<Weapon set off. Far north, on Iomedae. I - got her out - need more Healers urgently> 

....and he hesitates a couple of seconds more before giving the name of the town. This is only partly because he has to take a moment to remember what it would even be called on Tantaran maps. 

Urtho is incredibly confused and really this is a situation where he would prefer to ask Iomedae for advice except, well. He can't do that, can he. 

(Though he's going to relay an order to have some of his Mindspeakers try for her anyway, in case Ma'ar is just flat-out lying, but - he knows she was expecting the attack to be aimed at her. And that she was planning to offer Ma'ar the ring of evasion, because she - was confident enough that it wasn't his work - what's the likelihood that Ma'ar would come up with this story as a lie, if the attack had been his work, surely not that high...he's pretty sure he isn't being paranoid enough but if it's true then Iomedae might be dying and he can't afford to waste time being suspicious...) 

<We will send a dozen of our Healers to your border>

He'll specify a location. None of his own people, that he can think of, actually have a Gate-location to the town Ma'ar named; Urtho wouldn't even be able to point out that town on a map. They might have been the ones to invade, but they never made it that far into Predain's territory. 

If Ma'ar really needs this - if Iomedae really needs this - they can Gate them the rest of the way. 

Predain has fewer Healers on hand, but a faster communication loop. They'll have another four on site within less than five minutes. 

It's all right, everything is fine, Ma'ar is definitely not in agonizing pain right now

How's Iomedae? 

A person in this state should be dead, and if they somehow weren't dead they should be dying. You cannot, actually, just burn off all your skin and much of the deep tissue beneath it. It is hard to list all of the things that will immediately go wrong for you. The dying cells will release proteins and cell fragments into your bloodstream, you'll bleed internally and externally, your body will respond to the sudden biomarkers of mass cell death everywhere with panic, your body temperature will plummet without your skin to help maintain it, your fluid balance will swing rapidly into dangerous territory, your kidneys will shut down, and you will contract so many bacterial infections that even a functioning immune system would struggle to fight them off.

None of those things are happening. This woman has lost all of her skin to burns and the rest of her is impossibly plugging along, doing precisely what it's supposed to do. Her body temperature is normal. Her blood is normal. She is oozing a lot of fluids from surfaces that aren't supposed to ooze fluids but she's overall well-hydrated. Healers mostly can't spot early stages of infection, that's probably going to be a problem. And her heart is beating slowly and her blood oxygenation is still getting worse - she's coughed out enough water and damaged tissue that she might in principle be actually drawing some air when she breaths, but she can't be getting much oxygen with that much lung damage -

The Healers think this is extremely confusing! And despite the bizarre fact that various things that should be rapidly worsening aren't, they - are not sure this is someone they can actually Heal fully back to a healthy functioning state? Even if they can get her through the immediate crisis at all, which is far from certain. 

- but, having given that caveat, they're going to try very hard. 

Ma'ar appreciates it.

Also it seems like a good idea to move her somewhere that isn't the middle of the town square, as soon as she's stable enough to be moved without it causing further damage? 

(This unfortunately means that he has to stand up and move and walk. It's fine. He can do that. He is very used to not letting anyone notice that he's in pain.) 

- oh, and separately he would like a report on what's been happening elsewhere in Predain. Please. 

Meanwhile, there is a moderately tense and very confused negotiation happening at the border! 

(Ma'ar did not think to warn anyone else about his conversation with Urtho.) 

...it seems like probably Healers, who have been confirmed via mage-sight to be actual Healers not mages and who also aren't carrying anything magical at all, are probably not sneaking further superweapons into the kingdom? 

The general in command of this camp is much less sure than he would prefer, but - none of it conflicts with previous reports. He'll send the dozen Tantaran Healers where they're asking to go, by Gate, with another dozen mages guarding them very closely. 

Ma'ar has decided very firmly that he's going to simply avoid collapsing in exhaustion until Iomedae is conscious and he can explain what happened. Possibly this is a doomed plan. He isn't really managing to think that far ahead. 

He follows the Healers to the administrative center for the mine, which is the only properly shielded building in the town and thus a much better location to stage than the actual Healers' center. 

