....Vanyel is not going to mention the part about just one island having a big enough population to fuel over a dozen gods. He's thinking it, though. 

"Jisa was hoping to find a way to at least send messages," Leareth says quietly. "So - that their parents can be alerted to what happened." A glance at Annisa. "And - to whether their children survived or not." 

"Mine already know," Annisa says flatly. "But the rest of Boston'll want to get home, if they can. I assume it's not possible? If either world had interworld transit we'd, uh, have noticed. And mals will absolutely get in if you have transit between worlds."

"I would have assumed it was impossible, but I also had no idea that other worlds existed at all! And if travel was possible in this direction, even if only by accident, it is probably possible to reverse it." A slight sigh. "Perhaps not worth the risk."

And then he pauses, and his eyes turn and fix on her again. "Although - Annisa, does your world have gods?" 

"Well, I didn't think so, but some people do think so, and since this world has gods and I apparently do have a soul I'm starting to think they're right."

Leareth...looks confused, mostly. "I would not have thought gods would be easy to miss! Ours prefer to act in subtle ways, but even so Their interventions are unmistakeable; not everybody worships at a particular temple, but I have never heard of anyone denying that gods exist at all." A frown. "What do the people who claim there are gods have to say about Them?" 

"People say they used to do more overt miracles but don't much anymore. There's an obvious explanation for that - magic doesn't work very well around people who don't believe in it, so most wizards can't do 'miracles' in front of a disbelieving audience either. People say they grant prayers, but in subtle ways, and that they give you an afterlife, which is practically the only important thing. Uh, some people say they only give an afterlife to their followers and some say that the afterlife for nonbelievers or bad people is eternal torture, I don't know how we'd verify any of that."

"I mean, the way I would attempt to verify it would be by using magic to explore the other planes, until I found the one where souls go. Does your magic allow that?" 

"No? We only know of two and we don't have a way to explore them. Does that...work in this world?"

"The skill to do it at all, much less safely, is very rare. Especially for those planes other than the spirit world - also called the ethereal plane or the Moonpaths, by different traditions. I was able to verify when I was only a few centuries old that the souls of the dead are in the spirit world. ...Though for the living to interact with them, it generally requires a god acting to provide an interface. As Vanyel is doing for us now." He gestures at the snow and the pass. "Anyway. Your teammates are likely to know more about local gods?" 

"They're not religious either, no. They will probably assume that your gods are as non-obviously-existent as ours, if people just mention gods to them, but they'll cooperate with gods who are trying to cooperate with them, they're Boston." Brief intense grief. She would have been Boston. 

Vanyel wants to fix it. It feels so bitterly unfair, that he can't. That he was too late. 

That another world exists with even more horrifying problems than the ones he knows, and, and - 

- and he might have to choose not to help. Because the risk to Velgarth is too high; because it's not worth it, to gamble on fixing it, when if the cards fall wrong all they would be accomplishing is spreading Earth's problems to his own world as well. 

He hates it. It doesn't feel fair. Surely after everything he sacrificed for this outcome, he should be strong enough to save one girl. 

"- Leareth, do you think we could figure out a way for her to speak directly with her teammates? You can take back a message, obviously, but...I think it'd be better if they could actually talk to her, rather than doing all this relaying. And with you needing to be asleep to talk to me." 

Leareth looks thoughtful. 

"It sounds as though wizards are not exactly Gifted in the way we understand it, but - possibly they could still access the Web from its physical focus? Unfortunately, it is currently buried beneath a rather large pile of rubble." 

And he turns back to Annisa. "What message would you like me to relay to your teammates?" 

Annisa is incredibly confused by that question. "I....don't know what Vanyel's objectives are, here. Aside from keeping you alive. I guess you should tell Boston to keep you alive?"

He blinks at her again. 

"....If I want to know what messageVanyel wishes relayed, I can simply ask him. Or use my own judgement, since we know each other rather well and I designed the process that made him a baby god. Mostly he needs more information, to compensate for the Foresight noise. But, right now, I am asking you, not Vanyel. I...hmm, I imagine you might want to reassure them that your death was not their fault or that you are not angry about it, if those are both true?" 

"I...don't object to you saying either of those things if that serves your goals in some way?"

Leareth feels like the question he's attempting to convey is very basic and he's not sure why he's failing to communicate it! He's not at his most coherent, sure, but he's not that foggy. 

He glances over at Vanyel. 

"I don't know! I tried really hard to keep all the memories and goal-structures intact! I'm not any good at this yet though." 

Leareth nods, then turns to Annisa. 

"You - seem to be bouncing off my questions about your goals. Are you - not able to experience wanting things right now? Or is it more that you do not feel you are in a bargaining position where you can afford to ask for them? ...Which one is relevant to whether Vanyel was successfully able to figure out how to retain more of your memories and self than the other gods usually bother to." 

"I want to continue existing! I told him that! I don't want other things because I'm not willing to trade off any continued existence for anything else!"

....Nod. 

"- Well, both Vanyel and I already think it is awful and unacceptable when anyone ceases to exist, and intend to work on solving that problem, but...I would not expect you to place much trust in that, yet, we must earn that from you." A very slight shrug, one shoulder slowly lifting and falling. "In the meantime, I can use my own judgement on what is productive to relay to your friends, and work on arranging a direct conversation." 

"Vanyel said that, and that's very noble of you, but lots of people are obviously going to irretrievably die while you try getting around to it and I don't want to be one of them, and you've got absolutely no reason to care whether I am! I can absolutely help you figure out what's productive to relay to my allies, it'll just depend on what you want my allies to do."

"I...am going to be much better placed to figure that out when I am not feeling terrible." Leareth sounds very mildly annoyed by this inconvenience. "My initial thoughts are - obviously your world likely has knowledge that ours lacks, so collaboration there would be of potentially very high value. And - if you think your allies can be trusted, then I would like to fill them in on as much context as possible, so that they are less easily manipulated by the hostile Powers into harming my or Valdemar's interests. Oh, and if they have healing magic, that could be extremely valuable right now." 

"They can be trusted if you can. Vanyel said maybe he could...bring me back.... as a horse.... which is stupid but they'd pay a lot for that, if it's available. None of us have had a very broad based education but we'll happily teach what we know about, uh, what tech level is this exactly?"

"Much lower than I would prefer! Everywhere outside of the Eastern Empire, at least, which is - an unpleasant place along different dimensions. This is one of my main complaints with our gods; they kept trying to kill me every time I would attempt innovation. If your world has less active gods, or none at all, then I would not be surprised if your tech level is much higher! Valdemar has... Hmm. Lighting by candle or other fire sources, most transport by draft animals, no non-magical forms of more rapid travel or communication. Though of course we have magic, but the number of Gifted people is low enough that it is mostly used only by the very wealthy or the core government."