Fizzle.

Well.

He was standing right next to the throne.

Somehow this feels worse than when she killed Shojo.

Lien? Thanh? A couple of paladins she didn't see in the throne room and were probably just at the bottom of the pile but might have survived and escaped?

No no no no no.

She buries her face in her hands and groans. She should probably give up, really, it's been over an hour and a half since she first started testing. But if she wants to be a paladin again, she can't give up this easily.

It occurs to her that she knows one person who's certainly alive. Someone with nigh-invincible plot armor who will likely survive no matter what insane situations he throws himself into. He's not someone she wants to talk to, but…

"Send to Roy Greenhilt. The entire Sapphire Guard is dead, the Gate is destroyed, and Xykon escaped."

She still has half her word allowance left. What does she want to spend it on? Yelling at Greenhilt? Blaming him for this? She still can't be sure that he isn't secretly working for Xykon, in which case he already knows all that and is celebrating.

But.

He did stop her from killing Hinjo in the throne room. And accuse her of not caring about the dignity of sentient beings.

"If you care about Azure City's people, at least raise Hinjo. Please."

Ding!

On. The bright side. This is another win. For Miko's unassailable logic.

A couple minutes later comes a faint and fuzzy reply:

You can Send to dead people and you're bothering me? Whatever. Durkon's raising me in the morning. If we find paladins we'll raise them too.

"The person I was able to reach is claiming to be dead."

"He's probably dead," Finnean says matter-of-factly.

"Then… I had been assuming that when the spell failed with the others it was because they were dead. But…"

She stands up and paces.

"It worked on Agurdha, and she's alive. So it isn't some sort of spell that works on the dead but not the living. So any of them could be alive… unless Xykon trapped their souls? He's a lich necromancer, he probably has a spell that can do that."

Well, there's someone she knows to be:

1. dead.
2. extremely unlikely to be soul-trapped.

This is going to be awkward, but…

"Send to Lord Shojo. I'm sorry about killing you. And destroying the Gate. And letting Xykon escape."

She… can't think of anything else she can add.

Nothing happens?

"I'm… not sure what to make of that. I suppose it means that the spell failures aren't necessarily because the recipient is dead? But then what do they—"

Honestly, I had it coming to me. For what it's worth, I'm sorry for manipulating you. And the rest of the paladins.

Take care, Miko.

"Would you like a hint?" Finnean says blandly.

"Sorry. Yes, I—"

"—wait, you knew what was going on?"

"I did mention I had studied magic."

"All right. I apologize for not asking sooner. What… hint… were you going to give?"

"There are multiple confounding factors to your experiment. You're trying admirably to test them, but if you're not careful you'll test nothing. In brief: you know that you can contact Roy Greenhilt, who claims to be dead, and is certainly not here. You know that you can contact Angurdha, who is alive and twenty feet away. You know that you can contact your Lord Shojo, who is definitely dead - or, well, as definitely as can be determined - and is certainly not here; however, he does not produce a clear feedback result. We need to test individual variables. Is this cave lead-lined, such that outgoing messages must be directed to a different plane or fail? Unlikely, but testable; Send to a few relatively nearby surfacers who are almost certainly still alive, of whom I can provide a few, and one who is certainly dead of nothing related to your Xykon - perhaps my wife. Is your home simply too far to reach, somehow? Send to this Durkon character your Roy mentioned. He is approximately the only person we can confirm is alive. So on, so forth, et cetera."

Oh.

That's… actually helpful and thoughtful. And exceeds Miko's subconscious expectation that Finnean was bringing this up to throw her ignorance in her face. She takes a breath and weighs the options.

"All right. If you have a preferred wording for the surface-dwellers and your wife, I can try that. In the meantime…"

Durkon, despite his taste in companions, has always been trustworthy enough.

"Send to Durkon Thundershield. I'm testing the limits of this spell. Have been unable to contact Sapphire Guard. Greenhilt says he's dead and you'll raise him in the morning."

"I'll come up with wordings during the cast." Cast!

Fizzle.

She rummages in her inventory for some scratch paper and makes lists.

Spell failure: every paladin she tried, Thundershield. Spell success: Agurdha, Greenhilt. No feedback from the spell: Shojo. (Although evidently it did work with him? She's not sure what to make of that.)

"Okay, I'm ready to try the others."