Reports: 

There was...some kind of attack, probably??? on the camp Ma'ar was in until he Gated out. It was not a very effective attack. The mages in question may or may not have been intending to Final Strike if and only if Ma'ar were in range...?

In any case, they're now thoroughly compulsioned and in Predain's custody and the monitors on both sides are aware. 

....Ma'ar should probably have some kind of reaction to that. Something more useful than 'well, it sounds like it didn't work.' 

He'll ad-lib some words that hopefully make sense, and send them via communication-spell, and continue sitting with Iomedae in an awkwardly repurposed mine-administrator's office alongside a dozen Tantaran Healers and half that many of his own people's Healers.

He tries not to be too annoying about asking them for updates. 

The Tantaran Healers are...somewhat better trained than their Predain counterparts. 

- they're also pretty worried about Adept Kiyamvir Ma'ar, who himself looks quite seriously injured? The one who's a Mindspeaker will make sure this is conveyed to the Predain Healers. But in the meantime, Ma'ar is at least not dying (yet), and their other patient maybe is. 

They work very hard. 

Their other patient's lungs are recovering. They're still horrendous, to be clear, but she's drawing slow, shallow breaths and there are no signs of further damage from lack of oxygen. In most areas where it was ambiguous how bad the damage was, it's...turning out to be not so bad?

The patient is still not deteriorating in any of the thousand ways you'd really expect. 

...It's going to be a long day. 

Ma'ar's mage-reserves are in less disastrous shape than the rest of him. He can keep reacting to communication-spell messages for a while.

...A couple of candlemarks, maybe. He still hasn't slept in - over twenty-four candlemarks, at this point. This is not a very sustainable state of affairs. 

...Need is far less susceptible to physical damage than Iomedae. And no one has bothered her, after Ma'ar snapped at the first couple of people who tried asking questions. She's still pretty impaired, given that Iomedae continues to be deeply unconscious, but she could in theory manage to Mindspeak either Ma'ar, or someone else, about how he's being an idiot. 

However, the situation is hilarious and so she's just going to keep watching it for a while. 

(Urtho is very worried! He isn't quite worried enough to try targeting the communication-spell directly to Ma'ar. He will satisfy himself by checking absurdly often with the Tantaran monitors that nothing (else) disastrous is happening on ceasefire-related matters. And also being very annoying to his mages currently working on guarding and dismantling superweapons. It would be so embarrassing if another superweapon went missing and they had to go through all of this again.)

Iomedae is drifting in an ocean of agonizing pain. 

She has a reflex for that. It's to cast Lay on Hands on herself. 

It doesn't work. She has no idea why. Maybe she's in Hell? 

They don't actually have a dedicated Thoughtsenser trying to read her constantly. 

Need is a Mindspeaker, though, and directly bonded to Iomedae right now - shallowly, but less shallowly than she had originally intended, it's been a very intense few candlemarks - and her own awareness is increasing along with Iomedae's. 

:Hey: A (gentle) mental slap. :Focus. You're not in Hell. You're alive. In Predain, someplace, I didn't get the name. I assume Ma'ar grabbed us, given how he seems to be obnoxiously hovering at your bedside pretending he's not also horrifically injured. ...If you'd prefer he not dramatically collapse at some point, you could let him know you're conscious? Though personally I think it would be very funny and he'd deserve it: 

- 

- no Lay on Hands because Aroden isn't here. She misses Him. 

- might be a followup attempt. She needs to recover faster, she needs to be back on her feet - she makes a motion that's supposed to be sitting up but that has no effects except more agonizing pain and a coughing fit -

- Ma'ar - Ma'ar rescued her - good for him, that's not a club with all that many members - Ma'ar is injured - who injured Ma'ar? Did Vkandis do that?

She's so tired but she's absolutely not going to fall back asleep until she's safe -

:Hey. Stop that. ...Don't think it was a second attack on Ma'ar, he was just a bloody idiot and Gated in before it'd cooled down and he's not as tough as you. Though I can't be too annoyed with him, might've been a close thing that you survived at all and it's cute when a boy is the heroic kind of idiot. I'm working on getting you back on your feet as fast as I can, we've got nearly twenty Healers here doing the same, you're going to be fine:

And, somewhat grudgingly, :- Is there anything I should tell Ma'ar for you before he falls on his face in front of people who'll definitely tell his generals and his king about it?: