"Vindicator is the title for someone skilled with Hysh who uses it primarily in battle, and who also has weapon training. Traditionally a refined Hysh crystal hammer used as the focus for combat casting. She was under command of a more senior member of the order, but Vindicators as a whole are a relatively rare breed - it takes deep conviction and years of training in both combat and spellcraft. By comparison I'm an Anchorite - a 'non-martial' Hysh-user - and a junior one."

"By Empire standards, Draenei vindicators are elite shock troops."

"That's quite impressive! You've never felt the call to hit things with Big Hammer, Ishaza?"

"I've been pouring all my spare time into casting practice instead. Crin is generally far my superior in close-combat situations, and generally we deploy together when necessary. I'm focused on learning as much as I can about Hysh to try and purify more countryside and make myself better at blasting things."

"Ah, that's good sense. A solid way to prioritize things. And even more firmly recommended now, given that I'm around. While I may not be able to plan assuming you're both definitely trustworthy, you in fact know this about yourselves and have no such impediment. Wait, no, you of course aren't able to assume I'm definitively trustworthy, that this fact is symmetrical is in fact most of the issue. The risks of simply speaking ones thoughts aloud as they form."

Or, well, the risks of having to do such a thing since you're simultaneously evaluating things for how plausible they sound, whether they're evidence for or against trustworthiness, and keeping up a general mental commentary on things. It's difficult to keep two trains of thought running like this.

Crin nods. "Indeed."

She tilts her head to the side. "Are there any other books I could get you? I have a somewhat limited collection, but if you have something you're looking for I could perhaps turn it up."

"If you had any global atlases, one of those would be nice. Likewise a broader history of the world."

Those are the places she'd have the most chance of spotting any other changes. She doesn't want to get blindsided by something else the same scale as the Exodar.

"Alas, my library is fairly locally focused. All I have is Ilano's Atlasia Vanera and where I've been able to check it it's had some rather shocking inaccuracies, such as describing Greenskins as a kind of motile fungus."

She isn't actually completely sure whether Fantasy shared that element with 40k, but it's still evidence that more things are changed if this universe doesn't.

It, uh, honestly makes sense, ambulatory fungi are- well, the kind of thing that turns out to be something else, usually.

"Huh. Was where exactly he'd gotten that idea apparent?"

"They cultivate and eat a lot of fungus, therefore they must be fungus, on the principle that you are what you eat. More or less."

"My goodness. What a capable scholar, clearly. It is well-known that peasants are mostly plant, after all."

"You'd have better luck with an Imperial library, but most of them are close under lock and key. Your best bet would likely be entry to the University of Altdorf, assuming you didn't want to come to the attention of the Empire as a talented mage potential and forced into studies at a College." 

"I would ideally not be forced into anything, yes. And certainly nothing so time consuming as a forcible magical education at the colleges. It's not that learning magic wouldn't be a good use of my time, but rather that I would prefer not to be stuck doing that without any ability to pivot. And, of course, I would be far away from here, and I do want to help sooner rather than only after a lengthy magical education. I take oaths seriously; better to avoid being forced into any."

And she'll also learn much faster from Crin than from someone she doesn't have a personal connection to.

It's somewhat unfortunate she didn't take any of the options to just kind of ignore the law. But after she does a few things substantial enough to parse more as some sort of living legend than as a person she kind of expects the rules will bend for her slightly. Or break completely.

"That makes sense. I'm glad you appreciate what I and Ishaza are doing here."

"It's- well. Just the Hysh-cleansing alone is, in some sense, the obvious thing to do, if you're a good person. And if you expect to live a long time, it's the obvious thing to do even if you aren't. Which of course means that nobody in the world will end up actually doing it. Genuinely good people are rare, sensible nongood people are rare, and the ability to actually ask yourself the question of what the obvious correct thing to do is is vanishingly rare. And then, after all of that, you still need to actually go out and do it."

It tends to say a lot, if you meet someone doing one of those should-be-obvious things. It's part of why she's being as trusting of Crin and Ishaza as they are; pretend-good, even among people who think they're actually good, never seems to bother with the absolute basic step of thinking for longer than three seconds about what the good thing to do in a situation would be and pretending to do that. It almost feels as if most of the time, it's pretending to pretend.

"And so- things like that are precious. Important to help along, if you can."

"Thank you," says Crin. "I'll accept that in the spirit in which it was intended."

Ishaza gives Crin a complicated look. That might be reproach or might be reassurance, it's hard to tell.

Wait, what- oh, Ishaza mentioned that Crin has had to learn to- well, not do things like play games with her servants. Presumably the style of cognition that implies extended a lot farther than just being moderately manipulative towards the servants. Perhaps Ishaza had to, with great effort, talk Crin into, uh, actually doing the thing they're currently doing, and Crin instead wanted to, oh, not do that in a way that would effectively guarantee she'd eventually be supplanted by some talented newcomer or be conquered by one of her neighbours. If so Crin is in fact right to feel mildly insulted given what Alethia just said, and either way there's clearly something like that going on and Alethia will endeavour to be less bluntly complimentary in the future, lest she compliment a trait that Crin- developed recently and feels a bit sensitive about not having always had.

It is, in fact, a bit unpleasant to have to be watching herself like that. A tiny bit of mental load she'd rather do without, and temporarily set down for a moment here before she should have.That said, the basic fact that they're taking Obvious Correct Actions before she shows up and nudges them into it rather overwhelms that bit of unpleasantness. She's used to needing to painstakingly explain that if you don't want to be on fire you shouldn't bathe in gasoline and light matches; taking novel intelligent self-directed actions that aren't just what society says good people do while still staying within reasonable deontological bounds is kind of an absurd step up.

"Ah. Apologies for- stepping on toes, there."

Crin looks away. 

"I, ah." She looks over at Ishaza. 

Ishaza's lips quirk up. "I think Crin feels she should be the one who's apologizing."

"More or less, yes." She sighs.

Oh.

She, uh, now feels Mean and Uncharitable for her raced-through thoughts five seconds ago. She will endeavour to be less of both in the future. At least she was not mean out loud, she'd feel so guilty right now.

It's not, in her experience, normal for people to- actually apologize for anything that matters. Much less something like this. It's- usually her responsibility to manage- well, everyone's emotions. Her own, whoever she's talking to, the general mood; she doesn't know why the responsibility seems to land that way so often, she doesn't think she's in fact very good at doing all of that, but it does. It's odd, to have someone else apologize for being sharp, instead of- pushing her to apologize for making them want to be sharp.

She likes it.

Something in her untenses, just the littlest bit.

Her interactions with Crin and Ishaza have been- nice, but sort of- textually odd? It's interesting. They're- she likes them kind of a lot, for people she's met so recently. Has something of a felt-sense-of-kinship with them that usually takes weeks and weeks to develop, if it does at all. But in fact she's only interacted with either of them for a scant few hours and the familiarity needed to avoid stepping on toes accidentally isn't there, just yet. And she does in fact have new social senses that could help with that, but she's not yet used to using them and isn't quite sure how much they'd even help, there. Being able to comfortably move in high society isn't the same thing as knowing what particular things a person in high society would be sensitive about. They would probably just- sensibly draw her attention to the ways in which she doesn't know Crin and Ishaza all that well, just yet, which she doesn't in fact need her new social skills to realize- that's just actually using her skills, and not being swept up in excitement about Cool New People.

Also, shy slightly hesitant Crin is absurdly cute Crin, but she shall endeavour not to be immediately bowled over by this.

"Ah. Well- I can apologize for being socially clumsy, you can apologize for being slightly sharp in response to it, and we can consider it water under the bridge?"