Caio... hugs her.

"You think you busted the gates?" says Aadhya. "No way - I saw the shimmer reshape, no way -" But she doesn't have another idea.

"What else would it be," sobs Bella into Caio's shoulder.

"They have lots of - failsafes, if they could be nibbled away by agglos or by mals that adapted to suck mana out of artifice they'd be long gone. They're probably fine even if they were tripped up for a second. We're in some obscure place, we'll figure out a comm spell between us, we'll get picked up and helicoptered away with bags over our heads so we don't tell anyone where it is."

Bella sags.

"Hope so," she sighs. "...right. I'll start thinking on the comm spell." They're not commonly picked up in the Scholomance. What are you going to do, comm spell someone who lives down a flights of stairs and believes every interruption to their studies is life-threatening? And Bella's the creative writer.

The place they're in is very obviously not New Orleans or New Jersey or Brazil! 

It's a forest. It's very obviously winter; the exposed ground is deeply carpeted in snow, the tree branches - some evergreen, some denuded of all leaves - encrusted in ice or carrying their own muffling snowy blankets.

The forest has an intensely creepy feel. The trees are twisted into vaguely unnatural-seeming shapes and it would be entirely appropriate if a horror movie soundtrack were playing in the background. It isn't, though; it's very, very quiet. The ambiance is somehow one of a moonless night, even though it seems to be earlyish in the morning, judging by the few angled rays of pale sunlight making their way through the trees. 

The forest also looks like it endured a bad storm or something, recently. A number of smaller saplings were knocked over or uprooted; the big tree visible off to one side has several dead branches, half splintered off and dangling. 

That other tree over there definitely has teeth. They're arranged in circular mouth-shapes around the buds that will presumably grow into new leaves come spring. 

Bella's guess is that this is a weird island in the southern hemisphere that has weird island plants. It'd be a good choice, a lot of mals don't like to cross water and would have a hard time getting into the school through the gate if it connected to such an island.

The kids tromp through the snow looking for a clearing suitable for an igloo or a lean-to. Bella's power sharer doesn't connect to anything, so she, still full from drawing off it, tops off the other two a little. (She didn't have a spare to offer; her allies have been promised interviews but she didn't have a guarantee to offer either.)

Aadhya finds a good place to plant her pike in the ground so none of them poke themselves on the poisoned teeth, and starts dragging broken branches over to prop up on it and other less broken branches, so they have a reasonably enclosed space to warm up.

Caio jogs in place. For mana. And warmth.

And, for a while, ten or fifteen minutes maybe, nothing happens. The forest continues to be uncannily quiet. 

...and then something in the distance is loudly crashing toward them.

SHIT. Aadhya wrecks the fort in progress by yanking the pike out of the ground and setting it against the charging whatever it is.

Bella casts a shield - it's cheaper than the antimagic torus -

Caio pulls his boomerang; he made it in shop and it was useful enough to pack, but wouldn't have been much good in the graduation hall where there were so many mals. If there's only one thing, though, it'll help. He waits till it comes into view to throw.

The creature seems to be making rather a lot of crashing sounds, compared to how fast the crashing sounds are actually approaching them. When it comes into view, it's clearer why; the monster, which looks sort of like a bear that was stretched like putty until there was room for an entire additional pair of legs in the middle, is visibly injured, favoring one of its six paws and with the hair half burned off its haunch. Bloody foam drips from its jaw, which is also uncannily elongated and full of disturbingly barbed-looking teeth. 

Okay so it just came off worse in a fight and - didn't get whoever it was trying to eat, maybe, so it's hungry, but - Caio throws the boomerang.

Aadhya plants her pike and casts to keep her feet rooted.

The boomerang knocks the creature sideways a bit, but doesn't kill or incapacitate it; it seems very tough, probably magically so. 

It pauses, though, and turns its head from side to side, blinking and looking very confused. (Its pupils are slitted, like a snake's.) 

The boomerang comes back even if you're incompetent at throwing! Caio catches it and throws it again.

The creature shakes its head a couple of times, and then - sprints past them, vanishing between more trees. 

...There are still sounds coming from the forest where it emerged from. Less crashing, more...rustling? Hissing, but not like an animal, like wind through leaves? 

Aadhya unsets the pike and spins around to be ready for that bear-mal or any of its friends coming from the rustling direction.

How carefully are they watching? 

(If they're watching very carefully, they might notice that, where there were previously two trees, both leaning to the left, with strange gnarled-yet-fluffy bark sort of resembling braided candyfloss, there are now three such trees. The third one didn't so much move or appear suddenly as fade sneakily into view.) 

They are fresh out of the Scholomance. They know a mimic when they see one. Caio makes a hand signal and they all three bolt, perpendicular to the direction the mal came from.

It will try to fling some acid-tipped vine-branches after them! (....It's not very fast. Usually it can sneak up on its prey much more effectively than that.)

Well, that's startling enough that Bella can cast her cheap set-startling-thing-on-fire spell.

The tree-mimic-thing is apparently very flammable! And does not like this at all! It's flailing wildly and sending burning seedpods flying everywhere, some of which explode in midair, but none of this is particularly aimed at the fleeing students. 

Aadhya sticks a nice big umbrella shield to her shield-holder for them and they continue booking it.

They probably aren't going to start a large-scale forest fire, it looks like. The panicking tree-mimic is accidentally doing its best to send flammable seed-pods left and right but most of the rest of the forest is covered in snow and far less flammable. 

Nothing appears to follow them. 

"Bella -"

"Yeah-huh - uh, one sec, the comedown on the -" She shudders as one of the potions wears off. That was supposed to happen in New Orleans. Well! It's not! Too bad! When she catches her breath she mutters her quick homebrew spell for detecting magic and mals in the area, echolocation-style. Any magical pingbacks within thirty yards?

There's a LOT of ambient magic around here! Nearly everything is at least a bit magical. Those five trees are more magical than that! There is a weird...fungus? growing in the crook between two branches, which is even more magical than that! (And also faintly glowing to the naked eye.) There is some kind of small animal curled up in a knot-hollow in one of the less magical trees which is also magical, though it seems to be asleep or at least not moving. 

...There's also a...river...of mana...? Or something? Maybe more a creek than a river, it's not huge. It's underground, but within the thirty yard range of the spell. 

"I hate this forest," Bella mutters. "Aadhya, can you stab -" She points out the extra-magic trees. "Caio, peek in there -" She points at the small animal. "And I'm going to see what the fuck that is -" She whispers one of her experimental freeform-metamagic poems, the alliterative one that will let her handle magic to see what it feels like and make little tweaks - it was her junior year final project - reaching for the magic stream beneath her.

The trees are apparently not mimics. They are stabbable but, like, to about the same extent that normal trees are stabbable. (Except for one, which has...metallic??...bark? and is less stabbable than that.) 

The small magic animal is furry - its fur is sparkly - and cute, and asleep. It does not obviously have scary teeth or claws. It looks sort of like a cat, but more spherical. 

The 'what the fuck that is' underground river of apparently-free-mana does seem to be...actually basically that? It's - differently-flavored, or something - than mana drawn from a power-sharer. ....The best way to describe it is wilder, maybe. Like fast-moving water in a silty river that might or might not be downstream of a sewage plant, not safe chlorinated drinking water from a mundie tap. There's some turbulence there, too, it looks like it might hurt to try to touch it. 

It does feel like she could touch it and take that random free mana, if she wanted to risk it. 

"Is there a rule that mals aren't allowed to be adorable?"

