It's a small room. One wall is dominated by a window going from edge to edge, showing a starry sky. The other walls are overstuffed with bejeweled panels and illuminated screens and cupboards.

The centre of the room is full of two startled elf-like creatures.One of them has gone very wide eyed and very still. 

The other has her hand on her knife hilt, though she hasn't drawn it. Her voice comes out echoed, first in a language that Liliane does not speak, the second time louder in a language she does. "Is this an attack, a weird attempt to join, an accident, or what?"

The woman is clad in old-fashioned chainmail, with a tabard depicting a golden stylized sun on a white background over it. She has a flail at her waist, a quiver and bow across her back, and various leather pouches around her waist. She has, most strikingly, bright red eyes and two small pearly horns jutting out of her hair, with skin that's a bit too gold. There's an odd aura of agelessness about her, and she moves more quickly and smoothly than she perhaps should as she straightens and lowers her hand from her weapon.

"An accident on my part, at least, though this may be some plot by Acererak to be rid of me. I was in Chult, pursuing a lead on the Death Curse, before a snake-monster appeared and attacked me. Then, I was here."

The sky-window is. Strange. Both that there's so much glass unbroken in one place, and that she can't see the ground from this angle. How high up are they? Though the view might be magically induced, there's clearly magic of some kind in those lights.

She quietly focuses, activating her ability to detect the presence of greater beings. They're not undead, nor fiends, nor divine... (She is uncomfortably aware that she might very well now detect as something greater to another paladin.)

At least, their involvement with Acererak is unlikely.

That doesn't mean they're good, though, but Liliane likes to give the living the benefit of the doubt.

If they had had more exposure to humans, they may have realised that horns and bright red eyes were odd. Considering they hadn't, those features barely registered to them.

The woman takes her hand away from her knife as Liliane does. She's not otherwise armed, unless the multitude of spikes on her blue-and-black plate mail count. The ends of her hair have been dyed blue, and she has three piercings in each long ear. She stands confidently, and one can see the restrained energy around her as she tries not to pace. Her eyes seem too big for her face.

The man's do to. Most of his face seems to be too big for the rest of it. He's slowly unfolding himself in his chair. He's also long haired, but it is its natural brown, and his body is also otherwise unmodified. He's also unarmoured.

"Well, that was a just a stream of names to me," the woman says. "But, big galaxy, you know? If it's an just accident, that's fine. We can see about getting you home maybe? Do you know what sector you're from? Do humans even have those?"

"I am worried about the snake monster, honestly." The man says. "It might be following her. And Acerak sounds concerning." He turns to Liliane. "I'm hoping Acerak is not a daemon?"

"Galaxy? I'm from New Lyons, in Icamur. I'm also not human, I'm a tiefling." Technically much more elf than fiend, but the 'tiefling' part is usually considered to outweigh the other descents. "And Acererak is more than concerning; he's likely a demilich, and he's the one behind the Death Curse."

"...yeah, that's still a stream of names. We probably sound like a stream of names too, so, don't worry," says the woman. "Good to know you're not human. Humans are... lovely, but don't keep up. We're Aeldari, if you've heard of those? Oh, speak of names!" Zerri stands straighter, and gives a little flourished bow. "I'm Zerri Merrydirk, Captain of the Merry Band! And this is Jas, our pilot."

"What's a demilich, and what's the Death Curse?" asks Jas. "It sounds quite bad, but maybe similar to a problem we have. So, teaming up on it may help."

"Nice to meet you all. Pilot? So this is a ship? Anyways, haven't heard of Aeldari, either. Demiliches are liches who stopped actively feeding souls to their phylacteries, disembodying them. ...Liches are beings who underwent a magical ritual to become undead and immortal as long as their phylactery isn't destroyed. Acererak started the Death Curse to trap the souls of the dead, and to slowly drain the life from anyone brought back from the dead, presumably so he could consume their souls and grow more powerful. My team was hired by one of his victims to stop him before her own soul is trapped."

"Yes, this is a ship," Jas says. "The Starshark. She isn't particularly fancy, but she is reliable." He pats one of the panels affectionately. "I'm not sure how describe the Aeldari to someone who hasn't heard of them, I'm not sure what would be relevant. Long lived? Fast? Varying levels of psychic?"

"The Death Curse sounds similar to our problems," Zerri says. "What with the whole 'soul eating' thing... But at a very different scale."

"You can not meaningfully fight She Who Thirsts," Jas elaborates.

"Exactly."

She glances over at the window. "Ships where I'm from don't usually have glass. Or stay so still."

"And those sound relevant. Is She Who Thirsts a god? Because I already have at least one deity on my list, I don't mind adding more."

"This is a star ship, not a sea ship," Jas says, "So that's probably why."

They both look a stunned at her statement.

"Wow. Haven't meant any actual god-killers, just people who call themselves that," Zerri says. "She Who Thirsts is definitely a god. If you can sort her out-- That's good. Very good. Impressive, even.

She's the god of pleasure, excess, torture, perfection, desire, a whole bunch of stuff. And because we --We Aeldari-- kinda... made her, she eats our souls when we die. And when we're alive too, sometimes. It's fun. Plus, ways of preventing the whole soul eating thing range from 'impractical' to 'immoral-AND-impractical. So."

"Star ship? I... Don't think I'm in my home plane anymore."

"If god-killing isn't a known thing here it might be more difficult, and I've so far only personally met minor, nearly forgotten gods. And I had my entire team with me. I might need time to get a running start so to speak. But I'll do my best - it's my sworn duty to face evil in the world. In all worlds."

"Most known paths to immortality are similarly immoral back home; the only non-immoral way I know of is becoming fully divine yourself, which is incredibly difficult. ...I am minorly divine. Still a bit away from not dying when I'm killed, but. I'm a bit beyond most people from my world."

"That's quite possible?" Jas says. "Though 'plane' may not be translating well. There's about three for us? And I'd be a little surprised if you're from the Webway or the Warp."

"Yeah, Slaanesh--She Who Thirsts-- isn't minor or forgotten," Zerri says. "She's one of the Big Four, so to speak. But if there was even a possibility you could kill her, with time and resources, that's pretty impressive. And a lot of people will appreciate any help you give them, even if it's not killing her. She's caused a lot of damage."

"Huh, don't think I've met anyone any amount of divine before? There are not-immoral ways to be mostly immortal. Or at least not have your soul eaten. If you die when you're wearing a waystone and it's attuned to you, you go into it and don't get eaten by Slaanesh. But they're hard to get, especially for people of our... profession, but that's what we're currently trying to get."

"For us, there's - the Material planes, the Shadow plane, the Astral plane, the Ethereal plane, the four elemental planes, the Outer Planes - there's sixteen well-known of those, but many powerful deities have their own - and numerous demiplanes."

"Something like that could be arranged with magic, and I wouldn't be surprised if faced with the Death Curse some wizards have, but it'd be difficult."

"And, yeah, semi-divine people are rare on my world. My team's theory on why we're suddenly divine is the gods of Chult are trying to help sort of? But most gods when they offer gifts expect payment, so."

"Where would you find waystones? I can help with that to start."

"...I feel like we have a bigger difference than just being on a different plane. That sounds systematically different," says Jas.

"I mean, if they're relatively nice gods, that's maybe not too bad? It'd be nice of them if they specified the payment though," Zerri says. "So, galactically that-a-way--" She waves a hand in the direction of the window "--there's a hole in reality, where our empire used to be. It's Slaanesh's fault. Anyway, on some of the planets in the reality hole, waystones fall from the sky--"

"They're the tears of Isha," Jas interjects.

"--if you're religously inclined. They fall from the sky, you can fight daemons for them and collect them, and see if someone will attune them for you in exchange for extras. Anyway, that's where we're headed. If you're capable of killing small gods, you'll probably be fine, but this is pretty risky risky. We're only doing it because we're in imminent danger of being eaten by a god, and we don't really have a better option."

"...Well, if they're at all like the demons back home, I might do extra damage, so. And I can heal people, so as long as you don't die before I can get to you..."

"Really? That's awesome! I mean, I have no idea how similar our daemons are, but you can heal? That's brilliant!"

She's a bit taken aback, but it does make sense if healing magic is a lot rarer here. "Yeah. I can lay on hands, or cast a spell. Laying on hands allows me to attune how much I heal, but I only have so many charges for a day. I can also use a spell, which is unlimited for a weaker heal - that's because of the divinity, spells back home are usually strictly limited per-day. The laying on hands can also be used to cure up to twelve people a day of disease or poison. Is healing magic rare here? ...Also, if I do happen to fall unconscious, do not seem able to rouse myself after a few seconds, and it's critical that I regain consciousness immediately, pour the contents of the red vial around my neck down my throat. I would recommend against drinking it yourselves, potions can have different effects on different species."

"Fairly rare, yeah. There are some psykers that could do it? But neither of the two psykers we have can. And they probably shouldn't use those powers in the reality-hole anyway. 

