He's gonna talk to the caravan guy about what the fuck to do about that.

"Really? Well, you should go, of course, it's the King," says the caravan guy. "If it were the Quarass of Germina I'd be more concerned, but His Majesty of Khelt is well-beloved, and I hear he doesn't take offense trivially. Doesn't mean you shouldn't pay your respects; he's still a King—it'll be fine! If you're lucky he'll want to offer you citizenship. I'd take it if he did, if you can tolerate the skeletons. Even if you can't; I imagine one gets used to it."

"I meant more along the lines of - we were advised not to talk overmuch with locals, I may need a more detailed explanation of how to do it anyway. I won't be accepting citizenship."

"The not talking with locals is because they don't interact with outsiders that much and they sometimes react to things like—to take an example, I told the people in the other town about the new war in Germina, and sticking to the high level situation that's fine, they know what war is and they know people fight them and it's just—a story, right, about a far-off land, and it makes them feel good and thankful about their paradisiacal life? But if you get into the starving widows and orphans and salted fields and so on, and people get it in their head to petition the King to take a side, or, dead gods, let refugees into Khelt—that's where His Majesty takes exception, when you disrupt his peace.

"So talking to the King, there's obviously not that problem; he knows his politics and does all the diplomacy. Maybe if there are servants or retainers around, you want to watch not to say anything that's too incendiary, but if you just answer questions I don't imagine much can go wrong.

"If you need to touch on anything that might be sensitive, you could say that your answer might be upsetting? And the King can send anyone out of the room, if he needs to."

Oh, it's like that. That makes it make a lot more sense really. "Thank you."

Will he meet the King, then?

He wasn't really under the impression it was optional? He will not fight the prospect of meeting with the King.

No, yeah, it's not super optional.

The palace is, in fact, the gigantic cathedral overlooking the west of the capital. It's imposing, built to awe: elevated, with a flight of steps to climb to even reach its foot, for guests to look up upon it as they approach. Its towers seem to reach to the sky; crystal windows glitter in the sun.

The approach is lined with sculptures: eighteen of them, men and women, not all of them human. An avian humanoid, beaked and feathered and with winged arms; a giant man, bearing a great hammer and an anvil on his back. All of them are posed almost in motion, carved in excruciating detail, and painted lifelike. They're warriors, smiths, dancers, mages, but all of them adorned in the greatest fineries.

Atop the steps, the messenger takes Blai past the stone columns of the grand veranda, past skeletal champions standing guard with ceremonial armour and burning sockets, and through not one, but two lavish entrance halls where musicians strum tunes for passing petitioners.

The place is... a bit empty, for how large it is.

The final way is barred by giant doors of dark wood, carved around the sides with stylized scenes: a king anointing a kneeling subject, a queen summoning skeletal servants out of the earth, a monarch on horseback commanding armies of zombies to battle, another raising a citadel with a gesture, and more harder to parse or see.

The messenger uses one of the brass knockers. It's loud, and echoes through the hall. After a soft thump, the doors swing open.

If this is the part where he meets the King he'll kneel and avert his eyes, he doesn't know how to get more universally-understandable-as-deferential than that.

"Rise."

The King of Khelt sits on a throne of gilded stone at the end of a long carpet. Braziers on both sides cast a warmth that fills the room. The wall are painted all around with imagery of the glory of Khelt, and the domed ceiling is stained glass, a mosaic of many visages. The same faces of the statues that stood outside the palace.

There are no guards, scarcely any attendants. Only a woman in gray robes and a white sash taking notes at a desk to the right of the throne, and a man to the left, standing at attention.

The King wears a white, gold-rimmed silks, with a sapphire blue neckpiece and aurum gauntlets. A mithril crown sits on his head, set with diamonds and gemstones.

The King is also dead.

His skin is dark and leathery, shrunken to the bone. His fingers are nearly skeletal where they tap the arm of his throne. In his skull, golden flames burn in place of eyes. When he opens his mouth, there are no gums, only too-long teeth.

"Select Artigas. How do you find my kingdom?"

Oh, that's actually a huge update in favor of local undead not being an atrocity! A Golarion undead might be a king but it would be frankly laughable for one to run a kingdom where everybody's so fucking happy! Negative energy fucks you up and you'd have to get outrageously lucky to still care about that after turning into a lich or whatever.

"I have been struck by the contentment of its people, your majesty."

The King inclines his head.

"It is gratifying to hear so. We were concerned, when it came to our knowledge that a [Cleric] had entered the land of Khelt. What is the reason for which you have journeyed here?"

"I am passing through, with a caravan. My ultimate destination is not on this continent at all."

"So your merchant claimed, when he petitioned for your entry. But I could not believe it simple happenstance, for you to find your way here... yet I detect no deception in your words.

"I see you do not understand. How did you come upon your class?"

"I am from another plane that has contact with living gods. The one I serve is Lawful and I do not know Her to have any quarrel with you or yours. I expect to move on without incident when the caravan is ready to depart."

"...Another plane with living gods.

"Our gods are dead, and our [Clerics] live in legend. But the oldest stories speak of your ilk's great healing powers—and their great antipathy for the undead. Even a weak [Cleric] could channel Miracles to destroy legions of zombies in a breath, it is told. Khelt's earliest histories write that the closest it has come to falling was at the hands of a half-elven [Paladin], who called a crusade from her home of Terandria across the ocean to erase us from the earth.

