make the rest of the distance in morph in the morning.

The rutted dirt track running alongside the river becomes a wider gravel road. They reach the border with Valdemar a hundred and some miles later. There's a military barracks there and some bored night sentries watching the river for unauthorized boats and the road (which shortly later turns into a properly paved road) for unauthorized carts traffic. 

They'll find some forested area away from the sentries, if that can be found, to cross through. They can jump rivers and do not especially benefit from roads.

Then they can pretty easily make it past unseen. 

A couple of drifting vrondi air-elementals notice the magical flags placed on them earlier and drift over, but it's not nearly enough mage-power to meet the alarm threshold and they drift away again, bored, and also invisible to anyone without mage-sight. 

The settlements are much larger and more frequent now, though still interspersed with regions of untamed forest. The next town has an entire main street with two-storey wooden buildings, and a watermill.

As long as it's dark and there are no signs this region has electricity they will keep travelling in their natural form, skirting the settlements. The road might go to Haven? The road looks like the most advanced technology they've seen yet, which is promising. 

The road does in fact go to Haven, though they'll only get halfway there by sunrise.

- and meanwhile an anonymous, very ordinary-looking man on a horse is doing his best to keep up with them, prompted by occasional short bursts of relayed Mindspeech from the other spy Gated in north of the border. The new vrondi setup is obnoxious, it means they can't do undetected magic within Valdemar at all, but they'll manage. 

As soon as it starts to get at all light they turn into birds, which will complicate keeping up with them, and follow the road from the air.

That is, in fact, irritating! 

Leareth gets a report from the people assigned to scry the travellers overnight, and then locates the magical signatures he dropped on them and watches from a distance as they fly toward Haven.

In the meantime he passes on orders to be conveyed via half a dozen routes to various agents already in place. 

Haven is, by the standards of an industrialized civilization, not a very big city at all, though it's by far the biggest settlement yet; at a rough glance it probably holds between ten and fifty thousand people, depending how many humans are living in each of the wooden and stone dwellings. There's no sign of electrical lighting, much less other modern infrastructure. The city is surrounded by an outer wall, and then an inner wall around a cluster of ancient-looking stone buildings.

The road is heavily trafficked even early in the morning, but only by horses and horse or mule-pulled carts and carriages. There's some sort of open-air market selling varied produce. 

After a couple hours flying they find a forest to demorph and rest in; then they can observe in Haven for a little while. 

These are definitely humans and this does not match the description of Earth. And some parts of premodern planets are much less developed than others, but - lots of technology is trivially portable. There should be, if nothing else, radios. 

A bird finds the palace and tries to hop around between windowsills to see if there's advanced technology there that's just not outside for some reason.

In one spot, a man is standing near a wall being repaired, and massive stones seem to be hovering and then floating into place. 

Other than that, there's no sign of any technology more advanced than water wheels. 

- wait, what. 

What is he using to do that.

It's not at all obvious what he's using! He seems to be concentrating hard, and making some hand gestures, that's all, but he's not even holding anything. He is occasionally touching a necklace he's wearing. 

Does anyone else seem to think this is remarkable? Is anyone else doing it? Does the necklace look like it could somehow have very sophisticated directed antigravity (...in this city that has not invented the radio)?

The workmen who are slapping some sort of goopy cement-y grouting on in between stone-movings seem to find this entirely unremarkable, though they're treating the man with deference, like he's someone quite important. They're bantering with each other in their language. At one point they aren't ready in time and they seem very apologetic about this, which indicates that maybe the man with floating-capabilities' time is considered very valuable.

If one of them flies in close enough as a bird, they'll be able to see that his necklace just has a crystal pendant, which doesn't at a glance appear to have any complicated internal structure. 

They are so confused. One stays near the man and the others spread out throughout the city to see if there are other people doing ...that. Or other things they should not be able to do.

Elsewhere, a woman is in some sort of workshop, visible through the window. She appears to be...melting glass...by looking at it very hard...? And then pulling it into a new shape, but without actually touching it, her hands are moving but they're inches away?

At one point she absently waves her hand and the wood in a fireplace bursts into flame, and she nods to herself and mixes powder and water in a pot hanging above it, then pours the resulting mixture through her newly-formed glass apparatus.

There is a confused bird on her windowsill.

And eventually Sandra sets aside her alchemy work and unshields to find Kilchas' mind and ask if he's done his mage-work for the morning and wants to join her for lunch. 

- what. She freezes. 

There's a mind right there at her window. Directly on her windowsill.

No, there isn't. There's a bird. She'd noticed, absently, that it seemed like a very curious bird, intently watching her work, and she'd thought it was cute and made a mental note to tell Kilchas about it, he likes birds. 

Sandra's head jerks around and her eyes fix on the bird, as she reaches to probe the mind, which - doesn't feel quite like a human one - but she shouldn't be able to sense it at all, she's a regular Mindspeaker not an Animal Mindspeaker. 

What's there? 

The mind piloting this bird isn't in the material plane. It's somewhere else, reaching across planes to grip the bird's own nervous system. Its thoughts are both distant and distinctly nonhuman but there's - distress, frustration, calculation -

When she turns around to look at the bird it backs off the windowsill and flies away, its mind calling out to the others - there's fear there, now, and distaste, at the possibility it came into contact with a hated enemy -

Sandra freezes for another second or two, then reaches for her original target.

:Kilchas, don't react. We have a problem: Flashed mental image of the bird. :It was spying on me. Felt like - maybe a summoned elemental? Could be Karse, we know they summon demons. Think there's more, it's trying to talk to the others: Pause. :Try to find them - tell Tran, he's strongest - don't let on you've seen them, though. I might've already blown it, but...: 

Seconds later, King's Own Herald Tantras, Chosen by Taver (previously Chosen by Delian) and the strongest Mindspeaker in Haven, is hastily excusing himself from a meeting and fleeing to the nearest window. 

Reaching with his Gifts - what's out there - 

There's half a dozen of them. They've all headed farther away from the palace, trying to blend in with other birds in the city, chattering anxiously - all of this is very confusing but it does not mean that the enemy isn't here - they should await orders -

They might be able to blend in physically with the other birds, but their minds don't fit at all. 

Tran doesn't have the faintest idea what sort of summoned elemental spirit - air, most likely, given the bird form - would feel like that, or what their capabilities are, or what in all hells to do about it. He's also confused because, what, Karse's spies don't know for sure that the enemy is here? Hmm, if they're elementals they might be hard to give orders to and maybe they understood something wrong. 

He knows who they need. Unfortunately, that person is currently at Forst Reach and also reacts badly to Gates - and a Gate back will probably be very detectable, air-elementals have an affinity for sensing magic, thus the vrondi - but they have to do what they have to do.

Tran is one of the strongest Mindspeakers in the Kingdom, especially with Taver at his back, and he drops everything else, and reaches, reaches, reaches–

:Van?: 

Vanyel, sitting in his mother's solar listening to his nephew play the lute, spills tea all over his lap and swears under his breath. :Tran? What is it–:

:Sandra just caught a summoned elemental or something spying through her window. Bird form, do you know that kind, she didn't and neither does Kilchas...: 

:What? No, I don't–:

:Can you and Savil Gate back right now?: 

His aunt is going to be so, so annoyed, they're supposed to be on holiday, but. 

:Yes, of course: 

Under a minute later, if the birds are close enough to spot it, they'll see the large bronze doors of a church-like building on the grounds start to glow around the frame. 

- then the doors themselves vanish, replaced by a window or portal to somewhere else entirely, and two humans riding white quadrupeds pile through. 

One of the birds is close enough to spot it! It can go on the growing list of Really Confusing Things. Their minds are confused - frustrated - fascinated - scared - tracking something...

- they're coming up on their time limit and ought to head out of the city. They flock together and do this, heading for dense forest at least a couple of miles out.

Oh no not so fast. 

Van is still dazed from the Gate, and Herald-Mage Savil is pretty tired, but she's also worked with the Web extensively, and she can use it to boost her Gift, stretching her mind out and out...

A force-net trap snaps into place around one of the birds, bringing it plummeting toward the earth. 

Vanyel, teeth gritted, hangs onto Yfandes' back as she breaks into a gallop, racing after the captured air-elemental-bird or whatever in all hells it is. 

The other birds scatter and try to fly farther up and away!

The captured one is SO PANICKED.

Less than a minute later, one of the white quadrupeds reaches the spot where it's fallen, landing in a pile of trash just outside the inner Palace walls. 

A human with white-streaked dark head hair and no face hair leaps down, landing with a stagger and making a pained sound. He clamps down tighter shields over the - whatever it is - Vanyel has a lot more experience working with summoned elementals than Kilchas or Sandra and that doesn't feel like an air-elemental at all, or any kind of spirit for that matter, though he sees how they mistook it for one...

:Who sent you: he demands, coldly, only a little bit of the acid-like pain in his skull leaking through in the Mindspeech overtones. 

- being directly addressed is calming, somehow. The mind-piloting-bird knows what to do about that, which is of course to categorically refuse to answer. 

It's still counting something in the back of its mind. 

(Elsewhere in Haven, a man in the uniform of a Palace gardener, with a low-level mage-gift that he's been successfully concealing for the past six years, drops his work with a stammered apology about feeling unwell to his colleague, and flees back to the servant quarters. 

Digging frantically in his trunk, he wrenches out a wrapped object. Unwraps it. He hasn't used the mage-artifact ever before and it's going to set off an alarm but that's fine, the Heralds seem to be very busy and ten minutes from now he'll be on his way out of the city. 

