"Yeah, that'd be the way to do it, and then the artifacts will run out of power and be useless if the Queen tries to use them."

Nod. "It might not be impossible to figure out a way of re-powering them with sorcery, but it is certainly not obvious to me how one would research that, even though I already understand how they work." 

"It'd probably at least take a while, though I should assume she has all the best sorcerers in the world."

"We should think about a contingency plan for if she does capture the Fetcher-Mindspeaker. I suppose one option would be to try again the same way, but from a different location, but - trying the same plan that failed once and hoping it will succeed is not the ideal strategy. The much more aggressive plan I had been considering was to open a Gate from high in the air and have Sunspring poke her head through and immediately set-command the Queen to eat food - since we think set-commands override orders, I am not sure compulsioning her to eat would work - but that requires knowing where she is fairly precisely, and also involves risking Sunspring, which I would prefer to avoid." 

"The Queen may have contingencies that will activate if she acts at all oddly and could physically prevent her from eating, anyway."

“That would be a sensible precaution for her to take, and it sounds like she is clever so we ought assume she has taken the obvious measures. Do you have any other ideas for backup plans?”

"I think the initial Fetcher should convey a payload of food likely to sustain claims from a variety of people, and not know who they are, and then those people can begin with Step One already accomplished if she doesn't completely no-sell the Fetching somehow."

"That makes sense. Just to check, how you were envisioning the food-Fetching working? Just mixing it in with their existing food supply so they cannot tell, or - Fetching directly into fairies' mouths, or something else...?" 

"Into her stomach, if they can manage it. I'd be surprised if her food wasn't inspected many times before she gets it. Stomach is better than throat is better than mouth - inducing vomiting immediately might throw off a lot of claims if it wasn't all the way down."

"- They are going to have to practice doing that extensively - it might be better if I can find someone with the Fetching-Mindspeech combination and Healing Sight - or someone who can do concert work, I suppose, we may want that anyway to have Farsight as well..." 

"Oh, I didn't realize it would be that complicated to get the stomach. I mean, it doesn't actually have to be the stomach, since injection works, it's not like they're going to kill her, but it'd be better if she didn't feel it."

"It is complicated because in order to be precise, Fetchers need to either be able to see where they are Fetching something, or have a clear mental image of it, or at least know exactly where it is spatially. I think this ought to be doable with Farsight plus practice, though. Assuming fairies all have the same anatomy, that is. I suppose if they are slightly off, it will end up counting as injection instead and she might notice it, which is still not a complete failure." 

"I don't know if we do, I was never really paying that much attention when I could have looked."

"How much food does it need to be, in order to count?" 

"The rule of thumb is enough that you'd be able to taste it in your mouth but I don't know more finely than that."

"I expect that would not require very much pure sugar, so we could plan on using that." 

"How do you purify sugar?"

"I believe that you boil sugary plant matter in water, strain out the solid matter, and then cook down the water to syrup and eventually crystals? It is labour-intensive, I am not sure of all the details." 

"You're aware that everyone claiming the food would ideally do all the processing themselves?"

"As long as they do not need to have grown the plant in question from a seed and can just harvest it themselves, I think the processing required for the small quantity we need is only a few candlemarks. There may also be a way to cheat at it with magic, for mages." 

"Might want to wait till they can grow it with sorcery. Like how I'm doing the raspberries."

"How long does that skill usually take to reach in the sorcery-learning process?" 

"It's one of the easier things, a lot of fairies can do that and nothing much else."

"I have not been directing most of my practice there, but can shift my efforts and then teach it to others. I suppose we will need quite a long time to prepare for this operation anyway." 

"We shouldn't rush. Everything in Fairyland will keep."