"Your kind has not been seen on the face of this world for untold eons. Khelt will never fall to mortal hands. Our legions are endless, our vaults deeper than the most ancient kingdoms. Yet. If you bring your gods, your faith, from your world—

"I believe your word, now, that you mean Khelt no harm. However, if your presence is to herald a revival in the old classes... you see our concern."

"I do not plan to proselytize for my or any other god while I am here. I have been making certain that none of the undead are in range to be harmed when I heal the living. On my own plane, there is a country as full of undead as this one, ruled by an undead archmage-king, and while many disapprove of the place, it stands and has stood longer than many other nations of that world in their present form; the presence of gods and their faithful does not automatically spell ruin for you and yours even if they should find something to quarrel with in how you run things."

"While you are in Khelt, or while you are in our world? I am not most concerned of your actions in my lands, but of what you may inspire after you leave. If the world fills once more with [Clerics] and [Paladins] and gods, Khelt will endure a hundred years, may well a thousand. But this kingdom did not endure its twenty thousand years of history by ignorance and hope.

"Why did you come to this world? Do you seek to return to your own?"

"I meant within Khelt and do not mean to imply that I will be secretive about my world or Whom I serve elsewhere. I am not powerful enough to return to my world reliably and may never be. My arrival was an accident."

"If you are not powerful enough, another may be. But Khelt does not have this knowledge." Wistram may, but they will also not hesitate to pry every secret of this other world from the man's mouth, with no care for the consequences. "Are there already other [Clerics] in this world, other gods? What can I offer you, that you would instead stay in Khelt and live out your life with your secrets sealed?"

"There is already at least one other. I settled originally in an area with no peaceable undead about and spoke of the sorts of gods whose influence tends to be good for people, there. I intend to return to that place though it will take me many months, because I was originally removed against my will and by force and cannot countenance any benefit, even a shorter trip to find me again and entreat me, accruing to my kidnapper and her interests as a result."

"It is not of much use to ask you to stay, then. If there is one thing to be learned from history, it is that the turning of ages can rarely be stopped. May we hope that it is only a vogue that will pass, but if not...

"Then I have a different proposal.

"I would like you to teach us all you know about your world's living gods, your classes and powers. Khelt will have its own [Clerics], and with them, we will learn to adapt. I ask that you not stay in our kingdom forever, but only for—months, you said? I do not fully understand what you meant, but if you must return to your new abode in an exact time, no more and no less, then I would invite you to stay in Edojaf for as long as you can; at the end, we will send you on your way with all the haste Khelt's treasures can bear, prefer you the Flying Carpets of Dolenm or the revenant-horses of Akhta's Own, such that you arrive on the same day that you would otherwise.

"And for your trouble, of course, you will have riches if it is what you demand, artifacts if you would like, grand favors if you are to ask. You were kidnapped, you say? Khelt does not lightly intervene in the wider politics of Chandrar, and will not march our armies without direct provocation; however, many a nation will deliver you any woman's head at the promise of a royal bounty set by Fetohep of Khelt."

"...I don't know exactly how long my journey would otherwise last. I would need to cross the ocean. I do not require my kidnapper's head, only that she find kidnapping me distinctly unprofitable; if I am in a position to ask favors I would more dearly appreciate some way to restore to life an individual who fell in my defense. This is possible with my world's magic, but not at my power level, and even if I gained two circles and the spell to raise the dead overnight, it is already too late to use the lesser spell of that kind, and I would need another two circles past that; I don't know if it can be done at all without Golarion magic.

"I have not been relating all I know about the living gods. Many of them are good and worth emulating and supporting. Others are not and I would not care to give them a foothold where they have none, though of course if they were already active on this plane it would be prudent to offer warnings."

"Projections can be made, if there is uncertainty. A journey to Izril, the closest continent, would be a month of land travel and two months by ordinary sea voyage for an ordinary traveler. Khelt's means will reduce the overland voyage to five days at most, and chartering the fastest vessel from Homgraasse may reduce two months at sea to two weeks. Our experts will be able to provide a more accurate estimate.

"For what you ask—you mean that you will eventually be capable of returning the dead to true life? It is a feat only the greatest ancient [Clerics] were rumored to be capable of, and until now I had believed it only rumor; for the ordinary species of the world, at least. True resurrection of the dead is beyond any power known of this world, and so is directly increasing a person's level in a short time, which many have sought throughout history. However, Khelt has profound knowledge of the preservation of the dead, which may be useful in extending this time limit you speak of, although it is only possibly applicable. Perhaps with more details we can provide more specific comment.

"On malignant gods, we will defer to your judgment. The nature of clerics and faiths is lost knowledge in today's age, so it would be foolish to gainsay your warnings."

"The person in question is preserved if he is not discarded entirely; he was petrified and shattered. I have raised the dead before but only using scrolls created by those more powerful than I, but clerics are the kind of spellcaster who can do it.

"Your offer is both generous and tempting provided it permits me to collect a message that will be waiting for me in Levrhine in case that imposes any additional constraints or provides any new information I must have in mind when making commitments. Additionally... there is a spell I would like to prepare to have a better idea of whether I may expect it to suit my needs, tomorrow morning - it tells me in very blurry generalities something about whoever I'm looking at with respect to their values and trustworthiness. You have the affect of a Lawful ruler and yet I would trust the spell over my own nonmagical discernment."