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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.
promise and leareth
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the-final-accounting
Leareth does not actually need to know any of the context there so he doesn't ask. "Anyway. There will be a great deal of planning and implementation ahead, but I think for now the next step is for me to practice sorcery in order to teach it, so I ought go do that. Thank you for acquiring the books."
the-final-accounting
Leareth spends the next few days practicing sorcery most of the time. He reads through Promise's books on it and spends a lot of time staring at the library in this facility, becoming familiar with every feature of it so he can do sorcery there. He picks Nayoki as the person he'll try to do sorcery on, when he gets to techniques that need to be cast on a person; he knows her quite well already.
(He vaguely wishes he still had the library that was destroyed. That one he was intimately familiar with already, and he misses it.)
imeanforever
Other introductory sorcery includes purifying water and changing things' colors and reshaping solid objects.
the-final-accounting
Purifying water is another one that could be transformative in Velgarth; if someday one in ten people is a good enough sorcerer for just that basic technique, it could eradicate nearly all waterborne diseases.
Leareth practices until he can reliably do those introductory techniques, and then starts lessons with some of the others, starting with Nayoki.
running-to-the-sun
Nayoki watches Leareth in mind-rapport while he makes a fairy light - it still takes him minutes of intense concentration, but not candlemarks now - and then heads to her guest-bedroom here, which she knows the best of any location, and stares at the corner of the ceiling for a long time before she starts attempting her own light.
imeanforever
If she accounts for enough factors coming and going about how the place is and how it will be after she lights it, she will eventually get a light!
running-to-the-sun
It takes her about twice as long as it took Leareth, mostly because she has a much worse attention span and keeps getting distracted thinking about her other work, but she does eventually manage a small dim light! She immediately runs off to find Promise and show off to her.
running-to-the-sun
"Thank you! Honestly the study required for this is very boring, but Leareth wants me to do it so I suppose I will."
running-to-the-sun
"He said I do not need to learn it to a high level, but I have a great deal of teaching experience, and in particular can teach via mind-rapport with someone, and so he would like me to be able to train others in the basics."
running-to-the-sun
"- Also I can cheat a little at picking up new skills, because of Mindhealing, to an extent it can replace repeated practice. Anyway, Leareth learned the basics in less than a week, so probably I can learn it in a fortnight, and he suspects that once I have done that I may be curious enough about it to learn more anyway."
running-to-the-sun
"Thank you!" She looks flattered, and heads off to practice more.
the-final-accounting
Leareth splits his time between reading more sorcery books and practicing new and more challenging techniques, and training the best of his mage-scholars in the basics. None of them pick it up as quickly as he did, but they study it diligently enough. The researchers who personally received de-aging are especially enthusiastic.
It's going to take a while before he has enough qualified teachers who can teach other teachers who can be sent out more broadly in Velgarth, but he has the beginnings of a plan for it, now.
About a week after he first teaches Nayoki to make a light with sorcery, he finds himself in a snow-covered plain, in front of an army, looking at Vanyel.
no-laid-course
"Are you still claiming that you're not working on the invasion anymore?"
the-final-accounting
"Yes. In fact, I have gone to great lengths to cease all operations related to that, and am in the process of dismantling additional parts of my organization which are no longer necessary."
the-final-accounting
"I do not expect you to believe me without additional proof. I am considering what I can offer you."
