"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."

The first living person they try is "that obnoxious elf." Finnean sends her an empathic packet of knowing-that-obnoxious-elf; it's tinged only slightly by how much Finnean dislikes him. The message is Relaying Finnean Blacknife. Said I was bound to blade more than I knew. Turned into sword, slept century. Knowledge of this? Please respond regardless.

"I don't actually know his name or I'd have told you. We can try a few configurations, but you sending on my behalf rules out the most possibilities if it works."

She dutifully relays this message! And wonders what exactly Finnean's relationship with the elf is, to be this unfond of him and yet pick him as the first living person to contact. Maybe it's because of elven lifespan?

"What are the possibilities this will rule out?"

"If you are successful, we will know that you do not need to personally know the target, and can instead work from an empathic impression; that we are not blocked by a feature of this cavern, as I had postulated; and that the elf has still not yet induced someone to murder him. Which is not strictly relevant, but has been a matter of personal curiosity."

That last one gets a laugh out of her.

"Well, is he so obnoxious that lasting a century without being stabbed would be unlikely?"

Finnean grunts. "The only thing more infuriating than someone who acts like he knows everything is someone who actually knows everything, but doesn't know enough to shut up about it."

Ding!

The responses so far have taken a minute or two to formulate. Twenty-five words is a significant constraint, and it takes a good deal of thought to make one's point within it.

After ten seconds - the same amount of time it took to actually speak Finnean's message aloud - a reedy voice responds.

Knowledge <truefalse>.* <This happenedn't [counterfactual-conditional-past], mattern't [counterfactual-conditional-present] what said.>† Sending failure five plus percent interplanar, hundred farther. <Xykon win't [prophetic-perfect].>† Call wife anyway. Look forward to meeting Miko.

*Draconic has a fairly rudimentary vocabulary for quantum states, but rudimentary is better than nothing.

†Orcish has a versatile system of negative suffixes.

*†The Storyteller has permanent Tongues.

"You see my point, perhaps."

That has got to be an abuse of the word limit.

"… Yes. All right, translating all that into Common, he—knew that you had a chance of turning into a sword but not that it had happened until you told him. And a variety of things that neither of us actually told him."

"He doesn't usually have quite that much information, but he generally has some amount of knowledge that he has no business whatsoever possessing. I disagree with your assessment of his message to me; it seemed like he was saying 'if it weren't true, I wouldn't have said it'? Or perhaps something more stupid than that. I really don't know why I expected any sensible answer at all."