"Not a bad idea. Thank you very much, Nenio. Do you want to join us for dinner or is that too unscientific?"

"Good science requires sustenance, either from food or a ring!"

Camellia had been kind of hoping Nenio wouldn't join them, but she supposes it would be churlish to refuse to pay for her after the lesson on scrolls turned out to be genuinely useful. She'll lead the way to a moderately fancy restaurant whose Taldane owner offers genuine Opparan cuisine at acceptable quality, and more importantly has their place nearby the library.

"I heard a fairly negative review of the rings, but maybe they're fine on food and only iffy on sleep," says Ky on their way.

"Iffy on sleep? That's the most useful part! I could stay up all night working on spell research, and still be able to prepare spells if I get up before noon! I tried just forgetting I was tired but, but it wasn't enough to let me prepare spells."

"The thing I heard was that it means you can compress eight hours of sleep into two, but this does nothing about extending sixteen hours of useful wakefulness into twenty-two and this leaves you pretty sleepy for the six extra or causes your schedule to slip around a lot. Which is better than nothing but not the pure win it sounded like."

“Oh, that. If I start to get tired enough to interfere with my work, I just forget about it and move on.”

"You have turned forgetfulness into an art form."

"Thank you!"

How in the world does forgetting that you're tired even help? Maybe there's a spell for it and Nenio is just messing with her, though she didn't think the girl was good enough at deception. Whatever. Camellia can't really even bring herself to care about it right now, not compared to eating. Thankfully a pointed glance is enough to convince the help not to say anything about Nenio's appearance, since she can't even count on the wizard caring enough to not bring down their party's reputation by not responding harshly enough to being questioned.

Ky will have whatever Camellia recommends.

Then she can also order kleftiko, which turns out to be lamb and potatoes slow cooked with lemon and garlic, followed by a honey-almond nougat called mandolato. 

"This is delicious."

Oh good, it's always nice to get it right.

Since nobody is in a rush to do anything after they eat, Camellia will stick around for a bit and chat, but once things are done and she's paid for the meal Camellia makes her way back home. The company is fine but she's already going to be roughing it indefinitely in a few days and doesn't intend to start sooner.

As one might have gathered from her earlier comments, Nenio is entirely willing to ignore sleep as a factor for as long as Kybele holds her attention, but once that stops being a factor she unfurls a bedroll from her pack and is out like a light.

Ky sleeps too. She's an arcane spellcaster now, it might be important.

Then they'll both be awake at a reasonable hour the next day, though Nenio also has to spend time preparing spells. In the city outside there is an air of urgency, with everyone rushing to finish up last minute preparations for their own journey or that of others, saying goodbyes, and boasting about what they're going to accomplish, but even more than that there's a sense of anticipation. Even now there aren't enough people in the city for it to be exactly clogged, the wide streets designed for easy logistics performing their job despite the detours caused by new bridges over the rift, but compared to how it was during the entire rest of Kybele's stay the difference is extremely easy to notice.

Ky doesn't know how to do this. As an approximation she's going to suit up in all her paper finery and run around finding all her senior staff to see how they're doing and if they need anything, in case she can pull a solution out of her conical hat.

Her subordinates are mostly very findable, likely to aid everyone else involved in doing just that! Harmattan has camped out near the gates and is coordinating the stragglers coming in from the surrounding towns, while the baroness and Irabeth are situated outside them getting all the resulting formations an assigned location when they break to camp and a marching order that doesn't leave them too vulnerable to ambush while traveling. Nurah Dendiwhar is meeting with city notables, including Hulrun and Rathimus, to discuss funding, while Wilcer Garms has apparently gone mad with power from having as much paper as he would like and is doing an updated inventory and records system so that fewer things slip through the cracks. Finding Ramien would be a bit harder, but everyone seems confident he's around there somewhere.

Looks like everything is going smoothly! Do any of these people want her to stick around and weigh in on things for longer than it takes her to wave and smile at recruits?

If she's interested in helping with paperwork Wilcer Garms will happily take her assistance, but since he has also hired out most of the city's scribes for the low security bits he doesn't really need to.

Nurah would absolutely appreciate the help, Hulrun apparently doesn't trust anyone not strong enough to detect and she's heard Kybele has fewer difficulties with him.

"Prelate, good morning! How goes it?"

“About as well as can be expected, with the city as it is. You’ll be bringing some people I’ll be sorry to see go, but with the count going with you to do something useful I’m still inclined to see it as a positive. I trust your last few days have been similarly productive?”