I also just am not sure it's a good idea to decide to go over the heads of the guys we made deals with to make this possible in the first place, all because we fear about Alric getting a memo about this.
Because that's what it comes down to. Alric would get a memo about what some of his wizards are doing over in Laurelorn and about the Waystone project.
Why do people assume that he will immediately decide to stick his noise in and mess with us? Or failing that -- why do people assume that the other Matriarchs and Patriarchs, and Dragomas and the Emperor, won't be very very unamused if a single Wizard Patriarch decides to start playing silly games with the Waystone Project just for his own prestige? Or, hell, maybe he'll decide to throw extra support our way because getting in front of a big and prestigious project would be helpful, in which case we get even more help than Mira was willing to provide on her own, yay.
In short, I don't think Alric should be the major consideration here.
For one thing, we know that Egrimm feels that Alric doesn't trust him and wanted him passed over for promotion. Not to reopen the whole "is Egrimm a traitor" debate, but if you were Alric and unsure of Egrimm's loyalties would you want him involved in a project of this nature? With explicit permission to study dark magic?
Beyond that, it's not just about Alric. It's about all the other Patriarchs/Matriarchs who have to agree as well. As Murazor puts it:
They know about the project, but "and then, suddenly, Dhar" rather changes the situation, because throwing black magic into the mix may well mean sudden onset cold feet. This potentially represents some fairly severe risks for the organizations they lead, after all.
So you know you have a grand project to reinforce the waystone network. The thing that literally keeps the world from turning into a nightmare realm and literally the
first update you get is this:
"BTW, this totally involves studying dark magic. You know, the thing that drives human wizards insane."
Dark wizards are one of the leading causes of destroying the waystone network because perverting it gives them a power up. Recreating waystones is also a very,
very uncertain pie in the sky project to begin with.
So with this as the first update it might seem quite reasonable to decide this project isn't likely to go anywhere useful, and is more likely to end up with a bunch more waystones destroyed and the wizards involved sent to the looney bin. "Shut it down, let the races who don't suffer form insanity if they touch dhar keep on going if they want." then becomes not an unreasonable option, if you think the other outcome is losing a 2 lord magisters (I think Egrimm got his promotion?), a bunch more regular magisters, and potentially degrading the network further.
Lord Magisters and magisters in general are extremely valuable after all, and you could use them in two dozen other places that don't have the chance to drive them insane for what must seem a very, very small chance of success.