He sends a short message using the code-page concealed between two other stuck pages of a book of ballads. Then breaks the artifact by stamping on it, throws the broken pieces into the fireplace, and gets a head start on fleeing.)

- what now. Leareth is now even more confused. Unfortunately, it doesn't sound like events are going to wait for him.

He barks more orders, instructing other mages to divvy up watching the newly-arrived creatures now under attack from the Heralds in Haven, and then starts readying a small group to Gate across the mountains. 

:Did Karse send you: 

Vanyel, not expecting an answer in words, probes the not-elemental's mind as deeply as he can in hopes of getting an answer. 

- it's confused again, that the enemy would capture it without knowing what it was. It thinks Karse might be an enemy-name, or maybe a human-name, it's not an ally-name obviously.

(Tracking time, in the background...)

Huh. Doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't sent by Karse, but - Vanyel is noticing that he's confused, and he should probably pay attention to that fact.

What's it counting towards...?  

He wants to Truth Spell the being, he doesn't know if it'll work but if he can sense its mind then probably? But first he wants it somewhere its comrades can't dive-bomb him to rescue it. It's currently very thoroughly trapped in a force-net but if it has magic that's not enough to make picking it up safe. 

Vanyel taps a node, concentrates, and boosts his Thoughtsensing, delivering a carefully calibrated but very hard mental THWAP that should, if he does it right, stun the creature without killing it outright. 

The bird is unconscious. 

(The other birds have flown away to demorph in the forest. They're not equipped for a rescue operation; they remorph and fly north.)

Vanyel scoops up the unconscious bird-mind-not-elemental-thing with magic, and hauls it back to the Palace, trying his best to ignore the headache. 

The bird will wake up about half a candlemark later in a stone room with no windows and a locked door, and Vanyel sitting on a stool nursing a cup of willowbark tea. 

(His aunt is out past the city walls now, trying to catch up with the rest, but they're quickly flying out of her range.) 

The mind-controlling-the-bird consults its internal computer for the time. Feels - relieved, and also sad, and much less scared. 

It looks around at the room briefly, contemplating avenues of suicide. Maybe if it flew at the wall very hard.

Vanyel is confused, again, but he ignores it for the moment. He concentrates on the rhyme that summons the vrondi, pushing his energy into it until they settle deeper on the mind in question. 

:Tell me where you come from: he says, hoping that Mindspeech-concepts translate well enough for the creature to get the gist of the question; he can sense its thoughts but they're hard for him to interpret.

- the magic pulls to its mind an image of a vast purple field and a vast open red-gold sky -

- and it's so horrified, what could possibly do that, it checks briefly whether the others are out of range so it could warn them - they are, and it can't - and then flies at the wall, stretching out its neck in its best guess of the most dangerous posture to hit it at.

Vanyel, forewarned by the horrified reaction and decision in its thoughts, reacts instantly; he flings up a springy barrier so that it bounces off, still injuring its neck somewhat but not lethally so, and then he pins it in another force-net. 

Ugh. Can he make it not do that in any way other than constantly trapping it? He could attempt a compulsion-binding of some kind but he's never done that before and might mess it up even worse in the process. 

That doesn't look like an elemental plane at all. Also doesn't look like Karse. Vanyel is so confused right now. 

...And also starting to feel guilty and upset, because it seems a lot like this isn't a spy sent by Karse. 

:Why did you come here?: he asks it, still with the force of a coercive Truth Spell behind the Mindspeech-word-concepts.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh war vacuum explosions ships destruction enemy Earth - not Earth, though it still has humans, somehow, humans who can - how - 

It tries a different wall and runs into the force-net.

Nope, still pinned in a force-barrier. 

Vanyel doesn't recognize half the images/concepts there, but all of it looks horrible! The explosions, is that maybe the war in Karse seen from another plane– No. He stops himself. He can recognize when he's trying too hard to cram something confusing into a framework where it'll make sense, and - he needs to stop, back off, notice that in fact this makes no sense. 

Not Karse. A war, though, somewhere else. Earth? Somewhere with people, humans, but the bird-mind-thing is surprised to be here instead. 

...other worlds? 

It's too much to absorb at once, and also the creature's panic is buffeting at his Receptive Empathy and it hurts. 

This is probably a bad idea, but Yfandes is cut off by the Work Room shields and not there to tell him off, so Vanyel gets down from the stool and kneels and picks up the bird in his hands. Physical contact lets him push harder with his Empathy, trying to soothe it. 

:I'm sorry: he sends. :I - didn't mean to hurt you - we thought you were a spy from the place we're fighting. But I don't think you're our enemy. I think you're - very lost... Shhh, it's all right, I'm not going to harm you: 

The bird is - confused, again, mixed in with a great deal of condescension - 

<I am not your enemy> it says curtly after a moment. <However, you are a tool in the hands of my enemies, and whatever you are doing to my head could aid them, if you learned anything that mattered. Please stop interfering.> 

Weird. That's not even Mindspeech, it's...something else entirely... 

:It would help if I knew who your enemy was: he sends. :Tell me who was attacking you: 

<I am not authorized to do that. If you let me go I could seek authorization to do that.>

:If I let you go then I'm aware you are absolutely not going to come back and tell us what in all hells is going on: Vanyel sighs. :Look, if some sort of weird magical entities showed up and started spying on your country, you'd want to know what they were up to just as badly. Who is your enemy?: 

This time, instead of expecting the creature to answer, he probes its thoughts directly again. Hard enough that it's probably going to notice, but it's not like it hasn't already noticed he's using a second-stage Truth Spell. 

It is thinking about evil awful slug things and this place has only the species and roughly the ecology in common with the intelligence report but that doesn't mean it doesn't have them, or won't soon. There is probably not one sitting in this particular man's head or he wouldn't have knocked him unconscious, would've tried to get the body somehow...

Vanyel takes a deep breath. 

:...Look, if my country is in danger of being invaded by - slug things - then I have to know, right, so we can put up some kind of defence. Where do the slug things come from? What do you mean, get the body?: 

<I think that it is very possible that my commander when informed that your leadership is not yet infested will decide to explain everything to you, so that we can aid you in coordinating your defenses. However I do not know what is going on and I am not going to explain.> He is not even clear on why they want an explanation if they can dig things out of your head anyway but all the more reason not to give them one, if he doesn't understand why they need it and it can't help them advance their stated goals.

(Vanyel would prefer an explanation because digging fragmented concepts out of the bizarre, not-quite-physically-here alien mind is exhausting and he already has a headache.) 

:I would like you to take me to your leadership, then: he informs the creature. :I promise to return you safely to them, but only if I accompany you there: 

<No.>

Vanyel is so tired of having to mindrape this poor lost creature for every scrap of information. He knows that what he should do is keep pushing, but... 

:What would you propose instead, then?: 

<You permit me to leave and go inform them of this conversation. I will return if it is deemed appropriate.>

...He is going to get yelled at so much by Randi if he makes a unilateral decision on this. However.

:All right. I'll let you go: 

His magic is all over the creature, and - it doesn't seem to have any way of resisting it? Its body may or may not be 'not its real form', in the way that a summoned Abyssal demon's mage-construct body isn't its true one, but it's not magical. It's a perfectly ordinary bird, just one linked to a mind somewhere else. Is this some sort of alien spirit that can just possess random animals...? No, Vanyel has a feeling he's still trying to fit this into terms he understands, and that it's something different entirely. 

Still holding the bird, he undoes the force-net holding it pinned, but he doesn't dispel the magic entirely. It still clings to the bird, not doing anything in particular anymore, but nonetheless a beacon to his Othersenses.

Something he can anchor his Farsight on. He already knows that the other creatures were fleeing north. 

This one will be faster than them, because it doesn't have to stop to demorph. Well, can't. 

And shortly later: 

"What do you mean you let it go?" 

"They weren't sent by Karse. I'm nearly certain of that. They're - maybe not from this plane, they're possessing birds or something - or, not quite that, but something really weird is happening here and I wasn't going to find out what by interrogating it any more. I left some of my magic on it so I can find it easily. I'm going to follow it north." 

"...You could have considered asking me first. If you've ever heard of that concept." 

"Sorry." Vanyel's voice is absentminded rather than particularly apologetic. "Randi, I have to go, the longer I wait the further of a head start it'll get and my Farsight and Thoughtsensing range are only two hundred miles or so." 

His King glowers at him for nearly a minute. 

"Fine. Go. Do not get yourself killed. If it looks like a situation where you might get yourself killed, back off and wait for someone. Please." 

"I'll be careful." This is not strictly an agreement to any of what his King just said. "Got to go now. I'll relay to Tran." 

And then a white mare gallops out of the city, maintaining the impossible pace with a steady stream of node-energy fed to her by her Chosen, who has his Farsight anchored on a bird now flying north. 

Elsewhere, a Gate-threshold unanchored on any kind of door appears in an unremarkable forest clearing, aimed by dead reckoning and a map, approximately ten miles from where the weird metal-glass-turtle was buried. A dozen mages stream through before Leareth himself crosses.

If these strange newcomers have the ability to detect magic, Leareth thinks, they're going to find themselves very busy quite soon. If not, they'll need the rest of the day to cross the intervening forest unseen. 

They don't have the ability to detect magic. A few of the sensors were repairable but none of the sensors were magic detection because that is not a thing. They do have thermal sensors about half a mile out, though the ship's computers keep tossing up stupid false alarms because they're calibrated for a completely different situation than this one.

Once the ship is covered they retreat inside it to draw a map from returning spy reports, and send people out in rotations to acquire humans and practice moving with the human bodies. A few bird-scouts circle.