The Aeldari do have healing tech, but-- okay, so the subset of Aeldari that most of us except Jas are is the Drukhari-- and when it comes to tech, Drukhari have a bad habit of answering 'how do we power this?' with 'by torturing people, of course!' The Asuryani tech is probably nicer, but we don't have any of that either. So. We're a bit short up on healing overall. Any healing is brilliant for us, and dealing with poison is super useful as well.

If you're unconscious, red vial down throat, don't drink it yourselves: got it. I'll make sure that gets passed around the crew.

"Thanks."

"I have infernal blood in my veins, so. A certain subset of my ancestors would probably leap for joy at torture-powered magic. It's hard to recognize when you're in a damaging culture, too, and leaving can be difficult, but making your own way is a good act."

"For more healing - I can try to teach people how to be paladins, but - it's incredibly difficult, moreso than many other magical traditions, it requires a certain inner devotion, and the capacity to keep to a strict oath in action and mind. The training itself usually takes one to six years, and I don't know if you have anyone with that sort of time and the right mentality. And my world doesn't have that sort of time, if Acererak grows unchecked. But training some of your people in one of the traditions with healing is possible if I find my way back, and if I end up settling here - the idea of eventually founding my own order is tempting, I'll admit."

"That's good to hear from someone else. I just I worked it out sooner, you know? There's just a lot of people who I hurt--" She glances at Jas, uncomfortable. "--But now, I'm trying to show other Drukhari that there's a better way. That's why I started the Merry Band. 

Yeah, I'm not sure we have the right sort of people to become paladins. This is a corsair crew. But if you settle down, there's certainly going to be takers for healing magic. Especially if it gets around the dangers of psychic powers. And if you head back, we might be able to get some nice-Asuryani tech that does something that's hard in your world for you to take with you."

"We don't have ships like this, or so much metal, or so much glass. I suspect even just books would be a huge boon. My world does need me, and I have unfinished business beyond that, but - here seems to be in need, too, and my world has other heroes. If I can get back, I can likely return here, or find someone capable of plane-shifting."

"Those are all acquirable. Metal and glass would be pretty easy, and books too. Ships would be a little harder, they're more specialist. But books a pretty cheap in the more civilised parts of the galaxy, unless you want rare knowledge.

Hopefully any way we can get you home is two way. Acerak sounds like he really needs to dealing with, and he's probably  a stepping stone to really hurting She Who Thirsts. This world has trouble, but we're not under time pressure like your world. She Who Thirsts has been doing this ten thousand years, we can hold on. Not forever, but we can hold on."

"Our worlds seem to have a good deal to learn from each other, then."

"I think we lucked out with worlds with compementary strengths and weaknesses. And if you can bring us along and need extra help with Acerak, I can see what we can do. More practice for us and more distance from Slaanesh can only help."

"With any luck it'd be possible to hook your people into our afterlife system, at least anyone who immigrates."

"That'd be real helpful as well. I'm assuming there's no soul eating gods in your afterlife system? I'm not sure how many takers you'll have. The Asuryani would probably say 'we're perfectely happy with our current afterlife system' and the Drukhari would be 'we're perfectly happy with our not-dying-because-torture thing,' but I'd take up the offer if it was possible. I imagine there'd be other corsairs, or people from other species, who'd take it up as well."

"There's evil gods, but the afterlife system - if you worship a deity, you go to their afterlife, unless they outright reject you. If you don't, where you end up depends mostly on your actions in life. Getting your soul eaten would require running afoul of a lich or worshiping the wrong deity."

"Mmm, not sure how many people will end up worshiping your deities, most Aeldari worship their own or a staunchly atheist, like me. But if it comes down to actions-- for some of us, it'd be a risk, depends on how things get weighted, but it's better than 'guaranteed soul eating', maybe better than 'trapped in a psychic rock.'"

"People with sufficient wealth can also be resurrected, though one of my long-term goals is to remove the 'significant wealth' requirement."

"...Resurection's good too. Especially if it's relatively cheap. The Aeldari have it, but the Asuryani version is 'minor improvement on being a psychic rock' and the Drukhari version is 'powered by torture... and you have to be rich too.'"

"Requires clear diamonds to channel the energy through, which're expensive in my world. Worth one thousand to twenty-five thousand gold, depending on how long someone's been dead, if there's remains, that sort of thing. For comparison, a stay at a very nice inn is one to two gold a night. And it isn't a shortcut to immortality, no one's gotten it to work on old age yet, but. That might just be the gods holding onto the spirits in their keeping, rather than an inherent limit."

"I'm pretty sure diamonds are manufacturable in this world, if that helps. That might be able to bring the price down without a whole new method or anything.

Not sure if there's an equally easy way around old age. Maybe some gods would be convincable?"

"Manufactured diamonds - that. Would change a lot."

"And maybe. Or simply a magical way of extending life."

"I'm not sure how expensive the manufactured diamonds would be, but they'd probably be cheaper than the natural kind. Even a little bit cheaper would put it in the reach of more people.

A magical, non evil way of extending life might be easier than convincing gods. Though it'll depend on how likely to intervene they are, and how much they care about having souls, I guess."

"Pretty sure it's worshipers that fuel their power, not necessarily souls in their domain. They also tend to avoid directly intervening, unless called upon for a miracle or something."

"Well, that's an encouraging. It'd be bad if we solved old age just to have a bunch of gods get huffy at us. They might even like us doing it, if living worshipers are more useful than dead ones."

"With any luck."

"If you're sticking around with us, would you like to be shown round the ship, meet some of the rest of the crew?"

"That'd be great, yeah."

Jas stays behind. Zerri heads out the door, and nearly collides with another Aeldari standing outside.

"Where you eavesdropping?" Zerri asks.

"Why, of course! I have to make sure you don't end up killed by people teleporting into the bridge." She turns to Liliane. "I am Khelresse, wych on a poorer stage than usual. A pleasure to meet you," she says, making an elaborate bow.

"I'm Liliane d'Aigle, of New Lyons. Pleasure to meet you." Khelresse reminds her of her bard friend Phee, just without all the surliness.

Khelresse goes for sticky-sweet over surliness.

"And it's wonderful that you managed to survive your encounter with the snake-- I haven't encountered one of those in the arena before, it sounds like a fascinating specimen-- and Zerri and Jas survived their encounter with you. We really do need all the help we can get."

"Didn't really seem like it was trying to kill me that hard, or if it was it failed miserably. Do you have anyone currently injured or sick?"

"Well, it's always wonderful when you're enemies don't try.

We have someone, but he is only walking wounded."

"I'll be glad to help, regardless of severity. My spells and such reset every day, anyways. I can't do anything about something the body's already healed over, too, but I can manage wounds."

"Well, if it's no trouble-- it might take a bit to find him."

It does, but the ship is relatively small.

They find him sitting on a bed in what looks like dormitory. He's tall and gangly like the rest of, has long black hair with a bleached white stripe at the front, is appears to be losing a fight with non stick bandages. There's a deep graze on his stomach. It's started healing, and it's been kept clean, but it's still a nasty looking wound. He looks up. "Er, hi?"

"Hi! I'm Liliane d'Aigle. I was teleported here from another plane in a magical incident, and I'd like to help out. Starting with, I have magic healing, so I figured I could help with that wound?"

"Kaemoque. And, uh, really?" He looks doubtful in the direction of Zerri.

"Yep, really."

Kaemoque rolls his eyes. "Fine, I'll be the guinea pig."

"This might feel a bit tingly, sorry, but shouldn't hurt - "

And she chants something lilting under her breath, then lays her palms on the edges of the wound. A faint light springs out between her hands, and unless Aeldari are significantly tougher than non-heroic humans, the wound should close entirely. If it doesn't, she repeats until it does.

(It takes her three-and-a-bit seconds each repetition).

Aeldari are a bit tougher than humans, but not by that much. It closes on the first go.

He blinks twice. "Huh, I thought you were making that up. I guess not.

Thanks."

"You're welcome."

Zerri looks positively delighted that this test worked. "How big can you do? I mean, healing wise. Lost limbs, that sort of thing?"

"I can keep a lost limb from bleeding out, but I can't reattach one, let alone regrow it. There's clerics and some others who can, though - clerics are a more healing-focused tradition, paladins are really secondarily healers, primarily warriors. I can't do anything about scars. I can cure blindness and deafness. If someone's still alive, I can keep them that way, no matter how badly injured they are, and I can bring them back to full health in seconds, unless 'full health' is unusually tough. I can restore to life someone who's died within the last minute - that one requires diamonds, I have some but not enough if people make a habit of dying - and I'll eventually be able to raise anyone who's died within ten days, but that might take a while, it's a high-power spell for me. As mentioned earlier, I can cure diseases and poisons, and I've yet to run across one I couldn't heal. If we're in a combat situation, I can make any healing more effective for allies within a hundred twenty feet of me, and I can heal one person within that same range every six seconds, though those only last a minute each and I can only maintain them both at the same time for a maximum of three minutes a day."

