"Oh." 

Stef looks like someone who hadn't thought of this possibility at all. He chews on it for a while. 

"...I'm good at not getting caught," he says finally, with a grin. 

Medren sighs. 

"Stef, if you sneak out for that again, I won't cover for you with Breda." 

Stef is going to roll his eyes and SULK. 

And Trainee Dara heads off to try to slip into Healers' and learn a little more about what's going on here. 

Leareth spends the rest of that afternoon reviewing notes and catching up. 

In terms of the exact letter of his agreements with Cheliax: he made a good-faith commitment to non-interference with their operations in Iftel. They asked him nicely to also avoid interfering in Cheliax's own affairs, in Golarion, but - as far as he can tell from the exact wording of his notes, plus what he remembers, which is a lot more now that he has a HEADBAND - he didn't make a hard commitment on that. It was something he expressed theoretical willingness to commit to in exchange for gaining access to Golarion, but that was something Laborda claimed he lacked the authority to promise on behalf of his government, and it's not like Leareth is going to need to do that through Cheliax, now. 

So. Unless he wants to make a formal declaration of war, he should stay out of Iftel, and also ask Iomedae's people to stage elsewhere if they plan to attack. 

He spends a couple of candlemarks poking at his research models on how to route an interplanar Gate, and makes substantial progress - the headband helps a lot, he can hold much more complicated structures in his mind - and then decides he had better go follow up with the paladins on getting some sort of guide to using paladin powers, if there are more of them than just the healing. 

(Meanwhile, one of Leareth's mage-geologist specialists visits Carissa, wanting to examine her Ring of Sustenance in detail and see if he can figure out the properties of spellsilver and identify whether it's one of the known metals that can be mined in Velgarth. He has a lot of samples of different metals or alloys, and a table drawn up.) 

Are they going to take the ring. She expects someone to at some point realize they should take the ring. 

Until they get around to that she's delighted to tell them everything she knows about spellsilver and how it's extracted, it has recognizable magical properties and even in alloys you can tell that magic doesn't flow through it quite right....

They do not take the ring. 

The mage-geologist does, however, ask if he can bring in someone else who specializes in artifacts to study the ring. What does it do, anyway? Is it something Carissa can make more of, like the headband, if she gets spellsilver for it? 

Of course they can study it. The ring reduces her need for sleep to two hours a day, and replaces eating and drinking. "It's divine magic, which I haven't got, but I could do it in conjunction with a cleric of third circle or higher."

That's incredible! ...And very likely means it's not replicable with Velgarth magic; they've already noticed that divine magic is often doing something very different. 

He pokes at the ring with mage-sight some more, and then sends a message for a dozen samples of different obscure metals, not in his initial collection, to be brought over. Is Carissa going to be able to help identify if any of them are right, or mostly-right and might contain the metal in a mixed alloy? 

Yeah, she can draw magic through them and tell which ones wobble wrong - see, like that. There's some spellsilver in this one. And in this one.

Wow! That's really incredible - and not something Velgarth mages had ever noticed, though it is visible to mage-sight. Plausibly Velgarth mages were much less incentivized to find materials with those properties, because it's so much easier for them to directly manipulate magical energies? But if spellsilver artifacts don't need to be periodically re-powered, that could be revolutionary! 

- They're going to have to open some new mines to get spellsilver in any significant quantity. Which will need approval from Leareth, though he should give it right away. In the meantime, though, he can probably sit down right here and use magic to separate out the component metals in the alloys, and get her a (small) sample of pure spellsilver? 

That would be neat. She'd love to get started on the headbands for them.

Then within a candlemark, they can have about an ounce of pure spellsilver for her! It’s the result of purifying every single sample they could find anywhere, so it’ll be a while before there’s more. 

Just after sunset, local time, a message reaches them. It’s from the Heralds of Valdemar, in code using a cipher-book that Nayoki exchanged with them, but Nayoki is happy to show the paladins the translation process. 

King Randale has received intelligence that the representatives of the Lawful Good god Iomedae are setting up in Leareth’s territory, and might also be interested in contact with Valdemar?

The paladins would absolutely like to do that.

Great! The letter includes a proposal, with a time and place for them to send some representatives of their choice, to meet with some representatives of Valdemar. The location is in Valdemar, but well north of Haven. There is a map included and a drawing of the building they'll be meeting in. King Randale specifies that Leareth is authorized to raise exactly one Gate and drop people off there at the appointed meeting time, they'll be expecting the Web-alarm and won't treat it as a threat.

(The location was chosen to be remote, and definitely far enough away from Haven that the Asmodean diplomats still on site won't be spying on it or notice anything, but also close enough to be reached in eight candlemarks' hard riding for a Companion. And they're aware that Golarion magic is limited when it comes to travelling to new places, but also, thanks to a four-candlemark-long interrogation, that Leareth is exceptional at Gates and can definitely drop off some supposed paladins with just a map-location.) 

The suggested meeting-time is noon. Valdemar will be checking Leareth's provided message channel for confirmation; they'll assume the meeting is off if they haven't received it by dawn. 

Leareth can deliver that confirmation, sure. Do the paladins want him to do that? 

"I think we should send at least a few people, unless you have reason to think the Asmodeans will have successfully compromised them already."

"I doubt it? I suspect Valdemar is...wary of upsetting Cheliax or otherwise ending up on bad terms - they share a border with Iftel and are in a much more vulnerable position than my own operations, if Cheliax decides to invade them as well, and they are still recovering from a war with Karse that ended last year. But the Heralds are -"

He stops. Chuckles. "- Very Lawful Good, and - a little like some strange variant on paladins, I suppose. They even have the magically-bonded horses." Leareth has been getting a BRIEFING on what sorts of capabilities and other boons paladins get from having that role with their god. 

"That seems like it'd at least be protective against Cheliax - directly mind-controlling them or convincing them of Evil. All right. We'll do it. It'd be good for Iomedae to be able to see Valdemar better."

"I very much agree." 

Leareth sends a reply, politely confirming that Iomedae's faction will send several representatives to the suggested location at the meeting-time provided. He studies the map so that he'll be ready to Gate. 

Back in Valdemar, they've been discussing for candlemarks what to do about sending their own envoy to Cheliax. (Randi thinks that Vanyel has a point and this is the easiest way both to stay on good terms with Cheliax in the short term and not appear to be stalling, and also to get the diplomats out of Haven.) 

The problem is that now all of the Heralds on the Senior Circle, e.g. pretty much everyone in Haven who's qualified to go, have information that Leareth claims would be damaging for Asmodeus to learn. 

Savil is the one who finally proposes it. 

"- You know, we do have some fairly experienced Heralds who aren't stationed in Haven. ...And who have a lot more experience with diplomacy than any of us do, honestly." 

"Please tell me you're not talking about Herald Lores." 

Katha is definitely not snickering, not even a little bit. (It's a very effortful not-snicker.)