She appears above a bit of frozen wasteland. She falls, conscious but without making a peep, to the ground, and breaks a few more bones.
She lies there.
She appears above a bit of frozen wasteland. She falls, conscious but without making a peep, to the ground, and breaks a few more bones.
She lies there.
Sunspring shakes her head. "No. Leareth thinks it might be appropriate for you to meet them eventually, but not as a first step. He is hoping they will contact k'Treva Vale and hear of your meeting with the Tayledras there, though, and that this will be somewhat reassuring."
"Not that I can think of, not urgently? I suppose Woodlark might want to talk to you when he wakes up, but someone can come tell you at your tree."
Even once he's awake, Woodlark doesn't especially want to talk to Promise, it turns out. He doesn't really want to talk to anyone. He does, eventually, agree to explain a little more of the context around his fight with Yfandes to Leareth, but he doesn't himself really understand what happened and why she was so upset. They were talking about gods and Promise's not-exactly-positive first impression, apparently she gave quite a speech, it was addressed to Moondance but his Companion (who should maybe get a nickname but she's not here anyway) was there to overhear it.
Leareth is pretty worried! It's unclear whether there's anything to be done about it, though. He practices sorcery. Paces a lot.
Around noon, the ward-alarms trigger again for another Gate to the same guard-post, and shortly later the mage scrying the area can see a tall, muscular, blue-uniformed woman trooping north with a letter in hand, which she leaves at the message-drop spot (provided to the Senior Circle via an enclosed map with Leareth's letter) before tromping back to wait at the Guard-post.
One of Leareth's Fetchers retrieves the letter from five miles away; it's extreme range for Fetching, but a letter doesn't weigh much and no reason to take additional risks, given the tense situation. Shortly later they're being Gated back north.
Leareth reads the letter, once through, then a second time, more slowly.
Then he takes the stairs up to the surface and looks for Promise by her tree.
Leareth holds up the letter. "We have a reply from the Heraldic Circle in Haven. It seems they did consult with the Tayledras in k'Treva Vale, and...they are still very untrusting toward me, but they would like to meet with you, if you are willing." Leareth seems surprised about this, and unsure whether to be pleased and relieved or the opposite. "They would ask that you allow a first-level Truth Spell, but in the letter at least they agree not to use the coercive version, they generally do not for diplomatic purposes and I do not think they care to offend you."
"Apparently they have a guide at the northern border who can meet you and then send a message to the Senior Circle, who can either come meet you up north or, if you are willing, Gate you to Haven."
"I'm going to bring a bit of tree," she says. "In case this runs long enough that I need to sleep somewhere or need more food." A branch bends to her hand and she tugs off a bit of it. She goes in to get her bag and comes out again and starts packing snacks.
"Your ability to rapidly grow your tree back is very useful. Anyway, if you are considering going to Haven, I would feel more comfortable if you had some way of passing messages. I can give you an artifact for it, but since you are not a Mindspeaker, you could only pass a single 'call for help' message by activating it, which is not as useful."
Nod. "Well, it is better than nothing. And - hmm. There is a Heartstone in Haven. It seems very likely you could use that to have the attention of the Star-Eyed, and tell Her whatever you wish. The difficulty is that I do not have a straightforward way of receiving messages from Her..."
"- Oh, yes, that ought to work. I think it would normally be difficult to provide instructions that specific to one of our gods, but I am sure you can manage it."
"All right. And I will give you the artifact just in case - in an absolute emergency, I can risk a Gate to Haven from a map to help you get out. Hopefully you will be safe there, though. I am mostly nervous because Woodlark built a Heartstone there, which contains a fragment of the Star-Eyed, who manifestly dislikes me, but she cannot harm you."
"Well. I wish you the best of luck. In terms of what you can share - I would prefer you not bring up the plan to make a god at all, or the original power source. Partly because it is moot and partly because I am concerned it would cause trouble with the other Companions and their Heralds, similar to what Vanyel had." He pauses for a moment. "Everything else is, I think, fine to share, though I would ask that you use your judgement on whether it is relevant. Thank you for being willing to do this."
And Leareth can arrange for someone to Gate her to the message-drop location and then escort her down the road to the Guard-post.