Human mouths can supposedly make the sounds of their language out loud but it seems to take a lot of practice.

A bird from the south gets within range to message him and stops heading north, lands on a tree. <They have some capabilities we did not expect. They can read minds. They can dig in minds for information . They can knock us out of the sky with their hands -> And he sends the whole day's events. <I presume the one who captured me is following. Do you have a plan.>

Matirin's tail swishes anxiously. <I will speak to him. I can come to meet him south of here. You can tell him to expect me, if you can see him following.>

<I will look.>

Vanyel is on the North Trade Road; Yfandes is holding an unbelievable pace of forty miles an hour or so, and he's already halfway to the northern border. Though he has a guess that the weird invaders are a lot further north of that. 

The other arriving party is much closer, but they're riding normal horses and also following a narrow, not especially straight game-trail through forest, occasionally cutting their way with magic across areas of dense undergrowth.

Leareth reaches ahead with Thoughtsensing. He should be in range now. 

There are about thirty people in the turtle. Their minds are oddly shaped, and most of them are in horseperson forms. They're thinking about how to fix their alarms which were destroyed in the fight, and how to interpret the alarms they are getting which are unclear because this ship is meant to be suspended in nothingness, not stuck in dirt; they're drawing lines on a spherical projection of a world, and arguing; some of them are on another plane and holding onto human forms, making them walk and talk, doing phonics exercises...

There are some holding onto bird-forms and scouting. 

There is one thinking about what to tell the humans in Haven.

...They're in touch with the humans in Haven? 

None of them seem to have noticed Leareth or the rest of his approaching party, which is good. Five miles out, he stops, hangs back.

Getting out his artifact to make distance-casting easier, he focuses intently on one of the scouting bird-minds, and then snaps two simultaneous compulsions into place on it. Fly this way. Do not communicate with the others. 

- the bird is terrified and confused! They got the update, a little while ago, that the locals had unexpected capabilities which included the ability to detect them in morph and trap them and dig things out of their head, but did not include this, whatever this is.

The bird flies in the direction demanded. It is trying to take in the implications if the Yeerks take this planet - or already have this planet, though that's looking steadily less likely. It's trying not to think about how long until its lack of communication will be suspicious, because the local capabilities are known to include mindreading. It is trying to think how this could possibly be done - maybe something akin to what Andalites do to control a body - would that work if the body already has a mind in it - that'd make you no better than a Yeerk so obviously they wouldn't have developed it but could you...

Leareth has been paying a lot of attention to the thought-communication flying back and forth, which he can half-intercept, and he plays around with modifying some existing shield-techniques while he waits for the creature to reach him. 

When it does, he's waiting, and he weaves the test shield around both of them.

:What is your name?: he asks it. 

Presumably the stranger will now demonstrate the digging-things-out-of-peoples-heads capability but the bird is obviously going to make him do that, rather than answer.

It looks like he's - doing something? Concentrating on something? But nothing visible - is it something in hyperspace, do they have some way of interacting with it so they can notice morph -

Leareth would somewhat prefer not to do this via copious quantities of mind-control - it's not obvious to him whether the new arrivals are a hostile force rather than lost and in need of help - but they're understandably scared and being cautious. 

He does another compulsion. Answer my questions. At close range, it's even more obvious how weird the mind is, and - that it's not here, it's more not-here than the otherwise similar minds he feels from those of the creatures with horse-bodies. This...is a body it's wearing, or controlling at a distance, not its own form. But it's not like an elemental, native to another plane, summoned into a construct-body in the material plane. So where did its body go...? 

Focus. He needs to test if he can shield its communications first. :Tell me your name, please: 

<Arrelan-Sisokoth-Galar> what they can just control you without even taking your body that's horrifying they should just all kill themselves immediately - it attempts this -

Leareth, with even faster reflexes than Vanyel earlier, traps it in a stretchy force-shield.

He steps across to the other side of his barrier. He's keyed to it but the creature isn't, and so if he's right about the kind of shield required, he'll be able to Mindspeak it but not to hear its answer. At which point he can undo some of the compulsions. Maybe. 

:Tell me your name again: he sends. 

It says the same thing, again, while trying to batter itself with its wings.

Hmm, not quite yet, it's partially blocking it but he can still pick up the answer. Leareth pulls the floating force-barrier tighter so the creature can't injure itself, then spends a minute tweaking the shield and asks again. 

That time he can't pick up an answer. The bird is now contemplating whether there's any way to break off the connection to a morph - he's never heard of it but maybe just because it's suicidal not because it's impossible -

Leareth slips back inside the shield, and undoes all of the compulsions except the one to answer questions. 

:I apologize for kidnapping you: he sends. :I do not intend harm and I will let you return to your people soon. However, your arrival is relevant to my interests and so there is information I wish to have: 

He's picked up a number of fragmentary pieces, so far, but is still struggling to assemble them into a clear picture. 

:You are at war: he sends. :Is that right?: 

He's not going to help a Yeerk even if it's an offbrand Yeerk who has never heard of Yeerks.

<Yes> he answers anyway, involuntarily, and dislikes the honorary Yeerk all the more for it.

:I have a suspicion you are in the wrong place. You planned to travel to a - planet - called Earth, with humans on it, where you wished to gather information and possibly fight these Yeerks, but...you were expecting a more advanced civilization than Valdemar, correct?: 

<Yes. This isn't Earth.> The war is being fought on many, many fronts, though, and they still don't have much evidence that this planet isn't one of them even if it's not the one they knew about.

:I may be wrong: Leareth sends, slowly, :but I do not think the Yeerks are here. I would have noticed: He frowns. :Yeerks - control minds? With magic?: 

<Not with magic, unless the translation is unusually misleading. I do not know if you would have noticed. They have successfully infiltrated planets with mindreaders before. Yeerks are slugs. They crawl into the brain through the ear canal and control it directly from there.> And this bird HATES them and also him, the honorary one.

That's really fair of it, honestly. He doesn't bring up the fact that the new-arrivals have also been kidnapping and, he suspects, mindreading random humans. 

:It is possible they are somewhere in Velgarth: he sends, :but I am very confident they are not present either in Valdemar or among my people: Pause. :Did you intend to conquer, harm, or destroy the human civilization on this 'Earth': 

<We intended to stop them from falling into Yeerk hands.> Ideally by fighting the Yeerks but - his impression is that it didn't look that winnable.

Leareth closes his eyes for a moment, absorbing that. 

Somewhere, he doesn't yet know where, is an entire other world - somehow also full of humans, he's confused by that bit - and it's in danger. From an invading force of mind-controlling slugs, and from whoever these people are, sent to fight the Yeerks, and - the implication is clear, if they can't win Earth then they'll make sure no one can have it. 

(A flicker of memory - a Tower, a man pouring his life into fire and destruction to deny it to his enemy...) 

:Do you have the power to destroy this world, if that is the only way to stop the Yeerks from conquering it: 

<...not the planet itself, not very easily.> There would definitely remain a large ball of rock held together by gravity. 

:Do you have the means to kill all of the people on Earth: 

<Yes.>

Leareth takes a deep breath. 

:If there turn out not to be Yeerks on Velgarth, what are your intentions toward this world? What would your next move be?: 

<I'm not in charge.> He could speculate but the spell isn't quite forcing him to.

:Do you anticipate that your leaders might intend to harm or conquer the people of Velgarth, or - pre-emptively destroy this civilization in case the Yeerks come for it...?: 

<What? No. We would fix our ship and maybe try to learn the local - thing you're calling magic, we ought to be able to pick it up if we morph it - and then leave. Andalites do not conquer people. We might station ships in orbit to alert us if the Yeerks did find your world but you would be unaffected by them and unable to notice them. ...orbit is very far away> he adds as he realizes that these people may or may not be clear on their world being spherical.

:I know the world is spherical and suspected there could be others: Leareth clarifies. He's...reassured, somewhat, by that answer. 

He spends a moment thinking. 

:Listen to me, Arrelan-Sisokoth-Galar: he sends. :My name is Leareth. I apologize for my initial hostility and kidnapping, here, and understand that this will not leave you inclined to goodwill toward me. I needed to verify that you were not here to start a war of conquest against my world, and am now satisfied on that front. I am, however, deeply concerned by this war with the Yeerks that you describe elsewhere, and it would grieve me deeply if your people judged this Earth to be unsalvageable. So, I would offer you my aid and resources. I have a sizeable army and several hundred skilled combat mages, and am very motivated to help make this war winnable, if the alternative is the death of everyone on Earth. In return, I would request that you share how your advanced technology works: 

He pauses for a moment. 

:I am going to let you go in a moment, so you can return to your people and pass on this information. Your leaders can do as they wish with it. I am not staying here, but if you leave a message or a messenger in this place, someone will come to collect it. Do you have any questions?: 

He is thinking that it's an interesting philosophical question, whether the honorary Yeerks would be as bad as the original Yeerks if unleashed on the galaxy. Maybe they'd mostly fight each other. Probably not, nothing is ever that convenient. 

<No.>

:Then I wish you good luck: 

Leareth starts to remove the last compulsion, then pauses. :What are your people called? I would like a name for you, so I can stop awkwardly thinking of you as 'bird-possessing-creatures': 

<Andalites. We do not possess other creatures, we morph them. There is no mind we are commanding or overriding, just our own.> This is a MORALLY IMPORTANT DISTINCTION.

