"It's perhaps a little risky - if you are sorted into the afterlives I'm familiar with at all, that is, I have no idea what it would mean for you if you aren't. Pharasma does not want to operate a True Neutral afterlife and keeps souls only as long as necessary to find them competent to sort. So you'd be at some risk of a summary Neutral Evil judgment just to push you in any direction and I would expect the necromancy to pull that way rather than in any of the other three."

Annoying. Though she still doesn't think they go to his afterlives. Maybe she should look into the lich thing that's in fact still a dumb thing to do, even though it has now been implanted in her brain by yesterday's discussion.

"Well, what now?"

"Now I call Shfan."

Does he want them present or away?

Away. If they're sleeper agents for dangerous beings he doesn't want to put Shfan at risk. (He doesn't say that.)

He lays out diamonds, he casts the spell, Shfan says it will try and returns home.

Does he need the mystery clerics for anything else, then, or should they go on their way and continue keeping their mouths shut?

The Arcanorium also has a report, by the way, on their analysis on the magicks on Kasigna's doohickey. It's nothing like any magic item or artifact they've ever seen, but has recognizable elements. Not outstanding by its innate raw power, but by the complexity and... impossibility, of its construction.

It means it's probably not some mortal illusionist playing tricks (though the [Cleric] class would already be proof enough). Even archmages of old they're not sure would create something like this, and those of today almost certainly cannot.

It doesn't have, like, tortured souls trapped inside or anything?

It is unintelligent and non-sentient.

To Skills it can qualify as an instrument, an implement, a focus, a magic device, and is "necromantic" and "deathly"; it does not qualify as a weapon, a shield, an accessory, armor, a material component, a spellbook, a wand, a scroll.

Intents to hold it, use it for ambient measurement, and use it for necromancy to not set off [Dangersense] and variants. Intents to destroy it do. Intents to disassemble or invasively analyze it sometimes do depending on the person.

He doesn't need the [Clerics] for anything else right now.

Depending on the person? Depending on what about the person??

The sample isn't very large since to do those tests you either need someone with both [Dangersense] and the Spellcraft for disassembly/analysis, or highly specific interpersonal conditions to proc [Dangersense] off another person's intent.

But the guess is just how good they are at Spellcraft, linking back to the aforementioned observation that destroying the device is spooky.

If there is an extent to which the doohickey "likes" certain wielders it's not immediately obvious, but they don't have a large enough sample to rule it out.

What do they get off intents to lock it up away from everyone and never allow it to be used for anything, is that a doable test?

It's not a doable test, since [Dangersense] is about immediate danger. At higher levels the time horizon can go out to minutes but (a) they don't have anyone as good as that and (b) presumably it would take months or years for the artifact to do something...

Well, if the artifact reads your mind and tries to murder you when you attempt to do put it in cold storage, that would work, but also then it'd be trying to murder you in real life and not in your counterfactual intent, and no, you can't intend to intend to do something, intending to do something without doing it is hard enough already.

They can try it anyway. It's probably not going to in-real-life react to intending to put it in cold storage worse than intending to destroy it.

Nope, no result. But as they said, this doesn't mean if you actually do it, the artifact won't cause a disaster in a month.

Well heck. Hopefully Shfan can get somewhere.

He calls Shfan. Shfan takes some diamonds, not that many by the standards of their past transactions, to go see if the First Vault has and will copy out anything on the ancient gods of this world. Blai waits the requisite six hours and then calls it again.

It's empty-handed and doesn't explain why and takes six more diamonds.

That's bad. He updates the king. (He is not concerned, at all, that Shfan is just trying to swipe their diamonds unfairly; it's a Lawful Neutral outsider. The information that there was nothing to be had, even communicated in this distressing and limited way, is just that expensive. His report includes this, and an explanation of why there ought to have been something. His guesses include that whatever effect prevents locals from thinking about gods clearly has infected the libraries of Aktun even though as far as Blai knows it is not affecting Blai himself and he shouldn't have any special protection; or that the world is somehow outside Pharasma's Creation in spite of regular no-bracket clerics being able to get spells here; or that the information is there but "ancient books from the world the summoner is in" are just in fact outside their price range while "common books from the world the summoner is from" aren't and that Shfan didn't know that in advance; these all seem fantastically unlikely but he's not sure which are more likely than which others.)

"And any ways to narrow down those possibilities the inevitables, we presume, are not going to cooperate with?"

The King is discomfited, but mostly because Blai's report has the air of discomfiture.

"The Historians of Germina have not provided any response. Reports from our observers indicate Ger has not yet broken its new siege, and is unlikely to respond with any haste.