"I suppose I'd be really surprised if one stayed that way but it could be cute till it turns itself inside out or something."

"Good point. I hate to kill it while we're low on mana and it's asleep though..."

"I guess it could be a familiar, that would probably show up to her spell?"

"Yeah. I'm going to just spritz it to keep it asleep since we've already spent mana on scouting this area."

"Hold off, I found a - thing - that I might be able to get mana out of - and we will have to apologize to whoever it belongs to if they come knocking, but I can beg Aunt Evelyn about it as long as I'm alive to do that, you know -"

She dips a metaphorical finger in the stream of mana.

It feels cold!!! ...metaphorically cold. It also, separately, metaphorically tastes like it might have a lot of heavy metal contaminants in it. There is a deep sense of Something Is Wrong with this mana. 

It's totally mana, though, a lot of it, and in an ongoing moving stream so she could just sit here and slurp it up as long as she wants. 

"Okay, if we have to run again, we're going that way," she points upstream, "but let's sit here for now, do stretches, I might have a clever hack."

"I spritzed either a very cute mal or a very weird familiar," Caio reports, coming back to the center of her search radius to squat beside her.

"Trees don't bite but one does have armor all over it."

"This forest is very weird and that might be the best we can do."

The forest continues to be very weird and apparently disinclined to bite them! 

It also continues to be the middle of winter and super cold. 

Bella slurps up some icky-yet-free mana. Just a sip, just to see if it's immediately going to cause a Problem.

Not immediately! Aside from the ickiness-feeling now being inside her, but it's not having any obvious effects other than that.

Okay, now she is going to spend that mana on a spirit cleanse with a couple words replaced.

It....sort of works? It feels like the most obtrusive parts of the ick - the parts closest to her...core sense of herself - are cleared out.

There's still some leftover ick. It feels more like the way one might feel after having lived off dubious McDonalds meals for a couple of days and now one's entire lower intestine is unhappy with these life choices but it's not an urgent problem or anything. ....Metaphorically speaking. 

...okay. As survival in the woods options goes, she will take it.

She slurps up more, enough to comfortably cast any half a dozen spells - since she's not giving any of this stuff to the others till she knows what regretting metaphorical McDonalds looks like after a day or two - and cleanses again, then starts gathering firewood. The others help. She lights it up with a whisper of magic and reports on her findings.

Bella takes first watch, since she's the one with the mana. Aadhya and Caio curl up by the fire and try to sleep.

Everything is quiet for an hour or so. 

...And then there are footsteps, the soft squish-crunch of snow. It basically just sounds like human footsteps, of someone being moderately careful not to make noise. 

Ah-huh. And can she see who is creating these footsteps?

Not very well, yet, but there is maybe a person-shaped shadow between those trees. 

"- hello! I hope we're not trespassing! Between us we speak English Latin Español Français 普通话 Português Hindi Bengali -"

There is abruptly a shimmering hemispherical barrier around all of them! 

...are they shielding out Thoughtsensing. 

Well, two of them are still asleep, or mostly asleep. Bella, as soon as the dome pops into existence, is rattling off her metamagic poem again to see what the hell it's doing, and will incidentally in so doing notice attempts to read her mind and crush them in her metaphorical hands.

That is not how shields going up normally feels and it's much more painful!!!! There is an alarm being raised, though depending on the range on her metamagic spell, Bella may or may not be able to detect private directional Mindspeech originating a dozen yards away from her and pointed away.

The shield is...a shield. It's not identical to any specific spell she knows but it mostly doesn't look like a different kind of thing? It's a little more sophisticated than just a force-barrier; it blocks physical force from both sides, and allows projective magic in but not out. 

- which Bella is going to have separate confirmation of a second later, when a very startled Tayledras Adept throws a levinbolt at her. 

No she does not want a lightning bolt thrown at her!? She shouts, to wake the others, and bats the lightning back, where it can spatter off the shield - she's not scared enough to attack back, yet - but then she's going to slurp up more ley-line and shred the shield to make it clear she could have done these in the other order, and she is going to stand up and speak loudly and clearly in English in the hopes that "loud and clear" gets across even if "English" doesn't.

"Caio, Aadhya, I think we may be trespassing. I want to deescalate but you need to be ready, they don't seem to like trespassers."

Aadhya scrambles to her feet and puts her hand on her pike.

Caio pulls his boomerang.

The Tayledras indeed do not like trespassers! They generally kill them! It's sort of their sacred mission from the Goddess to do so! (If you interpret 'guarding and repairing the Pelagirs' liberally.) 

...Autumnsong is also curious about these particular trespassers, who for one thing seem - really young? She's not even slightly worried yet about whether she and the other Adepts can take them, and so she's not in a hurry, though she's shielding herself now. 

Are either of the other two possible to mindread without getting her Thoughtsensing bitten? 

Yeah that works fine!

Aadhya is thinking that she ALSO HATES THIS FOREST and also should maybe try her languages too in case Bella's renderings of "Hindi" and "Bengali" were inadequate? She does not want to have to spikey-pikey a real live human bean who is not a mal, even if they're kind of dickish human beans who attack sleeping teenagers.

Caio is mentally inventorying his potions but he did not pack extras in case they failed to graduate normally because that's not a thing. He has more of the spritz he gave the cute mal that might turn itself inside out or something. Is it a familiar? Is it this lady's familiar? Is she mad that he spritzed it? It's going to be fine, it's just sleep potion!

This is very confusing! 

(It's significantly more confusing to an Adept of k'Onsoya Vale, which is the most remote of all the Vales from the border with Valdemar, at the very far western rim of the Pelagirs, actually nestled in the foothills of the coastal mountain range that separates them from the western sea. Autumnsong has never ever heard of the concept of schools.) 

None of the languages are even slightly familiar, but - it seems fairly clear that the young people are here by accident? Which means that maybe all they need is a warning to leave. 

She reaches out with Mindspeech. :Who are you, and how did you come to be in the territory of k'Onsoya Vale?: 

"AUGH??"

"Bella did you antagonize this lady just because she's a telepath - I'm sorry, we are here by accident, we don't like it here at all and would rather be home and don't know how to get there ma'am!"

Maybe they're Haighlei? The boy and one of the girls are darker-skinned, like they say the Haighlei are, and the Haighlei are - big, and strange, and an Empire. The other girl isn't Haighlei, though, she looks like an inlander from one of the kingdoms of farmers. 

(Autumnsong has only the vaguest knowledge of what those kingdoms are. She thinks one of them is called Rethsomething?) 

...Either way, how does one end up in the Pelagirs by accident? It doesn't make sense.

:Did your Gate go off course?: she asks, because it certainly looks like they're mages. 

"Yes something like that kind of. We are so lost. Where even is this horrible forest we do not want to be in and did not mean to visit."

:The Pelagirs: she says, faintly dubiously, as though talking to someone very dull. It's not surprising that a foreigner hasn't heard of k'Onsoya Vale, but surely everyone on the continent knows of the Pelagirs. They were spread over a quarter of its land area, at one point, not that Autumnsong has seen many maps in her life. 

The mindreadable members of the party have not heard of the Pelagirs. "See, yeah, we're very lost and don't even know what a Pelagir is," says Aadhya. "We're supposed to be in America? - well, Caio's supposed to be in South America but I'm sure we could manage the plane ticket if we could just get to literally anywhere in America. Honestly anywhere with an airport or an American embassy would probably be all right."

"I don't think an embassy actually gets us home without having to whammy any mundies," mutters Bella, but not loudly.

