Vanyel wants to fix it. It feels so bitterly unfair, that he can't. That he was too late. 

That another world exists with even more horrifying problems than the ones he knows, and, and - 

- and he might have to choose not to help. Because the risk to Velgarth is too high; because it's not worth it, to gamble on fixing it, when if the cards fall wrong all they would be accomplishing is spreading Earth's problems to his own world as well. 

He hates it. It doesn't feel fair. Surely after everything he sacrificed for this outcome, he should be strong enough to save one girl. 

"- Leareth, do you think we could figure out a way for her to speak directly with her teammates? You can take back a message, obviously, but...I think it'd be better if they could actually talk to her, rather than doing all this relaying. And with you needing to be asleep to talk to me." 

Leareth looks thoughtful. 

"It sounds as though wizards are not exactly Gifted in the way we understand it, but - possibly they could still access the Web from its physical focus? Unfortunately, it is currently buried beneath a rather large pile of rubble." 

And he turns back to Annisa. "What message would you like me to relay to your teammates?" 

Annisa is incredibly confused by that question. "I....don't know what Vanyel's objectives are, here. Aside from keeping you alive. I guess you should tell Boston to keep you alive?"

He blinks at her again. 

"....If I want to know what messageVanyel wishes relayed, I can simply ask him. Or use my own judgement, since we know each other rather well and I designed the process that made him a baby god. Mostly he needs more information, to compensate for the Foresight noise. But, right now, I am asking you, not Vanyel. I...hmm, I imagine you might want to reassure them that your death was not their fault or that you are not angry about it, if those are both true?" 

"I...don't object to you saying either of those things if that serves your goals in some way?"

Leareth feels like the question he's attempting to convey is very basic and he's not sure why he's failing to communicate it! He's not at his most coherent, sure, but he's not that foggy. 

He glances over at Vanyel. 

"I don't know! I tried really hard to keep all the memories and goal-structures intact! I'm not any good at this yet though." 

Leareth nods, then turns to Annisa. 

"You - seem to be bouncing off my questions about your goals. Are you - not able to experience wanting things right now? Or is it more that you do not feel you are in a bargaining position where you can afford to ask for them? ...Which one is relevant to whether Vanyel was successfully able to figure out how to retain more of your memories and self than the other gods usually bother to." 

"I want to continue existing! I told him that! I don't want other things because I'm not willing to trade off any continued existence for anything else!"

....Nod. 

"- Well, both Vanyel and I already think it is awful and unacceptable when anyone ceases to exist, and intend to work on solving that problem, but...I would not expect you to place much trust in that, yet, we must earn that from you." A very slight shrug, one shoulder slowly lifting and falling. "In the meantime, I can use my own judgement on what is productive to relay to your friends, and work on arranging a direct conversation." 

"Vanyel said that, and that's very noble of you, but lots of people are obviously going to irretrievably die while you try getting around to it and I don't want to be one of them, and you've got absolutely no reason to care whether I am! I can absolutely help you figure out what's productive to relay to my allies, it'll just depend on what you want my allies to do."

"I...am going to be much better placed to figure that out when I am not feeling terrible." Leareth sounds very mildly annoyed by this inconvenience. "My initial thoughts are - obviously your world likely has knowledge that ours lacks, so collaboration there would be of potentially very high value. And - if you think your allies can be trusted, then I would like to fill them in on as much context as possible, so that they are less easily manipulated by the hostile Powers into harming my or Valdemar's interests. Oh, and if they have healing magic, that could be extremely valuable right now." 

"They can be trusted if you can. Vanyel said maybe he could...bring me back.... as a horse.... which is stupid but they'd pay a lot for that, if it's available. None of us have had a very broad based education but we'll happily teach what we know about, uh, what tech level is this exactly?"

"Much lower than I would prefer! Everywhere outside of the Eastern Empire, at least, which is - an unpleasant place along different dimensions. This is one of my main complaints with our gods; they kept trying to kill me every time I would attempt innovation. If your world has less active gods, or none at all, then I would not be surprised if your tech level is much higher! Valdemar has... Hmm. Lighting by candle or other fire sources, most transport by draft animals, no non-magical forms of more rapid travel or communication. Though of course we have magic, but the number of Gifted people is low enough that it is mostly used only by the very wealthy or the core government." 

"Our mundanes have more than that and Boston will help you as much as they can." She wants to say 'in exchange for sending me back' but even if they don't do that.

"...I have a very large number of questions but I think it might make more sense to ask the living, since maintaining this space for both of us is resource-costly for Vanyel." 

"If you can do your checks and then remove the localization safeguards, I'll have access to about a thousand times as much, I think! The Web is right there, I just can't - do things - in it." 

Leareth smiles slightly. "An excellent point, and I am even almost sure it would be safe. However, I am sure you will understand why I prefer to be cautious, and perform the full set of checks once I am definitely recovered enough for it." 

"....I know. I, just - people are going to die today and if I were stronger I could catch them and I...can't...." 

"...I'm sorry. I know you just nearly died and I know it'd be even worse if you don't do the checks and it turns out we're both wrong and I turn into something worse than the Star-Eyed Goddess and Vkandis combined. But - that's the cost, right." 

Annisa is extremely unsure if the thing being negotiated is whether there will be enough resources for Annisa to go on existing???? 

Vanyel still feels like it's somewhat rude and awkward to read someone's entire mind and then respond to things they didn't even say, but...he can, in fact, read Annisa's entire mind and sort of doesn't have a choice to not. 

"Whether you're going to keep existing isn't in question," he says quickly. "I - I already have you, that situation is stable - the very worst case is that I can only give you a few subjective hours per real-world day or something, until I'm stronger. What I'm worried about is that there's a war zone up north right now, a lot of people were injured when Iftel dropped Urtho's weapon on the pass, and - there might be people still alive now, but who aren't going to make it through the night..." 

"....I mean, Shadowgod has remit by default in that territory, I think. And plausibly Vkandis gets the souls of His followers and the Star-Eyed gets Hers. They - probably won't be gone gone, not fully - I might be able to negotiate something, later, if I can manage to get on actual negotiating terms with the others instead of a full on gods war..."