"We are considering reaching out to the Quarass of Germina directly. She is another sort of immortal, reincarnated into different bodies over lifetimes—that is an imprecise description, but suffices for now. She has ruled Germina since long before Khelt was a dream in Great Khelta's eye. Of everything in this world, beyond even libraries of ancient nations which too rot and are replaced, she may have what you seek. However, the Quarass will likely demand concessions for her attention. Military aid, most likely, or perhaps she will be satisfied with a promise of supplies.

"Convince us, if you will. What is this information worth? What possibilities do you expect to find? What will you do in each case?"

"...information that we do not know the value of is potentially of exceptionally high value, but that potentiality of course has to be weighed against the possibility that instead it is worthless. Some things I could imagine learning in this way might be - whether the gods are benign and trustworthy, which ones might crop up who are not if they vary, why they died to begin with, how destructive it was not just in knowledge but in life and the structures that life lives upon when this happened, the nature of the mental block, the history if any of the worship of gods known to Golarion on this world, the location of this plane relative to others within Pharasma's Creation, maybe even more about whether people here make it to afterlives of some kind. If the Quarass knows some of this information, informing her as a courtesy that there are [Clerics] in Khelt might prompt her to react informatively, even without an explicit trade."

"The Quarass' current incarnation is... disagreeable. If she believes she knows something of use to us, she will not hesitate to wring us for all she can—though that is not unique to this version of her. No, I expect it is most likely she will ignore a missive without an offer attached. She is at war; she does not have slack to spare."

He contemplates Blai's words.

"However, she lived when [Clerics] still walked the earth. The history of the gods is not the only knowledge we may seek. And while her time today is expensive, her assistance next year and that after..."

He sits in silence for a minute.

"What do you suggest, if the Quarass says that the gods are not benign? Or that they are merely—neutral, as you say."

"- I would be a little surprised if they were all malign but this is the sort of domain where I expect to be surprised frequently. It is customary on Golarion to illegalize the worship, proselytization, and service of all or most morally opposed and sometimes some systemically opposed gods. This doesn't inherently stop anyone but it means that you can arrest people for possessing symbols and espousing doctrine that tends to come before dangerous actions rather than waiting for the dangerous actions to come about. But all my experience and all my hearsay is from a situation where everyone knew what gods were, before, and were accustomed to them; I don't know what would be right for Khelt."

"Kasigna and Laedonius Deviy did not need our permission to select [Clerics], and did not need to select [Clerics] which had known of them before. Although they purportedly did need to, or prefer to, secure agreement before doing so.

"Suppose that we discover that Kasigna is malign, and forbid her worship. In that case, would we request that Professor Ariens disavow her, or be exiled? If so, then a conservative alternative, if we are unable to diagnose their alignment, is to simply ban the worship of all gods not explicitly approved, and do the same regardless. It abandons any upside of an alliance with gods, but negates the potentially unbounded downside of allowing a malicious entity into our kingdom. Purely as a hypothetical, what do you think of it?"

"That would put you in an awkward position with the Caydenite, though I suppose you could retroactively permit Him. On Golarion gods are more or less aware of the situation on the ground with respect to the legality of their worship, and adjust their cleric selection patterns accordingly - which may not be by very much, if the god has little care for the effectiveness or fate of the clerics, but at least is different from trying to enforce a law on the behavior of an entity who cannot even be informed of that law. In many countries worship of at least some forbidden gods carries a death sentence, which I think deters some gods who would be perfectly happy to skim off clerics from within a country to operate without it. I don't know if that's a sentence Khelt uses for anything."

"We employ exile instead of death. We are disinclined to ban Cayden Caliean, as you are able to vouch for His Goodness; we would not select a Caydenite as our successor, but see no issue with them as citizens.

"If it were a nation which banned all citizens or descendants of another nation, and drove out all of their ambassadors, they might fear reprisal or condemnation from the other. We do not know if gods may be inclined to retaliation in a similar way. Curses, or miracles of disaster, or simply commanding their faithful to make war on us. Do you consider this a possibility?"

"It's not out of the question but the gods who would behave that way are exactly the ones you don't want to give a toehold; acting through clerics is cheaper and easier than working miracles directly."

"We will think on it."

"Do you have more questions for me at this time, your majesty?"

"No. We will reach a decision by tomorrow. Until further notice, the two new [Clerics] continue to be at your command, and you may allocate your attention as you believe appropriate to further investigating the new gods with what resources you require, or to the education and development of the Golarion [Clerics]."

"I fear I have no other avenues for investigating the new ones and will most likely return to my previous lesson plan until and unless something happens."

"Very well. That will be all."