"Well, we'll definitely keep avoiding dying and losing limbs. Bad habits, those are.

If we can get between worlds, getting some clerics on board could be useful. I imagine a lot of people would be happy to exchange cheap manufactured diamonds for magical healing. Especially if you can deal with disease. If it works on Nurgle's Rot-- well, there's a lot of species who'll love you and healers in general.

Being able to keep someone alive indefinitely is definitely useful. Our souls don't get eaten by Slaanesh immediately, but we only really have a few days of wiggle room, if we're lucky. If we can be stopped from dying and kept alive, that's a ticking clock we don't have to worry about."

"Most clerics will have limits per day on things they can heal, I'm a bit unusual in not having that, but yeah. In my world, there's actually wealthy people who just. Arrange to be resurrected every time they die. And who have died over a dozen times. Usually higher level adventurers, but 'taking resurrection for granted' is a very large part of why we're being so badly affected by the Death Curse. ...And I realized I have no idea if the Death Curse extends here! So my resurrection ability might not work. If it does, the Death Curse shouldn't apply unless the resurrected person travels to my home plane, the Death Curse tends to immediately snatch souls in its reach."

"Oh, we have people like that too! I'm not sure anyone is up to a dozen yet. Though, you know the Drukhari answer to 'how do we power this?'... yeah, same answer with resurrection, just more so. Your home's way of resurrecting sounds much better.

Well, if the Death Curse reaches here, we'll have to deal with it as it happens. Hopefully being eaten by Acerak isn't as bad as being eaten by Slaanesh? It would still be very bad. So. Let's hope it doesn't reach that far."

"If you're not having a problem in general with resurrection, it might not be able to reach this far, so that's good at least."

"I haven't, like, checked Commoragh recently --the Drukhari homeworld? capital? one of those things --so if they have a problem, I wouldn't know. But I feel like I would have heard about the flailing panic if it was a problem, even out here, so they're probably fine.

...I mean, serves them right to have resurrection go haywire, but I'd like to think I'm a better person than to wish soul eating on people. Even if they are truly terrible."

"Maybe if we grab the artifact Acererak's using we can modify it to just mess with unethical resurrections. Or direct souls through it so we can put them back, no risk of anyone getting eaten."

"Oh, it's an artifact, not an inherent property of Acerak?

...I shouldn't want anyone's souls eaten, I don't want anyone's souls eaten, I don't want to be tempted to have people's souls eaten, but if we can make torture resurrections not work--

that would be very good."

"Wasn't suggesting the soul eating parts. I think the artifact, the soulmonger - which's actually speculative, it's not confirmed this isn't just a new ability of Acererak's - just gathers souls, and then Acererak's doing something to those souls. Probably consuming them for power, that's common with liches, just not on this scale. So if we had it, we could gather souls ourselves, keep them from getting eaten, and put people back without divine intervention. Possibly reducing the cost of resurrections, I'm not actually sure what effect that'd have."

"I didn't think you were suggesting the soul eating parts. I'm just worried... about the temptation, you know?

If we could make it clear that no, resurrection-by-torture will not work, and are able to enforce that, that would be amazing. I mean, it'd turn Commoragh on it's head, but that place really needs it's head turned."

"Yeah, it's tempting to punish the wicked." She did, in fact, have a life before becoming a paladin. "It'd be great if we could somehow shut down all the torture, but 'for the purpose of resurrection' is probably a good place to start."

"Yeah, and we've got an angle on it. And maybe if we're lucky, once torture-rescurrections don't work, people might think we could shut down other things, and stop doing them pre-emptively... it's not likely, but there's a chance."

"Should at least give momentum to anyone objecting."

"Yeah, and that's got to be worth something.

Plus, while the Haemonculi covens-- the people who actually, like, perform the torture-resurrections -- aren't likely to stop torturing, they can only torture so much because of the resources people give them. Resources that they've been given mostly to perform the resurrections."

"That'll help, yeah."

It took Kaemoque most of Zerri and Liliane's conversation to process the full implications of what just happened to him and his wound. "When did you learn to do that? How? Why?"

"I'm not from this - plane? Universe? World? Anyways, I encountered a creature that tried to eat me or something, apparently failed badly enough to teleport me away, landed here. In my world, there's three kinds of magic - well, debatably, it's not clear if one of them, psionics, is magic or something else - and I learned divine magic, which is useful for healing, fighting or bolstering undead, aiding allies, things in that general vein. I'm a type of caster called a paladin - our magic is powered by oaths we swear, and the conviction to hold to those. My oath was compassion and mercy, to aid others wherever I can. It was in my power to heal you, so I did. I swore my oath a few years ago, and was taught by another paladin, the dwarf Eldgrimmr. Rather late in life, actually, most of those who seek to learn are bright-eyed and young."

"I can imagine how a creature might use teleportation as an attack, but only if they teleported you somewhere dangerous. Maybe it was aiming for the vacuum, and missed? I'm glad it did, healing is definitely useful, especially if you can deal with things bigger than grazes.

What do the other two types do? We've got one type of thing you could call 'magic,' but the system itself isn't specialised, if that makes sense? The practitioners are, however.

And powered by oaths sounds interesting. Less dangerous than the sources around here, but it sounds like it's more limiting. I mean, it sounds like you couldn't decide to not heal me when you found out I was injured," says Kaemoque.

Zerri makes a confused-thinking face. "Wait, how old are you? I don't know how tieflings age, but you look young? I mean, no offence, if thinking someone is younger is offensive."

"The oath's more - I wouldn't be a paladin if I was the sort of person who wouldn't heal someone if it was within my power. And I'm allowed to ask for money for services, especially if that money's going towards a righteous cause and the person I'm asking can afford it. I usually don't, but it's not disallowed by the oath. I can also have priorities, especially with limited resources - keeping spells in reserve for an emergency was something I used to do when they were limited."

"Psionics deals with minds. I don't know much about it, just that telepathy and such are commonly associated with it. Psions are extremely rare, though, I'm not sure I've ever met one."

"Arcane magic is - pretty broad. Usually doesn't do healing well, does do damage well, plus a bunch of other things. There's... Enchantment, illusion, divination, transmutation, necromancy, conjuration, evocation, and abjuration, of the schools of arcane magic."

"I'm in my seventies. I'm actually middle aged, I'm part elf, I think part human, distantly part fiend - 'tiefling' is a catch-all for 'has apparent fiendish blood, but less than half'. Most don't live significantly longer than their non-fiend parent race. I started deaging when my divine spark started growing, I'm not sure what my lifespan is now."

"Ah, so it's not super behaviour controll-y. I'd be worried about you getting stuck in dilmemmas, or being forced to heal your enemies, or something. If it's more a promise to do what you'd do anyway, with the ability to priorities. that's less worrying.

Psions sounds similar to our psykers-- as does arcane magic, to an extent. The range of things psychic powers can do, the specialisation seems to come down to the individual person."

"You're 70?!" Zerri exlaims.

"You're part human?!" Khelresse follows up with.

"Er, culture clash, I think," Kaemoque says. "The humans we've met are-- not half so articulate, I'd say. And 70 sounds hilariously young to us."

"I'm the oldest person in my team by a few decades and by life stage, so I'm usually pretty much surrounded by children. Interesting, being on the other side of that. And I'm not sure, I know my father was a tiefling but I've never actually met him, his other half could be a bird-person for all I know. Human might be translating oddly? Humans can get pretty articulate where I'm from, I'm not super exceptional I don't think. A bit more classically educated than average, but I've met human wizards who can think circles around me."

"I mean, I wouldn't call any of us middle aged, we're young by Aeldari standards, but we all have at least a century or two?

Maybe you're kind of human is different from our kind? Our kind tend to be a little slow. In both 'running speed' and 'on the uptake' terms. And they tend to be missing concepts. Which, like, could be cultural, but still. They don't pick them up easily."

She kind of doubts the 'slow' thing, she's never seen credible proof of actually lower-than-average-intelligence races. But given that she hasn't met any of their humans, she'll avoid that argument for now.

"Elves come of age at a century. A couple of other races are similarly long-lived; there's a lot of diversity in my world, though. More races than I can count."

"We come of age at a century-ish as well, if we're Trueborn. It gets more complicated if you're Vatborn, which is most people. Our natural lifespan is about 1000, our unnatural lifespan can be ten times that.

There's a lot of species around here too, it's a big galaxy, though there's only a few major ones. We're one of the longer lived species, but we're competing against a few actually-immortal ones, so."

"Actually immortal races are pretty rare on the Material Plane. There's some on the other planes, though. Elves live to about their mid-seven hundreds, my mom and half-sister are a good bit older than me."

"I think necrons are immortal? No clue if they count. And daemons. But they probably count less, really."

Khelresse has been looking carefully bored during most of the conversation, but at the mention of relatives she lights up. "You have a sister?"

She tries to rein her expression in, but it doesn't fully work.

"A sister on my mom's side, who I grew up with. And at least one sister on my dad's side, who came as a bit of a surprise. I probably have more siblings on my dad's side somewhere."

"At least two siblings? That's wonderful.

I would have liked to have siblings, but, well, it wasn't in the family plans."

Hah. Yeah. Sisters. Great. (Okay, surprise sister is actually nice despite being a legally-sanctioned assassin. Older sister not so much.)

"What happened?"

"My mother had to take time off from performances to have me, more time than she'd really have liked to. It wasn't good for the cult's standing. So she decided that she only really needed one protegé, and didn't have any children after me.

It would have been nice to have a sister. To have someone to compete with who wasn't several centuries older.

Come to think of it, considering she's burned through one protegé, she might be having another child. Not that I'd know."

"I can see that. I don't have the best relationship with my older sister, but that might be more because of our mother. She had the bad habit of setting us against each other."

"I got set against my mother, it would have been nice to be set against someone with my own level of experience. But grass is always greener on the other side."
 

"Yeah. My sister and I were in a weird position, she was older than me but I was maturing faster, which I think exacerbated the problem."

"Yeah, that sounds like a recipe for friction."

"One of the many ways mixed-species families can get awkward."

"It seems like a set of circumstances rife with awkward potential."

"It kinda is. Would probably be less of a problem somewhere it's more common, upper-crust New Lyons just isn't the most diverse."

"Being mixed species is common is some places?"

"Yeah. A lot of the more similar species can interbreed, there's areas where it's more common. Not, like, majority, unless you count the tiefling lands, but decent minority."

"...Huh. Round here, being mixed species is, mm, not a thing that just happens? Not naturally, at least. So a place where there a decent minority sounds odd."

"Might be our magic that's the difference? Very magical creatures like dragons can cross-breed with just about anything."

"Yep, sounds like a magic thing, considering our mixed species people tend to be made with tech? ...against their will, usually. Magic seems much nicer."

"Magic's as nice as the person using it, most times."

"Yeah, I'd imagine. But still, a system where the normal way to be mixed species is 'when a mummy elf and a daddy human love each other very much--' instead of "you pissed off a haemonculus and they thought it would be degrading' seems overall nicer? Even if someone could also magically make you mixed species to degrade you, or whatever."

"That's not too common, fortunately."

"Which is a nice thing about your world."

Nod. "We could do without the evil gods and beings like liches, but it sounds like your world has plenty of problems with those, too."

"I was about to say 'at least we don't have liches,' but the basically-immortal, torture-happy rich folk may as well be. Each world seems to have it's own good and bad, and some shared good and bad too."

"A whole host of creatively bad things! But, yeah, there's always people striving to go good, too."

Zerri exhales and settles her shoulders. "Yeah. They can be hard to find, but they're there." She glances around the room at the two members of her crew who are in it.

"My team usually manages. Sometimes despite themselves, we have a few... characters. I got lucky with them."

Zerri glances more deliberately at Khelresse. "That sounds about right."

"Yeah." Small laugh. "The monk once launched himself out of a catapult. We had to go rescue him from the jungle."

Zerri laughs. "What was he even trying to do?"

"Fly, apparently. And he thought it'd cut down on walking back to the ship, but he overshot."

"I mean, I guess he did, technically, fly? Still a bad idea though." 

"I'm also pretty sure there are spells that're safer than catapults!"

"Oh, yeah, that too.

And you can just walk."

"He was never too fond of that, but yeah."

"Ahh, the dangers of trying to avoid doing something."

"People can get astoundingly creative when they're being lazy."

"Yep. And then six hours later, you're bruised and banged up, are only half way to solving your problem, and you realise it would have only taken you an hour to do it the normal way.

...not that I'm speaking from experience or anything."

Muffled snicker.

"Pro tip: Don't tie a bunch of herdbeasts together, so you can 'lead them all at once,' unless you particularly like being dragged across a field, and having to spend the rest ofthe day catching them."

"That sounds like something our bard would do, more than something the monk would do. Probably with the benefit of speaking with animals, and attempting to get them to stampede so it's 'faster.'"

"Oh no. I mean, being able to speak with the would have helped? But somehow I think being able to speak with them just increases the ways you could get in trouble."

"I'd say. The number of times she's talked some dino into doing something wild..."

"'Wild' as in 'like the wild animal it is' or 'wild' as in 'crazy'?"

" - Crazy, wow I somehow forgot that had two meanings."

"Ehh, I guessed it was probably the second thing. Not sure how much convincing wild animals really need to act like wild animals.

Though convincing dinosaurs to do anything sounds dangerous. Potentially the fun kind of dangerous, but still."

"She once rode a dinosaur in a no-holds-barred race, which she wasn't supposed to be in in the first place. Still somehow won, without any major injuries even."

"That's pretty impressive, not going to lie."

"They're kinda an impressive group."

"They sound like it. I imagine they're even more so when they have goals other than 'catapult themselves on a dinosaur.'"

Pfft. "They've yet to try that particular combination, but - I have faith in their chances, even down one."

"It's only a matter of time till they try it! But your world sounds like it's in good hands. ...maybe not safe ones, but good ones."

"Yeah. Of course, it's still horribly dangerous and important and I'd like to get back and help given the consequences of failure, but - here needs help, too."

"We'll try and find a way to get you back as quick as we can, and we can swap: you helping our world for us helping yours."

"Sounds fair to me. And thank you."

"One good turn deserves another. Your help is much appreciated."

"Glad to be of service."

Shortly afterwards, they translate out of realspace into the webway, the sky of stars replaced with glowing threadlike tunnels. They travel through it for a few days, before emerging.

The sky is lurid pinks and purples and ultraviolets, the stars blocked out by swirling mist of shining matter. A massive orb floats underneath them, black with long red veins and bruises stretching across it.

"We're here." He's staring fixedly at a control panel.

"Former heart of the Empire, current outskirt of the Eye of Terror." She's shielding her eyes, as if there was glare from a sun. "I wouldn't look to closely at it, it's not great for your health."

Liliane averts her eyes as well. "How does something like this happen?"

"The short version is something like this: have a big empire. A really big empire, full of people connected to the Warp. Have them want for nothing. Have them get bored. Really bored.  Bored enough to start torture cults.

Have that gestate a god. Have that god tear screaming through the veil between the Warp and Realspace.

...and that's how you get the Eye of Terror. And the soul eating problem."

"That does not sound very fun at all. And, huh, I don't think that's how you get new gods in my plane, but I might be wrong."

"New gods aren't really a thing here, She Who Thirsts is sorta an exception? It had something do with emotions generated, I'm pretty sure. The Warp is basically made of emotions."

"There's myths of new gods happening, I don't know that it's happened in recorded history."

"Guess that's another difference between our worlds? She Who Thirsts' birth is in living memory, but only for very old people."

"Could be, yes. I wonder how it is that magic's so different between our worlds, it works more-or-less consistently across the planes around mine."

"Maybe some sort of... disjoint? in the planar system? I'm very much not an expert on these things."

"Maybe here's just farther. A lot farther."

"Does distance affect how planes behave in your world?"

"I think somewhat, the Outer Planes are more - different - than the Inner Planes, but it's... Not really distance? Or the distance is metaphorical."

"Considering how different our worlds are, a great metaphorical distance doesn't seem unlikely? But they're different enough that it could be something completely different."

"Yeah. I don't know enough about cosmology to say what, unfortunately."

"We're just going to have to be confused together then."

"We're making planetfall in 10 minutes," Jas says.

"Is there anything I should do to prepare for planetfall?"

"Get any weapons or armour you need on you, or anything else you think will help in a fight." 

She can get suited up rather thoroughly, then, with armor and flail and bow.

After ten minutes, the ship lands gently on the surface of a planet.

The land around the ship is flat, unnaturally so, except for the broken teeth of crumpled buildings. The ground is covered in a red, sparkling sand.

Most of the crew, around 50 people, have armoured themselves, and are waiting by bay doors.

"Let's get in and out right quick."

"Always a good plan," Liliane says, checking that her now always up spell-shield is still running. (Infinite weak spells has some interesting exploits).

They walk outside, cautiously, staying in a tight group. Storm clouds gather above their heads

A few minutes later, it starts raining egg sized red gemstones.

They're not bruising Liliane as much as they logically should be. She mostly ignores the gemstone rain.

People are hurriedly trying to gather them up.

"These are soulstones," Zerri explains.

There's movement in the distance.

She'll gather a few, then - she's notably fast at it.

She glances over at the movement, but her vision's not especially notable.

The dark eldar bring their weapons up.

The moving things charge.They're humanoid, to a point, and birdlike, to point, and there's a decent dash of crab in there-- but the overall effect is deeply disturbing. And there's a lot of them.

Liliane is unnaturally fast, and hits hard when going full-steam. She is also, it should be noted, ridiculously durable. She keeps a careful watch on her allies, in case any need healing.