Normally Thoughtsensing someone more or less works even if you don't share a language, but in this case Autumnsong has no idea what half of that meant, even the concepts aren't translating.

She can't read the pale-skinned girl at all, but can pick up the content of what she's saying, and - what - 

:Are Gifts secret where you are from?: she sends, disbelievingly. She's never heard of that being a thing even in the Haighlei Empire. 

"- yes? All us wise-gifted children of the world don't work so hot when we're doing it in front of a mundie."

That...isn't a thing? These children seem very confused. 

:I have never heard of any of those places. Are they on islands or something? ...Also what is a - the thing you were calling a 'plane'?: 

"It's a flying vehicle? Goes real fast?"

"Is this an island or something? We're from two separate continents and knew people from more."

:No, this is the Continent: She says it like it's very obvious, and also in a way that sort of implies there's only one that matters. 

"There are... definitely at least two continents and usually the landmasses of the world are construed as being seven continents it's just some of them are slightly arguable."

:I don’t think there are seven continents but I haven’t seen a map of the whole world.: 

Or, you know, any maps. Anyway. This is bizarre and Autumnsong continues not to have any idea what to do about it! 

...She does feel like it would be - wrong - to hurt the youngsters, at this point, it's very clear that they didn't mean to be here. Not that she has any idea what to do with them other than kill them. It's never come up before, K'Onsoya is remote enough that they mostly just don't get accidental visitors. 

:- I think I should tell the Speaker for the the Vale about you: she sends, after a few moments. :Maybe he knows where America is. Can you - just stay here -?: 

"We can do that." Though if someone starts shooting lightning bolts at them again they will probably instead run away.

Then they will be left there, while a very unhappy Autumnsong troops out a reasonable distance before Gating back to the Vale for advice. 

She at least seems to have scared all the local wildlife away. It's quiet and peaceful. 

"I can sit up next," Caio yawns. "Gave me a fright."

Bella first wants to brief them on more about the iffy mana stream situation in case either of them can reach it (they cannot) but yeah then she will go ahead and sleep.

And Autumnsong will Gate back to k'Onsoya Vale, and seek the counsel of their sole Healing-Adept. 

Their sole Healing-Adept, Wingsong k'Onsoya, is eleven years old. 

...He's a mature eleven years old. He's been their sole Healing-Adept for almost seven months. He will listen with his best grave expression to Autumnsong's explanation of - whatever just happened to her. 

That's a bad explanation. Good explanations are supposed to be ones where you're less confused afterward. 

He sighs, with a put-upon expression. "I ought go speak with them myself, I think." 

That had not really been Autumnsong's idea here. 

"I think you should perhaps seek the counsel of our Goddess first?" 

He technically knows how to do that but it's a lot of effort to go to - and presumably also costly for Her - and he doesn't feel like he's been given a good argument for why it's worth it, just yet. 

"I think our Goddess would prefer I do that once I know more? Otherwise I would just have to do it twice." 

And he is, in fact, a more powerful Adept than her, even apart from being a Healing-Adept, and - not in any official sense a Speaker for the Vale, but in many unofficial senses he might be considered the only Speaker for the Vale. 

(It's been...a year, for k'Onsoya Vale.) 

"Of course. Should I raise a Gate for you?" 

"I can do it! Just -" 

And he parts his shields, and reaches out with a wordless mental request for her to share everything she saw when she was speaking with the strange youngsters from somewhere very far away with bafflingly different magic. 

(...Yes, he's aware that he is a lot younger than them. This doesn't seem like the main point here.)

...She can share it, of course, but she's not sure what he's going to do with it, he's never been that far on scouting-missions. Given how he's their only Healing-Adept and also - rather inexperienced - and the Vale is quite reluctant to put him in any risky situations. 

It's fine! He's been experimenting with funny kinds of Gates lately! (They don't give him enough actual work to keep him busy all the time.) 

He can stare at her memory of how the snow lay on the ground ahead of her, and convince his mind that it looks sort of like one of the covers that the hertasi put on the hot spring pools when they don't want snow to fall into them - which isn't not a kind of doorway, even if it's flat - and then put a departure Gate-threshold up normally, and a destination-Gate threshold up where he's aiming - aimed up, of course - 

- and them throw himself through and un-dignifiedly flomp into a snowbank, but it's not like anyone's looking, and this is the most important thing he's done as a Healing-Adept and definitely the most exciting thing that they've ever let him do, and it's not like he's cold, he has magic to fix that. 

...This seems like a bad idea but it's too late to argue with it. And it's not like arguing would help. 

Wingsong puts up some extra shields over himself, because he might be little, even if everyone pretends this doesn't matter, but he's not stupid. 

- he reaches out with Thoughtsensing. He's not nearly as strong a Thoughtsenser as he is on his other Gifts, he can barely reach half a mile, but Autumnsong seemed to think she'd been close. 

Who's there? 

A sleeping mind, the bitey one!

A nonbitey sleeping mind!

An awake and tired and unhappy mind currently dwelling on being hungry.

:Hello! I heard that you are from very far away, a place that has different magic and where Gifts are a secret, and you came here by accident and are not sure how to get home?  ...I also heard a lot of things I am not sure came across right, it was confusing. My name is Wingsong! ...Are you all right? It is very cold out.: 

:Uh, we have a fire and magic but it is very cold yes:

:I think I probably should not trust you yet, because I have never met you, and so I ought not invite you back to our Vale, but - would you like me to cast a heat-spell for you? I can do that.: He doesn't even need to go any closer. He's good at heat-spells. 

:Uh, the enclaver member of our team is asleep so I'm not sure if she's going to be able to guarantee paying you back for the mana once we reach... civilization?:

....That's really confusing, and it's not even a form of confusing he was expecting from what Autumnsong told him. Though presumably Autumnsong didn't tell him everything because it's late, and she's tired too, and even if the weird visitors (he's definitely thinking of them as visitors and not as bandits) said something about it, it was probably just as confusing to her. 

:...I am not sure why you would have to do that? A heat-spell is not even tiring, and if it were I could just tap a node.:

Oh, uh, Bella said there was free mana lying around but that it was - gross somehow? I guess if you have a technique for that then - yeah, heat spell would be great.

:Oh no! Did she draw on the node? You need special training to do that, here, it is contaminated with the fallout from the Cataclysm.: He sighs, his mindvoice leaking a bit of put-upon frustration. :I should probably look at her and see if I need to cleanse her channels.: 

He'll give them a heat-spell first, though, they might be strangers entering the Pelagirs without permission but that doesn't mean he needs to be uncivilized to them.

...And then he can trot over to them through the deep snow, because he's an Adept and he's not actually scared of them. When he reaches them, he's visibly about ten or eleven years old, though his hair is already snow-white. This does not particularly interfere with him casting a weather-barrier that quickly brings the air temperature up to toasty. He leaves the barrier-shield up, and folds his arms, looking curiously at them. 

Oh no an unsupervised kid?? Not old enough to be REALLY delicious but still super should not be out alone - maybe the others are hiding? Maybe he's a tiny Orion, Orion had white-ish hair though Caio has no idea if that's related - right, mindreading, uh. Probably this is fine and the kid knows what he's doing, it's not like Caio knows what's going on.

It's slightly rude to read people's minds without asking, but Wingsong is curious and they might be dangerous. Though they don't really look dangerous. They look bedraggled and underfed and like they haven't been somewhere with proper hot springs or hertasi to fix their clothes in the last five years. 

The thought that he shouldn't be out alone gets a nonplussed and faintly offended look. :I am an Adept, you know. I can take perfectly good care of myself. What happened to all of you?: 

:We graduated from the Scholomance but we didn't wind up where we came from when we were inducted the way we ought to have.:

:...Can you explain that again but with more words? I have no idea what a Scholomance is or what being inducted means or how any of those things work. - is the 'Scholomance' a bad place, it sort of looks like you were somewhere very bad before this.: 

:I'm not sure I should actually talk about it if you don't already know what it is? I'm really confused but under some possible assumptions that could be dangerous:

:I am a Healing-Adept! I am not frightened of dangerous things. Very few things are more dangerous than the Pelagirs, anyway, and I have the power to fix them. Maybe I could help you figure out a way to fix whatever is wrong with your Scholomance?: 

This kid is probably around Diamantino's age. Not that Caio has seen Diamantino in four years. Anyway the heat spell is nice but they are still in this horrible forest and don't want to be. :I was sort of hoping you could tell us which way to go to reach, like, a city.:

Shrug. :I suppose there are cities in kingdoms not in the Pelagirs. The nearest not-Pelagirs is more than five hundred miles away and I have never been there for a Gate.: 

He frowns, thoughtful. :- If you promise to cause no harm, and all of you let me read your mind to check you mean it, I think you could come to the Vale. While we figure out if anyone can at least Gate you to a different Vale. You clearly all need to bathe.: 

Maybe with free mana lying around, even if it's icky somehow, you can just make a place safe, and that's where this kid grew up, somewhere safe. A lot of things would be different with free mana lying around, sort of like how plants grow on the surface of the Earth where there's sunshine and underground you'd have to make do with mushrooms and ration your closed-cycle biomass and whatnot. In fantasy stories evil creatures live underground but maybe they're just hungry and scared and have not realized that if they just go up there are plants growing everywhere.

Though here the plants have teeth? Maybe they don't have teeth in the Vale, whatever the Vale's deal is.

They do need baths though personally Caio would prioritize that somewhat lower than a goddamn fucking meal with a fruit in it. He showered just a week ago and it has been four years since fruit.

:We have fruit! And nuts, and roast quail stuffed with eggs, and - the hertasi will make you whatever you ask for, they love it -: 

He does still want to read everyone's mind to be sure they aren't planning some sort of sabotage, though. It's the duty of his people to make sure no one messes with the magic of the Pelagirs. 

:I can wake the girls up if - uh, can someone convey the lady from before my apology on her behalf about her reaction to being mind-read, she's really touchy about that and realistically will probably do it again if people keep trying to read her mind -:

:I think Autumnsong figured that out. I do not intend to keep reading her mind but I would rather not have to take your word for it that she only has friendly intentions toward us.: 

Well, she doesn't if they insist on reading her mind sort of like she also wouldn't if they kept grabbing her ass or something! He's not trying to say that it's just the obvious thought. :We're a graduation alliance, Bella's not going to randomly attack people who are being friendly to us.>

It's kind of common for the sort of people who end up in the Pelagirs when they're not supposed to be there to randomly attack people. ...It's probably more common when they knew they weren't supposed to be there and went there on purpose. These people really do not seem to have come here on purpose or to have any idea why the Tayledras find it alarming. 

:- It is our duty as a people, given to us from our Goddess, to cleanse the damaged lands of the Pelagirs and to prevent bandits and dark mages from using the magic toward their own ends: he explains patiently, sounding sort of like he's reciting a memorized speech. :We are not required to kill outsiders or anything, but - usually the only people who come this far are bandits and dark mages and they try to kill us first. I think you are not bandits and did not know you were not supposed to be here but that is why we were worried.: 

:Okay well we aren't bandits and we don't want to be here at all and we don't want to kill people!:

:Good. You do not really seem like bandits.: Except for the part where they really clearly need a bath, but it would probably be rude to mention that again. :Anyway if you wake the others and they can also promise not to hurt anyone then I think you should come to the Vale. And we can talk about how to try to get you home. It sounds like your home must be very very far away so I am not really sure how, but we can probably think of something.: 

:Are people going to read Bella's mind, she HATES that:

:Does she know how to shield? The normal kind of shielding without - biting people - I mean. I can ask anyone who is not good at controlling their Gift yet to stay away, but if she is not going to shield normally then it is sort of hard not to do it by accident.: 

:I have no idea what's normal around here?? Mindreading isn't a really common affinity where we're from:

He'd heard Mindspeech was rarer in other places but it still feels surprising. He makes a face. 

:I mean, I could try to explain how, but the normal way to teach people how to shield is to try to get through their shields until they figure it out and it might take longer without practicing that way.: 

:She might be able to whip something up but I don't know how long it'll take her.:

Nod. :I can tell all the littles to stay away, then, and I suppose everyone else can be careful about not reading her. Or she could stay outside the Vale if she would really prefer that, we could bring food out instead, but - the Vale is where the baths are.: 

:Well, I don't know in more detail how she values baths versus mental privacy but I can ask her. How far away is the Vale?: Also how many mindreaders do they HAVE. Are they breeding for it or something, affinities don't even work like that usually...

:About half of the people in the Vale old enough to have awakened Gifts are Mindspeakers. I think that is about normal? ...Do you want me to stop reading your mind too, I am convinced that you are not bandits and - I suppose if you do not have many Mindspeakers and cannot have everyone doing concert-work all the time then you might be more used to thinking of it as rude.: 

:I mean how else are you going to understand me?:

:I can try to hold a narrower Mindspeech link with you and only pick up words you are trying to think loudly at me on purpose? ...I think I will learn more about why we are both so confused if you do not mind me reading more, though. I am very confused about where you are from and how you are here.: 

:I don't mind it like Bella does. but - if you don't already know what the Scholomance is or where America is I don't think confusing you less will actually help:

:See, and I am still confused why you are saying that.: 

But it sounds like a conversation they should have once they're safely inside the Vale. The youngsters from 'America' seem to be able to defend themselves, and the local wildlife is so far keeping its distance, but he doesn't really trust that to last. 

He's happy to Gate them all over once Caio wakes the other two and they agree they won't harm anyone or disturb anything in the Vale. Caio can relay his promise to Bella that he won't read her mind and will make sure everyone else either knows not to or to stay on the other side of the Vale. He doesn't really want to Mindspeak her directly and get bitten, even though he can probably do it without accidentally reading anything else. 

That's fine with Bella. Not socializing is INFINITELY PREFERABLE to being mindread. Can they have some uninterrupted frickin' sleep when they get to the Vale.

Has this child prodigy here got a name.

:Wingsong k'Onsoyoa, Healing Adept to our Vale!: He bounces slightly, and then goes back to trying to look dignified as he raises a glowing blue-white portal on the nearest vaguely archway-shaped curve of branches. 

The Vale is completely different from the forest! They step out through an elegantly carved archway - not actually made of branches, but the carving imitates them, and it's also draped with vines - into a courtyard paved in smooth stones, surrounded by a wild abundant profusion of greenery. There are flowers the size of babies' heads, and hummingbirds darting through the air, and steaming fragrant hot springs over there, and it smells like a glorious tropical summer day. 

The surroundings are kind of packed with places where mals could hide. Wingsong looks completely untroubled, and skips over to shed his fur boots and dip his feet in the pool. 

Presumably the place is warded to hell and back and anyway anything that got through would eat the kid first, if she had mal-vision-goggles he'd look like a fucking tiramisu.

