"Well, yeah, it's worse for us, but since it's better for Them I'd expect Them to do it, if they can. Anyway, Cheliax isn't like that, we've got arcane healing."

"- I am glad? ...And, yes, I agree, that state of affairs could be more beneficial for the gods." He looks into her eyes. "But I am not a god. And neither are you." 

" - well, no. Wasn't even particularly planning on it. Rethwellan?"

"Rethwellan is - doing fairly well. Centre of scholarship, has the most famous academies and hosts many of the best schools for mages. ...Were not planning on – is there a sufficiently known route to becoming a god, in your world, that some people do plan on it?" 

Leareth is watching her particularly closely, and throwing a lot of his attention at finding ways that getting around her native shields to read her thoughts wouldn't count as an action. And also he's watching her face, of course, just as a fallback. 

"Some of the gods are ascended humans. Not here?"

"- Fascinating! Not here that anyone knows of, no." It's not impossible that someone could do it - some of his own plans rely on it - but they...wouldn't really, in any very meaningful sense, be the same person afterward. 

"Almost everyone who tries fails and the last success was a thousand years ago but particularly ambitious wizards usually at least contemplate it. I want to be a devil and do magic research, though."

Leareth isn’t sure if he can keep his face and tone entirely neutral while talking, so he just nods, makes a noncommittal noise, and waits for the next question.

"Jkatha?"

Leareth has relatively few facts cached about Jkatha, in this current lifetime and this brain.

”Trade hub between Rethwellan and Seejay. Borders on the Dhorisha Plains.” 

"What're those?"

“Dhorisha Plains? Desert. Under strict control of the Star-Eyed Goddess and Her people.”

"Star-Eyed Goddess?"

“- Has a pact with two different peoples. The Tayledras are repairing lands damaged by a Cataclysm thousands of years ago - west of Valdemar and Rethwellan, now, it was larger before. The Shin’a’in people guard the Dhorisha Plains from outsiders.”

"A pact? What does that mean? She's Lawful?"

“I suppose that is the natural interpretation? She made an agreement with their peoples and all their descendants, in exchange for Her protection, and a few - gifts of magic, I suppose.”

"What're the terms, do you know?"

“Not exactly, no - I am not of their people. I suspect only their priesthood knows, if anyone still living does at all.”

Nod. 

"What kind of military aid might Valdemar send Iftel? What share of their population is mages?"

"Of Valdemar's population? Low. I doubt they would want to risk any of them." 

Leareth is not, he decides, going to willingly mention Vanyel's existence. He'll do what he can to elide it under whatever their other interrogation methods are, but...well, he'll have to see what those are. At least he can draw it out. 

(Maybe long enough to even have the dream...) 

"I don't know if this is true of Velgarth magic, but you can't be a wizard if you're stupid."

"- Fascinating! I think this has been studied here, in the past." By Leareth. He studied it. Back in the Eastern Empire, which actually had the ability to collect useful census data; he desperately misses that aspect sometimes. "It correlates somewhat with mage-gift being present, but - no more than the extent to which mage-gift correlates with general good health. Within the population of mages, more powerful Gifts do not seem to correlate with intelligence at all, though of course skill and finesse does." 

"Huh. And yet it seems to me that you are not stupid, and you run a sophisticated competent mercenary outfit that operates on Valdemar's northern border, and so I feel like we should be able to come up with a more detailed guess, here, for Valdemar's likely contributions."

Ah. Is that what that comment was about. 

"I think it depends heavily on what intelligence they receive about Cheliax and Asmodeus, and whether they feel that they will be next, if Iftel is conquered. They recently fought a major war with Karse and are low on resources - they would not risk their people lightly. In order of what they would be most willing to offer... Supplies first, I think, then un-Gifted troops - oh, and I heard a rumour that they are already sending Healings. They do also have a substantial network of Mindspeakers, close to a hundred, but most are part of a government institution which has historically not been allowed through Iftel's barrier at all." 

She's obviously going to ask why and he'll have to say something about servants of different gods, but it's not like he fully understands why Iftel doesn't allow Heralds in, and he's also curious what this wizard will infer first. 

"Who does Iftel allow through the barrier?"