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blai in book 11 of asftv
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Probably...not...? The thing is that this is really a very big deal and Joshel's immediate reaction is to seek a private consultation with Cicerone Raad for questions like "is it un-Abadaran and sketchy for Leareth's organization to sell all their purchased-at-Velgarth-prices diamonds in Golarion at current-Golarion-prices when they have secret information that later on they can get more diamonds more or less for free", but he vaguely feels like he has a duty to tell Randi first before telling someone who isn't even from their world let alone Valdemaran, and he can't decide whether that's a stupid feeling to be having. 

...Which is very plausibly because it's been an incredibly long day and he's tired. And it's not like they should be making diamond-sale plans tonight given the lack of confirmation, at the very least Randi is going to want it confirmed by non-impaired Leareth before they put that much weight on the result of a poorly-understood prophecy spell. 

:I don't think it's urgent enough to wake him. I'll make arrangements to be back in Haven by morning, we can meet then. With Leareth once he's had all the Restorations, maybe, I can prioritize having clerics available in Haven to get him those right after dawn.: 

Right, and he was actually supposed to be sending someone back for today's final Restoration on Leareth if no emergencies came up, he should go track down his notes on who that was when he's making the arrangements, though inconveniently he thinks it might not be Raad and Raad is definitely the one he wants to consult with...

Those aren't logistics he needs to go over with Seldan on a Mindspeech link that's got to be at three hundred and fifty miles of range, it's tiring for both himself and Kimbry and he knows Seldan has to be bearing the brunt of it. 

:I've got questions but I'll save them. Thank you.:

It would have been very understandable if they had decided not to rush to tell him tonight, but - he's glad to know, even if the only difference it makes tonight is that he falls asleep happy rather than grim. 

 

(Abadar will almost certainly know before any of the clerics here in Velgarth do, given that Joshel is going to have to park himself somewhere for his own candlemark of prayer tomorrow morning and he cannot imagine that he'll be able to keep his mind on anything else. ...Can gods be happy? Joshel is finding himself weirdly wishing that Abadar is capable of being as excited about news like this as Joshel himself is.) 

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:You're welcome.: 

And Seldan drops the connection. There, Joshel is the single person he's the most confident would know if there was some reason it couldn't wait until a sensible time of day tomorrow - and for Leareth to be fully recovered and able to consult on it properly - to discuss what plans ought to change. And it sounds like it can wait, so in the meantime he's inclined to relay it to any Companions in Haven who are still awake. And then he and Blai can get a good night's sleep, and Leareth in the morning can narrow down more definitively whether he thinks this is definitely possible, and they'll go from there. 

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All right then.

Does Seldan have an opinion about whether Blai should go find the room someone assigned him aeons ago or just crash in the stables?

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Stables stables stables Blai should definitely crash with Seldan in the stables it'll be fun ...If Blai would sleep better in a real bed then it'll be quick work for Seldan to find him one even if the room from aeons ago is reallocated. But also the stables are perfectly nice. In his opinion. And there's a closet where you can grab a blanket, or at least there was in his time and there's probably still one now - he can find that out in seconds, thank you horse conspiracy - there is! 

Maybe later when Valdemar is FABULOUSLY WEALTHY because Vanyel can MAKE DIAMONDS, they can actually rebuild the Heralds' Wing with every room having a back door for a Companion stall. And rebuild the Palace, the core wings haven't obviously been rebuilt or even substantially modified in the last six hundred years...

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They will be so rich. Rich beyond the wildest dreams of all the kings of the world. ...maybe less rich than that if they're at all choosy about who they sell diamonds to. They should not give diamonds to efreeti, or Razmir, or Geb, or pit fiends, or Areelu Vorlesh, or - lots of people actually - but still. Rich enough to remodel the building. Blai will come with Seldan to the stables and get a blanket and curl up in the stall with him.

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And Joshel digs out his notes and confirms that Luminary Khayr is the one with a Restoration still un-cast, and conveniently also the one who only needs two candlemarks of sleep so it shouldn't be jerking him around too much to interrupt with a surprise request to transfer back to Haven.

He spends a while trying to sort out some kind of logistics for the Haven return trip that won't inconvenience Raad too much, and eventually convinces himself that Raad is being paid huge sums of money specifically to show up in an emergency that will predictably involve last-minute plan changes and he should not feel bad about said last-minute plan changes. 