"Where can we go back to sleep?" Aadhya asks, out loud for the benefit of the others and for keeping her own thoughts straight.

The Vale certainly looks warded; the patches of sky visible through the foliage are seen through a shimmering textured barrier that, to Bella's meta-magic if she checks, will be absolutely glowing with mana. 

(There's also some other mana source further off. It feels - not exactly tranquil, it's humming vibrantly with raw power, but it's controlled, not wild and turbulent like the river of mana outside, and it doesn't feel icky at all. There's so so so so much of it. It has to be more than any enclave in the world has in their mana storage, maybe more than all the enclaves in the world combined.) 

There are hammocks right over there! If they want somewhere more private then Wingsong will have to ask around if anyone has spare space in their ekele or is willing to move in with friends for a night. (It comes across in Mindspeech connotations that 'ekeles' are like houses, but in trees for some reason, except for some weird or disabled people who have theirs on the ground.) 

- also there are abruptly several trays of food on that table-like rock behind them. Whoever put the food there was very stealthy about it. 

Wingsong runs over, calling out something to the trees in another language. :Come eat something!: he sends to the two people who are accepting his Mindspeech. 

How the shit did that get there without them noticing the process, the school has to wait until they're more distracted than that, Caio's holding a spray bottle in one hand and his boomerang in the other a moment later.

Bella has gotten to the point of setting the garnish on fire before she realizes the plates aren't hostile.

"Can you ask if we can have some of the not-icky mana in that direction," she says, gesturing. "There's a lot, I'd be floored if New York or Shanghai had that much -"

Aadhya blows out the flaming parsley and relays this request telepathically.

That's - pretty forward as a request when they've literally just met? Even visitors from other Vales don't ask to be keyed to the Heartstone right away. 

(Bella will notice, on further inspection, that while there are little rivers of mana everywhere, the big pool of it is - shielded, or something, behind a metaphorically-transparent barrier that won't let her actually slurp it up.) 

...He does feel bad for them, though, they clearly haven't been eating enough and look pretty underslept, both of which are terrible for your reserves. 

:If you are short on reserves I can share some with you directly?: he offers. 

"That would be great especially for the others, I'm not sure they'll be able to grab from the rivulet-things and they're - polluted or something anyway -"

"Bella says that would be great especially for me and Caio, we might not be able to do the thing she was doing - she's got a metamagic affinity - and they're polluted or something."

He'll pull kind of an alarming quantity of mana, then - he definitely does not have a normal mana capacity for an eleven-year-old - and then extends a hand to offer them some. 

(You can't normally do this with people who aren't trained in concert-work, but he's a Healing-Adept and he's not ""fully"" ""trained"" but he isn't bad at it.) 

"Thanks -" Aadhya will clasp hands and kind of wait to be offered the mana.

Sploosh! It's a reasonably generous quantity of mana. The Vale does not seem to have a shortage. 

Do Caio and Bella want some too? 

Sure do!

Lots of mage-energy for everyone! Hopefully they'll feel more relaxed about everything after, it is jumpy-making to be out in the open in the Pelagirs when you aren't even trained in safely tapping its nodes, and - the boy seemed to think that he and his friend can't do it, even though 'Bella' can? Maybe they're not actually mage-gifted, or possibly they just aren't powerful enough. 

He sits down and starts eating the food. They seem jumpy about the food too. (And about the hertasi sneaking up, but it probably would be startling if you weren't used to it. He used to try to chase them when he was little because it bothered him to never see them.) Maybe if he eats it they'll believe him that it's safe, and if he's relaxed and happy they'll believe him that the Vale is safe? 

(He's not entirely happy. This seems complicated and he doesn't like being confused and also the strange visitors seem to think that telling him what's going on, or anything about where they come from, will be dangerous to the Vale? Which doesn't even make sense.) 

Yeah they will eat the food, less the singed herbs, though only after casting some unfamiliar spells over it.

He watches the spells in fascination! He doesn't know all the magic yet that he really should but he's quite fast at learning it. What does it look like to mage-sight? 

Sort of - blurry, and accompanied by muttering verse.

That's rude of it. The muttered verse is weird too, he's never seen anyone do that before except as a mnenomic when first learning, and it's sort of embarrassing to have to do that, you wouldn't do it in front of people you'd just met. 

:What magic was that?: he asks curiously. :You must have learned a very different style.: 

"Uh, it's a Hindi spell to check food but you should probably not pick up any language bits from us you don't have to? - I guess if you're not going to the Scholomance it matters way less."

:...I have never heard of that - language? - but I am hardly going to learn it by accident by overhearing you say a few words and not sure what it has to do with anything if I did? Do you have to speak the same language as someone in order to learn magic from them, or something?: 

"Those are such legitimate questions and I am going to ignore them so I can finish what is on this plate and then sleep for twelve hours."

:Of course! I am sorry for my rudeness.: 

Some people are willing to give up their ekele, if the youngsters are up for climbing a dangling rope ladder into a treehouse and sleeping on floor mats. Otherwise there are hammocks? 

The ekele looks more defensible.

Topped up on mana they cast more wordy, blurry spells on the perimeter of the treehouse and then all sleep in it.

Wingsong is tired as well, if not as tired as they are. He sleeps. 

...In the morning, he goes to the Heartstone sanctum to pray. He doesn't know how to walk the Moonpaths; it's one of the many parts of his training that he should have had before he was serving as the Vale's sole Healing-Adept, and didn't, and now who knows when he'll learn it. He doesn't really expect an answer. But...if the Goddess can just send a feeling, of - whether things will go well for the Vale, if he tries to offer these youngsters help - if he tries to learn more of what they're afraid of... 

There is no answer, no, but there is a faint brush of a distant Presence, and if it were speaking in words, it would be saying trust yourself, child, and all will be well. 

He wasn't even expecting that much!!!! Wow!!!!! 

Whenever Bella and Caio and Aadhya awaken, Wingsong will be already up, practicing magic in the courtyard.

There's also a table at the base of the ekele that didn't used to be there, laid out with three brand-new richly embroidered robes that will, on inspection, prove to be almost perfectly fitted to each of them in turn. The hertasi are good at that. 

Well, if it's all the way down at the base of the ekele that's not nearly as alarming as food appearing out of nowhere when they were NOT that distracted. The graduates will all clamber down and peer at the robes.

"Are these for us? My clothes are enchanted..."

Wingsong bounces over. 

:They are for you! ...If you would prefer your current clothes repaired I am sure the hertasi would be eager to help as well. But they are not going to let you go around dressed like that, they must be appalled.: 

"Are... hertasi... a kind of wizard."

Bella has magic shoes but not magic clothes and is at-a-glance assessing the level of nudity taboo around here and changing from her heavily repaired t-shirt and jeans into the robe for her.

Caio too.

:...No? I mean, some of them are mage-gifted and many of them are Mindspeakers, but I do not think they use magic to make the clothes, just needle and thread. Do they not have hertasi where you are from?: He pushes across a mental image of them. Lizard-like creatures, apparently, with big domed skulls that look out of place with their snouts and scales. 

"I don't think I want mundie lizard people handling my magic clothes even if they are very nice lizard people. My mom worked very hard on them and I am not home where she can make me a new set yet."

:Do you want to just borrow needle and thread instead, then? And - presumably wash them but I am not actually sure where the hertasi take clothes to wash them, they like to do their work in private.: 

"This is not really my priority right now. I am fine with my clothes. If you're telling me I smell I can do a spell about it."

