"And that'll be them. Well, let's get back, then." She'll keep to the army's pace, since she hasn't received any emergency broadcasts from Kuchinawa, but she does let him know they're all coming.

Gazef is waiting back at the village with the remaining villagers, who are already busy digging graves.

"Everything going alright here?" she asks him.

"People are still a little scared, but mostly happy to be alive.  It looks like we'll have everyone buried before undead start forming."

"That's good. It's a pity we couldn't get here faster, but time passes as it will."

She mentally adds 'undead' to the list of things to question her captives about.

"So you said your castle was transported here by magic. Are you planning on going back now?"

"To my castle, yes, but we weren't the ones to transport it, and don't currently know how to return it." Or if that's even possible.

"Do you know who did transport it and where it is now?"

"We don't know who transported it, but we do know where it is, yes, since we were in it at the time. It's hopefully stayed in place."

"Well what do you plan on doing now?"

"Return to our castle, regroup, find out more about this part of the world. See if we can return easily, and if not, see what we can do to help out locally."

"I see.  Is there any way I can get a hold of you, or anything you would like before you return?"

"We're currently not far from here; I can contact you in a day with an answer on whether returning is straightforward or not, we should have exhausted the easy options by then. I'll have more questions then, too, right now I don't know what to ask, beyond general confusion at the local political scene."

"Well I can help a little with that part.  This general region is known as the human kingdoms.  We're in the Re-Estize Kingdom, to the South and Southwest is the Slane Theocracy, to the Southeast is the Holy Roble Kingdom. The Baharuth Empire is to the West.  Beyond that is a mix of sea and non-human countries."

"And the Slane Theocracy are the ones involved in this mess?"

"Well thats what it looks like. The knight's uniforms are from the Empire, but it sees more likely that the Theocracy was trying to frame them than that they were cooperating."

"Seems that way to me, too, but I'll see what I can gather. Thank you for the help."

"It is I that should be thanking you."

"You're welcome. It wasn't a problem for us, and - we were there to help."

Somewhat later and back at the castle Nigun spills the beans like a Bell carrying a crock of chili.

The awakened God-kin could have beat the Dominion Authority but it would be a close fight unless they had the relics of the gods equipped or teamed up. Any of the old dragon lords could have done it for sure, but they've gone downhill in the last couple of centuries.  Still maybe if they teamed up. The elf king claims to be that strong but hasn't actually taken the field in Nigun's lifetime so he thinks it may be a bluff. Fluder might have had a chance but just barely. Same for most adamantite adventuring groups. 

Well. Takeko was hardly the most powerful person in Yggdrasil, but - that's very telling about this world.

For that matter...

What are the capabilities of the Slane Theocracy? And are other worlds known to this one?

The God-kin are on the Theocracy's side.  They also have the relics of the gods which include weapons and armor that boost the God-kins fighting power by an immense amount, and a mind control device.  This is in addition to a strong conventional military with five other scriptures as or more powerful than the one he lead.  

Well there's the afterlife and the demon world.

'Relics' sounds potentially worrying, but also like an opportunity if she can seize them. Mind-control - is more of a resource-wasting nuisance in Yggdrasil than an actual threat, but that's not something she wants to screw around with and risk being better here than there. She sends a quick message to Soreiyu that he needs to finish developing those subversion protocols he'd been spit-balling.

(She's fairly confident they can take the army. Given his relative strength assessment, she's also fairly confident she can take the God-kin, but she'll avoid risking taking them all at once, especially if they have their relics.)

She tells him to elaborate on the demon world, and whether the God-kin, so boosted, could have taken the Dominion Authority.

Boosted they definitely could, and um you summon demons from there. He doesn't know what its actually like.

(On the one hand, 'literally another world' could cover any weirdness. On the other, that would be a hell of a weirdness on its own, and Takeko prefers keeping her cards close to her chest.)

Who leads the Slane Theocracy? What sort of politics can she expect of them?