Raad and Khayr are in different other towns. Joshel dispatches messages to the effect that both of them and also one of the fifth-circle clerics are requested to return to Haven for casting Restorations tomorrow (plus the one tonight), and there will be shorter-range Gates soon to transport them to Sumpost so they can all hop on the same medium-range Gate back to Haven. 

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All of them are quite agreeable about showing up for these gates.

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Then they can quite efficiently all be back in Haven not that long after midnight! Everyone except Khayr can be officially off-duty until tomorrow morning and retire to the comfy guest rooms assigned to them, and Joshel will detour by the House of Healing with Khayr now, since they seem really unlikely to need a Restoration for someone else before dawn, it's kind of mean to make Leareth wait all night when it's not absolutely necessary, and this way Joshel doesn't have to wake up any earlier than dawn to make sure it happens.

(Getting almost a full night's sleep in his own bed would not by itself have justified coming back to Haven, but it's a silver lining that Joshel is very much looking forward to. It's been over a decade since he was a Herald on circuit, and it turns out that he's become a homebody who hates sleeping in strange places and being on an unpredictable schedule.) 

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The Healer on overnight desk duty knows who Joshel is and will let him and his guest in without complaint, and the guard at Leareth's door also lets them through after warning Vanyel. 

Leareth is still awake. If he's unpleasantly startled by the arrival of a cleric who works for a god he knows nothing about, well, he's as least enough in control of himself not to show it. He knows perfectly well on an intellectual level that they're here to help. 

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"Hello there, welcome back to the land of the living. I'm Luminary Khayr. If I don't misremember we'll be Restoring your Wisdom, does that sound right?"

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(Leareth is carefully trying to read the man’s surface thoughts only the precise amount required to get around the language barrier.)

 

…That seems right but Leareth is not absolutely sure he remembers it correctly or that he understood that whole discussion in the first place. He glances uncertainly at Vanyel.

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:Yes, please.: Vanyel is trying to pre-emptively brace himself against having hurt feelings if Leareth-with-Wisdom-restored immediately decides that he prefers to be alone and kicks Vanyel out of his room.

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And there's diamond dust and sprinkling and chanting.

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Leareth spends the duration of the casting, which is notably longer than the fastest Golarion spells even if it's not by any means objectively a long time, mildly panicking about Foreign God Magic being cast on him and realizing he's not even sure which god and feeling like it's incredibly stupid to be scared given everything but especially given that he's decided to cooperate fully with it and then failing to find the mental lever to stop it and being incredibly frustrated about it - 

 

- and then it's back, and it's - still effortful, still nontrivial, because while he was out of it his heart rate managed to get pretty elevated and he can't instantly get the physical reaction fully under control, but - it feels like being fully a person again. 

:Thank you: he tells the cleric, and his mindvoice is genuine and also mostly-genuinely calm. 

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Awwwwwww it's remarkable how much something that must be a really very subtle visible change is making Vanyel feel like he has Leareth back. 

:Thank you: he adds.

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It’s not visible to Joshel that literally anything changed but it sounds like it worked?

That’s all they needed, so he can usher Luminary Khayr out and accompany him to the outside entrance of the guest-quarters building where all the clerics are staying - he won’t have to actually sleep for ages, presumably, but Joshel is just going to assume he’s equipped to sort himself out and is being paid to do so and does not need, like, midnight entertainment provided - and then he’ll go to BED.

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Khayr and his sword guy pal will play cards if there's nothing else they're wanted for.

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Not tonight! Honestly they’re maybe getting to the point that the border can no longer soak up fourteen visiting clerics worth of channels tomorrow, though the Endure Elements will continue to be invaluable for weeks.

Joshel is maybe going to lie awake for a WHILE mentally bouncing and sparkling about DIAMONDS, but he eventually sleeps.

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On one level, Leareth does kind of want to be alone, but - it’s mostly a habit, he thinks, and some not-even-accurate feeling that being alone would leave him with enough space in his head to think normally. It definitely won’t do that, he still has damage that won’t be Restored (Restorationed?) until tomorrow morning.

And maybe the realization Wisdom allows is that obviously he finds it nervewracking to be alone, after what happened, when he knows he’s still impaired in multiple ways. It makes perfect sense. And - he trusts Vanyel. 

He tells Vanyel that he should be all right on his own, now, but that if Vanyel is willing to stay he would almost certainly sleep better for it.