Oh no is he being rude. He didn't mean to be rude, just, it would really bother him to wear old kind of worn out clothes. He shrugs. :It is up to you.: 

Her clothes are in much better shape than the other two's were.

"Is there breakf- is there not suddenly appearing breakfast."

:You do seem jumpy about the hertasi. I can ask them to be less sneaky. They take a great deal of pride in being discreet about their work but I think they will understand if you dislike it.: 

"The Scholomance sometimes appears things too but it does it in a way that is much less like, uh, a pack of mimics deciding to pretend to be plates."

:That sounds bad! I think we do not have 'mimics' here, whatever they are - even outside the Vale, I mean, there is not going to be anything dangerous inside the Vale.: 

And he can send a Mindspeech request to the hertasi to bring breakfast and NOT be sneaky about it. Yes he realizes they're very proud of being very hard to observe. These guests are scared by it. 

Awww. 

Hertasi are nonplussed but will bring out a luxurious breakfast spread while being very visible the whole time and making no sudden motions. 

What cute lizard people who do not appear to be mals even if this forest is full of mals. "Thank you," Aadhya tells the lizard people. And then she eats breakfast.

"Thank you," Bella echoes, crossing her fingers that they will be able to tell that she said the same thing Aadhya did without reading her mind. Breakfast! Is there fruit? Is it all made of real ingredients that used to be alive?

Yes! The hertasi aren't skimping and these poor youngsters clearly need good food and lots of it. There are like eight different kinds of fruit, and six different kinds of nuts, and a big leafy green salad with fruit and nuts as topping, and eggs cooked four different ways, and stewed beans, and steamed mixed vegetables in spicy sauce, and stuffed pastries, and little meat pies. 

They STUFF THEMSELVES.

The hertasi are SO PLEASED!!!!! 

They'll also haul out a washbasin, if Aadhya wants to temporarily borrow a robe so she can launder her magic clothes. They will even be reasonably graceful about not being allowed to just do all of the work without being asked. 

Yeah, okay, she will take off the clothing items she is wearing, one at a time, and wash them, one at a time. Mostly with magic, and some scrubbing to stem the mana loss, singing to the threads and the fibers softly.

There's also that hot spring over there! The hertasi have quietly - but non-sneakily - made sure there are towels and about twelve different kinds of fragrant soaps available. The other inhabitants of the Vale are mostly keeping their distance to avoid having to carefully not accidentally read Bella's mind, but these particular pools do serve a cluster of eight different ekeles, and a woman will at some point arrive to bathe her toddlers. 

(The nudity norms in the Vale are, approximately, nobody seems to care or even really notice it.) 

Good, because neither do Scholomance students! You have to run with a really big pack of pals to care whether whoever's watching your back in the shower has the same bits as you!

Aadhya will go ahead and take a dip in the spring once she's gotten her clothes hung up and started on drying off with another spell. (There's a faster one but there doesn't seem to be a hurry here.)

"So, uh, were we going to... figure out how to reach... civilization... at some point? This is a very nice place but our families all live in civilizations."

:I have been trying to think about how to help you with that! It would - be easier if I knew which direction you would want to end up in, we would have to do hops between multiple Vales to reach the nearest kingdoms that have cities in them, and I am not sure if it would be better to go south or east.: 

"If we are on the right planet it barely matters - like, it would sure suck if we wound up in, uh, North Korea? But at least then we'd know to go south from there. And if we are on the wrong planet it... also barely matters, since you don't seem to be in the market for long term guests around here and none of the places we could go instead are the right ones."

Blink blink. :Do you think you might have ended up on the wrong planet? That - does seem as though it would explain why we are both so confused. I am not sure what to do about it but we can get you to a kingdom that at least has roads and cities.: 

Frown. :...If you are somehow from another planet and came here by accident, does that mean the dangerous thing you were worried about, that made you not want to answer our questions, would be less or more dangerous than you thought before?: 

:Uh, probably one of those, though it could go either way?:

Sigh. 

:I am - unhappy with sending you on to another Vale without knowing more of your world - but I know you want to find a way home, and I cannot Gate you that far myself but I think we should still have at least one Mindspeaker with the range to contact a scout-party and we can get a location that way. ...Though we are not going to kick you out, if you wished to stay rather than be bounced between more strangers.: 

"It would be nice to stay here and decompress for a couple days if we definitely can't be calling home collect this time tomorrow anyway, except that it will really, uh, cramp your style trying not to read Bella's mind apparently."

:Unless she learns how to shield properly! I think she should do that anyway, if you are going to travel, you might startle more people - you are very startling - and we are not the only ones who have Mindspeakers.: 

Frown. :I can - tell you instructions to tell her? And then I am not sure how to test it, but I could sort of try to Look out of the metaphorical corner of my eye, so I would not get any thought-content even if she was not shielding properly yet?: 

They discuss this with Bella and eventually agree that this sounds like the best plan.

Then Wingsong will cheerfully and with lots of hand gestures try to explain how to shield! ...He does it like he would teaching a mage without Mindspeech, though this is actually rather rare among the Tayledras.

She wants to center and ground properly first, if that's a thing with the way they learned how to do magic - or even if it's not, she can tap nodes which implies she has the right senses for it, and he can give a description of how to find the still place at the center of her reserves of mage-energy and then link herself solidly to the earth so any outside force that gives her a shove will be absorbed. 

And then she wants to weave a barrier around her mind. Different people imagine it differently! He thinks of it like hiding under the big drooping leaves of [untranslatable kind of shrubbery], not that he usually shields very much actually. Some people think of it like weaving cloth or reeds, or like smoothing layers of mud over themselves until they're camouflaged, or like hiding the surface of their mind behind a waterfall, or making their thoughts opaque like egg white when it cooks.

You actually don't need Gifts at all to learn how to block Mindspeakers from your surface thoughts! Though the technique is different, less weaving an external barrier of energy and more...hiding away in a hole, or holding very still and blending in with the forest, is how he's heard it described. And it usually takes way longer to do it that way. 

Bella tapped a ley line, not a node, though she doesn't think nodes would be any harder? - and doesn't do it with any of the described sensory apparatus? - is this supposed to cost any mana to do.

...Not very much? He's never actually thought about it before. But, yes, people who drain themselves unconscious generally use their shields, so presumably some? 

Irritating to have another mana expenditure but she supposes this is worth the pushups.

(Wingsong has no idea that their "mage-energy reserves" work in such a different way, since he isn't reading Bella's mind, and assumes she regenerates her reserves with sleep and food like normal people - and can also just tap nodes and ley-lines whenever, but you really shouldn't need to do that just for basic shielding.) 

He'll intermittently ask Caio and Aadhya's permission to glance out of the corner of his metaphorical eye with his Sight 'out of focus' so he definitely won't get content. He really doesn't want to get bitten. 

"Tell him I'm not going to bite him, I don't have the spell up," sighs Bella, "it would just be extremely unwelcome."

Caio repeats this dutifully and says when.

Peek? - not an actual peek where he would read thoughts, he's not trying to be mean here, but enough that he can get a sense of...general brightness and openness...and he'll also have mage-sight up so he can see if she's doing the normal shielding thing or, alternately, a weird alien other-world-people shielding thing. 

All of her thoughts are IN THE SCHOLOMANCE LIBRARY hidden in the stacks among the history of Mexico.

That does not look even slightly like anything he's seen anyone else do before! Weird! 

...Does her mind look less bright or more foggy or more tucked-away or any of the other sensory impressions he can get without looking directly? Also does it look like she's actually doing anything, to mage-sight? 

