That gets an actually-engaged expression from Leareth!

"Really? That...could be rather incredible. ...If you keep it to within Haven, where Vanyel outpowers the other gods. They - do not especially approve of technological progress. What sorts of things would you wish to build, and what resources would you need for it?" 

"The main thing I know how to do is plumbing systems--ways to get fresh water into houses and take away waste. Even if it's already been invented I bet I can do it here cheaper than anyone else because it's my affinity."

"Amazing! The Eastern Empire has plumbing but I would not be surprised if your world's is better. Are there non-magical ways of purifying waste water to render it safe to drink again?" 

Leareth has so many questions and should probably not try to ask all of them right now but it's awfully tempting. 

"Uh, boiling, filtering, a little bit of chlorine but I don't know how much exactly and I think it has to be pretty exact not to poison people--distilling but that involves boiling . . ." shrug.

He should REALLY not be trying to have this conversation right now! But it's so tempting! 

"What is 'chlorine'?" 

"It's, uh, it's one of the elements in salt but on its own it's a greenish gas and if you breathe it you die. It makes some other compounds that are solid and those are what you use to purify water."

Leareth nods, but he's clearly only half-listening at this point. 

Once Kevin finishes, and he's received the whole translation from Melody, he lifts a hand. "I - sorry - on another topic, since I...am not sure if this was addressed. It - came up with Annisa, when we spoke with Vanyel. ...Does your world have gods? Do they bring dead souls to an afterlife? If so, is it a reasonable one?" 

"There's no gods or afterlife as far as we know. Some people believe in gods but they don't agree on which ones exist and they can't actually get unfakeable messages from dead people, they just talk about how you have to have faith or that God is the voice in your heart telling you to do the right thing or whatever." There is admittedly a voice in Marcy's heart telling her to the right thing, but it's usually her own voice except when it's a squadmate or one of her parents.

"That...is what I had feared. Annisa - seemed to take Vanyel's existence as evidence of gods likely existing in her world as well, but I am not sure it is that." His mouth tightens. "If there is nothing left at all of people when they die, in your world - and if three of four wizard children die - then that...makes it considerably more important. To do something about that." 

Three fourths of the ones who get spots in the Scholomance. Nineteen in twenty of the ones who don't.

"How good is Vanyel at spotting and killing mals? I'm worried if they get in here it would be as bad or worse for you, and they can get through anything a human can and a lot of things they can't."

Sigh. "Unfortunately Vanyel is not very able to judge that, for a world he has never interacted with in any way, and we are still figuring out exact details of how to communicate human-level knowledge or sensory input to him effectively." 

"Can you explain--what his abilities are, what he can perceive, what sort of actions he can take, what his goals are?"

"...I can try. It may be a conversation to finish later when I am...less tired." The painkilling spell is incredible but the tired is still present, and starting to catch up with him. "Gods, in our world, are - beings that are much 'larger' in some sense than mortals, and have aspects of Themselves in many different planes, though - not in a way that is exactly like having a body anywhere in particular. Obviously this means that their primary sensory input is very unlike ours, and comes mainly in the form of Foresight. Most of them are minimally able to interact with mortals, in ways that are clumsy and result in very lossy communication. Vanyel in particular is much better at this, because unlike the others he was originally human, and because - most of the work that I did on my god-design was toward an improved communication interface. There are likely still pieces lost in translation, but only...internal to him, if that makes any sense? He might know something in his more humanlike aspect and fail to usefully translate it into more god-level terms." Pause. "Does any of that make sense?" 

"I think . . . it makes as much sense as a string of words about something there aren't words for can make. I don't think I can get from there to knowing what to do, but if we're not in a hurry on the scale of hours I can go study Valdemaran or something while you sleep."

Nod. "Aside from that, he is - much more intelligent than a human, though not to the same extent in all ways. In terms of attention, the number of problems or tasks he can track at once, he is several hundred times smarter. He is capable of following a single chain of reasoning faster, by a factor of - ten or twenty, at a guess. He - is not, yet, much better than an unaltered human at forming new insights or learning entirely new skills; in fact, he is under a number of very strong safeguards to prevent this along certain directions. His ability to act in the world, and to some extent to perceive it at all, are also very firmly location-locked to Haven, as a protective measure. I...will be able to lift those once I - have checked that he - came out correctly, and not with distorted values or something..." 

This is an incredibly unfair level of tired to be. Leareth is at the point where he can barely keep his eyes open. 

Marcy's brain starts to scream about the awfulness of preventing someone from becoming smarter, then gets smacked down by the obvious sensibleness of the precaution. 

"Okay. I'll be back in . . . whenever you or Melody says is a good time." Her sleep schedule has been locked to classes and curfew for four years and is now thrashing around like a snapped rubber band but hopefully it will pick up on the solar day soon.

"Yes, of course, we can do that. Er, should we also keep you in the loop if anything else weird and confusing happens? Hopefully it won't overnight, but, well." Shrug. 

"We definitely want to know about any weird and confusing things--oh, and I was going to try a divination for the other lost graduates once Herald Joshel has a bag of rocks, I should still do that."

"Seems like a good idea. Jisa?" 

Jisa has been hovering back against the wall of Leareth's sickroom, looking exhausted and overwhelmed. :I, um, don't know where he's gotten to, I guess finding uniform rocks must've turned out to be hard. I'll Mindspeak him: 

Pause. 

:He had to trek over to Sandra and Kilchas' quarters to ransack her workshop, but he thinks he'll find enough there: 

"Sorry. They can have them back right afterwards." Mindspeech is very cool.

Grief. Exhaustion. :They're...not going to need them back, exactly: 

"Oh. I'm sorry."

Jisa shakes herself a little. Tries to smile, though it's up there contending for the least convincing smile Marcy has ever seen. :- Er, I mean, Sandra's alive. She's just...unconscious, a couple rooms from here. Just - doesn't seem likely she'll be doing artifact work again anytime soon: If ever. It was impressive enough that she eventually got back to it after losing her sight. 

"I hope she recovers quickly. I assume you've already tried your kind of healing magic but if you want us to see if we have anything that stacks with it we can try."