:Ah. So it is a construct-body that has no mind of its own and ceases to exist when you stop 'morphing' it?: 

<Yes.>

:What a fascinating capability. Thank you for answering my questions: 

Leareth is far from certain that he knows all the relevant pieces here, and he's also not at ALL taking at face value this random scout's claim that his leadership is in no way going to conquer Velgarth or kidnap mages to fight in their war for them or whatnot. Still, he know enough to gamble that his best move is to stop antagonizing the Andalites any further, back off, and let them orient. 

He drops the last compulsion, and destabilizes the force-barrier and thought-communications shield so that they'll come down in about thirty seconds, then passes some quick Mindspeech orders to the other mages he came with, steps back, and casts an unscaffolded Gate, opening to a nondescript underground room. He steps through and the Gate vanishes. 

Twenty seconds after that, the Andalite can move freely again and the barrier against communications is down. 

He is going to report all of this!

- wow okay this is far too many things going on. If there aren't any Yeerks on this planet they need to get back into orbit immediately; they are very obviously in a bad position here on the ground. 

It is really unfortunate that a human knows about the contingency plan to destroy Earth. It is one of about eight really unfortunate things about the present situation. 

Has the representative for the other, apparently entirely unrelated human faction that is aware of their presence here gotten close enough to talk to, yet?

Vanyel is now just past the Valdemaran border, still riding all-out on his apparently tireless Companion. He's well over a hundred miles from the crashed ship but he's still in Thoughtsensing and Farsight range of the scout he was following. 

Well, there's no need to take him right to the ship. They've repaired some of the damaged, smaller shuttle planes. 

He gets into one, directs it south. It is shielded against observation by Andalites and Yeerks and every other force they've heard of; he has no idea whether the locals will notice it approaching.

Vanyel can't see it, and something is making his Thoughtsensing fuzzier, but he can still tell that something is approaching. He slows down. The road is getting a lot less safe for a full gallop, now that they're out of Valdemar and it's unpaved dirt. 

So they have absolutely no way to pass undetected to these people. That's - annoying.

This person almost certainly is in their own possession right now, or he'd have learned the location from the prisoner and not advertised that he was coming. 

That doesn't mean he isn't very dangerous.

He lands the shuttle, and waits to see how precisely the local humans with their extraordinary capabilities can find him.

Vanyel doesn't want to scare them, so he doesn't try to narrow down the location of the slightly-fuzzed mind. He waits on the road to see if they're here to talk to him. 

<I brought a shuttle here so we can speak, if you are still interested in doing so.>

:Yes, I am: Vanyel takes a deep breath. :I'm - sorry, about kidnapping your scout. We thought they were a spy from a different country, one we're currently at war with, and it took a while of questioning to determine that wasn't the case: 

<We would similarly extend an apology for causing you alarm when you were already at war.> Apparently with some other humans, horrifyingly enough. <The situation is very confusing, but perhaps when we've spoken we will be able to make more sense of it.>

A door opens in midair, and a ramp descends; the person who did this is not visible but the ramp is conveniently sized and sloped for Yfandes.

Vanyel hesitates, briefly, trying to decide if walking up the ramp into the apparently-invisible vessel is the sort of situation likely to get him killed. It's probably all right? And - worth some risk, he thinks, if he can make up for their awkward start and avoid accidentally starting a war with these people. 

:Van, you are not going in there without telling someone about it: 

:...Fine, I'll tell the relay: He's out of comfortable range of Tran, now, he could push it but he's already been abusing his Thoughtsensing for candlemarks, trying to stay on top of the bird-controlling person he was tracking. He can reach the closest Herald easily enough, though. 

They don't have full context on the situation yet - not that anyone has much context to work with - and they're very confused, but agree to pass on his message verbatim. 

Vanyel climbs the ramp. 

The little room is metal with glass windows and glass screens everywhere aside from the floor, which is a lush springy grass. The person standing there is bluish purple, approximately the size of Yfandes, with a tail the length of his body and four legs and two arms and four eyes.

<Hello> he says. <My name is War-Prince Matirin-Ashal-Nelinfir.>

Vanyel bows to him, unsure if he'll know what to make of the gesture. :My name is Herald-Mage Vanyel Ashkevron: his mind automatically completes 'Demonsbane' but he smacks that down. :This is Yfandes, my Companion. I am here to speak for King Randale of Valdemar. Thank you for being willing to come out and speak with me. Er, are you the leader of your people?: 

<I am the leader of the group of my people who landed on this planet.> Is Yfandes also a person? Are they one of those species with a symbiotic relationship - like Andalites, but the part with hands and the part with decent legs have separate brains somehow...he nods to her, just in case. 

:I'm a person: Yfandes confirms. :Most horses - er, animals shaped like me, I don't know if there are horses where you're from - anyway, most of them aren't people, but Companions are special. We Choose and bond to Heralds, Vanyel is my Chosen, but we're still separate people: 

:I'm still putting together what you landed on our world for: Vanyel confesses. :There was a war - some of your flying-void-ships were destroyed - the war is against slug-creatures that go into people's heads...?: 

<I think we landed on the wrong world when we attempted a hyperspace jump with a damaged starship. We were targetting a planet called Earth, which has about five billion humans and a similar atmosphere and ecology. I have never heard of two planets independently evolving the same species, so someone must have seeded the human populations on one or the other of the planets, but I think that makes more sense than our intelligence report about Earth having been so gravely mistaken on so many fronts.>

:Five...billion...?: Vanyel stares at the alien visitor. :No, I think you must be on the wrong world. We call this world Velgarth, and - there are half a million people in Valdemar, I think there can't be more than twenty million on the entire continent. How does a world possibly have so many people?: 

<They have developed many uses of technology that I think are unknown here. But they are extraordinarily numerous even by the standards of starfaring civilizations; thus their significance in the war. My people, the Andalites, are trying to prevent Yeerks from enslaving all of them and, with their five billion new hosts, the galaxy.>

It's too much to absorb right now, what Vanyel really wants is about a week in a quiet room where no one is trying to talk to him and he can think, but - there's an emergency here, it might be very time-sensitive, and - gods, five billion people at risk... 

:Do you need help?: 

Matirin decides he likes humans significantly better than he did five minutes ago. <It would be useful to get an explanation of how you found us and what capabilities people on this planet possess. We can use that to figure out whether there's a significant chance there are Yeerks here undetected.>

Vanyel spends twenty seconds or so considering whether 'telling the aliens everything' is in fact the kind of decision he can reasonably make on his own without consulting Randi. 

:I have a request: he says. :We have truth magic and I - want to cast a first-level Truth Spell and ask you some questions. It's not the version that will force you to answer if you prefer not to, it'll just show me that you're being honest: Or not. 

<You may do that.>

Vanyel does so. 

:I suppose my main question is, what's your intent toward us? Are you going to tell us honestly what your plans are and work cooperatively, if we're offering that?: 

He pauses, <I intend to figure out whether there are Yeerks here and whether they have heard of this place, and then how to use its resources to get out of here and to where we're needed for the war, and hopefully better able to win it. I don't want to hurt anyone here. There is a great deal I cannot tell you because doing so would be prohibited by our laws, and many plans I would not intend to widely share because this would make them more vulnerable to interference or endanger the people working on them but I am not obliged to give you any misinformation, and will try not to. Andalites do not seek to rule other people and believe it is better when they rule themselves. We have not to our knowledge caused lasting harm to any of your people since we arrived here though we have used weapons that cause them to fall temporarily asleep in a few cases.>

Vanyel nods. :I get operational security concerns, that's fine. Er, why do you have laws prohibiting you from telling us things?: 

<When we met the Yeerks they were a peaceful people living on one planet, taking weak local creatures as hosts. We - wanted to help. We taught them - everything we knew, how to build ships like these, how to travel between the stars with them. We developed new technology for them, which would allow them to survive away from their sun, which they otherwise rely on for nourishment. And - they arranged a surprise attack, murdered thousands of people, and spread out to become a scourge upon the galaxy that has consumed eight worlds so far. We worry that - giving a civilization the means to travel the stars can be a great wrong to the rest of the galaxy, and is something to give great consideration.>

:- Oh, gods. That's - awful...: In the back of his mind Vanyel is wondering if this is actually a good argument against helping in other cases - wondering how much better this 'Earth' is, what would Leareth think here, but he's currently too stunned and upset to even start poking at it. 

<I want humanity to get their chance to reach the stars. But I don't want to do it wrong and it can't be undone.>

:That makes sense: Though Vanyel is already wondering how close a look Leareth would actually need at their technology in order to reinvent it within five years - gods, and whether he's already had that close look, they landed in the north, he might have - 

- actually he should just ask. :Did you by any chance run into a man called Leareth: 

<Is that the name of the ruler of the land north of your mountains.>

:I don't know anything about what's north of there except that he's in charge of it. We, um. Have a shared lucid dream where we talk to each other. He was planning to conquer Valdemar for some reason and I guess I've been trying to talk him out of it for the past decade: 

<Huh. A man who gave that name kidnapped one of our scouts to speak to him, offered to help us with the war on Earth in exchange for teaching him our technology, and then released him to convey this to me. I cannot accept his terms, as much as we are desperate for help on Earth. This rule is somewhat validated by learning that he is planning conquest here.>

...Oh, Leareth has totally gotten a close enough look at their technology to make some strides on replicating it. Vanyel doesn't know what to do about this, though, and also isn't sure how far he trusts this alien who he's just met, whose people somehow managed to horribly screw up contact with the Yeerks and have now swung far in the opposite direction. He doesn't mention it. 