No, the process is not magically active, though it's - poised? - to become so if she feels anything.

He's still not going to peek - or poke - any harder before she's ready, because he still doesn't want to be rude. 

...He'll relay to Caio and Aadhya that he thinks Bella is vaguely on the right track but not - putting enough power into it? Or maybe not putting any power into it, and she should just try to do that, it really doesn't take a lot. 

Fine. A whisper of mana into the intention -

Neat! That...it's not enough to hold off a determined effort by a strong Mindspeaker, yet, but there's definitely some new opacity there. 

:Tell her to put a bit more energy in,: he sends to Bella's friends instead of Bella herself, :and then I can try to Look more closely - I think it is working at all but not enough yet -: 

Maybe if you have mana rivers just lying around you get used to being more profligate. Little more -

:Tell her I think she has enough of something up that I will not get anything if I look more directly, but I need to actually do that to be sure.: 

She takes a deep breath and says when.

He looks. 

:That is quite good! I cannot get anything on a passive read. I think it would not hold off a determined probe but if someone is trying a determined probe it seems more reasonable to bite them then.: 

"Biting them is a separate spell, I have to actually cast and hold it."

He doesn't have any idea how her weird magic works! 

:Well, I think they will not probe to read your mind at the other Vale because I can warn them first. And if you go to other places later then you can ask someone else to go and warn people first. ...If someone wants to be rude and read your mind anyway, your shields would not stop them, but most people do not want to be rude unless you are scaring them.: 

"Is it just really unthinkable for someone to react violently to mental invasion?"

:Maybe in other places people have different expectations? Here, almost everyone is trained in concert-work even as children, even if they are not themselves Gifted they can do Healing-melds.: 

:...circle casting does not involve telepathy in our magical tradition:

Shrug. :Well, your magical tradition seems to be very different! I suppose maybe you would come up with different ways of doing it if you did not have very many Mindspeakers at all.: 

"I think we're on the wrong planet," she tells Caio and Aadhya.

"Yeah, I was leaning that way."

...Well, Wingsong is as satisfied as he's going to get that Bella knows how to shield, and if she's willing to put, like, ten times that much mage-energy into it, she would even be able to block and hold off active probing rather than having to respond to it by casting a mind-biting spell or whatever it is. (Their magic is so weird.) 

Do they still want a Gate to another Vale in order to eventually make their way back to, at least, a kingdom that has cities and trade with other kingdoms? Even if they're probably on the wrong planet and he's not sure anyone else on this planet will know how to get them back to theirs. Maybe someone will, though. He thinks there are academies of magic. Not that he knows where but he thinks they probably exist. 

"I think if this isn't our planet we - at least aren't in a hurry? So staying here a little to decompress and eat decent food and stuff before going on a journey would be great but we can get a move on if you're trying to politely shoo us."

:No! Please do stay a few days, we would love to have you.: 

Frown. 

:- though I hope perhaps our Goddess will give advice. It really feels as though there is - something that ought to be done - about visitors from another world. I am just not sure what.: 

"Is your... goddess... situation... something we need to know about?"

He blinks, surprised at her surprise. :I know not everyone serves the Star-Eyed - and if you are from another planet you probably have entirely different gods - but. Do you not have people who serve particular gods?: 

"I - think if I said 'yes' I'd give you the wrong idea?"

Wingsong doesn't know what to make of that, so he shrugs and keeps going. 

:The Tayledras people have a pact with the Star-Eyed Goddess, who saved our ancestors after the Cataclysm. She gave us powerful magic - the Heartstones, the techniques that Healing-Adepts use - and in return, our people's duty is to cleanse the lands of magical residue, so that people can safely live in them again. ...And to keep outsiders away, in the meantime, because the beasts of the Pelagirs are very dangerous, and can be harnessed by bandits and dark mages for ill purposes.: 

"Oh, is that what's weird about the mana rivers - are there mana rivers that aren't icky elsewhere?"

:Yes! Everywhere outside the Pelagirs is safe, assuming you are powerful enough to touch them at all. And there is quite a lot of the continent that is no longer Pelagirs.: He looks pleased with himself and proud about, even though it was basically all his ancestors' work and not his own. 

"Is having taken some of the icky mana going to be bad for me - it was better than not having any in the middle of the spooky forest and a spirit cleanse got most of it but not all."

:Only once is not very bad but I can have a look, if you want, I know magic that fully cleanses it. ...I will not have to read your mind in order to look: he clarifies quickly. :Healing-Sight is different.: 

"Okay, go ahead then."

He looks.

:...That is not too bad - I think it will be fine on its own if you wait a few days, our bodies have some resilience to it - but I can also put it right for you. It will feel weird but I promise it does not involve reading your mind.: 

"- yeah, okay."

It indeed feels weird and sort of like someone is touching her insides! It doesn't hurt but it's almost faintly ticklish. At least the insides being touched are definitely nowhere near the inside of her head. 

Wow she doesn't like that but she will try to hold still in case that's important.

It takes a couple of minutes, and then Wingsong backs off with his Gift, and also leans away and lifts his hands to make it obvious he's doing that. :Done. I hope that feels better?: 

"I think so. Is there some trick to doing it right?"

:Probably? But I only know the way to do it that uses the Healing-Adept Gifts and I think you do it a different way. And I have never tried to teach it before without concert work.: Or, well, technically he's never tried to teach it to anyone else at ALL, because when or why would he have done that, but his own lessons were done entirely via sense-sharing and close concert work. :I can try to explain but many magical techniques are very difficult to convey in words.: 

"Could you show me?"

Surely he did just show her, by doing it? ...Maybe she means demonstrate on someone else. Probably she means that, she did seem to find it very distracting and maybe she couldn't pay enough attention to watch him at the same time. 

:I can find a volunteer who needs to be cleansed and you can watch while I do it with them? I am not sure how your Sight works.: 

"I mean show me taking the mana, the icky kind."

:- Oh. Right.: An embarrassed smile. :We would have to leave the Vale for that, and it is - less safe outside.: 

(And the adults are UNREASONABLY protective of him and don't like him doing it unless he has both a very necessary reason and an escort.)

"Even just like, two steps? So you could hop right back in if anything twitched?"

He hadn't ever really thought about it before. :I suppose if all I wanted to do was tap a ley-line or node - and if you can see that even if the source is far away - that might work?: 

"I think I'll be able to see it with my spell up - at least whatever you do with it when the mana gets to you."

Nod. :We can try that if you want, then. Now?: 

"Now works for me."

Then they can head toward the edge of the Vale, at least once Wingsong (somewhat grumpily) informs one of the other Adepts why and then has to repeat twice that he's perfectly capable of defending himself and also they won't be going far and it shouldn't take more than a minute. 

...His grumpiness is probably showing and he feels bad about it. :Sorry: he sends. :I have to try to not upset the clan elders, they are worried about my safety since I am the only Healing-Adept.:

(If you can even call them 'elders'. Most of the actual clan elders are dead. He doesn't really feel like having that conversation though.)

"What is a Healing-Adept?" Bella asks, following him out to the edge.

He seems much happier about this question, and looks genuinely engaged and happy to answer as they head down the path towards the edge of the Vale. 