(This doesn't seem worth spinning up one of her third level spells, since those are at her current divine rank a limited resource).

The creatures a tough, but not that tough. Liliane clears a swathe through them.

Her Drukhari allies are keeping up, more or less. The guns have been swapped for knives.

Someone Liliane doesn't recognise takes a hit from one of the creatures giant claws.

She can be over there and healing them for more damage's worth than most non-heroic humans can survive.

They're up again almost immediately. "Thanks," they say.

"Welcome."

And back into the fray.

There seems to be endless amounts of these creatures, but it does not matter. They can't press through the front lines of Liliane and the Merry Band, and the back lines are collecting a fair amount of soulstones.

Then something new appears. It's similar in appearance --similar in wrongness-- to the other creatures, but it has a six-horned head and is three times as tall.

It strides towards the group.

Zerri swears in Aeldari. "Retreat! Get back!" she orders.

Liliane, under the assumption that she can soak up significantly more damage, will cover the retreat. If the thing's going to catch anyone from their group, it's going to catch her. She takes half a beat of concentration to manipulate the force-field she keeps constantly running - she's now surrounded by a shimmery, glowing field that moves with her. Hopefully enough to draw attention.

(And she keeps her spells ready in the back of her mind.)

...And speaking of spells, she needs to be in mass combat more often, she forgot to do this earlier - every six seconds of their retreat, three allies within thirty feet of her will feel tougher, more alive.

The thing is much faster than it looks. The rest of the Merry Band has managed get some distance from it, but not much.

It pauses, and evaluates Liliane.

It speaks telepathically. Loudly, and with the strange sound, almost like what silk would sound like if it could talk. <Well, that is interesting. Haven't seen that one before. Haven't seen your kind before.>

...She can either reply out loud or with the Message spell, but - 

She takes a few moments of concentration to mentally activate her sacred weapon. The flail starts glowing rather brightly. Another half-beat, almost with the same mental action but slightly to the left of it, and the glowing flail starts trailing wispy, golden flames.

"I must say the same. Now. Leave. I will not allow you to hunt my team."

It laughs. <Do you really think you can stop me? You may be interesting, but you are ever so small. And wouldn't it be far more interesting to hunt your team yourself?> There's a glamour behind that last sentence.

Liliane doesn't even blink. In fact, if that was broadly applied, no one in ten feet of her even blinks.

And that. That definitely counts as a hostile action.

She moves forwards. She's walking, completely normally, but - she crosses the distance in a fourth the time as should be physically possible. She's taken less steps, somehow, but her stride is normal.

She goes to swing her flail. Almost idly, even.

It takes barely even a thought to activate a proper smite.

(She's fast and devastatingly accurate, and if she somehow misses or it doesn't die - and she knows how strong she is, if the creature isn't as divine as she is then this is enough damage to almost down her - well, she's fast enough for another attack before it can retaliate, and the spell she used earlier for the flames usually sets things on fire.)

(Her reflexes aren't the best. There's a chance it'll get a swing off before she does, but - she has faith in her shield and more importantly in the vitality of her body.)

The first hit evaporates half of it, it's matter spooling off like smoke. It swings one of its claws, but it's stopped by Liliane's second hit. It doesn't literally explode, but the affect is similar -- a roar of fire followed by the creature not being there.

There's stunned silence from the Merry Band.

"That... that was a Greater Daemon."

If any of the weaker creatures remain around, Liliane will glow menacingly at them for a moment, then glance over at Zerri.

"I can only safely take on three of those a day, probably less if they hit as hard as I do, if I get unlucky, if I need to use any third level spells, or if one ambushes me, and I wouldn't want to get surrounded by them. I suspect we won't want to stick around much longer?"

"Yeah, we should get out of here now. Don't want to attract any more local attention. We've got a good haul of soulstones though.

Three a day-- put it this way: it usually takes a fair amount of people to take down a Greater Daemon. Even if you just got lucky because you got the first hit in, that's still impressive."

"Thanks. And it might be a power level difference between worlds, but - I'm upper percentile of an upper percentile in terms of power even back home."

"In my world - it's not that hard to get a sense of someone's relative power, something that couldn't take me and had any intelligence would have slunk off or brought friends. 'Friends' is usually what happens, and I'm at a comparative disadvantage against mobs, especially if armed with anything armor piercing. Which, you'd think that's something there wouldn't be that many of in the jungle."

"...I usually don't get first hits in, too, and I don't know how hard those things hit, one might be able to bring me down if it's anything resembling prepared."

"You may have been unexpected enough? And it did bring friends, in a sense, we just tore through them.

Greater Daemons tend to mince people, and the glamour is pretty strong. So if one was prepared, and knew it was up against you, it might not go so well."

"I will try to be more stealthy about power levels then in the future. No sense in tempting fate."

"Ehh, it's a big galaxy, and I don't imagine news of you would spread that fast.

--But maybe sneak up on future Greater Daemons from behind or something."

And now they're back on the ship, with a fair haul of soulstones.

"Will do."

She evaluates herself. Two hits to go down at her power level's actually relatively rare in terms of percentage of the population - that Greater Daemon must have either been ridiculously tough, somewhat divine, or both.

She needs to know more about the dangers of this world. The Greater Daemon makes a good comparison point, at least.

"Is there anything on how different creatures measure up to one another? Say, how quickly a Greater Daemon can kill another of its kind?"

"I'm not an expert, so take anything I say with a grain of salt. There's four kinds of Greater Daemons, one for each Chaos God. The Khornate ones are tougher and hit harder, the Tzeentchian ones have better psychic ability. In a mirror match, between two of the same kind, it'd probably take between six to eight hits to take the other down, but they hit pretty fast. A daemon from one of the other gods would take a few more hits to take down a Khornate one.

It'd take one hit from a Greater Daemon to kill something normal, maybe two or three if they were particularly tough."

Well, then, math time. She does not like math.

"Huh. If it's less divine than me, it would've basically taken one and a fourth of those hits for me to down myself, but it'd be doing a lot less damage to me than I was doing to it. If it's as divine, around five hits? It seemed like I did half its capacity with the first strike, so probably... There's a lot of variables for exact numbers of hits, but I think it'd be hitting comparatively less hard than I do? It'd probably take it anywhere from eight to fifteen hits to kill me. But my damage drops dramatically after six full hits in a day, and I can sustainably heal less at a go than it can hit."

"Yeah, Greater Daemons tend not to mince each other in two hits, so you probably hit harder. But be careful. Especially against Khornate daemons. Those are particularly nasty."

"I'll try to avoid picking any fights."

"We probably want have to deal with any for awhile. We've got enough soulstone to pay for attuning some for us, so there's no need for us to go back to the Eye of Terror."

"Alright. What's next?"

"Probably Ulthwé. They're the nearest Craftworld. While we might not get best price for the soulstones there, I'd rather not spend any more time with my soul at risk of being eaten than I need to."

"Reasonable."

They travel to Ulthwé.

From the outside, it looks something like this. The inside of the hangar bay they land in is no less impressive. Gleaming pillars of... bone? support a clouded crystal roof, with jet filligree on the walls showing the tales of Aeldrari mythology.

As the step out of the ship, they are met by an Aeldari woman, in robes the same bone-white and jet black as the room. "Welcome to Ulthanash Shelwé."

Fascinating. It looks magical, but - magic doesn't seem to be the same type of thing, here, so she wonders briefly how they did that.

"Glad to be here," is all she says.

The woman cocks her head, evaluating Liliane.

"Is there a reason you are here?"

Zerry holds out the bag of soulstones. "Yep. Soulstones."

The woman's head cocks at an even steeper angle.

She tries to look pleasant, but isn't sure what Zerri wants her to say. She maybe should've kept her mouth shut in the first place, whoops.

Still no idea what Zerri wants, they maybe souls have discussed this, but: "Your - station? - is very pretty."

The woman smiles. It seems forced.

"If it's all the same to you," Zerri says "We'd like to be paid in some of those soulstones getting attuned to me and my crew."

"I'll have to see if the Farseers consider that acceptable, follow me." The woman says. She starts walking out of the hangar, and Zerri follows.

Zerri whispers an aside to Liliane "Here's hoping the farseers don't take a centure with this. ...Or that we don't get Eldrad."

"Who's that?" she whispers back.

"The best farseer and precognitive in the galaxy. At best, if he shows up, he'll be all 'oooh~ you arrival was fated~', at middle he will manipulate us into helping out the fate of Ulthwé at the expense of our own, at worst he will do both."

"I think I know the type."

"That's something, at least."

They are lead into a great dome, full of towering crystalline trees. There's an Aeldari man in there, wearing rich black-and-bone robes and carrying an ornate staff. He seems to be... talking to the trees?

He turns to face them, and waves off the woman acting as their guide.

"Greetings. I am Eldrad Ulthuan. You're arrival was expected."

There's a muffled "Godsdamnit" from Zerri.

Polite diplomacy smile! She is bad at being sincerely diplomatic, but if he's not too perceptive she is good at being very generally charismatic.

"It's good to meet you! I am Liliane d'Aigle."

He is hard to read. At the very least, there is mutual polite diplomacy smiles going on.

"I must admit, your arrival--" the emphasis makes it clear he is not talking about her arrival on Ulthwé "--greatly disturbed the skeins of fate. I do believe you are not from this-- reality, I think you would call it?"

"We usually say planes of existence, though this is a bit farther from home than normal I think."

"Do you have any idea how it may have occurred?"

"Snake monster with a mirror for a face! It seemed to be trying to eat me, and, presumably, failed. Though interplanar teleportation might be its chosen method of getting people to go away, too."

"Hmm. Giant snakes teleporting people between planes is a bad portent. A little too much like the Great Enemy for my tastes. Though there may be little we can do if it stays in 'your' home plane."

"It didn't feel particularly fiendish, at least, or at all great-power-adjacent. Might've just been a strange magical beast, my home plane has things with odd powers like that sometimes."

"If that is the case, that is less concerning."

"Ulthwé would be happy to attune soulstones to your crew in exchange for the rest. Though after that, I would request that you leave."

"Wouldn't want us being a bad influence now, would you."

"I have no objection to leaving."

The attunement process takes some time, but after that, the crew leaves Ulthwé and heads back into the Webway.

"Thanks for all your help," Zerri says, fiddling with the gemstone around her neck. "The whole 'not being eaten by an evil god' thing is much appreciated."

"It's no problem. I have a general objection to gods eating people, after all."

"Can't really fault you for that."

"It's a very objectionable thing!"

"It is. And the sooner it's not a thing, the better!"

"Definitely. So, what's the next step?"

"Well, with being-eaten-after-death off the table, we could run round being piratical-- though as you are a paladin, we should probably do something else.

We can try and work out how to get you home, and open up the resurrection-and-artificial-diamonds trade. If there's a way from your world to ours, there's probably a way to go the other way around."

"Privateering is a borderline thing! But yes, diamond trade is much more beneficial and probably more profitable. Might be less safe, though."

"Hmm, so if we wanted to find out how to hop between worlds, there's a few places we could go.

One craftworld or another might know how. Ulthwé would be the most likely to know, 'magic' is sorta their deal, but they don't like us much. Iyanden might technically owe me a favour, depends on how Iyanden is feeling, but it's not as likely to know. There's other craftworlds, but those are probably our best bets.

Or we could try and find one of those snake beasties-- except the only place I could think of that would be likely to have one is an arena in Commorragh. Which has the problem of being, well, in Commorragh."

"The snake doesn't feel controlled? And I'd never heard of anything like it. A craftworld might be a good first bet. I'm usually good at talking to people - I need to tell you at some point about that time my group talked a dragon highwayman into accepting credit - but I don't know local politics."

"Iyanden may be our best bet then, they already kinda like us. And I can fill you in on the local politics. I'm not an expert, but I probably know enough to give you a leg up.

And I definitely need to hear about this highwayman incident."

"That works!" And she can fill her in on the highwayman incident. There was a lot of bullshitting and an impromptu economics lecture involved. The basic idea hinged around that if the highwayman didn't take their gold, they'd be able to use it while adventuring in the jungle, conveniently riddled with unplundered ruins, to acquire even more gold, meaning that if the highwayman let them go and hit them on the way back, of course they'd be willing to share some of their surplus as a road fee, which would total out to much more than they had on them at the time (which admittedly wasn't much at all).

(They had every intention of taking a different route back, of course. Liliane might have gotten yelled at by the bard for telling the dragon about compound interest.)

"Pfff. If it gets you past the dragon, it works, I guess. 

For the local politics, do you just want a quick summary of the important people, or a history of Why Iyanden Is How It Is, or something in the middle?"

"Middle for now? Then I can ask for more information as needed."

"So Iyanden is basically the unluckiest Craftworld out there. It used to be a populous, and thriving centre of culture and--things being alive. Then it got attacked. Twice, once by Chaos, and once by Tyranids. It only really still exists because Prince Yriel showed up with his corsair fleet --which I was in-- to defend it from the tyranids.

Even so, Iyanden got pretty wrecked. It lost most of it's people. A large part of it's army and leadership is now, well, undead. They're soulstones piloting wraithbone constructs. Iyanden would rather not be doing so much necromancy, but they have to.

Yriel is now in charge of the military, and while he isn't likely to know anything about hopping planes, he might know someone who does. And he like, knows who I am and probably feels positively about me.

Iyanna Arienal is head of the spiritseers --the necromancers-- and of a rival faction to Yriel's. But she's going to be the person most interested in resurrection, and the most likely to know anything about planehopping.

Taec Silvereye-- exists? He's the leader of Iyanden, but most of his work is keeping Iyanna and Yriel away from each other's throats."

"Huh. That sounds like different undead from my home universe, for one. Does it alter someone's mind at all? And would Yriel or Iyanna get upset at us for talking to the other?"

"It does alter your mind, but no more than being a soul in a soulstone really. From what I hear, it's a dreamlike state? They're pretty dozy, find it hard to make decisions, and often need spiritseers' help not to walk into walls, but they're the same people as they were in life more or less.

I don't think they'd get upset with us talking to the other, but they probably would if we obviously started favouring one or the other. I'm probably going to look like I favour Yriel, considering I worked with him when he was a pirate, but I think we do still have an in with Iyanna." 

"Different from ours, then - ours tend to experience. Basically an alignment shift? There's some ghosts that don't, but they usually turn anywhere from feral to evil."

"What approach do you think will work best for Iyanna?"

"Yeah, ours are neither feral or evil. Some people consider the process of making them evil, but they don't consider wraiths themselves to be evil.

With Iyanna, 'We have a way to ressurrect people, but we need help to get this person between realities for it to work' and reassurances that there's no catch should work with her." 

"Makes sense. My healing abilities might be helpful with convincing her, too. They're in the same category, for me."

"That could be helpful. 'I want help to get to another reality' can sound like 'I want help getting into the Warp and doing nefarious things, and I may not be aware that's what I am doing,' and having proof that we really have someone from a different reality would help our case."

"Mhm! We can go through my abilities and identify the stranger ones, too."

"That would be helpful. Especially the strange ones with obvious effects."

"My ability to purify food and drink isn't really flashy, but it's noticeable. Any of the ones that have an aura or make me glow. Healing. I can also summon and bond an ethereal steed, but that feels rude to do to a spirit if I'm not planning on keeping them around. Curing the blind, or diseases. Locating objects. Conjuring food and water."

"Glowing isn't super unusual, but healing or curing people, or summoning food would be. So would purifying it, but I'm not sure they'd have any dirty food on hand."

"Huh. Most places back home had something in need of purifying if they didn't have a divine caster in residence."

"Craftworlds have enough technology that the food tends to not get impure in the first place. Same with the water, too."

"Huh. That'll be of interest for importing, waterborne disease is enough of a problem that it's my go to example for something the gods should be addressing."

"Ooh, yeah we should totally try importing that. Especially if it's that big of a problem."

"We have a lot of problems like that. Where magic's just not widespread enough. I should probably sit down with some kind of technology list at some point, see if there's anything else similar."

"I'm not a techie person, but I can probably help out.

Let's see-- we're pretty good at manufacturing things in general. We've got reasonable health tech, but it's not as generalised as healing magic, and is pretty focused on Eldar. Might have better transport tech too, but I'm not sure the Webway based stuff is exportable....We've got really good weapons, but I'm not sure how helpful that would be."

"On-planet transportation would be useful. Agriculture? Printing or other ways of disseminating information? My main concern is with areas where there's no magic or not enough, which is a good number, and there's - essentially no technology at all. I don't know if our technology timelines look anything alike, but guns are a recent invention."

"There's plenty of on planet transport, and it doesn't rely on the Webway, so it should be exportable. We've got agriculture, especially for growing things in bulk, or in relatively inhospitable conditions. I'm pretty sure we could acquire printing presses for export, but a lot more of our information tech is based on squishing as much data on as small as space as possible. We've also got some communication tech, long range may not work, but our on planet stuff should.

We've had guns... for awhile. Long enough to have many variations on guns. I wouldn't be comfortable exporting all of them, but some I wouldn't be worried about."

"I wouldn't give people easily-usable weapons without a lot of thought put into it. Agriculture probably helps the most of those - malnutrition, potable water shortages, and disease were the three biggest problems facing the communities I worked with."

"Agriculture has the advantage of being relatively easy to convince people to trade. The other ones would be trickier, just because they might make it easier for your people to invade, or suchlike."

"Good point! It's also often not high-value information from the seller's perspective, especially if it's old or widespread."

"But it sounds like your people really need it: so it's a win-win.

I doubt there would anybody who'd think resurrection-for-agriculture would be unfair for them. "

"We also have a lot of assorted magical items people could trade for higher-value things. They're the types of things very few people have access to, but I suspect they'll be desirable as curiosities if nothing else."

"What sort of things can they do?"

"...Um. Everything magic can, if you're creative and rich enough? Provide a certain amount of alcohol once a day, or endlessly. Repeat a certain phrase. Make you at the peak of human-possible health. Make you undetectable to divination. Walk on water. Breath underwater. Hold a certain amount of objects in a much smaller, lighter bag. Increase your strength to inhuman levels. Make no sound when moving. Camouflage when still. Levitate. Clothing that automatically mends itself, or can be altered into any shape with a thought. Clothing with illusory effects, like making you seem wreathed in flame. Darkvision granting goggles. Telepathy. A lot more, too."

"Ooh, those could be useful. And fun.

There's definitely going to be a market for the more practical ones. The 'fun' ones would also have a market, but it might be harder to find. There's a fair few Imperial nobles who'd like something like the alcohol one, but getting it to them would be the tricky part."

"One of my party members had a tankard that would neutralize the effects of anything in it, so he could drink seemingly endlessly without getting actually drunk. Or avoid being poisoned."

"...there are definitely some paranoid Imperial nobles who would love that."

"It's not even comparatively expensive to make, so it'd be a very easy trade good."

"That's good.

We would have to like, smuggle it though. The Imperium doesn't like trade with groups outside of it, much less non-human outsiders."

"That's annoying. Trade protectionism rarely pays off long-term, too."

"Yep. 'Doesn't like trade' is probably one of the Imperium's smaller problems. But still. It's annoying."

"There's other places to trade with though, right?"

"Certainly. The Craftworld's would want to trade, as would the Tau and the Exodites, probably. I'm not sure we'd want to trade with Commorragh, but we could. And there's a bunch of smaller civilisations around.

And the Imperium has a thriving black market."

"You know a lot more about local trade than me."

"Mostly because it's my job. Like, 70% of being a pirate is working out how to sell the stuff you have."

"My mom would probably say something similar about being a merchant."

"I'd imagine so.

...the Imperium actually has a whole group of people who are officially merchants, but actually pirates. The Imperium is weird."

"There's places like that back home. People are weird in general."

"Huh. The more things change, the more they stay the same,  I guess? It's good to know that the Imperium isn't like, entirely unique."

"Usually people send their pirates after other people's merchants. Call them privateers. It's not the sort of thing that should be government sanctioned."

"Yeah, rogue traders are basically that. With a side of being the only people who can handle illegal goods, like things made by aliens. Some trade legitimate goods through legitimate means, apparently.

I have a low enough opinion of governments that I'm not surprised that they do things like that. It's kind of ridiculous to watch."

"Laws need to be consistent! For everyone! If you have a law you need to work around, it shouldn't be a law!"

"Exactly! 'It's not illegal if I have this fancy bit of paper!' is just-- unnecessary. Overcomplicated."

"Makes laws harder to follow if you're not well educated, too. There's so many loopholes my mother is always jumping through, both things that should be legal in all cases or should be illegal for everyone."

"That as well. And loopholes-- things should be allowed, or disallowed. Not 'allowed if you happen to know a sneaky trick.'

I might be a bit too overall against laws, but they could stand to be much less complicated."

"I think laws are important for the things that might be obviously bad to one person but not another - there's a species back home who reincarnate after death, and keep their memories, so dying is a minor inconvenience and they don't consider murder a serious crime. Having laws specifically banning murder give us something to point to, so it doesn't seem like we're being arbitrary towards visitors. Other laws simplify the whole 'getting more people to live together than could reasonably know each other personally' issue. But those laws should be consistent and well thought out."

"Yeah. The things is, laws should be for important things-- and I've seen them used for petty things, or just plain old controlling people, often enough. Like the Imperium banning interaction with non-humans, or Craftworlds only letting you stay if you follow a very specific philosophy.

Consistent and well thought out is good- but the Craftworlders think their laws are consistent and well thought out. As does the Imperium."

"Hm. More - there's a concept I want to get at that I don't have the words to express, I think, but that's essentially it. I maybe should've paid more attention to philosophy growing up. But... Intended to reduce suffering and increase flourishing? Would be in the vague area."

"Laws that did that would be good. A small, carefully vetted selection of laws with that goal would be good. I've yet to see anywhere with laws with those goals-- but I imagine they'd be nice places to live."

"It's the same at home. Laws are usually to benefit the lawmakers. Some divine planes have local laws like that, but they also don't allow immigration and are usually composed of - beings that are essentially concept elementals. Embodiments of an alignment."

"...I'd imagine with places like that, the fact that everyone would agree would help have a smaller list of laws. But I'm not sure it would work great in places with different kinds of people."

"That is the biggest problem, yes, especially when you wind up with species with different psychology and biology."

"Oh, yeah. Different biology would be obvious enough --like your resurrecting species -- but different psychology could sneak up on you. And the all of a sudden it turns out you've accidentally traumatised a bunch of people and you didn't know."

"Species also are different in how - society building? They are. Like, goblins don't do communities larger than thirty or non-common law, kobolds like having a hundred carefully constructed rules for everything and get anxious when there aren't any concrete rules around."

"That would affect things. Like, it would be hard to construct a society where both I and kobolds would be happy --I'd find the number of laws they want stifling. I don't want to say it's impossible, but it'd be tricky.

"In multicultural areas, there's a lot of compromise, and then self-selecting who you spend time with. But kobolds tend to only live around similar species; same with goblins. A single world government would probably be a terrible idea, for us, or would need some incredibly convoluted laws and exceptions."

"You could maybe have some sort of base of laws that everyone agreed on, and then extras in places that want extras. That way, the kobolds could have their laws about when you brush your teeth, while still agreeing with everyone else that non-self-defense murder is bad."

"Yeah. It gets to be a bit of a problem when you have people trying to live in the same city, but a perfect society would have ways of managing that."

"Same city would be tricky. With the bigger differences -- the ones kobolds and goblins have, for example -- the fact they wouldn't want to live in a city like that would help. But the subtler differences could get really tricky to handle. Things like 'how harshly should this be punished' or 'is x worse than y' could get-- very heated."

"Very. I think we manage decently, but there's also an assumption that the laws aren't for us, which keeps things from getting - personal?"

"Hmm. Who are the laws for? The society in general?"

"Currently default assumption is for the lawmakers. Nominally, they're made for the benefit of stability."

"I would have assumed that having rules that weren't for you would increase the friction."

"I think most people avoid taking the rules personally? Or grumble about them but follow them anyways. And a lot of people's interests do align with keeping things stable."

"I guess if you thought that you couldn't change them anyways, and the stability was worth it-- It's still on odd mindset to me."

"People're safer, when things're stable. And most people have families - kids even - they need to worry about. But, yes, it's... A poor situation, often."

"...If it's a safety thing-- I still don't get it, but I think have an idea why I don't.  Drukhari don't really do safe or stable. I was safer inside a Kabal than I was before I joined or after I left, but I was never safe."

"There's cultures and species like that, too, but most people would get stressed. I'm fine with an unsafe life, but that's unusual among my mother's people."

"That makes sense. Most Drukhari deal fine with it, more or less- but I'm not sure the ones that would be stressed by it would live long. So."

"That is one problem, yes. For most species, chronic stress reduces lifespan and general health. Some are usually invigorated, though."

"I want to say that Aeldari are one the species that gets invigorated, but I know a lot of people who would disagree with me, so."

"It varies with individuals too, yeah. I do well under stress, so does my sister, but I know some people who really, really don't."

"Which is probably another thing societies need to balance out. Make it so the people who don't do well under stress don't have to be, and so the people who do can if they want to be."

"It's hard to do, but yeah, that's important."

"I think all the important things are like, super hard."

"They are! Which is probably why people aren't doing them as much."

"Well, we can see about fixing that."

"That'll be nice."

They travel to Iyanden. From space, it looks somewhat like Ulthwé. A much more broken Ulthwé. Large sections have been knocked off, holes hastily patched, an deep scars run down it. The damage only becomes more obvious as they get closer.

They land in a shuttle bay. It's dark. Quiet, except for the thrumming of the ship.

As they disembark, a wraith construct is waiting for them. It looks like an articulated statue, standing on thin jointed limbs, watching them with a featureless face. It cocks it's head at them.

She'll follow Zerri's lead here, though she looks around with an intense curiosity.

The construct reminds her more of a warforged than a classic undead, really.

It gestures for them to follow it, and walks off it.

It leads them through a series of  strangely silent and empty corridors, until it reaches what appears to be an office. The door is closed, and shouting can be heard behind it.

"I could do this if I had the manpower!" a man shouts.

"No," replies a woman. "you couldn't do it. You'd just fritter their souls away. And I cannot agree to it." 

"That's... that's Yriel and Iyanna," Zerri says.

"Interesting. Do you know what they're arguing about?" she asks quietly.

"Knowing them, Yriel wants more manpower and probably some wraiths--" She nods in the direction of the wraithguard that lead them here "for an attack against Chaos that has, hmm, a low chance of success. Iyanna, being in charge of the wraiths and generally more cautious, is disagreeing with this plan."

The yelling continues. Iyanna sounds calmer-- much calmer-- than Yriel.

She pays attention to some of the yelling, then, much more quietly, "Do you think I'd tip the balance, and that offering my help would get us anywhere?"

The argument is very circular.

"Offering help would get us somewhere. It'd affect the balance, but I don't know which way it would. Probably in favour of Iyanna, she's the one most interested in Iyanden's long term future. But Yriel only acts the way he does because he thinks Iyanden doesn't have a long term future. So."

"I'm willing to help, but you know the local political and military situation better than me."

"I like Yriel as a person more, but Iyanna is probably better for Iyanden overall. Getting resurrection for them will be worth it, even if there is some political instability."

Nod. "How much should I talk, when we're in front of them?"

"Polite, but not deferential. We have something they want, they might have something we want, we're informing them of this fact."

"Alright. That's an easy enough tone, I suppose."

"Yeah. Do we want to head in now?"

"I'm alright with that."

The wraithguard notices them coming to a decision, and opens the door.

There's a tall, blonde Aeldari woman, wearing ornate robes, sitting at a desk. Iyanna, presumably. "Hello?" she asks.

In front of her desk, there's presumably-Yriel. He's dark haired and dark eyed-- and tired looked. Drained. He has a spear on his back that seems subtly off.

She inclines her head. "Hello. I recently arrived with Captain Merrydirk, we'd hoped for an audience?"

Iyanna nods her head in a greeting. "How may we help you?"

Yriel's attitude does an 180 when hears mention of Zerri, and turns to see her. He goes from 'frazzled and angry' to 'excited retriever puppy, now with added frazzlement.' He bounds up and shakes Zerri's hand "Ah, greetings, greetings, how goes the trade routes?" Zerri shakes his hand in good-if-startled cheer, He then offers his hand to Liliane.

She'll shake his hand, her grip firm.

Yriel takes a step back. "As much as Iyanden is lovely, I imagine you have a reason for wanting to see us. Have you found something?"

"I'm not from this - world, reality, dimension, plane of existence - and I could use a way back home, there was something urgent going on when I got flung here. I think our worlds would be able to help each other quite a bit with various problems? We have different comparative advantages."

"I'm afraid we may not have the greatest ability to help," Iyanna says. "Our numbers are few."

"If you know the magical theory, or know someone who might... I'm also powerful, and can trade my own help, though I'm more of a heavy-hitter worth a few shots than anything. I can heal and cure diseases, though, beyond just militaristic aid."

"We have a fair few versed in psychic theory, though I'm not sure that's relevantly the same.

...What sort of diseases can you cure? Are there limits?"

"It takes me a few seconds at a time, and most people from my world would have a daily limit but there's a thing removing that for me. In-born conditions are - not fully cured? The current problem will be fixed and then if it's the sort of thing that comes back it does. But everything else - not that I've noticed, but there might be diseases in this world I'll have unexpected trouble with. I can also address the root causes of some diseases, like by purifying water."

"We have some people infected with Nurgle's Rot. It's is somewhat-- magical in nature. Can't be cured by normal means. But if you are not from here, you may be able to cure it. Iyanden would be greatly appreciative of that."

"I can heal magical diseases from my world, but I haven't had a chance to try this world's versions yet. I'll see what I can do."

"That would be deeply appreciated.

They're lead to what is presumably a hospital ward. There are three sick aeldari in beds. Even with limited knowledge of aledari physiology, they're obviously in bad shape. They're being tended to by wraiths.

A lot of effort has been taken to keep the sick seperated from the healthy, with the only entrance being a two-door airlock. One of the milling wraiths opens the first door for Liliane.

Liliane will solicit permission to touch the afflicted and heal them, then, laying her hands over them if given the go-ahead. She sings a soft phrase under her breath - 

And the disease lifts.

There's an unspoken but unsubtle thought going across the room of 'That just worked? It worked? It really worked?'

"That is-- rather impressive," Iyanna says, after a moment.

"I think our worlds may have very different magic, healing is - not uncommon - but we don't have anything like your ships," she explains as she heals the others.

"I was skeptical of your claims, but if you can cure Nurgle's Rot, then our world's have a lot to learn from each other."

"That'd be my general hope! And my magic probably is very strange, compared to what's available locally."

"I can't speak for the whole Craftworld, but I would be willing to render what aid I can to linking our worlds."

"Thank you."

"How did you end up changing worlds? It may help use find a way to join them."

"My group was attacked by a magical creature. A large snake, but with a mirror for a face. It attempted to eat me, and I went through the mirror, and landed in this world. I didn't recognize the creature, but the lich we were opposing has - many odd beings at his command. My world does have known ways of traveling between planes, but we rarely venture beyond the handful known well to us, and that kind of magic isn't something I can do."

"...Summoning such a creature would be likely outside our repetoire. Some other method of planar travelling may be within it."

"I know some of the theory of the planes of my home, so we might be able to combine knowledge, too."

"That would be helpful, yes.

We have some experience creating gateways between planes, though we have only made gateways between real space and the webway."

"I know the general theory behind magics like that, but focused my studies on other fields - hopefully we can combine what we know interestingly, at least."

"Yes, that would be good. Iyanden has... an unusual amount of knowledge on souls, if that would be useful to your goals."

"It would be against the Death Curse, I suspect. Thank you."

"Do you know the details of that curse?

We have a greater than average experience... helping souls into new bodies. If that would help with your curse, we may be able to help."

"What we know is that the souls of the dead aren't making their ways to the afterlife - they're instead being trapped in an artifact. Those who have died in the past and been resurrected are also withering, gradually weakening until they too die. Anyone whose soul is trapped can't be resurrected, and we suspect the demi-lich doing the trapping is planning on using the souls to boost his own power tremendously."

Iyanna makes a hard to read face. "Some those problems are similar to our own -- souls being trapped, the withering-- but we do not have perfect solutions. It may take some design, but competing, personal artifacts to counteract the trapping, similar to waystones but designed for your species, may help."

"That actually does sound really workable? We're hoping that defeating Acererak and either destroying, purifying, or otherwise operating his artifact will reverse the process."

"If he could be plausibly defeated in the near term, such competing artifacts maybe unnecessary. But if the timeline is longer-- I will see what Iyanden can do to assist."

"We're hoping he can be defeated in the near term, waiting or delaying might actually make him harder to beat, depending on what he's doing with the souls."

"Our manpower is limited, but we may be able to offer some people to help defeat him."

"We'd appreciate that. Air transport might be the most useful, our big stumbling block has been that he's somewhere in a largely unmapped jungle and all of our aircraft are vulnerable to arrows."

"We have aircraft that can stand up to arrows, certainly. And we may also have greater mapping capability, depending on what is leading the jungle to being unmapped."

"That's good. I'm not sure about the unmapped part, I'm unfortunately not local to Chult."

"Hmm. It's still likelier than not that we can help. If this jungle is merely-- dense, as opposed to magically protected from mapping, we should be able to help. And if it's magically protected from mapping, we may still be able to."

"Thank you. Especially if you have any kind of imaging that can go past the outer layer, the ruins we're looking for shouldn't be hard to spot - it was the largest city on the island before its fall, though the jungle's since swallowed it. I have a few descriptions of buildings in it I found while trying to research it's location, even."

She looks unbearably smug. "That should be well within our capabilities, once we are able to access it."

"Thank you. Hm, for what else..."

It’s a relatively quiet month. They work on trying to find a way between dimensions, but they don’t make much forward progress. Iyanden is unconcerned, a month being barely a blink of an eye to them, but still.

The Merry Band is seconded to guard, to patrol the Webway around Iyanden—as much as terms like ‘around’ or ‘near’ can be applied in the Webway. It’s an uneventful month there, too.

Right till the end of the month.

They find a hole in the Webway. Luckily, not a hole into the Warp, as most such holes are. It’s a hole to somewhere relatively realspace like. A different galaxy, though.

Probably a different dimension too.

Deep breath, and, to Zerri, "That seems worth checking out, though I don't know for sure it leads to my dimension, and I wouldn't want to strand your crew if you decided to help me..."

"It looks relatively stable, at least? I wouldn't worry too much about being stranded, especially if it's just a quick hop to check if it is your place."

"Yeah. If you guys are willing, I'd like to try it."

They go there.

The whole in the Webway is some distance from the planet. It takes them an hour or so to get close enough to pick out individual details-- anything more specific than 'yep, that looks like the sort of world humans and tieflings could live on'. Close enough to see the broad shape of the continents, then close enough to see the green of tilled fields in contrasts to the green of forests and plains.

But when they get close enough--

It's Liliane's world. Definitely.

Deep breath, and "That's it. Chult's underground, unfortunately. That big continent under us, near the middle-bottom's Midgrave, through the giant sinkhole next to it's the entrance to Chult - I can direct us better near it."