:He wants to fix all the problems in the world: Vanyel says instead. :Or at least that's what he says, but...I lean toward believing him. He's, um, immortal, he's been doing this for at least a thousand years and maybe longer - he's written all sorts of books, made a ton of advances in magic and others things like economics. He claims he can run Valdemar better, which might actually be true. Doesn't mean he's right to do it, I'm probably going to end up fighting him. But...you should know that: 

<That is very good to know. Fixing all of the problems in the world is...harder than it seems at first and even second and third glance, but it's a better motive than most. Should we be concerned that if we outright refuse his offer he will just kidnap us and try to force us to teach him?>

:Er, he might do that. But - as far as I can tell he keeps his promises, and I bet I'll have the dream with him soon, I can ask him nicely not to do that. And - gods, I expect he's not any happier about your horrible war than I am and he wouldn't want to delay you getting back to fight it: Shrug. :Maybe take precautions, though. Can you send some of your people elsewhere? We have space in Valdemar and he won't be able to kidnap people from there without a huge fuss, we have a ward system that detects all magic use: 

<We can relocate to Valdemar as soon as we are sure there are not any Yeerks in this world. If they are, they would almost certainly learn of that, and if they captured our ship or any of our persons that would be devastating for the war effort. The reason we initially expected Yeerks were because we thought we were on Earth, and certainly the overwhelming majority of inhabited planets do not have an ongoing Yeerk infestation, so I consider it unlikely, but I do want to try to give it a bit more thought. Yeerks traditionally proceed by seizing the aides to the leaders of countries, and from there the leaders, who can then order their staff and soldiers to travel to a location where they can conveniently be infested. Could that process be ongoing in Valdemar or any of your neighbors, or would your mindreading make it impossible to fail to detect?>

:Everyone in Valdemar's leadership is bonded to a Companion, like Yfandes - you'd have to get both of them, and the Companions are all Thoughtsensers and are constantly talking to each other. I think it'd be very hard to do. It's...not impossible they could get someone into the Council, but the Council alone can't overrule the Heralds, and I would have noticed if they were pushing any different policies lately: 

<Is that true in other countries as well?>

:No. - Gods, it's not impossible they could be in Karse, I think they have fewer Mind-Gifted people than us and they don't have anything like the Heralds or Companions. Most places would be easier to get into than Valdemar: 

<And they started a war with you recently? Was that unexpected? Have they had surprisingly good coordination or weaponry in the course of it?>

:War started almost four years ago. It was - somewhat but not that unexpected? There'd been a treaty signed with our previous Queen but they attacked as soon as she died, clearly had been waiting for an excuse, we'd been on more tense diplomatic terms for a decade. They, er, had more mages than we'd realized and...more ruthless ones...but not really better weaponry or tactics otherwise. We're solidly winning at this point: 

<That does not fit very well with the things I would expect if there were Yeerk involvement. Who are your other neighbors?>

:East is Hardorn, southwest is Rethwellan, west is–: Pause. :The Tayledras would be really safe, I think. They're nearly all Thoughtsensers and they do concert-work all the time, so they're in and out of each other's heads constantly, and they're hard to get to - they usually kill intruders. They're, er, people who live in small clans in the Pelagirs damaged lands and have a pact with their Goddess to cleanse them and keep outsiders away. I have friends there. They might agree to help: 

<Those all sound like things that would make them hard to get to, yes. 

My current best assessment is based on very little information still and the situation probably merits more, but it seems like several features of this world including the widespread mindreading and the very low tech level mean that taking this world by infiltration would not be a good use of resources for the Yeerks, and they are much likelier, were they here, to just try to take it by violence - land an army somewhere, spread it out enslaving people to add to it. Would you have heard of it if it were happening very far away?>

:It's remotely possible Valdemar wouldn't have, if it were really far away and in the last year or two. I'm almost certain Leareth would know, though, if it were on this continent. He - likes to know things: 

<He said he thought he would know, yes. And he did not consider it likely.> His tail swishes. <We will accept your offer of refuge in Valdemar, I think. However, our starship is buried north of here, stuck in the ground from the impact; were we to leave it there Leareth could doubtless learn a great deal from it. Would magic make it possible to move? It's very large, and can move under its own power only when in better condition than it is presently.>

:...I would have to see it, I think. Maybe: He grimaces. :Leareth could absolutely do it. We're - not as advanced as he is, magically speaking, and I don't think any of us could Gate something that big. We can probably support some of its weight? If it's able to fly with some help: 

<Right now it cannot fly at all but we should have the resources to fix that eventually. Hmmm.> Tail-swish. <Can your magic be used to travel between planets.>

:Not that I know of. I mean, theoretically if you'd been to both places you could Gate? I just expect the power requirement would be intractable, Savil is our strongest mage for Gating and she struggles with more than four hundred miles: He looks down. :Sorry: 

<We can repair the ship. It's just repairing the ship without giving your acquaintance the conquerer - not the knowledge to build the ship, it relies on some things that have fairly extraordinary prerequisites and aren't observable from the exterior at all, but the knowledge to conquer your world, that I'd worry about.>

Vanyel makes a face. :The stupid thing is that he would absolutely help if you asked him. He'd just - right, afterward he'd know more than enough to conquer the world if he wanted: Sigh. :I - think your war with the Yeerks might be a higher priority than Leareth maybe getting some information on your technology, though. It sounded time-sensitive: 

<It is time-sensitive. It is possible I will decide that unleashing a different conquerer on the galaxy is worth it if the Yeerks are defeated, but - it is not a decision I want to make half by accident. What I'd like to do is get to Earth and get a sense how bad it is, which would change how much we're willing to risk in responding. But probably I will have to make the decision without knowing that. 

What can mages do. He offered us several hundred of them.>

:Several...hundred...: Vanyel has to spend a moment collecting himself from the shock. :I, um, for reference, we have about a dozen. Mages can do combat, really effectively - fire, lightning, barriers, other more complicated techniques. Set wards and traps. We can shield things. We can scry and see what's happening far away, and communicate or travel instantly across long distances, well, where 'long' is hundreds of miles, not the distance between planets. Also mages who are willing to do so can - control other people with compulsions. Valdemar doesn't do it but I bet Leareth's people would, it's obviously very effective for spying or infiltrating some group. Then there are other Gifts - Mindspeech and Thoughtsensing are their own Gift, we use that for fast communications within Valdemar. Farsight is what it sounds like, imitates scrying. Fetching can move or teleport objects...: 

He goes down the entire list of known Gifts. 

<Our scout was flying over the forest about five miles from our starship when something suddenly seized control of him and forced him to land without communicating with any of us. That's - compulsions?>

:Yes, that sounds like a compulsion: Shiver. :I've never cast one or experienced one, though: 

<Andalites consider the thing that Yeerks do - and associated things, even if they are done by other means - to be a great evil.>

:I'm not going to disagree on that. Leareth would say most evils can still be justified in the right circumstances, I guess, but... It'd make sense if that left you unwilling to work with him, even setting aside the technology question:

Internally he's thinking this isn't that different from his own use of magic to trap a scout and Truth Spell plus Thoughtsensing to question them. He doesn't say that either. 

<I would work with Yeerks if they were for some reason on my side and I could trust that. I - do not immediately know how I would verify that I could trust that. However it sounds like Leareth could easily have left us with no choice but to make the ship self-destruct with most of our people in it so I am grateful that he did not decide to do that.>

:Oh, if he'd, what, tried to steal it, or to control someone into taking him there...: Vanyel shakes his head. :He probably wanted the same information we did back in Haven, if he spotted you arriving. And we - I...: What is he even supposed to say. :I'm sorry for, er, how I treated your scout. We were really panicked: The Truth Spell must have also made them think of Yeerks. 

<You were at war, and observed something strange. If you had tried to scout in our home world it would not have gone any better. 

You should know that we cannot safely remain in a morphed form for more than a few hours, and that if prevented from demorphing when it is necessary we get stuck.>

It takes Vanyel about five seconds to catch the implications, and another ten seconds to go from 'internal screaming' to formulating any sort of response. 

:Oh - gods - did I - I knocked them out for half a candlemark, did they - are they...?: 

<He cannot demorph, yes. Obviously we do not blame you.>

Vanyel barely hears that because he is busy absolutely blaming himself. :I'm so sorry, I - gods...: 

:Van. Stop it: 

Vanyel takes a deep breath, and tries to calm down. Focus. :Er, is that something we could maybe - try to fix, with magic? I don't know how morphing works but Savil was in range when some of your scouts did it, she said it looked like things moving around between other planes, which means our mage-sight can sense some of it: 

<...huh. I have no idea. If you could, or if you could extend the range that can safely be spent in morph, that would be extraordinarily valuable to us. It involves storing the original body and mind in z-space and maintaining a link to a construct-body, copied from a creature we have been in contact with in the past. The length that the link can be safely maintained depends on the mass of the person morphing but for a typical Andalite is a few candlemarks.>

Unfortunately this is yet another area where Vanyel is confident Leareth could figure it out much faster than he can, and obviously Leareth absolutely shouldn't be given a chance to study morphing if they want him to not take over the world. :That's fascinating. It looked like that, to me, I thought it was a summoned creature from another plane with a construct-body built here, only it wasn't magic. Anyway, we can help you study it and see if we can improve it: 

<Thank you. Do you want to come see the ship so you can give me your estimation of our prospects of moving it with magic assistance? It is perhaps fifty miles from here.>

:How long will it take to travel that distance in this craft?: 

<About two minutes.>

That is stunningly fast. Vanyel doesn't comment; he knows these people have technology that leaves theirs in the dust. (And it's not, technically, as fast as a Gate.)