:I suppose a Healing-Adept is someone who has the right Gifts to learn the techniques that our Goddess granted us to cleanse the land. - Though it is also a title, given to someone who has mastered those techniques. It involves mage-gift, of course, and also Healing - not necessarily the kind that can Heal people as well, though I can - and some other thing, that means I can sense the land around me as though it is a part of my own body.:

Frown. :...It does make us more vulnerable - it means I am more affected by damage to the land, and so for me that is part of what I need to learn to account for. I hear it is easier for those who do not have...that sense...but I am not sure what the difference is.: 

"Huh. I don't think we have anything like that."

:Your school of magic seems different: he agrees. 

And then they're at the edge of the Vale, and Wingsong holds out his hand to her, so he can key her to the wards (which have protections in both directions, this isn't universal or even standard but, well, it's been an eventful year) and step outside. 

She will hold his hand across the edge, and then murmur her spell.

Wingsong reaches out to tap a node, only a little bit self-consciously. He instinctively filtering the raw magic through his focus-stone– he stops that and does it more deliberately, so he can do it slowly - and then there's...some other manipulation of the energies, that even he doesn't understand very well, it involves his earthsense more than his Healing-Gift but there's some of both - 

- and he's also watching whatever Bella is doing with mage-sight, because he's so curious. 

She has set up a very complicated and - shifting, or pretending to, almost like an optical illusion? - web of magic around herself, with ultrafine tendrils out in all directions, and the tendrils spot what he's doing and poke it all over, wrap around it gently to feel the shape of it.

That is so interesting and also he should...actually do the thing, and pull enough from the nearby ley-line - slowly - that she'll definitely be able to see it, and then they can both go back into the Vale. He's finding that he feels kind of protective of her. Possibly 

(To mage-sight, it would look like the mage-energies from the nearby ley-line are flowing toward a point that doesn't quite match up with Wingsong's outstretched hand, and then shifting and tightening and flowing to a different point near his neck, at which point the flow of energy shifts to something gentler and more controlled. And from there he pulls it into himself, and it's less visible exactly what's happening, but there's another shift, that might metaphorically be best described as changing the metaphorical flavor to something sweet instead of bitter.) 

- he watches Bella to gauge if she's seen enough. 

She zeroes in on the flavor change, the rest of it seeming less applicable.to her. Flavor change - how. What is happening to the gunk.

If she zooms in, it's - still pretty confusing to interpret, but it looks like the energy is going through multiple repeated loops, and on each iteration there's some kind of filter, and a drain she can't see clearly where the filtered-out icky parts disappear - the filter isn't perfect, but after enough cycles it works well enough. 

Huh. Looks energy-intensive, but not impossible, and it'd still net positive... She will sing up another spell and try to copy what he's doing.

Whatever she's doing is VERY OBVIOUS to mage-sight. Wingsong finishes drawing from the node, and then just - stops, and watches. It's beautiful and also, wow, it looks - well, inefficient. 

After he's seen some of it, :- If you were a normal mage I would say you were overpowering the spell and could use less energy for it, but I am not actually sure how your Gift - or whatever it is - works.:

"I can probably write up a dedicated spell for this, but yeah, my generalist spells are not efficient for any specific thing."

Nod. :Your magic sounds very odd. Why do you describe it as 'writing' it? That makes it sound as though you are going to make an artifact to use, but you were not using an artifact there.: 

"I would be composing the spell and usually do this in written form."

:Huh.: Wingsong is pretty sure he has questions, but he's not entirely sure what his questions are and also they should not have them standing around outside the Vale. If Bella is done experimenting with drawing from ley-lines, they can go back in? 

Works for her.

They head back into the Vale. If the teenagers are staying for a few days to decompress, then Wingsong should probably...let them do that...and give them some privacy. He can ask someone to put wards on the ekele they're lending them.

And he should go to the Heartstone sanctum. Maybe if he sits down and prays to the Goddess properly then he'll get some sort of advice???

Bella reports on the feasibility of slurping up FREE MANA FROM THE GROUND to her allies.

Aadhya looks for somebody to ask about what kind of journey they're looking at if they want to go someplace where strangers are more welcome, since presumably these folks don't want to host them indefinitely? So they can figure out what preparations they'll need to make before setting out.

One of the scouts is happy to talk to them! 

:You really do not want to be traveling overland in the deep Pelagirs. Especially not sleeping overnight outside a Vale, even our Adepts try to avoid that. I think the best way is to arrange a Gate, and then - we probably cannot Gate you to an actual town outside the Pelagirs, but near the edge will be less dangerous and maybe you could travel the rest of the way during daylight hours, if you left early. I suppose you would want food and a tent just in case you needed to camp overnight.: 

"We'd probably set a watch, but yeah, some food and shelter wouldn't go amiss if you have them to spare. Is there anything we can do for you before we go, to compensate you for your hospitality and anything we'd bring with us?"

The scout looks thoughtful. :What sorts of things can your magic do that would last after you left? We need more Adepts more than anything else, but wards that lasted or magical weapons would be useful to us.: 

"Conveniently, I'm an artificer. What sorts of things do you like your weapons to be enchanted to do?"

:...I should go around and ask people, but - more likely to hit, or more powerful when they hit, would both be good. We end up fighting critters that are very good at dodging, and some have natural magical shields. What kinds of magical weapons have you made before?: 

"Caio has a magic boomerang that returns reliably and hits more accurately and harder, and I have that pike, which is poisoned and light and rips through things, and Bella's got a knife that won't cut her, and I had but sold a crossbow that multiplied its ammunition in the air."

:- You can do weapons that won't injure the person using them? That might be very useful, actually, for training the youngsters.: 

"Sure. Have you got any mal bits around? I find them useful for this sort of thing."

:...I am not sure what you mean. Parts of Changecreatures? We do not keep those or bring them back to the Vale, I have never heard of them being useful before except for teaching younglings how to recognize the creatures. ...I suppose we could send out some of the scouts to collect the bodies of the ones we killed recently, and you can see if any of them are useful?: 

"That'd help a lot. I can enchant a regular weapon but it's not my specialty."

Nod. :Do you have anything with you that is made of Changecreature body parts? We could have a mage look at it, in case that helps them recognize what would be useful to bring back here. I do not really want a pile of entire corpses in the Vale, they smell.: 

"So valid. The pike's covered in mal teeth. Don't touch, it's poisonous as all get out."

The scout will call over a handful of experienced mages - not Wingsong, he's busy apparently - to examine the pike. 

...It does look magical. It looks like the sort of magical that could be from a Changecreature, though it would be an unusual kind, and doesn't match with any specific kinds. 

:What did the Changecreature that this came from look like?: the scout asks Aadhya. 

"Most of the teeth are off an argonet but the little barbs were from this, like, cactus porcupine eel thing."

:Huh. I am not sure we have either of those here. We will try to bring back teeth and claws and - spines? - from Changecreatures where those are innately magical.: 

It's going to be a bit before they bring back anything, though. The teenagers will be provided with a wide array of snacks from the hertasi, who have been warned to be more visible about it and are somewhat grumpily complying. 

"Teeth claws spines, venom sacs, bones, scales, particularly strong sinew and guts - ooh -" snacks!!!!

Snacks!!! They are widely varied and include platters of fresh fruits and leafy vegetables and edible flowers of a dozen varieties arranged in beautiful patterns, and finger-sized pickled fish spread out on a plate in the shape of a flower, and elaborately prepared morsels of ground nuts and meat wrapped in pastry with spices and herbs, and little urns of half a dozen fragrant flavors of soup.

(These youngsters look underfed and the hertasi are personally offended.) 

The youngsters appreciate the hertasi very much now that they aren't sneaking around like shadow-kobolds or something. Om nom nom nom.