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Awwwwwwwww! Shelyn Shelyn did you see that, Vanyel is doing such a good job of being Leareth’s friend, Leareth wants him to stay

Of course he can stay. Though he should also probably try to get some sleep. He can Mindspeak one of the Healers to bring him a bedroll or a cot.

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It's still nontrivial to relax enough to fall asleep, when Leareth is simultaneously on edge about whether there's some unforeseen disaster waiting to drop on their heads tomorrow and also incredibly impatient for it to be tomorrow morning and time to work on actually inventing the crush-soot-into-diamonds spell, and also his body still isn't all that tired. Leareth is mentally and emotionally drained, though, in some way that a Restoration didn't touch, and sleep will help, though he's hoping the morning Restorations will incidentally get rid of the inevitable fatigue from not sleeping well. 

 

He indeed does not sleep well, but he sleeps. 

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The Healing-staff bring Vanyel an entire spare cot, and Vanyel lies down as well. It's not as comfortable as his own bed and lacks a Stef to cuddle, but is a lot better than a bedroll on the floor– Stef! He completely forgot to at any point think to pass a message to Stef, who he really hopes hasn't been waiting sadly for him to get back from his bath for multiple candlemarks. 

He gets an assurance from Yfandes that of course she told Stef where he was, and she promises that she smoothed over Stef's hurt feelings about not being invited by pointing out that he gets the privilege of sleeping in their own bed and not spending yet another night in the House of Healing. 

Vanyel sleeps surprisingly well. 

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Joshel wakes with the dawn and has time to use the privy and then - 

 

ABADAR WE PROBABLY FOUND A WAY TO MAKE DIAMONDS!!!!! ...All right, fine, Leareth will find such a way, but Vanyel is the one who'll be able to cast the spell, assuming the prophecy is true but it's PROBABLY TRUE, and so this feels much less like a weird slightly fraught un-discussed loan-or-gift-or-trade of resources from Leareth's org and more straightforwardly like a thing they're doing together as allies with Valdemar playing a critical part. 

They're going to have so many diamonds!!! They'll be so rich and it'll make Golarion richer, too, if Valdemar-and-Leareth can sell them diamonds at a fraction the previous cost, indefinitely or at least as long as they have Vanyel, but if anything happens to Vanyel they can just Raise him right away because they will have SO MANY DIAMONDS - it would be tiring for Vanyel so it's not literally unlimited but there's got to be a solution to that if they have DIAMONDS ON DEMAND they can just give him tons of Restorations about it - there's going to be a way to perfect it and it'll be worth however much investment it takes because the Velgarth diamonds plus the Golarion magic is SUCH a valuable opportunity -

— he should at some point also ask for the spells he wants today, he’ll swap Virtue for Create Water in case they get the Gate-routing perfected today and he ends up visiting the desert again, and the floating disk is always useful for something, and an Endure Elements, and then maybe he wants an Abadar’s Truthtelling in case Raad wants to confirm the UNLIMITED VANYEL DIAMONDS with either Blai who cast the Minor Prophecy or Leareth who’s going to actually come up with the spell now - he’s just so excited about the DIAMOND MAKING SPELL and what it means for Valdemar’s future and also, like, everyone who wants anything they can get with a spell that takes a diamond…

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Dawn arrives and Blai wakes up in Seldan's stall. ...is there a list of things he should prep today or is he just guessing.

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Seldan has not been given an updated list of requests since yesterday. He’s pretty sure Endure Elements will continue to be useful, and that they still want Gentle Reposes, it’s been - twelve days? So none of the clerics Joshel hired with the first Gate can Raise anyone they Repose today but it would only take someone a little bit stronger. If Blai has pressing other uses for a second-circle spell, that's plausibly worth it, it sounds like they've already made a lot of progress on Gentle Repose-ing everyone who Leareth's org wants to Raise this week, and the larger diamond for the Resurrection spell should turn out to be unexpectedly affordable, but it is still a higher spell circle than Raise Dead? ...They could reserve a Minor Prophecy to make sure Brightstar isn't about to burrow to the center of the planet and release Rovagug do something unexpected and insane? Given how his tendency to do that sure has repeatedly caused problems? 

(Seldan feels pretty unsure what today will end up looking like; it actually seemed like the border situation had gotten significantly closer to under control with just one day of copious off-world help, and at some point it's not going to be worth the two of them staying longer in Velgarth, and today probably isn't the day they'll be freed up to head back to Golarion but it's also not obvious that the best use of them is heading back to the Mindspeech relay station.) 

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