:All right. I'll come: 

The door closes without any visible motion or action on his part and then the craft takes off, also without one. The motion up and sideways feels strange; the ground tilts to give the four-legged better purchase when the craft is accelerating sideways. The ground isn't blurry, maybe just because they're now high above it. It looks rather picturesque. 

They decelerate and land in a mountain valley that does not obviously contain a spaceship though if you're starting from the premise that it does then it's obviously beneath all those felled trees.

Vanyel stares out at the view in awe. This is amazing. 

Focus, he reminds himself as they land. Work to be done here. How large does the spaceship seem likely to be, based on all those felled trees? 

The spaceship is probably sixty meters long. (There are a lot of felled trees.)

That is big. Presumably very heavy. 

:How much does it weigh?: Vanyel asks. :Er, approximately how many times your body weight, we probably don't use the same measurements here: 

<Four hundred sixty times my body weight> he says instantly.

Did he just know that or is he that fast at mental math. :That...is not going to be easy to move even with magic: Vanyel admits. :We could probably lift it briefly, with a lot of mages - maybe get it lifted onto a whole bunch of wagons - but there's no road nearby, either...: 

<So it should probably wait until the antigravity is working properly outside the ship> he says seriously. <We are confident we can do it, it will just take some time. ...would you both like to come in and see it?>

:Sure, we'll come in: He's still absorbing the concept riding with the first part. :You can...make it float? If you can even make it float mostly, just so it's lighter to lift, we can use magic to push it, that's feasible: 

<Ordinarily we can make it float! Getting things into the space above the sky is very difficult until you learn how to make them float. Right now we cannot make it float, though we can make things inside it float if we want to. Once we can get it to float it'd be easy to move even if the engines are still not working?>

:We can make things float - I could probably float this craft that we're on right now, for a minute or two - but it's limited to what human mages can do and we get tired. You have a way to do it without magic entirely?: 

<We don't have any Gifts. I suppose in some cases we might be doing the same thing without them but in general we characterize our inventions purely in terms of the physical forces that govern the universe, one of which is gravity, the force that pulls all things towards each other. You might only have noticed it as the force that pulls things towards your planet because on a planet that is by a very large margin the most significant context in which it operates.> This is probably an illegal amount of explanation all by itself but he needs these people if he doesn't want to let the other group of people conquer the world, and he might in fact end up letting them do that, if it means having a decisive amount of force on Earth. And he could use some goodwill in the meantime.

:I mean, magic is doing that, I think? Or that's my understanding. It's a physical force that people with the right mind-parts can control. ...Makes me wonder if your planet somehow has different physical laws from ours: 

<That would surprise me; the physical laws are generally the same everywhere, and it is speculated that if they were not then it would be impossible to survive there at all. Maybe having the right mind-parts lets you do things we can do only with sophisticated equipment, though.> The shuttle drives itself right into the airlock of the bigger ship, which closes behind them and washes the shuttle. 

Vanyel nods, distracted by several simultaneous trains of thought, and waits to follow him out into the bigger ship. 

There is a ramp, and then they can walk over onto the bigger ship!

The bulk of it turns out to be dominated by an extraordinarily well-kept lawn where several dozen Andalites like him are milling around on the grass. It gives a convincing impression to visual senses of going on forever but to other senses it's obviously under a big opaque dome. This is attached to some conference rooms and rooms with screens and rooms with mechanical equipment. 

Some of the Andalites are operating human construct bodies right now. They are standing in the grass looking somewhat stressed and unhappy and practicing saying words, over and over again. They are totally nude.

Aaaaaaaah so much nudity and also some of them are men who are attractive - aaaaaaaaah... Vanyel frantically thinks for distractions. 

:Do your people, um, want advice? On seeming normal among humans, I mean: 

<We would very much appreciate that!>

Vanyel should absolutely say something about the NAKEDNESS being VERY CONSPICUOUS but he's too embarrassed, the words won't come out. He heads over and introduces himself, though, a bit stiffly. They're doing reasonably well on getting pronunciation right with trial and error, but as a human in possession of a mouth, he can do his best to tell them how to correct something as well as what. 

:You look kind of miserable, is the main thing: he tells them. :If you went to try to talk to other humans right now, they'd be: he's about to say 'wondering who in your family just died' but these people just escaped a war, that's probably incredibly tactless to joke about, :um, wondering what's wrong: 

"...that is because of standing. Ding. Standing is very unplezent when you only have two legs. Eggs. Is there a se-cret?"

He absently corrects their pronunciation. :Hmm. I don't find it unpleasant, it might be something you need to get used to. You could take a break and sit down?: 

What a concept. How do they do that.

...Well, humans often sit in chairs, or on sofas, but you can just sit down on the ground, like this. Or cross-legged. Or kneel, or with your legs folded under you. Or you can squat, like this, if you just need to rest for a second and plan to get right up again. 

The Andalites try this out and decide that it is much less intolerable to be human-shaped if you spend some of your time not trying to wobble around on your legs. Not anywhere near enough of them. How do humans endure. 

<One thing that would be very valuable to know> he says to Vanyel, <is whether when we acquire a template of a Gifted person we acquire the ability to wield Gifts.>

:I'm Gifted, but - it might not be the best idea to try that first. I have a lot of Gifts and they're very powerful - if your people have trouble with standing and talking then - uncontrolled Gifts are really bad...: 

He fixes his eyes on the floor. :Alsoyoushouldwearclothes: 

<The artificial skin you are wearing? What is it made of?>

"Um, this is linen and this is wool, I think, we could definitely get you some spare fabrics or just spare clothes from Haven. Um, don't wear literally this, though, only Heralds wear Whites." 

<I don't know if we have the means to manufacture that so we would be grateful to borrow it. Only Heralds wear Whites?>

:It's a uniform, so people recognize us even if they haven't met a specific Herald. Healers all wear green, and the military Guard wears blue. Does your world not have uniforms? I guess if none of you need to wear clothes...: 

<We do not communicate rank with artificial skin, no. I suppose that would make sense if you have to wear it anyway.>

:Hmm. What other supplies can we help you with. Do you have enough food, are you warm enough staying in here... And we should get you someone with less ridiculous Gifts than mine to test it. Can you fly that shuttle thing all the way to Haven and back? It's way faster than traveling even by Companion and Gates are tiring: 

<We can fly the shuttle to Haven, yes. We didn't do it initially because Yeerks would have some chance of detecting it, if there were Yeerks operating here, but I think at this point that seems unlikely. We have enough food and the Dome can be temperature controlled. If you have obvious countermeasures we could deploy against attempts by Leareth to enter it disguised by magic, that would be useful, and someone with weak Gifts to run that test seems important.>

:I can cast wards but they'll only alert me or another mage... Honestly it's possible I should stay here. At least until we can get another mage up here: 

<That does seem possible, if you would be willing to do it. I know your people have their own war to fight. What supplies would you need from Haven, if you were doing that?>

:Not that much. I can make a list for you to take back to Haven - hmm, actually, maybe I should send Yfandes with you. So they don't panic that you kidnapped me: He shrugs. :I was taking a break from the front and visiting my parents when you arrived, so you're not really pulling me away from the war effort, and watching this place will be way less stressful and depressing: 

<All right. Yfandes and Arran -> he tail-gestures at a nearby Andalite - <can go back to Haven; I want to reevaluate our plans to fix the ship in light of some of the things that we have discussed. And then I think -

- I would like to know more about Leareth.>

Yfandes follows Arran. With some reluctance. :Take care, Chosen. I'll be back fast: 

Vanyel takes a deep breath. :All right. Do you have specific questions? I'm missing a lot of information about Leareth because he's, well, very paranoid and secretive, and also I don't have a way of verifying most of it and he could be lying to me: 

<He is thousands of years old? How is this accomplished? Has he run a country before?>

:I don't know how he made himself immortal. Magic, I assume. His body can die but he - comes back, like different incarnations. It seems like he reappears as an adult, so he either can just make a body come from nowhere, like our Groveborn Companion - but I think that's a miracle from a god, not just magic - or he takes over bodies or something. He's run multiple countries before, I think, and been an advisor to even more: 

His tail lashes at 'takes over bodies or something.' <Which ones? Do we have records of what they were like?>

:Some. There are some treatises he published that I guessed were him. And - I think he has records of everything. At one point he told me how to get into a cave of supplies and records, as part of proving his immortality - it's full of books but they're in code and I was never able to decipher it: 

<Do you have them somewhere where we could take a look at them.>

:Oh. Some are in my room in Haven, I can probably tell someone to get them–: He stops. :Complicating factor, the other Heralds don't know I talk to him. Our Groveborn Companion, Taver, wanted it kept secret for some sort of Foresight bad-feeling reason. Anyway, some are there and most are still in the cave, I could take you to it if your shuttle is able to fly six hundred miles: 

<It can do that, yes.>

Nod. :You think you'd be able to read them?: 

<If we are unable to I will disbelieve that this man is of your world, which would be important information in its own right. Making codes that our capabilities cannot break requires our capabilities, or something very close to them.>

That's fascinating, and makes sense. Vanyel nods. 

