"I am certain that two more rounds of bughouse chess are currently pending, but the true number is more likely five or six. It will take more games than that to repel them completely, but not all of those games will call for doubles, and if no team is required I will handle the match alone… this assumes we lose no games, which is a plausible assumption but not guaranteed to happen. Someone is directing the invaders, and I have yet to determine who they are or whether they have a motive beyond annoying me. Are you in a hurry to leave, summoned hero?"

"Not at all. I just haven't been summoned before and am not familiar with it from this end."

"I wished to have you for three days, at which point you will reappear as close to the spot on your homeworld you left from as is safely possible. I plan to extend the duration if it seems appropriate. The summoning is not inherently tied to the number of games you play."

"Could I appear farther south than that spot?"

"How much farther? I can easily push you up to half a radian south; any more than that and I would need to hire a specialist for assistance."

"I don't know how much a radian is. A couple hundred miles."

"Unless you feel significantly lighter on Disboard than you did on Golarion – or unless Golarion has an unusual composition for a terrestrial planet, something distorting its mass or physical dimensions…" Khazer does not want to assume anything about the god-killing planet using statistical averages but it's hard to see why that would matter, "… one radian should be close to four thousand miles. I can do that."

"I... feel the same weight as usual... There is an evil god trapped in the middle of the planet but I don't know the details of Its confinement situation."

Is this why Golarion killed a god? Is the lich that so concerns the summoned hero's goddess a lieutenant of the trapped evil god? Or are these three unpleasant facts somehow completely unrelated? Khazer feels destined to remain ignorant.

"I cannot extend your summoning indefinitely, if you do not wish to return to the evil god's planet, but there are powers that can keep you on Disboard permanently if they are moved to do so. I will plead your case to Avant Heim or Kainath, if you want," it offers.

"- I have obligations there but that's very kind of you. The evil god trapped in the middle of the planet is not relevant to my daily life, I mention it only in case that affects how hard it is to put me slightly south."

"Not especially."

The ephemeral tether between the summoned hero and Golarion is far more resilient than the average magical construct. The only salient way it could go wrong is hostile divine intervention, but if the hero doesn't think it's a problem then Khazer won't fret over it.

"Building 81 is this way. We have another game to play," it says, leaving in the direction of the river.

Chess!!!

It's half a mile away – half a mile of waterlogged roads and vandalized shopfronts. The denizens of Zeitnot aren't hiding, exactly, but they are to a one barricaded indoors. They peer silently through the windows of their homes and businesses, the children with their noses pressed against the glass and the adults with inscrutable blank stares. It's hard to tell what anything is supposed to be when it's actually in use, since all of the signage remains untranslated and many of the context clues have been defaced.

Building 81 is submerged in a river, though as they get closer it becomes apparent that the river has flooded over its foundation. Closer still and a keen-eyed observer will notice that no one has bothered to erect levees, permanent or temporary, and the river did not have to flood very much before it swallowed the foundation. Another stone table similar to the last one sits in four feet of water, the river lapping just at the edges. Two disgruntled catfolk are either stranded on the table or have simply chosen to not get off and wade back to shore, along with what looks like the corpse of a young girl.

Was this match always set to take place in the river, or have they been waiting for so long that the waterline caught up to them? The river's not flooding that fast, is it?

"Can you swim?" it asks the hero.

"No."