"Is there a reason we can't move two of the beds into the other room? We'll put them back when you need them put back."

More murmured conversation. 

:It'll be a bit of a tight squeeze, the bedrooms aren't huge, but you're welcome to. This way: 

The guest bedrooms are, indeed, not huge, and it has stone walls and a stone floor only partly softened by rugs and tapestries, but it's still a good bit bigger than the Scholomance dorm rooms, and it has a window, with off-white muslin curtains, looking out on a snowdrifted garden and a path in the distance. The parlor has a sofa-like furniture object and an armchair and a low table and a bookshelf. The only furniture in the bedrooms, other than the two beds, is a washstand with a basin of water, plus the wall sconces for candles. 

No desk: weird. Window and no void: weird. Kinda large but not too large to sweep quickly. He remembers that this place is supposed to be mal-free before he squats to look under the sofa.

Abigail is in favor of the window; more context on what's where is good. "This is very nice, thank you!"

"You're welcome. Want a hand moving beds? I think we'll need to get the washstand out of the way in order to fit all four in here..." 

"Only if you want to; we'll be okay." She and Kevin go take one end of the nearest bed and Franklin and Marcy take the other; they've heaved around enough armor plates and suchlike, not to mention Kevin's bed, to have it down to a science. (Annisa should be next to her on the other side from Kevin. She heaves extra hard in the hope that nobody else will notice; they all notice anyway.)

....They're such good kids. Tran isn't currently mindreading them, but Delian is, and is also in rapport with Tran enough that his feelings of affection and approval are leaking loudly and clearly across.

The washstand and basin are small enough that he can carry them alone, so he does that and gets them out of the way. They're going to need to move one of the beds closer against the wall, to leave enough space in the middle for the two being carried across; Tran hovers by one end of it, waiting to help. (It's going to be pretty squishy. Hopefully these kids won't mind having to crawl over each others' beds to get out of the room.) 

It's going to be more than worth it to know the others are okay and that they're all close enough to look out for each other. 

As inconveniences go, it barely rates. (He misses his old room, though. It was tiny and needed to be warded every night but it was his, and he had his little desk-forge and the Void to give him spells and all the little useful gadgets he had made in four years of shop, now all sold for mana or passed on to underclassmen.)

This is what they're doing so she's doing it; evaluating individual moments for goodness or badness is not online right now.

They get the beds arranged in a reasonable layout without even having to disassemble and reassemble any of them to get them through the doors.

Tran hovers helpfully nearby during this process, occasionally offering a hand with lifting and moving. (He, too, is clearly experienced at this sort of work, and also clearly works out regularly; his shoulder muscles are visible through his shirt, and as a full-grown adult he's stronger than any of them.) 

"Do you need anything else to get set up here?" he asks, once the beds are in place. "I don't know, extra blankets - paper - a brazier for heating the room...?" 

"A heat source would be good, yeah." It's obvious why he wants one: they're all dressed for the temperate indoors with a side of crowded rooms and heavy exercise, and their clothes are well-worn and multiply patched.

"Right, of course." Tran frowns at them. "....Do you need to be set up with winter clothing? I'm afraid we probably can't get you anything on short notice that fits well, but cloaks at least -" 

:Tran: The mindvoice belongs to Herald Joshel, who sounds nearly as exhausted as Tran feels. :I'm supposed to come and Truth Spell some people who're claiming to be from another world......?: 

The overtones are slightly dubious, but mostly just deeply, incredibly exhausted. 

:Right. Sure. Any way you can come do it in their guest room - we're here -: he sends a mental sense-of-direction. :And grab some spare blankets and any spare winter clothes you can find, while you're at it? They're not especially well equipped: 

:...Er, all right: 

Tran turns back to the kids. 

:Sorry, got interrupted. I, um - my colleague needs to come over here and ask you some questions using our local truth magic: 

He doesn't ask if that's all right with them, even though it feels almost painful not to, because it doesn't, in fact, matter, and he doesn't want to lie to them either. 

It's a very natural request and he's already been very generous; they all know intellectually that adults can be as generous as they want but he's the first adult they've met in four years not counting themselves. 

"Okay. Is it the mind-altering kind?" Plenty of people with good affinities or lucky spell selections sell some form of arbitration or fact-finding, but some of them have things that aren't exactly truth spells: spells that make you say everything that pops into your head, spells that convince you that someone is totally safe and you can tell them anything, stuff like that. Fortunately most of the secrets they know are only potential problems if these people end up interacting with the people the secrets are about, and a lot of them are proprietary spells that these people probably can't even cast.

Tran is having some sort of emotion about the vague glimpses of adjacent surface thoughts that he's picking up just from trying to get the meaning of the kid's words. 

He will deal with those feelings LATER. (Along with the growing pile of other things that he needs to deal with later, whatever 'later' means....)

:There are two levels of Truth Spell that we can cast - Joshel and I are both powerful enough for either, and he didn't specify. First-level just tells us whether you're being honest or not - second level is a bit mind-affecting, but the only thing it can do is make you answer a direct question:

"Okay." If they can get Joshel to do them one at a time then if he asks 'And what are all the secrets you don't want to tell me' whoever's turn it isn't can stick their hand in the other one's mouth or whatever. Making sure it is just one of them at a time is really more of a Marcy job; he touches her shoulder. Come on, Marcy, do the diplomacy.

She can pull together an appropriate response and air-mail it the several miles from her brain to her mouth, sure. Set up a favourable frame, make them have to contradict you an uncomfortable amount . . .

"Will you need to question all of us or just one? Any of us can speak for all the others." Maybe she should volunteer to be the one questioned. If they ask her for her darkest secret she'll probably find herself saying that she thinks Annisa's body should stay in the tank forever, Annisa deserves to live but if she can't have that she should have a grand and beautiful tomb like the pharaohs did.

:...I'm not sure? I think we'll need to separately ask each of you at least, er, some of the questions: 

"I'll go first," she says dully. She doesn't care what they ask, she's too tired to care. . . . The rest of her squad is going to care. "What're the questions."

:It'll be easier to just explain once Joshel is here: Tran is way too tired to think about this. :Do you, er, need water or anything before that?: 

For some reason that's a really hard question! It does have a diplomatic answer though.

"We're fine, thank you."