:He might also be willing to tell you more. More motivated to convince you than he's been to convince me. You arriving...kind of changes everything we know about the world. Worlds: 

<He suggested that we leave him a 'note' if we cared to respond to his offer. I have not actually looked into what information format that is but I suppose we could leave one requesting that he tell us more.>

:Does your world have writing, on paper?: 

<No, but I have heard of it. A note is writing the message on paper?>

:Yes. We can get you paper and ink from Haven if you don't have it. And I guess I'd better write it, so it's in a language he can read: 

<We do not have paper and ink. I will ask Arran and Yfandes to request some.> 

Nod. :What, er, format do your people use to communicate if someone is too far away to talk to? ...I guess you probably have technology for it, like we have magic: 

<We do. On our home planet in the sky there are machines that send information all around the world with about a second's lag time. On ships those machines are specially built so that communications cannot be usefully intercepted.>

:Wow: 

Vanyel falls silent. He's now partly thinking about the analogues with spells and Gifts that exist here, and partly wondering how much more Leareth would even need to know to get to work reinventing their technology himself. 

The shuttle touches down in Haven. Arran informs Yfandes they are supposed to additionally pick up paper and ink.

Some people also wearing white artificial-skin are running out to meet the shuttle. 

"Randi," Savil snaps, "consider staying back, in case they're not–"

"No." Randi waits for someone to emerge from the shuttle. 

The ramp descends. Arram waits for Yfandes since she presumably knows how to deal with the local bipedal population and he does not.

Yfandes passes a quick update to Randi's Companion and to Taver, just arriving, confirming that Vanyel is up north helping guard the downed ship that brought the strangers here, that their leader said under Truth Spell he wasn't here to harm Valdemar, and that they most definitely need help. 

:Taver, should we tell them that Leareth...?: 

The Groveborn Companion prances unhappily. :- Yes. I think the time has come that it is unavoidably relevant. It will be somewhat delicate though: 

At the same time: "I want to talk to them," Randi is saying, firmly, to his Companion. 

So a Companion mind reaches out. (Randi's Mindspeech exists but is very limited and short-range.) :King Randale of Valdemar would like to speak with you, if that is all right: 

<We would of course be delighted to speak with him. I will mostly understand him if he speaks out loud, our translation software has picked up a serviceable amount of your spoken language.>

The concept of 'software' is only partially coming across, but Randi is so impressed! A little intimidated. He tries not to show it, just bows courteously. (Wonders if the aliens will have any idea what the gesture means.) 

"Er, welcome to Valdemar," he says. "We're sorry to hear about your misfortunes with ending up in the wrong place, and your ship's damage. Vanyel says that you need our help, and - to the extent we can spare it," there's a goddamned war happening, Vanyel really picked the worst time to commit any of Valdemar's resources elsewhere, "you'll have it." 

<Thank you. We understand that your people are at war yourselves, and it is not our desire to distract you from the defense of your homeland. We plan to leave as quickly as possible for our original intended destination. However, there are some complications. A man named Leareth, north of the mountains, kidnapped one of our scouts and communicated interest in learning of the weapons of our world. We wish to refuse him this, but do not presently possess the means to stop him from trying to steal our things or kidnap more people.>

Randi makes a concerned, startled sound, and takes a minute, and some back and forth with his Companion, before he manages to speak. 

"Gods. We, er, know of him... Is that why Vanyel wanted to stay where your ship is?" He scrunches up his face. "Van is probably the only one who could hold him off. And he badly needed a break from the front anyway - this isn't exactly a break but if you avoid working him too hard..." 

"Might as well send me too," Savil points out. "Since I was rudely yanked away from my holiday too." And babysitting her nephew up north, even with a side chance of having to fight Leareth of all people, still sounds better in some ways than needing to deal with her brother. 

"You would of course be welcome to bring your ship and people to Valdemar," Randi says. "My Companion conveys that there are logistical difficulties with moving it, though." 

<In a few weeks if not sooner we should be able to move our ship, and at that time with your leave we can bring it to Valdemar. Right now it is badly damaged. It sounds as if magic might be able to replace the in-atmosphere propulsion systems but not the antigravity.>

Randi spends a moment trying to parse those word-concepts and then decides he doesn't really need to understand it. "Yes, of course. Is there anything else you need in the meantime? Yfandes said pen and paper, clothes for your people who can - shapeshift into human bodies," gods what a concept, "and some of Van's things." Which Taver has sent his Chosen off to collect without a complete explanation. He's being very weird about this. Randi is already tired of it. 

<That is all that we know ourselves to require. The trip here from our ship is short so if additional concerns arise on either side we could return in about seventeen percent of a candlemark to address them.>

Randi makes a face at the absurdly specific math in there. "Yes, of course." 

He does not say anything about how maybe the aliens should repay them for their help with aid in fighting Karse, even though he's very, very tempted. 

Tantras returns lugging a chest. "Vanyel's books that you wanted. In there?" Arms full, he gestures with his chin at the shuttle. 

Someone else is bringing some bags of spare servant uniforms and other assorted clothing to lend the aliens. And pen and paper. 

<Thank you.>

"- And my Companion says you might be able to shapeshift into someone with Gifts, if you have them to copy from?" Randi says faintly. (The idea is wild.) "We'll, er, grab someone we can spare - give us a minute to think about who..." 

<Of course. The copying process is not painful or invasive and shapeshifting to that template does not grant us any power over the person or any command of their abilities beyond simple instincts.>

"I get why Van didn't want you using him as the first test case!" Randi says, emphatically. "Someone with Van's power but not his control or training could cause a big mess by accident."

Herald Masha, who has weak Mindspeech plus Empathy and nothing else, is found and asked if she's willing to volunteer for this. She agrees to go north in the shuttle, and arrives a few minutes later with her Companion. 

Arran communicates that the Andalites are very grateful. Do the locals have any questions before he departs? Are Savil and her bonded person-with-sensible-legs coming too?

Yes, they're coming too! This means three Companions in the shuttle, Savil is worried it'll be kind of crowded. She has a ton of questions but probably Vanyel knows the answers to many of them so she'll wait to ask him. 

(And a lot of her questions are for him specifically, like 'what do you mean you've been talking to Leareth???') 

It will be crowded but the shuttles can fly four Andalites when they absolutely have to so it'll work all right.

Savil spends the trip being amazed by the speed of travel and the view, and fretting about Vanyel's wellbeing. 

He seemed like a worthy warrior, and very sensible.

They land in the ship bay of the larger ship, and exit into the room with lots of grass.

Vanyel, after finishing his conversation with Matirin, is sitting cross-legged in said grass and cheerfully giving some Andalites in human form advice on word pronunciation. He's carefully not looking at them because they're still completely nude. 

"Savil!" He scrambles up and heads over. "I didn't think Randi would send you - does he want to swap me back–" He's oddly reluctant. This overall situation might be dangerous, but the place itself is soothing and pleasant to be in and the aliens are a lot more enjoyable to interact with than his parents. 

"No, no, he said you can stay. Since apparently Leareth is sticking his nose in this business, and we know you're the only one powerful enough to give him a fight." A raised eyebrow. 

"- You do owe me a full explanation, ke'chara, but that can wait." Savil is also averting her eyes from all the nudity. "We, er, have some clothes for them. And pen and paper were requested...?" She glances around. "Should I introduce myself - who's in charge -"

<I am War-Prince Matirin-Ashal-Nelinfir, and I command this ship and its crew. Thank you for the artificial skin, I will ask everybody to put it on when in human form.> He imitates the bowing-motion that the humans have been doing.

Andalites proceed with an extraordinary degree of difficulty to attempt the artificial skin.

Vanyel has never seen anyone, possibly not even toddlers, attempt to don clothing with such hilarious incompetence. He gives suggestions and keeps biting his lips in order not to laugh about it. 

Savil does not quite contain a few snickers. 

Eventually the Andalites in human form are not naked! They keep fidgeting with their clothes and making faces.

The Andalites in Andalite form are feeding Leareth's journals to a scanner, page by page. 

Honestly, Savil sympathizes. Clothes are often kind of terrible and she feels a pang of nostalgia for k'Treva, where they're optional. 

She sits down with Vanyel and obtains a quick Mindspeech explanation and makes various fascinating faces, and then gets up and wanders over to stare at the scanner in amazement. 

"Er, need help with anything?" she asks after a moment. 

<Do you know what language to expect these journals to be in once decoded?>

:- No, not really? Er, based on where Van found them, could be Karsite or Valdemaran or maybe Rethwellani. All of which I can read well enough: 

<Then I do not think we need anything, and we can present the decoded journals to you once we are done scanning them.>

Savil spends a couple of minutes gawking at the ship's various interesting features, and then joins Vanyel in putting mage-shielding and wards on it.

And once they've fed the books into the scanner they can call Vanyel and Savil over to come take a look at the decoded version.

Vanyel is awed and kind of scared by how quickly and easily they deciphered a code he spent weeks banging his head on in vain. 

These particular records are in (somewhat archaic) Rethwellani. They're nine hundred years old, a century older than Valdemar as a country; the written spelling has shifted somewhat in the interim but is still comprehensible if he reads the confusing bits out loud.

They contain an abbreviated accounting of Leareth's work in Rethwellan, which already existed as a kingdom at the time, and had the magical Sword of Rethwellan for choosing its rulers, but otherwise lacked most of the features of modern Rethwellan. Leareth (going by a different name) apparently advised one of their monarchs for most of his reign, setting up various monetary and trade policies that seem likely to have contributed to Rethwellan's current prosperity, opening a mage-school in the capital that Savil claims still exists in the present, and formalizing a lot of Rethwellani's legal system into written law. It sounds competently done and none of it is especially horrifying. The journal is mostly a dry list of events and work done, but does contain occasional complaints about how younger-Leareth could absolutely make this happen faster if he took charge himself. 

