- she doesn't have a chance to ask, though, because one of the Healers interrupts her with a Mindtouch when she's still in the middle of explaining Animal Mindspeech. She had to duck out of the Work Room for this, but it seems worth the risk. 

:Nayoki, I think you need to come right now. Something's badly wrong with Leareth and none of us can see anything...: 

Nayoki freezes, cutting off mid-Mindspeech sentence to their visitor-slash-prisoner. 

:What: 

:He's just - really really upset? And his explanation of why doesn't make any sense? - Can you just come over. Please: 

Nayoki...is honestly, at this point, pretty worried that she isn't going to be able to do any better. She's in over her head; she could deal with an entire foreign world's foreign magic if she had Leareth working with her, and the entire point is that she...doesn't. Not really. 

There's exactly one person within reach who has any context on the other world's magic. 

She - would kind of have preferred to learn more and give herself some time to think before making a call on how far to trust him. But her impression so far is a lot more positive that she had expected going into this. She has a sense that, at the very least, this is a man who will predictably follow incentives. Leareth's organization is very good at working with that. 

She refocuses her attention on him. :- Sorry: she sends, and doesn't entirely try to hide that she's shaken. :I - we have a problem, which I am almost certain is due to magic from your world, not ours, and so I think I need your advice: 

"Oh?" He probably can't help much, because superpowers have an absolutely nonsensical range of possibilities, but he's happy to try anyway. "I'm always happy to help." With people who he expects can repay him, but they totally can.

:All right. I - am going to go in and see Leareth alone first, but we suspect he is under some kind of mind-affecting magic, of a variety native to your world and not ours. He is behaving uncharacteristically and does not seem to have any insight into why, and apparently he is now in distress: 

She takes a deep breath. :Are you willing to wait here? I am needed there, but if you are willing, I would send someone else with Mindspeech and experience in mage-work to hear everything you know about types of mind-affecting power you have encountered before, or - have not encountered but think ought be possible: 

:Certainly, though I would appreciate it if I could also ask them more questions about their own work: A trade for a trade.

:A reasonable request. I think we can arrange that. It will be a couple of minutes - do you need food or water, in the meantime?: 

And she's going to send one of the senior researchers who, as well as being very knowledgeable, is under the usual voluntary compulsions to prevent sensitive information from leaking. It's not as much protection as she would like, given the man's insane perceptive abilities, but at least it's something. 

He has had a sudden and horrible realization that in restrospect he should have had earlier.

:Do you have any way for your healers to determine if either of us is carrying any diseases to which the other has no resistance?:

He should have thought of it before he got out of his armor - contact between two continents almost wiped out the population of the less industrialized one and this is two worlds - 

Nayoki hadn't thought of that at ALL. In fairness to her, it's the sort of paranoia she usually leaves to Leareth, and she's been very distracted. 

:- We should check. And avoid unnecessary exposure in either direction until we have checked. It is not trivial to check but I think we ought have Healers with the skill to do it. I - should arrange that as the first priority, then. And - sorry - I should probably also leave, and have someone check me before I interact with any of the others. Would there have been any risk while you were still wearing your armor?:  

:It is possible that there could have been microbes on the surface of it that might cause a problem, it was not sterilized, but no transmission to or from me while I wore it:

Slightly increasing the odds that she's reading his mind, medieval armor isn't airtight but of course she could have told that it was in dozens of different ways -

Nod. (Nayoki isn't actually sure if she picked that up from his thoughts, or purely by looking at the thing, and either way she's not actually that bothered if he, at this point, correctly infers that they're reading his mind, and he seems to consider it fair game.) 

:Well, fortunately Healers are unusually able to protect themselves from infection, and I think they can do something to protect others if they were only briefly exposed to something in the air. I will send someone to come check, and - we should probably not send a mage in the room with you, but Mindspeech works fine from a few rooms away: 

From a lot further than that, actually, but she's still being a little cagey with him. 

She goes. 

The Healer arrives within about three minutes. She's wearing a silk scarf over her nose and mouth, because even if she can murder any airborne infection that tries to start in her throat or nose, she might as well not make extra work for herself. 

:My name is Emril. I will need to touch you to do this most effectively: 

:I understand. Go ahead.:

To the extent he's focusing on anything, instead of just trying to pick up a lot of information, he's trying to focus on the question of whether the Healer is trying to assassinate him, so he can defend himself if worst comes to worst. But even this isn't very likely, so.

There is no murder attempt! Emril is mostly quiet - she hasn't had much of a briefing on the stranger, except that he's from another world and it's a very high stakes situation. (And separately she heard Leareth is - ill, or drugged, or something - and she's pretty stressed about it.) 

Nayoki lets another of the most skilled Healers do a thorough pass at murdering the hell out of any non-her lifeforce on her skin or mucous membranes. It's pretty uncomfortable, and not the sort of thing you want to have done to you all the time (Healers can do it more precisely on themselves), but it's much faster than trying to figure out if she's picked up anything new. 

And then she takes a deep breath, and forges into the Work Room to see Leareth. 

Someone's brought him a blanket. He's pale and trembling and isn't currently crying but looks like he maybe was at some point in the last couple of minutes. He doesn't make eye contact with Nayoki. 

This is so concerning! 

Nayoki approaches slowly, not making any sudden movements, and sits down beside him on the stone floor. (It's probably overkill to have him in here? It's not exactly a comfortable or soothing environment.) 

"Hey," she says, as gently as she can manage. "Leareth. What is bothering you?" 

Leareth still doesn't look at her. He does shift a little, though, and stares at his own hands with an expression of utter anguish. 

WHAT is GOING ON. 

"Leareth," she repeats. "Can you please try to talk to me about what you are feeling?" 

He swallows convulsively, tries to speak, and then shakes his head helplessly and reaches out with Mindspeech. The overtones are a lot, misery and revulsion and horror and shame, a mix of emotions that she's never seen in him before. 

:This body does not belong to me. I - stole it from an innocent child, I murdered him to wear his skin - and used his body to hurt innocent people just because they were in my way, and I - I cannot stop thinking about it -: He takes a shuddering breath. :I did so many awful things, and it keeps - it keeps not paying off, and it would not be all right even if it had, I just - I feel sick...: 

Nayoki sort of wants to slap him, but that won't help at all. 

:Leareth, I think you were hit by some kind of spell from the other world. We are going to try to figure it out and undo it, all right? But - you need to remember that this is not real, what you are feeling is not really you, it is some sort of compulsion: 

Based on the face Leareth makes at her, this doesn't help at all. 

If he were anyone else, she would want to give him a hug, but this is absolutely not going to help. She tries to hold very still. Wishes, for a moment, that she had any amount of actual experience using Mindhealing in the normal way with patients. 

:I know you are in pain. Just - what sort of advice would you give Vanyel, if he were having some sort of guilt spiral about - having had to do something he would have preferred was not necessary?: