I enter the infirmary, looking for Theri. Upon finding her, I briefly glance at the boy sharing the room with her, but turn my attention back to her almost instantly.
"Hey Theri. You feeling up for going for a walk? I need to talk to you privately about something."
If she agrees to it, then we'll just go to a large open area near the infirmary, where we could see someone coming and our words won't carry. No need to actually hide or whatever.
assuming she agreed, then once we got some space and I was fairly sure we wouldn't be overheard so long as we didn't yell-
"Theri, I found out something important about that darkness we were fighting in the village. You remember that creature that was the source of it all? The big one that tried to devour both of us? That was River. I think his magic was twisted by this place somehow, slowly turning him into a void-creature. Remember how paranoid he was back at the mage's tower? It seemed like his paranoia slowly spiraled out of control, feeding his voidmagic and his voidmagic corrupting his mind making him more paranoid and distrusting. and after he ran off at the mage's tower, I'd guess things didn't get any better."
"But, Theri? I'm sure it was him. After the beast died, it left behind River's soulsphere. It's... in a pretty bad way."
I show her River's soulsphere in its current corrupted state.
"We have a choice to make Theri, and though the choice was presented to me, in reality, the one who has the most right to make it is you. There is a failsafe for this mission. If River dies, and his soulsphere is destroyed, then we will be automatically sent back. The situation here has gotten completely out of hand, and the entities will understand why we had to return, though it will still count as a failed mission. You know how I look kinda different right now? All shiny and blonde and stuff? That's a side-effect of how River was stopped. It took a one-shot trick I can never do again, one with a very high cost. My flame abilities are weaker now than they used to be, by a lot. If River gets revived, and remember he is able to do that on his own, and he goes rampaging like this again. I don't think I can stop him."
"I did find some kind of artifact weapon in the aftermath, a flame sword with all kinds of abilities, that might be strong enough to let us finish the mission without River and without my flames. So it's not hopeless. And that weapon should also be able to revive our dead too, if we give it time to work, and preferably also provide a good environment for it and some power sources to draw on. But Theri? It can't clense the voidstuff from River. If we want to save him, we need to get him back to the Entities, and we need to do it before he revives, or he might kill us all. so we're on a time limit now. I'd guess something like two or three weeks? It probably depends a lot on where we go. Reviving people involves finding magic they match with, and River matches with Void magic, so places with void magic will probably both revive him faster and corrupt him even more."
"Theri, River is your Entity and companion, not mine. The choice to either kill him and go home, or to press on, isn't mine, though the choice was presented to me. The one of us with the most right to decide is you."