It is not zero encouraging that on this occasion he did useful things without relying (according to his notes) on mind control but these are also the records he chose to give Vanyel so it's not very much information. It does not leave him delighted about giving the man the power to conquer the world but - well, realistically he can't rule it out. He does not say all this. He does ask for more context on Leareth's invasion plans, why he's invading Valdemar in particular, do they know how he might be - tail lash - seizing control of other peoples' bodies...

Vanyel has no idea why he wants to invade Valdemar in particular! Could just be that it's the closest place to the region north of the mountains, which was probably an easy place to stage an army given its lack of existing state structures. ...Sorry, closest place to the north other than Iftel, but Iftel is protected by a giant miraculous shield barrier and probably even Leareth can't get through that. 

He can't give them anything more on the hypothesized body-snatching, Leareth is especially close-mouthed about his immortality setup. 

What do they think of leaving a note for him? Matirin is conflicted. He would really strongly prefer to have nothing to do with this person if it can be avoided, but it might be that it cannot. 

:Hmm. I'm - trying to decide what he's likely to do if you send a note, and...what he'll do if you don't send a note...: Vanyel looks thoughtful. :It's interesting that he only held onto your scout long enough to ask some questions, and hasn't kidnapped anyone else. I'm absolutely certain he could if he wanted to, and - he has to want your morphing ability, I'm sure he'd have noticed how it shows up to mage-sight and - he could just mind-control one of your people into demonstrating, right... Which he hasn't done. I don't know why, or - how likely it is that he'll change his mind if we just ignore him...: 

Tail-lash. <I do not wish to be at war with this man and I appreciate that he has not yet tried to make it necessary.>

:I bet he doesn't want to be at war with you either, he thinks wars are wasteful and worth avoiding if you can accomplish your aims peacefully, but - I know him. He'd think it unconscionable for you to have technology that could let us feed everyone on this planet - probably you have medical advances too, and whatever else you get with a far more advanced civilization - and not share it. And, morphing would change everything, and - gives us some hints about how the laws of reality must work. I don't know if he could bring himself to let your people leave without trying to learn more: 

<I understand why someone would feel that way. I think the stakes of galactic wars may be hard to convey. If you have to learn the way to the stars yourselves, slowly, millions of people will die needlessly. If you start a war once you get there, trillions might.>

Vanyel ducks his head. Doesn't say anything for a moment. He's trying and failing to absorb the sheer scale of that number. Trillions. 

:He...would understand that: he says finally. :I think you should give that reason in your note. Explain what happened with the Yeerks. He - would get why at the very least that means the onus is on him to prove he wouldn't misuse that power: 

<That makes sense.>

He thinks for a few minutes and then says <I can dictate a note for you, if now is convenient.>

Vanyel arranges himself with pen and paper. :Go ahead: 

<Leareth:

This is War-Prince Matirin-Ashal-Nelinfir. I have the command of the ship that crash-landed on Velgarth. We are giving serious consideration to your offer to help us in the war against the Yeerks. We have two significant hesitations. The first is that we have no expectation you object to the tactics of the Yeerks, given your own employ of them, and are skeptical that you would continue to prefer to work with us once you have reached Earth and could defect.

The second is that presenting you with the resources you have requested would indubitably make it possible for you to conquer other civilizations on your planet, a conquest we understand you to be already planning. The human civilization certain to die at your hands should this come to pass has aided us and offered us sanctuary, and we are reluctant to repay them by enabling their destruction.

More importantly, it is possible that this would present you for the resources to pursue the conquest of the galaxy. Several hundred years ago, Andalites encountered Yeerks on their home world, and set ourselves immediately to providing them with all the technological assistance we could in improving their lives. This went very badly. The Yeerks took us by surprise in a sudden attack and set out to conquer and enslave other peoples. Eight worlds so far have been consumed by this conflict. Hundreds more are potentially at risk. I observed to the Heralds that, while the costs to a civilization of being denied advanced technology are certainly counted in the millions of lives, the costs of enabling yet another galactic conquerer are rather measured in the trillions. 

These hesitations are not necessarily prohibitive and it is our sincere hope that you might have suggestions on how to address them. However, given their significance and potential stakes, we would at this time find it necessary to respond to efforts to learn our capabilities without addressing them as an act of war. This ship is badly damaged, which would make it unusually difficult to limit collateral damage in such a war if it were to occur. Not all of our resources to wage war are on this ship, but the resources elsewhere are even more difficult to use in a fashion that limits collateral damage. 

With due respect,

Matirin-Ashal-Nelinfir>

Vanyel neatly writes out everything as requested. 

:What would you do if he attacked?: he asks when he's finished. :Self-destruct the ship, you mentioned - that probably could kill him if he came in person. My Foresight dream thinks I have to die fighting him, so presumably Final Strike: 

<What is a Final Strike?>

:Um. Mages in our world can - decide to sacrifice ourselves and use our life-energies to make a very big fireball: 

Andalite body language is hard to read but if anything they seem approving. 

<Andalite ships having the living quarters - this part - and the part which houses weaponry. The two parts detach in combat for greater maneuverability. Accordingly this ship does not have the full weapons detachment. Nonetheless were it in orbit we could ensure that nothing survived north of the mountains. There would be seismic activity elsewhere.>

:Would that, um, involve destroying the ship too? And...is there anything you can do if it's still too damaged to get it into orbit at all?: 

<No, the ship would be fine. If we cannot get it into orbit there are...options, but very bad options, beyond causing it to self-destruct. 

If we arrived on Earth too late to save it, and its populace faced unavoidable and certain universal enslavement to the Yeerks, our orders were to prevent the Yeerks from obtaining five billion more bodies through which to conquer more planets. We were given weapons that could be used to that end. I do not want to speak of them in detail. Some of them could be used to target only a specific area but it would carry even more risk than striking from orbit. In truth, my assessment is that use of those options might be worse than letting your conqueror win, but he is aware of them - he asked about contingency plans on Earth when he interrogated our scout - and if he accordingly hesitates to start a war with us and tries to talk with us instead that would be good.

As Valdemar is the country most likely to be affected if he steals weaponry from us, and likely to be also affected by any retaliation, we would of course consult you about what to do.>

...Wow. Vanyel tries not to react with too much obvious horror to the admission that they're, what, planning to just kill everyone if they can't win this war? Wow. 

:I think that should give him a reason not to fight, yes: he says, weakly. Holds up the folded note. :Ready to go drop this off?: 

<Yes.> He will offer it to the person stuck in bird form, who can take it in his beak and fly off. 

<I understand that the plans for Earth must seem - entirely unconscionable. I can attempt to explain more if you would like.>

:Yes, I would like to hear more context on - why that: 

<Yeerks have successfully taken several planets before. What they do is reproduce quickly to ensure that there are enough Yeerks to claim every person in the world as a host. They crawl in through the ear canal and seize total control of the body; the host is conscious, but cannot move or act, and the Yeerk can when desired block their access to their senses. Yeerks take every healthy adult as a host, and kill unhealthy ones; children too young to have the motor control to be useful hosts are kept in good health, though without attention to their emotional or social development, which is not required for the Yeerk to use their body effectively when they are old enough to be infested. They maintain a very high rate of reproduction so that they can quickly vastly increase the number of available host bodies; with humans we have projected that they could double the population every twenty years. The low-level hosts are set to manufacturing ships and weaponry so that the Yeerks can conquer new worlds. No human over the age of four would ever take an independent action again, and within a generation they would not particularly have the opportunity to contemplate it because it has negative effects on people to be raised by neglectful caretakers and enslaved forever at the age of four.>

:...Gods. That's awful. And - they could use those resources to take even more planets, I assume: He makes a face. :I don't suppose you know why they're so -set on conquest? Have your people tried to open peace talks, or at least convince them that's enough planets already?: 

<We know that it is unpleasant to be a Yeerk who does not have a host since their native senses are very limited, and that they have a hierarchy that promotes people for particular success in conquest. I think the prospects of peace with the current leadership are not good since they believe that they are winning.>

...Nod. 

<If we can change that, then maybe they'll talk.> Tail-lash. <Hopefully we can change that in some fashion that does not endanger your world either.>

:That makes sense. We'll - try to help as much as we can: He looks thoughtful. :We use magic for repairing buildings and roads, sometimes. Wonder if I could help fix your ship faster: 

<...that might be very valuable. I can introduce you to our engineers.>

:Of course: 

He introduces him to his engineers! For most of what's broken on their ship they have spare parts or the ability to make them, but they have to disassemble lots of massive pieces of machinery to swap the new parts in and sometimes just to figure out what's wrong, if the diagnostics are themselves much of what's broken.

Vanyel thinks he can use Farsight and to some extent mage-sight to look inside said complicated machines, including at very fine scale, and he can combine mage-gift and Fetching very effectively to dissemble machines without needing to reach in with hands or other appendages, especially useful when the components are damaged in a way that leaves them jammed. He can also weld metals if they need that done. For delicate fiddly welding or other crafting work, his colleague Sandra is actually a lot better, she does alchemy as a hobby, makes all of her own equipment and has figured out tricks for using mage-techniques to purify various substances from rocks or dirt. 

All of that sounds very valuable in fixing this ship faster! They'd be very grateful for his help and Sandra's, though they are aware that Valdemar is at war and apparently has a dozen mages of which they would then be using three. 

Vanyel thinks that if they bring Sandra in they'll have to exchange her for Savil, probably, so Haven has enough people to take shifts watching the Web. Savil is more useful for wards and shielding but she can maybe do all that tonight. (And then he'll have his aunt's company a little longer. He likes Sandra fine but she's not family.)