"We have two Vigor people, control exercises are similar to Stone so there's been cross-training. I'm not sure about Life - try it on the older ones sitting with your Sage, they haven't held up well. Most of us just need some meat and preferably some root vegetables and we'll be in shape to march."

"I believe we have supplies enough to spare for that.  I'm tentatively planning we get some food in you, report, and see what orders we get."  She's pretty sure she mentioned that she thought they'd need to bring extra food for the Earthshakers' march back to the Quartermaster...

...She'll go talk to the older Earthshakers, first.  "Lantry;" she says as a single sentence, "would you care to do introductions?  I've been told that you have most of the people who've held up the worst, over here, and I'm told the Earthshakers have Vigor sigillists, but not Life, at least not here."

"Indeed, Utkan here knows Vigor himself, though it sounds like they learn it very differently from Sages. Over there is Baki, and the Fatebinder is Ophelia. I hadn't thought to offer it yet."

"Well, I can't say I'm injured, exactly, but I'd appreciate a boost all the same," says Baki.

Then she'll Life at him with a careful touch.  With a bit more dramatic weight to her whole-arm gestures, which she usually doesn't bother with.  "I have to say, I'm interested in comparing the curricula of three separate ways of teaching Vigor.  Though I suspect that the Earthshakers' way is much akin to the Fatebinders'."

Baki sits up a little straighter; not a huge effect, but a noticeable one.

"I'm sure the Court has learned from our practice, but in terms of training it may not be the same," Utkan says, "Any Earthshaker past apprenticeship has a pretty clear picture of their muscle groups, joints, and general structure of their body; when you're imposing a human will on stone, you need to put your full weight behind it. And so when I learned Vigor and when I've taught it, I lean on that - the visualization is probably the same, but for control, we feel the energy moving through our body before it flows outward and expresses itself. Lantry here didn't find that familiar."

He nods. "I learned it leaning on Preservation, since that's what Sages taught their apprentices. Much more cerebral, though you can't do entirely without the body."

"I'm hardly one to talk; it didn't jump to me as readily as Life does - and I'm still trying to figure out why that is; by all rights it's a matter of endurance as much as verve and I've only the surfeit of verve - but I knew far more than a child perhaps should have about anatomy before I began my training, and - at that point, the Earthshakers' approach just came naturally, though I think of it more as - pulling on a cloak, because it can only stave off the chill.  Or, well, the exhaustion.  It has a lot in common with Haste - that's a Force spell - in some ways; you have to be careful to weave that one through, instead of without, or else it won't work.

"...Now that I think about it, the way you weave Guidance - Vigor again - I find myself wondering if it's really as impossible as we normally think it is to do multi-Core spells, notwithstanding whatever shit Nerat pulled that let him go from here to elsewhere in a moment clearly not being a spell of any known Sigil, because it's like an itch on the tip of my tongue that says these things go together.  Like if I tried, if I worked out the shape, the metaphor, then I could succeed in blending those two spells into something more than their component parts.  Perhaps something from Life, too; it feels...more complete?  ...Yes, more complete, that way.  ...That said, it's just...this fiddly intuition, a belief.  Not any sort of certain knowledge."

"Haste, Guidance...Maybe Restore the Land...Which I had better cast for you all, actually; it'll help, and certainly can't hurt.  It has some actual curative effects, in addition to bolstering your vitality."  She pauses, tracing out the sigil like she breathes its Lore.

"...I'd go for the Guarded Form infusion, but Haste is one of those, and more important to the overall theory of binding similar effects together, and they don't usually mix..."

"...I find myself wondering, now that I think about it, whether I'd want to actually use two Cores and two Forms in equal measure, just...at the same time...Which, I mean, that's absolute auroch dung, probably, but I'd believe you if you told me someone figured out how to do it, and that's actually the important part.

"Honestly I think if I can figure out how to cast two things at once, even without the - blending - that's probably enough to make whatever doles out Archonhood to start taking some fucking notice.  I'm getting very tired of being expected to sit there and take it, to just politely roll over and die, as if I've no other choice, when the powerful," and she finds her voice slipping into an outright growl, "try to hurt my people.  Justice shouldn't quail from power merely because power will turn upon it if it does - or what is principle for?  Some petty comfort as you wash your hands of the blood you shed in your complacent terror?

"...That fucking Edict still eats at me.  I wish I'd had more acid.  ...That may have been in poor taste, my apologies."  She wrings her hands, her face taking upon a sullen cast.  "And now I've picked another fight, with bloody Nerat, and no matter that it needed fighting, even Tunon tells me that only Archons can face or dare to censure Archons.  And maybe I've a route to claim that sort of power if I try for it, but - you, of all the people I've ever worked with, surely understand the value of succeeding through your own strength, not strength stolen from others - and not even strength taken by one's own merit, so much as given as blood-price for one's convenience.  I'd love to fucking know where or whether Kyros was hiding cunningly nested plans like these while I was defending Plainsgate and Rhogalus was making a mockery of his position as Fatebinder of Lore.  Surely it must have been Stalwart.  I'm not sure what I'd do if I became unutterably certain that -" Kyros has become something incapable of care for his people, she cannot say.

"...I daren't voice that thought.

"But the question of who would dare prosecute, for example, Tunon, remains.  Not that I've reason to suspect Tunon of any wrongdoing.  Nor Graven Ashe, for that matter.  Only Nerat.  Out of the Archons and ex-Archons I've interacted with.

"...From magic theory to political theory; what a sterling dinner guest I'd make.  I'm sorry, I'm just...only human, underneath all of this, and my bitterness at the situations I have to deal with has picked now to boil over."

"Nerat's certainly not one we'd allow to join our guild, even had he sought to when young. ...I did hear the Edict in Stalwart was clever. Even their own armies have turned against their rulers. Not over to Kyros, they're still rebellious, but the Regents have no loyalists left."

"Well.  At least there's that.  And I'm pretty certain that a baby Nerat could not have become a Fatebinder, either; Tunon might have the emotional range of a rock, but he still knows better than to let someone like Bleden Mark pass judgements, and he's only an assassin because that's his Kyros-given duty and - detached, and cynical enough to handle it - not because he's into the bloodshed.  ...I swear, I half expect that Nerat literally gets off on the gore and suchlike.  ...Annnd I don't believe I have any desire to further entertain that line of thought.  Perhaps I'd best get back to healing; there's more than Baki that needs it."

"The Archon of Misery considered him a good under-spymaster. Frankly, I think Nerat is still an improvement on her. Century's Pain was cruel even when it directly interfered with her duties, for cruelty's sake alone. And her other favored pupil, Hope-Eater, is... well, he's not subtle enough for spycraft but the army of Sorrows is one I'd never wish on any civilians at all, even my worst enemies."

"...Aha.  That explains why Nerat's so useless at soft sells.  His trainer in the art of subterfuge was existentially incapable of using them.

"...Was she also Kyros's spymaster, prior?  I've been focusing my studies on current Archons, when I have the time and the material."

"...now that I come to think of it, I've not the foggiest idea why this Hope-Eater still lives."

"Spymaster and torturer," he confirms, "Taught Nerat and Eater the latter personally."

"..."

"I -"

"...The one thing remaining that leaves me with any hope is that as far as I know, Kyros has not seen fit to raise an official torturer to that vacancy.

"Please refrain from disillusioning me as regards this until we're not going to die of now-unrepealable Edict-strikes thereby."

"The former was more useful but I suspect the latter was why she accepted the job rather than staying a warlord. And that was largely before Tunon - to the extent there's an official replacement, it's the Headsman, who is quite terrifying enough."

"...thank you."

She doesn't say why.

He asks Utkan a technical question about how fading strength with age affects his magic, mostly to conclusively change the subject. (They haven't kept close records.)

"Do you remember any decisive feats you pulled off in your youth, that you could try to replicate now?  And see how they go?"

Darn it, that's actually kind of intriguing.  But she needs to get Helspar briefed for Restore the Fields...

"...And for that matter, do spells of Vigor boost your capacity with Stone?

"...Actually, let's table that."  She scribbles 'Earthshaker elder replication' and 'Vigor -> Stone improvement' down.  "I came over here to find out if Life was effective in restoring what's lost in Vigor's exertion and I need to actually act on the knowledge that yes, it is."

"I'm sure that will be appreciated," Baki says.

Helspar!  "I don't know if it's truly curative, but so far Life certainly hasn't hurt Baki.  I'm thinking that we want to use the Influential Domain Life sigil to do the rest of your command, because that one actually mends more problems than the rest are usually known to, but we should gather everyone up for that so I can get them all in the one casting."  Have the Crescent Runners been fixing lunch, perhaps?

They have gotten out the supplies that can be immediately spared but not yet distributed them. Colus is up and walking over to her, though.

"The Earthshakers think what they most need to recover after the fist stuck here is meat - they stretched out gruel well enough, but they're weak. With your permission, I'm going to take my squad to do a little hunting in a fairly tight radius. By pairs, in case the Chorus return."

"Absolutely.  I trust your judgement.  Take Verse, I think she'll appreciate it.  ...I did ask the quartermaster to pack for this sort of situation, if I recall correctly; I gather that that was insufficient? 

"Although.

"Perhaps we should try the wider-scale application of the Sigil of Life first, before splitting the party, if you're worried about enemy action.  Won't be more than a few minutes to try, at least.  Helspar, can you round everyone up - I'll draw out the area -"