:I guess you could say that. Or, like, Urtho's achievements did:

Dara nods again. :Well, I know it'd be dangerous and too much to ask for you to actually go talk to him - and it might be a really terrible idea, if he's changed enough and isn't trustworthy - but, um, it's possible we can find a way to send a message. Risky for our messenger, but - worth it, maybe, for this: 

:I don't know what I'd say, I mean, it'd sound really implausible:

:I don't know what you'd say either, but...: 

:He'd want to know, right? If you could ask your friend Ma'ar, right now, whether if you ended up in the future and found out his immortal older self was there, he'd want you to tell him, I think?: 

:I think if I told Ma'ar 'hey, I time traveled, and your older self is here and he's a two thousand year old bodysnatching mass-murderer plotting to invade the country I'm in for blood-power, who will in no way believe that I am his childhood friend if I send him a letter about it', Ma'ar would be like 'have you considered not being anywhere near that guy, he sounds dangerous'!:

:...That's fair: 

:I feel like there has to be something useful we can do with this information! I just...don't know what. Maybe we need more time to think about it: 

:What even is the current status of your lines of communication with him?:

:Um. We have some agreements he made with Vanyel, that he'd give a messenger safe passage, though who knows how far we can trust that now. And of course Van's gone to try to find him. I suppose we could try getting a message out to him? He probably hasn't passed Waymeet yet. But we're, er, trying not to draw attention to his trip, and also Waymeet is a lot further north and would be one of the first targets if he invades, I don't think you'd better go there: 

:He has obviously changed a lot but I think I do in fact buy he'd give a messenger safe passage if he agreed to that, as long as you don't have reason to believe that's ludicrous on its face as a claim:

:- Tran would claim it's ludicrous. I...don't think it is? It seems like he really has stuck by the promises he made to Van, over the years, and - I don't know, I think someone can be ruthless and still keep their word: She shook her head. :Just, with what's been happening recently, I'm worried a lot of things might've changed now: 

:We should probably catch Azabel up properly on all that?: 

:Wouldn't hurt:

:And maybe we should give you a summary of what's happened in the last two thousand years. But we'll start with Valdemar and Vanyel, I guess. Jisa, do you want to...?: 

:Sure. Um, Vanyel had - a tragic thing happen, a magical accident - it's when his lifebonded died - and he ended up with nine active Gifts, and a mage-gift about ten times as powerful as a normal Adept. And the Foresight dream about fighting Leareth. Then he found out they could talk in it. That was twenty years ago: 

:I'm sure you know that's all very weird:

:...Yes, we know. It gets weirder: Jisa rubs her neck. :Anyway, Leareth - was basically teaching Vanyel for the first ten years? Recommending books to him, talking about history and ethical dilemmas, mostly hypotheticals because they were both being really cautious about revealing any information. But it seems like from pretty early on, Leareth wanted to not be his enemy. Just, not badly enough to - to give up on his god plan, I guess: 

She frowns, thinking. :...Anyway, Vanyel kept talking to him, and didn't tell any of the Heralds - they told Taver, the last Groveborn, and he said to keep it secret, but then he died in the Karsite war. And Yfandes never told Rolan, he's the new Groveborn. I'll skip ahead, I guess; they'd been talking for fifteen years when he told Vanyel the entire plan. At which point Van's Companion - had some sort of fight with him over it. Van wasn't even agreeing, he just wanted to give it a proper think, but she reacted really badly and ran off for five days. She came back, but in the meantime Vanyel was kind of having a breakdown over it, and couldn't hide it, so all the senior Heralds found out. And found out he'd been hiding it for over a decade. People were really upset: 

:Who's Yfandes?:

:Oh, sorry, right - she's Vanyel's Companion: Jisa's brow furrows. :Van said that it - seemed like she had a lot of difficulty thinking about the gods being bad? And then especially about the part where Leareth wanted to make a new one to fight the others. It was weird: 

:Wow, that's, uh, gross. Does yours have that problem?:

:....Huh. I'm - not sure? Not to the same extent, definitely, but I guess we don't talk about it that much. I only found out less than a year ago anyway, and I would usually talk about it with Van: 

Dara is looking vaguely uneasy. :Rolan is kind of weird about it too. He doesn't get mad at me, but he's frustrating, so I usually don't bother: 

:They're 'miraculous'? Who made 'em?:

:We don't know. The history just says he prayed to 'all the gods he knew of', and then I guess Someone answered - maybe more than one - but They didn't introduce Themselves: