There is a knock, at the door to the office where Altarrin has been writing his letter. At his acknowledgement, one of the uniforms opens it for... a fox.

"Hello! You're Altarrin? Curiosity, charmed to meet you."

(He’s not quite finished the letter yet - it’s feeling very hard to write - but he’s been expecting an interruption and is ready to set it down again whenever Alfirin summons him. He’s wondering vaguely what kind of search-spell experiment she wants to run but it’s not the main thing on his mind. He’s preoccupied, still mostly caught up in thinking through Bastran’s reactions.)

…He blinks at the fox, which is not what he was expecting. “Hello,” he says, since apparently the fox can talk - what does it look like to mage-sight - 

He looks like a perfectly normal fox who happens to be wearing a magical choker that looks a little like the scholar's ring Altarrin is wearing.

"Alfirin said I should get you for an experiment, but if you're in the middle of something you can finish that first, she's not in a hurry." She is nervous about something but he's pretty sure it's not anything to do with this elf.

Altarrin is not a Thoughtsenser and so won’t be confused about being misidentified as an elf, or at all aware that Alfirin (who has always been perfectly calm and poised in his presence, and has him mind-controlled) is nervous about anything. 

“I am available now.” He sets down the letter again beside the pile of discarded drafts, and follows the fox who…apparently works for Alfirin…?

He does! He would normally strike up a conversation for this part but they're actually only going a few doors down the hall so they walk in - companionable? He hopes companionable - silence.

"Altarrin! Do you want me to explain the experiment, or just get on with it? It's - really only an extremely mild risk for you to know, if you care to, you're easier to locally mindread than Iomedae or I are, and this is technically an important secret especially if it works, but most of the secret is just you and your capabilities which aren't secrets from you."

(Iomedae arrives behind Altarrin, and shuts the door behind her, and does not reveal on her face that Alfirin is Evil, though Alfirin is, in fact, Evil.)

...Well that maybe explains the nervousness. She hasn't done anything yet, so he will content himself with curling up at Alfirin's feet and eyeing her suspiciously.

He trusts them. Even Alfirin, who is not technically a follower of Aroden, but from what he's observed so far he respects and likes her, and Iomedae trusts her even if it's - maybe complicated. 

"I do not need to know what it is for," he says levelly. "I will need instructions, if you wish me to do anything other than observe with mage-sight." 

She appreciates that! It barely matters, but she appreciates that he's willing to indulge her paranoia even when it barely matters.

"Very well. As I understand it, you found our planet with a search spell looking for magic items similar to ones Iomedae left on Velgarth. We'd like you to see if you can do the same thing for a particular non-permanent spell. I'm going to prepare it twice, so you can watch me do that, and then, I suppose, see if you can find the prepared copies. Then I'll cast it on myself, and you should see if you can find the cast version. The second one is for you, it will be useful on our mission." And she can prepare mind blank twice, more slowly than she usually does, and cast it twice, pausing if Altarrin wants to try any longer-casting-time search techniques.

He wants her to pause briefly after casting it on herself - she seemed bothered to not have it in place and he wasn't going to delay that - so he can try to find the second one wherever she's folded up and hidden it, and then - with more effort - set up a detection-ward set-spell that he hopes will trigger for the actual casting of the spell. It's not a very good version, but mostly because it won't be stable for long or expand gracefully to warding a large area; he basically expects it to work, and those are problems that can be figured out in later research. 

The second spell can't be found; if it was findable in the first place, it seems to be hidden by the first mind blank (Along with Alfirin's magic items and a couple of set-spells). When she casts it, his detection set-spell does go off! Someone cast a mind blank here!

He conveys this! 

"I think I could with more work figure out very efficient area-effect wards - I could cover the city, certainly, if that is useful for - what you need it for. - Once cast the spell hides you from my Othersenses, I cannot sense you at all with mage-sight now and I suspect a Thoughtsenser or even a Mindhealer would do no better. I might be able to find the uncast spell, wherever you put it, had I checked before you had cast it." He frowns. "I - doubt I can run a search-spell for it once cast, if the structure is still there it is - hiding itself - but I am willing to try some ideas for a few minutes, see if I can route through the Void as Gates do..." 

"Please do. Take as long as you need if you keep having ideas, I don't expect any of them to work but I think it's definitely worth trying for at least an hour if you've got an hour's worth of serious things to try."

Curiosity can put two and two together and has switched from suspicious glares to angry ones. Not that they look very different on a fox.

Presumably because he thinks Iomedae invited herself to see Alfirin without Mind Blank, for the obvious reason, instead of Alfirin inviting Iomedae for the slightly-less-obvious one. Iomedae is not ready to discuss this with Curiosity, now or probably ever, so she doesn't.

(The intelligent talking fox who works for Alfirin is hostile toward Iomedae. Altarrin can’t pick up much more than that, and it does not seem worth poking, so it's not worth thinking about further.) 

He doesn't have a whole hour worth of serious ideas - he'll be done within 35 minutes - but mostly this is because he is really shockingly fast at trying new techniques wildly improvised on the spot, and needs much less rest in between than he usually would, thanks to the belt.

(Targeting spell-structure components the naive way absolutely does not work, as expected. Routing through the Void like a Gate-search also doesn't work. Routing through the Void-and-other-planes like an interworld Gate also doesn't work. Various ways of trying to more indirectly aim a search don't work. ...He tries routing specifically through each of the Elemental Planes just in case but this unsurprisingly also does not work.) 

He's definitely ready to sit down, at the end of it. "- Not sure it is an unsolvable problem," he says, "but it is a difficult one. If there is a way around the hiding-itself property of the spell, I have not seen it yet, and I expect it would take me months to - think of the right way to approach it differently, if it is possible at all. I - have no idea if it is worth that." 

"I would expect that it's not possible, but I think it would still be worth the research project, if you're willing to do that and we don't have any better projects for you to spend your time on - It would be very important if you did succeed. Do you concur, Knight-Commander?"

Something about the way Alfirin says 'Knight-Commander' feels like getting an axe driven through her ribcage. "I concur. Thank you for the attempt. I have my letter to the Empire, for whenever you depart, if you are still planning to operate there today."

"...I still think we should go today."

He clears his throat. "I - am not finished my letter - I can finish something in another twenty minutes, I think, badly, but - it is possible I could use advice. On - I am not sure this is at all a common problem - but how to communicate something important to someone who has been a close colleague for many years, but you are - not actually on the same page at all." 

"...I imagine this colleague is probably still under the Empire's mind-control. I - would usually prefer to have a conversation like that face-to-face rather than in a letter, if it could be done safely - I'm trying to think if we have a way to do that that would not immediately compromise your colleague's position - "

He blinks inanely at her for a moment. 

"....I think that was vaguer than I needed to be. I am talking about the current Emperor, and it seems very difficult to meet him face to face in a way that is - not unacceptably risky for either of us." 

He looks down. "I - selected him, personally - decades before, actually, and supported his candidacy, because he is– the Empire is very bad for him but it is because he - cares about doing the right thing, and not hurting people."

Was that even slightly coherent he has no idea.

"He is under much less mind-control than most high level officials, but he does have a loyalty compulsion to the Empire. Also I suspect he is navigating an extremely complicated political situation," and is miserable about it not the point, "and it would be very easy to - make that worse." 

"...It will probably create more problems than it solves if we kidnap the Emperor briefly."

"Is the not-being-on-the-same page primarily that - Actually, Curiosity, could you step out for a moment, some of this is secret -"